post-Reformation Church Research Articles

VOLUME 52 (2022)

VOLUME 52 (2022)

The Relics of Hippolytus in Spenser’s Faerie Queene

This essay argues that Edmund Spenser makes a major intervention in the Renaissance reception of the Hippolytus myth: he joins the classical imitation of humanist poetics with the theological arguments of the post-Reformation Church. Spenser forms his Hippolytus story from familiar sources, including Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium. But he also owes, as we show, a significant, underestimated debt to Seneca’s Phaedra. Spenser derives from it a language of fragmentation and tragedy relevant for both the inset narrative in Faerie Queene I.v.37–40, as well as the book’s larger representation of Redcrosse’s spiritual renewal. Spenser develops his revision of Seneca, we suggest, through the mediation of Prudentius, who in Peristephanon XI had already combined Hippolytus’ classical with his Christian significance. Prudentius adapts Seneca’s Phaedra to narrate the dismemberment of St. Hippolytus, a third-century martyr whose bodily reliquiae were enshrined in Rome’s catacombs. Like Prudentius for a late antique Spenser rewrites the Hippolytus story for the Reformed Church, representing a second Hippolytus no longer worthy of veneration. The result is a Spenserian myth more capacious in its classicism and theology than scholarship has acknowledged previously. Revising Senecan tragedy and Prudentian martyrology, Spenser extends his imitation beyond the familiar sources of Augustan poetry, his critique beyond the familiar target of Roman Catholic works. [J.E., D.A.]

The Catechist: Witness to New Life in Christ: The Third International Catechetical Congress, Rome

The Catechist: Witness to New Life in ChristThe Third International Catechetical Congress, Rome Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (bio) Pope Francis' institution of the Ministry of Catechist draws renewed attention to the personal witness and formation of catechists.1 This emphasis is also highlighted in the Directory for Catechesis.2 In the two catechetical documents that preceded it, namely the General Catechetical Directory (1971) and the General Directory for Catechesis (1997), the vocation and formation of catechists were treated in concluding parts, namely chapters six and five respectively. In a significant shift, the Directory for Catechesis clearly prioritizes the catechist's vocation and initial and ongoing formation by placing these themes in chapters three and four of the first part of this catechetical document. The Third International Catechetical Congress for Catechists held in Rome in September 2022 echoed this focus on the catechist's vocation and witness as a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ. Titled The Catechist: Witness to New Life in Christ, the catechetical gathering was hosted by the Vatican's Dicastery for Evangelization and led by its Pro-Prefect, Archbishop Rino Fisichella. The meeting drew more than 1400 participants from some 82 countries with bishops, deacons, consecrated [End Page 179] religious, and lay catechetical leaders and catechists in attendance.3 Speakers from Vatican dicastries and from around the world invited participants to reflect on the vocation to catechetical ministry and to renew their dedication to their shared mission of making the Gospel resound in the minds, hearts and lives of persons today. This essay offers a summary documentation of the Third International Catechetical Congress of Catechists (2022), its major themes and implications for the ongoing renewal of catechesis today. To begin the essay, a brief overview of significant international catechetical gatherings taking place in the course of the last century provides historical context for this recent international catechetical meeting of a large and diverse community from around the world. International Catechetical Gatherings One notable early gathering of bishops, pastors and catechists took place in a catechetical congress held in September 1910 in Milan, Italy.4 The occasion was the celebration of the third centenary of the canonization of Saint Charles Borromeo, renowned for his efforts to renew catechesis when he served as Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584. Borromeo's many contributions to the post-Reformation Church were significant, including the reform of clergy formation and his oversight and redaction of the final text of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, or Roman Catechism as it came to be known.5 Four key themes focused the attention of participants at this 1910 meeting, namely the Catechism, the catechist, the catechized and catechetical methods. In the following decades, a vigorous catechetical movement emerged alongside the biblical, liturgical and patristic movements of the first half of the twentieth century. Catechetical themes brought to the forefront in the research and publications of key figures of the catechetical movement found concrete expression in a series of catechetical [End Page 180] gatherings that came to be known as the International Catechetical Study Weeks.6 Organized by Johannes Hofinger, S.J., this series of catechetical meetings began with a session in Nijmegen, Netherlands (1959) during which participants explored the relationship of liturgy to catechetical ministry. Discussion of this theme continued at the next international gathering in Eichstätt, Germany (1960). The Eichstätt Catechetical Study Week was groundbreaking in its synthesis of Josef Jungmann's kerygmatic approach to catechesis and the "pedagogy of signs" in liturgical catechesis. The discussions and outcomes of the Eichstätt Catechetical Study Week would be integrated into key documents of Vatican II, particularly in the restoration of the ancient catechumenate. The next catechetical gathering in Bangkok, Thailand (1962) focused on the term "pre-evangelization," while the seminars in Katigondo, Uganda (1964), and Manila, Philippines (1967) expanded reflection on themes from earlier meetings now unfolding within a more global perspective. The sixth International Catechetical Study Week, held in Medellin, Colombia (1968), drew insights from theological currents in Liberation Theology and the "preferential option for the poor," contributing significantly to reflection on how catechesis is shaped by the social and political demands of the Gospel, experienced in the concrete...

Volume 51 (2021)

Volume 51 (2021)

Processes of Reformation in Donne’sDevotions Upon Emergent Occasions: Bells, Brass, and the Reader’s Work

This essay offers a reassessment of the famous bells in Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624) and suggests that we should read these bells as one kind of dissolvable body among many. Donne builds on the established understanding of bells as subjects, with voices and identities; he joins conversations about their tenacious survival as objects, practices, and sounds in the post-Reformation church. In the 1620s, bells were objects that were always potentially on the point of being melted down and reformed: their bodies, like Donne’s own, were vulnerable to dissolution but could also generatively be re-made. Bells help Donne to develop an artisanal poetics, drawing on sculptural metaphors in which matter is continually melted and re-formed, to model the continuous work that the Devotions demands of its readers. I suggest that we might pay more attention in literary study not only to form and matter but also to the processes of formation—these moments of (re-)making—that act as a middle term between the two. [K.H.]

“After the pure manner of Amsterdam”: Baptism in the Post-Reformation Church of England and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

“After the pure manner of Amsterdam”: Baptism in the Post-Reformation Church of England and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

ECCLESIASTICAL IMPROVEMENTS, LAY IMPROPRIATIONS, AND THE BUILDING OF A POST-REFORMATION CHURCH IN ENGLAND, 1560–1600

ABSTRACTOne of the more difficult practical questions raised by the English Reformation was just how to support its clergy and its fabric. Despite extensive resistance from the godly members of church and state, the Elizabethan church maintained the pre-Reformation system of impropriations, lay ownership of ecclesiastical tithes. This article examines the historical, practical, and ideological stakes of these everyday economics in the late sixteenth century. It argues that the majority of impropriators were responsive to the needs of the church, sustaining rather than undermining the nascent English church. In the space opened up by the Reformation's rents in the social and physical fabric of the parish, new bonds between church, state, and society were knit. This process of building the post-Reformation church thus tied the laity closer to the interests and activities of the church in England.

300 Years of Small Groups—The European Church from Luther to Wesley

This article provides a survey of several types of small groups established within Protestantism in the centuries subsequent to the Reformation. The article examines how Reformation and post-Reformation church leaders, such as Luther and Bucer, the Puritans, Reformed and Lutheran Pietists, Moravians, and Methodists employed small groups. Observations are provided on those factors that contributed to their success and lessons are suggested for the use of small groups and cell groups today.

Finding the Middle Way: The Utraquists' Liberal Challenge to Rome and Luther (review)

Finding the Middle Way: The Utraquists' Liberal Challenge to Rome and Luther. By Zdenek V David. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Order from The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 2003. Pp. xxiii, 579. $65.00.) Hussite religion (1500-1621) has often been ignored. This book changes that. Ten years of dedicated research have yielded this impressive study adding considerably to knowledge of Central European religious history. The achievements of Bohemian Christianity are vigorously underscored. Utilizing the comparative paradigm of the post-Reformation Church of England, a thorough revisionist study emerges. Attempting to forge a path between Roman and Reformation Churches, David argues that Jan Hus and Hussitism were not Protestant. The corollary-Hussite religion eventually became Roman Catholic-is likewise challenged. I find those arguments refreshing. The book expertly charts the unique development of Utraquist Christianity. Some assertions are problematic. Claiming virtually all Bohemia was Hussite is exaggeration. Distinctions between Taborites as heretics and (David's term of choice) as mere schismatics is artificial. I do not accept that the termHussite is improper. Jan Hus was a heretic. It is misleading to suggest that Paul De Vooght virtually vindicated Hus. Whatever De Vooght's conclusions entailed, he regarded Hus as heretical. Francis Oakley's suggestion that Hus was almost orthodox is meaningless. A theological hair's breadth separated Francis of Assisi and Valdes, yet the former is a saint, the latter an arch-heretic. Being a little heretical is like being a little pregnant. John Paul II did not recently-and rightly so-lift the stigma of heresy from Hus. David seems undisturbed that his select group of Hussites desired episcopal consecration for their priests but only from bishops in communion with Rome despite the fact that the Roman Church considered Hussites heretical and the Hussite movement going back to Jakoubek of Stribro regarded Rome similarly. Bishops ordaining Hussites were themselves suspect. David suggests the ambiguity is not problematic. Considerable space is devoted to Luther without any clear understanding of what Luther meant by faith (sola fide) either on the part of the Utraquist theologians David champions or of David himself. The same might be said for the red herring of sola scriptura. In my opinion, the theological acumen of BUejovský and Bydzovský, David's heros, put together would scarcely fill a cup when set next to Martin Luther. David argues that papal judgment cannot be admitted in governance while papal sacerdotal power remained indispensable. While theologically popes were necessary, they could not be trusted with administrative and judicial powers. This does not prevent the conclusion that Utraquists needed no authentication from Rome. Curiously, they sought it diligently nonetheless. This clashes with David's repeated declarations that Utraquists were secure in their own identity. …

The Reformed Pastor in English Puritanism

This paper examines the tensions between aspiration and actuality in the practice of Puritan ministry in early modern England. The English Reformation was essentially Reformed in character, and its theological affinities lay with the churches of Switzerland. But it retained most of its medieval Catholic structures and canon law, and the post-reformation Church of England lacked the institutional frame work for the exercise of pastoral Discipline which Reformed eccle siology considered essential. The paper explores the problems of identity and action which this created for Puritan clergy, with ref erence to the informal exercise of discipline in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England; the paper concludes with an examination of the pastoral initiatives and writings of Richard Baxter in the 1650s, and the eventual frustration of his attempts to reform and redefine the practice of Reformed ministry in mid Stuart England.

Combining Martha and Mary: Gender and Work in Seventeenth-Century English Cloisters

In the post-Reformation Church, strict monastic enclosure compounded the traditional religious and social ideologies limiting nuns' opportunities to support themselves. The English cloisters, established in France and the Low Countries, were further frustrated by their isolation from England which provided novices, alms, and much of their regular income. To survive the nuns transformed their everyday tasks into revenue-raising activities. A combination of prayer, needlework, hospitality, education, and housework generated sufficient income for most convents to withstand the economic and political hardships of the seventeenth century. These strategies can best be understood as a reworking of the centuries-old Martha/Mary metaphor, in which Martha stood for the active apostolate and Mary represented the contemplative life. Monastic archives show that the nuns reinterpreted the metaphor in such a way that they could not only gain commercial benefit from religious duties, but they could also inject different meanings into prayer and domestic chores.

The Strange Fate of Czech Utraquism: The Second Century, 1517–1621

This article aims to reassess current historical judgements on the Czech Utraquist Church during the second century of its existence, from 1517 to 1621. It seeks to outline the special problems which Bohemian Utraquism faced as a religious via media, partly viewed from the comparative perspective of the kindred phenomenon of the post-Reformation Church of England. After a discussion of the historiographic issues, the focus is on the distinctive development of sixteenth-century Utraquism and its relations to English theology and eastern Orthodoxy. The Church's intermediate position between the Church of Rome and the fully reformed Protestant Churches is then explored more systematically through the writings of the authoritative, but neglected, theologian of sixteenth-century Utraquism, Bohuslav Bílejovský.

Authority and Obedience in the Church Today—II

In the first part of this paper, I suggested something of the nature and justification of our current questioning of authority in the Church, and tried to indicate the relevant scriptural criteria for evaluating the issues. Towards the end of this first part, brief reference was made to some of the actual questions being raised in the present crisis of authority. A great many of these deal with what we could call ‘outward’ and disciplinary matters. But there are others which belong more directly to the realm of doctrine, where teaching authority comes in. These would seem to give rise to a more serious inner sense of anguish than many of the others, since they penetrate more deeply into the inmost reserves of our Christian commitment.It should be noted that the more disciplinary difficulties date mainly from the Middle Ages, whereas the doctrinal are more peculiar to the post-Reformation Church. Of course, heretics were burned in the Middle Ages, but the theory at least was that this took place because they were a threat to the social cohesion of the Christian world. It was only when the Church was progressively robbed of her grip on society, from the sixteenth century onwards, that there was added the intense preoccupation with a demand for a thorough-going conformity of conscience all along the line, even in detail, in matters of doctrine, according as these were examined, decided and prescribed entirely from above.

Scottish Post-Reformation Church Furniture

Scottish Post-Reformation Church Furniture

Post-reformation church at Whithorn

Post-reformation church at Whithorn

Post-Reformation Church History Studies published in the United States since the War

Post-Reformation Church History Studies published in the United States since the War