Reformatorische Theologie und Autoritäten ed. by Volker Leppin

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reformatorische Theologie und Autoritäten ed. by Volker Leppin Jason D. Lane Reformatorische Theologie und Autoritäten. Edited by Volker Leppin. Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation: Studies in the Late Middle Ages, Humanism and the Reformation, volume 85. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. 622 pp. This collection of essays is the product of a workgroup led by Volker Leppin at the 2012 International Luther Congress in Helsinki, Finland. It invites readers to the table of an ongoing scholarly conversation concerning Luther's early theological development and his use of authorities, whether scripture, canon law, papal decree, church councils, or church fathers. Those who want an organized [End Page 223] synopsis of Luther's early theological development will not turn to a collection of essays. Yet the contributions are on topic and give graduate students and Reformation scholars a variety of approaches to early Luther texts. The scholars who contributed had in most cases published works on Luther's use of authorities in his early lectures and disputations. Now readers have one good place to test the fruits of their research and study the finer points of this important conversation about Luther's theological maturation. The purpose of the volume, according to the introduction by Leppin and Matthias Mikoteit, is to offer a competing narrative to the story of Luther's "tower experience"—his sudden conversion to an evangelical doctrine of justification and a truly Reformation theology—by examining his shift from scriptura et alias authoritates to the exclusive particle of the Reformation, sola scriptura. Scripture alone is, however, only the beginning of a much broader investigation. "In order to achieve a truly complete picture of [Luther's] development, one would have to do a similar exploration of all the exclusive particles of the Reformation" (2). Only Stefano Leoni, in his disproportionately long essay attempts to assign a date to "the" tower experience or breakthrough to which Luther refers in his 1545 Preface to the Latin Writings. On the whole, however, this volume seeks to reevaluate the important texts of Luther's early work in order to find in Luther moments of development when he clings more firmly to the authority of scripture alone. The goal of the essays is to take up phases, aspects, or circumstances that are significant for the development of an authority structure in the young Luther (2). The text selection from the Luther corpus is one of the strengths of this collection. Moreover, the editor's chronological arrangement of the essays makes a study of these Luther texts easy to follow. One of the threads that came together in these essays and that may stimulate further conversation as the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation approaches is the influence of St. Augustine in Luther's early thinking. Volker Gummelt's essay traces briefly the reception of St. Augustine through Wittenberg's early Psalm lectures. He argues that Luther and his colleagues were steeped in the exegetical tradition shaped by Augustine. Matthias Mikoteit takes up the [End Page 224] disputation of Bartholomäus Bernhard, Questio de viribus hominis sine gratia (September 1516) and argues that Luther and his students had embraced Augustine's teaching in his antipelagian writings on sin and grace. Hannegreth Grundmann's brief essay treats the exchange between Luther and Latomus in 1520–21 concerning the phrase "In omni opere bono iustus peccat" or "In every good work, the righteous person sins." Latomus attacked Luther for misrepresenting the views of Augustine concerning one's ability to fulfill the law. As Grundmann illustrates, Latomus was concerned with the right interpretation of the fathers, whereas Luther was concerned with the right interpretation of Scripture. Their disagreement concerning the formal principle of theology led to obvious disagreements about the material principle of theology. Other essays will no doubt be of interest to readers. Ingo Kitzsch takes up Luther's 1517 disputation, Contra scholasticam theologiam, and demonstrates how Luther uses a constellation of authorities, including the mystic Johannes Tauler, to attack Gabriel Biel's Collectorium. Christopher Voigt-Goy gives a thoughtful, though brief, essay on Luther's use of canon law in Asterisci (1518). Voigt-Goy's more detailed arguments can be found in the same series from...