Pak: CH751 (a)
Deceitful Lips and High-Sounding Tongues
Sadoleto & Calvin on Piety and Philosophy in Catholic Reform
CH751 – Paper 1B, February 8, 2013
The debate between Jacopo Sadoleto and John Calvin is paradigmatic for the debate between Catholicism and elements of Reform in 16th century Europe. The Catholic church based in Rome was being fragmented by social and theological factors with complicated origins and nuanced claims. Sadoleto, a Cardinal writing to cities wrestling with reform, appeals to readers' (in this case, Genevans) sense of heritage, admitting corruption is present in the Roman Catholic church but suggesting that the Reformers are unreliable shepherds due to their hubris and heretical theology. Calvin is asked by the city council to respond, which he does by accusing his accusers of the same accusations leveled against him and his Protestant Reformers. Each side of the debate appeals to the ancient church, but in doing so they also lean on the pagan sense of pietas that had defined the Roman Empire out of which the Church sprang. Both Sadoleto and Calvin accuse each other of betraying their shared ancient faith by spinning new ideas unsupported by the example and authority of the early Church. The individual claims vary, but underwriting both of their arguments are two things – revering that which is nearer the faith of the ancients, and a(n ironic) suspicion of the chronologically abstracting work of philosophy.
Jacopo Sadoleto accuses the Protestant Reformers first of pursuing fame and prestige. This accusation seems to underwrite the rest of his more programmatic complaints, as he begins by suggesting they "seek new power and honors for themselves"[1] and ends by referring to them as having "deceitful lips and high-sounding tongues."[2] The specific complaints he has relates to their unwillingness to submit to "the Church"[3] that Sadoleto has identified with the wisdom of ages, the ancient faith passed down apostolically. In this, Sadoleto shows that the qualifier "Catholic" alone is insufficient by revealing his dependence upon the old Roman system of pietas, in which the new is suspicious and things ancient are more highly revered. Roman Catholics honor their "fathers and forefathers"[4] who are "most holy and learned."[5] The Protestant Reformers, on the other hand, are "innovators,"[6] and "inventors of novelties."[7] Sadoleto clearly has in mind here Luther's theology of 'faith alone,' and attacks it most vigorously, saying, "It is not enough."[8] Without going into details, he raises the important issue of what "by faith alone" does to the significance of "so many martyrs of Christ in former times."[9] After all, "faith… not only includes in it credulity and confidence, but also the hope and desire of obeying God."[10] The new and young faith of the Protestant Reformers[11] is likened to "depraved worship"[12] that leaves them mislead, without God or the anchor of the Catholic faith. He finally breaks down his accusations into four concrete accusations twelve pages into his treatise. There, he lists the misleading use of "reasons and argument… drawn from dialectics and vain philosophy."[13] Second on his list is that the Protestant Reformers lack (or have thrown off) the humility requisite for confession to priests.[14] Third is the reformers refusal to venerate the saints. Finally, their conduct has been "set loose from all ecclesiastical laws."
Calvin, ironically, agrees with Sadoleto in at least three ways; that 1) "perverse worship"[15] is most destructive to the human soul, that 2) the Church holds "the best rule"[16] for right worship, and that 3) without repentance, salvation is denied those "who have violated the unity of the Church."[17] In all these ways, Calvin and his Reformers have common ground with Sadoleto's Catholics. The problem arises then, as to what constitutes right worship and proper unity. Calvin frequently cites "conscience"[18] as one of the ways in which he has been able to discern that the Catholic Church has perverted worship and disintegrated rightful unity. In fact, he accuses Roman clergy of having "never had experience in serious struggles of conscience."[19] For Calvin, no ecclesiastical body or law retains its apostolic authority when it forfeits right worship, which is most fully visible within scripture itself. The failings of Rome and the Catholic church have kept genuine believers from being able to engage in right worship, and for that reason Calvin sees it as his duty to protect Christ and his bride against defamation and prejudice espoused by the Pope's (false) church. As a pastor of "the Church corrected,"[20] Calvin takes very seriously that his vocation is not one of docility, but one of being "armed to repel the machinations of those who strive to impede the work of God"[21] - the clergy of Rome who have "wrested from the magistrate and claimed for themselves"[22] powers and other parts of civil jurisdiction. In a word, these "pseudo-bishops"[23] are not reliable authorities; they have forfeited their apostolic heritage for worldly wealth and prestige.
It is clear for Calvin that the Roman church has confused power, faith and obedience and thereby failed in being the rightful heirs of the ancient "Church." At the heart of his argument is his conviction that the true innovators are the priests, bishops, and cardinals who "either labor under a delusion as to the term church, or, at least, give it a gloss."[24] The Protestant Reformers, by emphasizing prima scriptura, scripture first, have "a purer teaching of the Gospel"[25] and therefore "a better form of Church."[26] Though he does not mention it explicitly, Calvin is as much an adherent to Roman pietas as is his rhetorical adversary. In fact, his argument rests upon the claim that older is better and that the Roman Catholic church is the true innovator, not the Protestant Reformers. Time with worldly power has tarnished the reputation of Peter's church and reform is necessary to recover the marks and practices more constitutive of that which properly is called "Church." Calvin wishes to "call [Rome] back to the form which the Apostles instituted"[27] for "in it we have the only model of a true Church."[28]
Finally, the Catholic sacraments are too numerous, Reformers argue, which Calvin articulates by suggesting his camp "attempted to restore the native purity from which they had degenerated, and so enable them to resume their dignity."[29] He lays out responses to four sacraments that the Protestants seek to reform; Eucharist, auricular confession, intercession of the saints, and purgatory. For the reformers, the Eucharistic doctrine of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus upon the words of institution, elevates Christ's humanity over his divinity, that doing so "[chains] down His body to earthly elements." As for verbal confession, Calvin worries that repeating one's sins annually denies that God has forgiven and forgotten them, that obligatory confession returns pious consciences to the perpetual anxiety confession was supposed to relieve in the first place. Besides, he reminds Sadoleto, "It was neither commanded by Christ, nor practiced by the ancient Church." By praying to saints, whom Calvin agrees are praying continually in heaven for the completion of Christ's kingdom, Roman practices have actually instead brought about superstitions and have eroded the proper notion of direct intercession of Christ. Relatedly, purgatory was built upon this cursory notion of the saints surviving in another realm, which the ancient Church seldom mentioned. Calvin claims that Roman clergy took this short, sober affection for the faithful dead and built an entire theology around it, such that it became chiefly associated with Catholic practices.
It is in this light that Calvin's mentions of philosophy can be seen more clearly. He seems suspicious of heavy handed philosophizing that can endanger right worship. He takes Sadoleto's accusations of vain philosophy and turns it around to accuse Rome of "sophistry so twisted, involved, torturous, and puzzling, that scholastic theology might well be described as a species of secret magic." The mistake (if not the sin) of Rome is that it took simple faith, grace alone, and made complex and esoteric foundations that thereby led the true ancient Church away from Christ. Ironically, this over-thinking had the product of invoking good works over true faith. His interest in replying to Sadoleto is not to deny many (if any) of his accusations, but to turn them upon his accuser. To the accusation of being innovators, he insists it is Rome who truly has invented falsities. Accused of arrogance and vanity, he rebuts that it is the Roman clergy who sit in thrones and wield power not ordained them and enjoy unmerited luxury. No amount of philosophizing can free the Catholic church, he thinks, from the reality it has constructed for itself. Reform, Calvin insists, is the only way to escape perverted worship and return to the reliability of the ancient Church that Christ instituted.
Footnotes
[1] A Reformation Debate; John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, ed. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham, 2000), 25
[2] Ibid., 41
[3] Ibid., 37
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 25
[6] Ibid., 29
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 30
[10] Ibid., emphasis added. Obedience seems to imply action, works, which the Protestant Reformers reject.
[11] Sadoleto contrasts the thirteen hundred year-old Catholic church to the twenty-five year-old Protestant teachings on p.34.
[12] Ibid., 33
[13] Ibid., 35
[14] Ibid., 35
[15] Ibid., 47-48
[16] Ibid., 72
[17] Ibid., 67, paraphrase
[18] Ibid., 44
[19] Ibid., 47
[20] Ibid., 49
[21] Ibid., 69
[22] Ibid., 47
[23] Ibid., 54
[24] Ibid., 51
[25] Ibid., 56
[26] Ibid., 58
[27] Ibid., 64
[28] Ibid., 66
[29] Ibid., 59
