Who are the wolves? And how do you know?

At the opening of his “History of the Development of Doctrine,” Jaroslav Pelikan wrote:

Upon closer examination, however, the problem of tradition and history is seen to be more complex. Even the most doctrinaire traditionalist must be concerned with such questions as the authenticity of works ascribed to an ecclesiastical writer or of decrees attributed to a council; he must trace the origin and transmission of quotations that appear in the documents of the church; he must investigate the social setting of his texts, to understand the very meaning of the words. All of these are historical assignments, some of them with far more subtle implications than the need of simply checking dates or verifying texts (8).

This is Jaroslav Pelikan, the Lutheran scholar who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy before he died some years ago, saying “test everything, hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess 5:21). But he goes beyond that: he’s saying things that I’ve been saying for years: You can’t trust every church father that you read. Test them. Not everything is what it appears to be.

The word for the day is “discernment”. Don’t be gullible. Think before you believe something. Think before you commit. Watch out for those who knowingly or unknowingly pass along deceits and yes, watch out for forgeries. There are deceitful people out there.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

The threat is not “out there”. The threat that Paul is speaking about is within and among the “overseers”.

So, we catch Marcion; we catch the Carpocratians, we catch the Valentinians. Whew. The threat’s over.

Or is it? Is the threat “on the inside”? Could it be? “Fierce wolves will arise from among you overseers”. They will draw away disciples. And maybe write doctrines, which get mistaken for “infallible”.

The Trajectory of Church History

The Catholics who often comment here ask the question, "where and when did the Roman Catholic Church got off the trail?"

That's a legitimate question. I've answered it to some degree, but there are no easy answers to that question. And over the 1500 years of history which get cited repeatedly, there are many points to discuss.

There are a few easy-to-define moments, such as the conversion of Constantine, and the moment, as Eamon Duffy put it, "Bishops all over the Roman world would now be expected to take on the role of judges, governors, great servants of state." ("Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes" New Haven: Yale Nota Bene Press, 1987, 2001, pg 37). During that era, the leadership of the church was incorporated into the imperial bureaucracy and effectively became a functionary of the imperial government. Shortly thereafter Constantine decamped and "the Church" was left as the only game in town. It was easy for them to write their own rules. And they did. Rules that were different from what the earlier church had practiced.

In that way, the flip side of that question is also legitimate. Contra Newman, who suggested that “the Christianity of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His Apostles taught in the first”, it is fair to say that the Roman church never was fully on the trail. Or rather, it was creating its own trail: one that did not have all of its roots in older Christianity.

I do think it is fair to say that, if early church history were to be studied in detail, no one group would be entirely happy with what was found. Yet that doesn't preclude any Protestant group from claiming the earlier church as part of its own heritage.

One individual who had a thorough knowledge of the Reformation was Jaroslav Pelikan. It was Pelikan who edited and catalogued Luther's Works in English. [And yes, I know that Pelikan converted to Eastern Orthodoxy at the end of his life. That will be another discussion.] Pelikan said: "Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity," said Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Riddle of Roman Catholicism," New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, pg 46. But he goes even further than this:

That generalization applies particularly to Luther and to some of the Anglican reformers somewhat less to Calvin, still less to Zwingli, least of all to the Anabaptists. But even Zwingli, who occupies the left wing among the classical reformers, retained a surprising amount of catholic substance in his thought, while the breadth and depth of Calvin's depth to the heritage of the catholic centuries is only now beginning to emerge.

It is important to make clear what we mean by "the heritage of the catholic centuries." The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology. … All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.

Not only Augustine could serve to substantiate the claim of the reformers to be truly catholic. Throughout the centuries they found substantiation. Although they spoke of the "fall of the church" in the post-apostolic era, they seized upon individuals and groups in every epoch of Christian history who had opposed Roman domination or who had taught evangelical doctrine. (Pelikan, 46-47).

I think it's important to note at this point that "opposition to Roman domination" is as important as having "taught evangelical doctrine." There is a two-fold need: (a) kick the supports out from underneath the domineering Roman behemoth, and (b) understand evangelical -- Biblical -- doctrine as it appeared throughout the centuries. Continuing with Pelikan:

Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) was practically canonized by the reformers for his opposition to Rome. They also managed to find more obscure figures in medieval history. To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.

Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….

If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. With men like Augustine and Bernard on their side, the reformers could well protest against the usurpation of the name "catholic church" by their opponents" (47-48)

Probably nowhere was this "claim to catholicity" more apparent than when the Reformers cited "the Gospel." This was not a new "Gospel," it is one that Christ and the Apostles preached. Based on work that I've cited from T.F. Torrance and others, the admixture of the necessity of "works" into the gospel was not biblical, but a later accretion. The truest conformity to the Apostolic preaching was held by the Reformers. "Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" (Pelikan 48-49).

In the end, the Council of Trent ended up (in true Roman fashion) condemning the true heritage, and canonizing its own path. In its decrees, Trent "selected and elevated to official status the notion of justification by faith plus works, which was only one of the doctrines of justification [found] in the medieval theologians and ancient fathers. When the reformers attacked this notion in the name of the doctrine of justification by faith alone -- a doctrine also attested to by some medieval theologians and ancient fathers-- Rome reacted by canonizing one trend [the wrong one] in preference to all the others. What had previously been permitted (justification by faith and works), now became required. What had been previously been permitted also (justification by faith alone), now became forbidden. In condemning the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent condemned [the better part of] its own catholic tradition" (Pelikan 51-52, Pelikan's comments (in parentheses), my own comments in [square brackets]).

Lord willing we'll explore all of this in further detail.

The Catholic View of Justification (Previous to Trent)

In dialog with Roman Catholics on sola fide, I have sometimes argued from their point of view: that is, the doctrine of justification was not, at the time of Luther’s writing, dogmatically defined in the Roman Catholic sense. In other words, Luther had freedom to hold the view on justification that he did within a Roman Catholic framework.

I picked up a copy yesterday of Jaraslov Pelikan’s book, Obedient Rebels: Catholic Substance and Protestant Principle in Luther’s Reformation [New York: Harper and Row, 1964]. I found this quote on page 51-52 quite interesting:

“Existing side by side in pre-Reformation theology were several ways of interpreting the righteousness of God and the act of justification. They ranged from strongly moralistic views that seemed to equate justification with moral renewal to ultra-forensic views, which saw justification as a 'nude imputation' that seemed possible apart from Christ, by an arbitrary decree of God. Between these extremes were many combinations; and though certain views predominated in late nominalism, it is not possible even there to speak of a single doctrine of justification.”

I share this for one reason: don't get sucked into those silly arguments that "sola fide" was a theological "novum" previous to the Reformation. Pelikan says elsewhere:

"All the more tragic, therefore, was the Roman reaction on the front which was most important to the reformers, the message and teaching of the church. This had to be reformed according to the word of God; unless it was, no moral improvement would be able to alter the basic problem. Rome’s reactions were the doctrinal decrees of the Council of Trent and the Roman Catechism based upon those decrees. In these decrees, the Council of Trent selected and elevated to official status the notion of justification by faith plus works, which was only one of the doctrines of justification in the medieval theologians and ancient fathers. When the reformers attacked this notion in the name of the doctrine of justification by faith alone—a doctrine also attested to by some medieval theologians and ancient fathers—Rome reacted by canonizing one trend in preference to all the others. What had previously been permitted (justification by faith and works), now became required. What had previously been permitted also (justification by faith alone), now became forbidden. In condemning the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent condemned part of its own catholic tradition."

Source: Jaroslav Pelikan, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), pp. 51-52.

Simply use the above quotes, and then say "What does the Bible say about justification?" History doesn't determine doctrine. Councils don't determine doctrine. Only the Bible determines doctrine.