1st Edition

Tradition and Authority in the Reformation

By Scott H. Hendrix Copyright 1996
    344 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume explores how elements of the medieval tradition were transformed into new claims of authority by the Reformation. In theological terms the volume examines how ecclesiastical, biblical and patristic authority were reinterpreted and applied by the reformers. Several essays treat the social context of the German Reformation: the communities which influenced Luther, the positive stance taken toward the Jewish community by Urbanus Rhegius, and a Protestant treatment of domestic relations that incorporates a spirited defense of women. A third group of studies use contextual family theory to understand issues like clerical identity, Luther's own authority as a reformer, and the religious decisions of the princes. As a whole, the essays try to discover what motivated people to choose Protestantism and how they legitimated that choice for themselves and for others whom they attempted to persuade.

    Contents: Luther against the background of the history of biblical interpretation; The authority of scripture at work: Luther's exegesis of the Psalms; The use of scripture in establishing Protestantism: the case of Urbanus Rhegius; Validating the Reformation: the use of the church fathers by Urbanus Rhegius; Deparentifying the fathers, the reformers and patristic authority; In quest of the vera ecclesia: the crises of late medieval ecclesiology; ’We are all Hussites’? Hus and Luther revisited; Considering the clergy's side: a multilateral view of anticlericalism; Luther et la papauté; Urbanus Rhegius and the Augsburg Confession; Toleration of the Jews in the German Reformation: Urbanus Rhegius and Braunschweig 1535-1540; Christianizing domestic relations: women and marriage in Johann Freder's Dialogus dem Ehestand zu Ehren; Luther's loyalties and the Augustinian order; Luther's contribution to the disunity of the Reformation; Luther's communities; Martin Luther and Albrecht von Mainz: aspekte von Luthers reformatorischem selbstbewußtein; Luther's impact in the 16th century; Index.

    Biography

    Scott H. Hendrix