Brad S. Gregory - Augustana College

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source for Christian faith and life, namely God‟s Word in scripture, and cleaving to the latter. Martin Luther articulated the principle as early as July 1519 at the Leipzig Disputation: “[n]o faithful Christian can be forced beyond the sacred scripture, which is nothing less than [proprie] divine law, unless new and approved revelation is added. On the contrary, on the basis of divine law we are prohibited to believe, unless it is approved by divine scripture or palpably obvious [manifestam] revelation.” 17 In the German and Swiss cities that played such a crucial role in the early Reformation, other reformers who rejected the Roman church‟s authority agreed with Luther about the foundational importance of scripture. In 1521 Melanchthon stated in the first edition of his Loci communes that “[w]hoever seeks the nature of Christianity from any source except canonical scripture is mistaken.” 18 Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, at this point still the dean of the theology faculty in Luther‟s Wittenberg, delivered a sermon in February 1522 in which he said that “all preachers should always state that their doctrine is not their own, but God‟s. . . . They can discover nothing out of their own heads. If the Bible is at an end, then their competence is also at an end [Wan die Biblien aus ist, sso ist ir kunst auch auss].” 19 In Zurich, Zwingli held the same view, declaring in his 1522 treatise on the clarity and certainty of scripture that “no such trust should be given to any word like that given to [the Word of God]. For it is certain [gewü] and may not fail. It is clear [heiter], and will not leave us to err in darkness. It teaches itself on its own [es leert 17 Martin Luther, Disputatio excellentium . . . Iohannis Eccii et D. Martini Lutheri Augustiniani [1519], in D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe [hereafter WA], vol. 2 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1884), p. 279/23-26. 18 “Fallitur quisquis aliunde christianismi formam petit, quam e scriptura canonica.” Philip Melanchthon, Loci communes rerum theologicarum, seu hypotyposes theologicae [1521], in Corpus Reformatorum [hereafter CR] vol. 21 (Braunschweig: C. A. Schwetschke and Son, 1854), cols. 82-83. 19 Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Predig oder homilien uber den propheten Malachiam gnant [1522], sig. B3v, quoted in Ronald J. Sider, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt: The Development of His Thought, 1517-1525 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), p. 164 (Sider‟s transl.). 8
sich selbs].” 20 So too, Balthasar Hubmaier stated in the Second Zurich Disputation in October 1523 that “in all divisive questions and controversies [spänigen sachen und zwyträchten] only scripture, canonized and made holy by God himself, should and must be the judge, no one else. . . . For holy scripture alone is the true light and lantern through which all human argument, darkness, and objections are recognized.” 21 Those responsible for drawing up the Mühlhausen Articles, one of many such lists of grievances and demands composed during the German Peasants‟ War, asserted in September 1524 that the proper standard of justice was given “in the Bible or holy word of God,” and stated that the parishioners and craftsmen in the city who had drawn up the articles had “derived their judgments from the Word of God.” 22 As a final example, consider Argula von Grumbach, along with Katharina Schütz Zell of Strasbourg one of the very few women who wrote evangelical pamphlets in the 1520s. She boldly told officials at the University of Ingolstadt in 1523 that “no one has a right to exercise authority over the Word of God. Yes, no human being, whoever he is, can rule over it. For only the Word of God, without which nothing was made, should and must rule.” 23 Referring to scripture in 1524, Karlstadt put the matter bluntly: “The naked truth alone [Die blosse warheit allein] . . . should be your foundation and rock.” 24 20 Huldrych Zwingli, Von Clarheit vnnd gewüsse oder vnbetrogliche des worts gottes [1522], in Huldreich Zwinglis Sämtliche Werke [hereafter ZW] vol. 1, ed. Emil Egli and Georg Finsler, in CR, vol. 88 (Leipzig: M. Heinsius, 1905), p. 382/20-26, quotation at lines 24-26. 21 “Die Akten der zweiten Disputation vom 26.-28. Oktober 1523,” in ZW, vol. 2, ed. Emil Egli and Georg Finsler, in CR, vol. 89 (Leipzig: M. Heinsius Nachfolger, 1908), p. 717/9-11, 26-28. 22 “Die Mühlhauser Artikel” [1525], in Flugschriften der Bauernkriegszeit, ed. Adolf Laube and Hans Werner Seiffert (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1975), p. 80/13-14, 3-4. 23 Argula von Grumbach, Wye ein Christliche fraw des adels, in Bayern dürch iren, in Gottlicher schrifft, wolgegrundtenn Sendbrieffe, die hohenschul zu Ingoldstadt . . . ([Erfurt: Matthes Maler,] 1523, sig. [A4]. On Zell, see Elsie Anne McKee, Katharina Schütz Zell, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999). 24 Karlstadt, Ob man gemach faren, und des ergernüssen der schwachen verschonen soll, in sachen so gottis willen angehn [1524], in Karlstadts Schriften aus den Jahren 1523-25, ed. Erich Hertzsch, vol. 1 (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1956), p. 75/17-18. 9
Page 1 and 2: Reforming the Reformation Brad S. G
Page 3 and 4: Christianity must include both of t
Page 5 and 6: Julian II called the Fifth Lateran
Page 7: church‟s teachings and enacting a
Page 11 and 12: gutduncken].” 27 In September of
Page 13 and 14: disagreed with Zwingli and the latt
Page 15 and 16: view salvation and the soul had not
Page 17 and 18: tumultuous years of the early Germa
Page 19 and 20: and New Testaments or the permissib
Page 21 and 22: English monasteries and friaries, H
Page 23 and 24: centuries. 52 These do not include,
Page 25 and 26: pursued by niche specialists while
Page 27 and 28: theology of baptism because it conf
Page 29 and 30: A second, different kind of example
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Page 33: empirical range of divergent claims

Brad S. Gregory - Augustana College

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