Via Antiqua and Via Moderna: Late Medieval Prolegomena to Early Reformation Thought

Abstract

When in the first part of the fourteenth century the Oxford master Thomas Bradwardine (†1349) launched his formidable offensive Contra Pelagium in a massive work completed in 1344, the very assumption of his campaign was the common front of the Pelagians of all times. For him, the ancients and the moderns formed one unbroken phalanx: ‘Sicut antiqui Pelagiani… ita et moderni.’ To leave no room for doubt, he clarified his battle plan as directed against ‘tarn veteres quam recentes’.