the subject at once of elaborate commentary,' without any real advance, and sometimes, as in the treatment of the Decalogue, with a distinct decline of vigor and vitality. 2 This decline is even more marked when Venatorius of Nurenburg attempts an independent ethics, and starting with Luther winds up with Cicero. The attempt to combine Stoicism with the evangelical teaching of Luther reveals the entire misconception both of paganism and Christianity that prevailed. In fact for Venatorius apparently the pagan ideal is good enough, only it needs Christian faith to live up to it. Thus "faith" is a new Christian philosophy. And in the law and Gospels all is contained. Melanchthon had done his work so well that again Aristotelian intellectualism and individualism occupy the centre of the stage, and the ethics of the New Testament are swamped in the cardinal virtues and Melanchthon's distinctions between virtues and duties. The whole treatment is so scholastic and so confused that the reader is set wondering where the Gospel really has any place. Much more truly reformed and Christian seems to be the work of Weller, who deals at length, and in the sense of Luther, with the service of God in the round of daily duty, and especially 1 ... ... 1 Strigel, Victorinus: "Locorum theologicorum . . . V.S. enchiridion ad methodum Locorum . . . P. Melanthonis Wittenberg, 1591; Chemnitius, Martinus: "Locorum theologicorum . . . Francofurti, 1604." Cf. Pelt, L.: Die christliche Ethik in der lutherischen Kirche vor Calixt und die Trennung von der Dogmatik durch denselben," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," XXI, 1848, pp. 271-319. 2 Venatorius, Thomas: "De virtute christiana libri tres, Norinberga [15]29.” Cf. Luthardt, Chr. Ernst: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik seit der Reformation," Leipsic, 1893, pp. 89-90, who gives a good summary but a very poor critique of the work; also Schawarz, J. C. E.: "Thomas Venatorius und die ersten Anfänge der protestantischen Ethik im Zusammen hange mit der Entwickelung der Rechtfertigungslehre," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," XXIII, 1850, pp. 79–142. * Weller, Hieronymus: "De officio ecclesiastico, politico et œconomico libellus pius et eruditus," Noribergæ, 1552. The Latin the present writer has not seen. Justus Jonas produced a paraphrase of it. 1 defends the taking up of office by Christians as over against the Anabaptists, who often attacked the holding of State office by the "regenerate." In fact the popular preached ethics was probably superior to that of the schools. The systematic treatise by Chytræus deserves attention from his attempt to adjust the claims of law and Gospel by postulating the Decalogue as the norm of the Christian life, because in it the final will of God is revealed; but God wants freedom and sonship of us, and not merely legal obedience, so Christ appears to enable us freely to accept and live up to the commandments. Virtue is doing the things commanded in the Decalogue, but they must be done from the heart, hence the need of regeneration, that the heart may move us to loving obedience. Thus the ethical life moves within a given closed system, and we have the old scholastic method in the fulness of its fruitage. Thus ethics are also lost in a theological description of regeneration. The outcome of Melanchthon and Chytræus may be seen in the ethical scholasticism of Johann Gerhard, who, after treating of Scripture in the first volume as the perfect norm, develops a speculative system of theology akin to Thomas Aquinas, from whom it is hard to believe that he has not borrowed much material. In the fifth volume he enters upon a controversy with Bellarmine upon the subject of free-will, and all the confusions of Melanchthon are repeated. Ethical material is also contained in the sixth volume, where he deals with the relation of ceremonial law to the ethics of the new dispensation, with the character of the Gospel as given to us in Christ Jesus, and with penitence. It is illustrative of his method to turn to page 142 of this volume, where he asks the question, whether and in 1 Chytræus, David (the elder): "Regulæ vitæ. Virtutum descriptiones methodica ... recens recognitæ . . . ac exemplis . . . illustratæ," etc., Leipsic, 1558; other editions, Wittenberg, 1570 and 1573. ... 2 Gerhard, Johann: "Loci theologici, denus edidit variique generis observat ... ed. Jo. F. Cotta. 20 tom. et index generalis," Tübingen, 1762-1789; "The Summe of Christian Doctrine written originally in Latine . . . and translated by R. Winterton," Cambridge, 1640. 'In Tomo sexto, locus XIV, tracts II and III. ... what sense Christ may be called a new law-giver.' The Council of Trent had anathematized all who said that Christ Jesus was not a law-giver, and after reading all the arguments in refutation of this position the reader is left wondering where exactly Gerhard disagrees with Trent, for in point of fact the Gospel is a new law, and Christ Jesus came to enable us to keep it. With vast scholastic learning we are led into all the legal casuistry of the Middle Ages, and even while maintaining in name the evangelical freedom, the substance is sacrificed to a new legalism. Even the machinery for the maintenance of this new spiritual tyranny is elaborately supplied. We have all the apparatus of reproof, minor excommunication and major excommunication, and with the State magistrate to enforce the spiritual decisions." It was not the fault of these new scholastics that a national spiritual imperialism did not take the place of the old international imperialism, with the Church and State as the two pillars. Although with patent inconsistency Gerhard denies that the State should put heretics to death. 4 Nor is the work of Calixtus one whit better. Here he deals with the regenerate as the subjects of a new ethics in exactly the same spirit. Even Luthardt has to admit the confused and scholastic character of this greatly overestimated work. Of really original work there is from the ethical point of view in neither Calixtus, Paul v. Eitzer, or Dürr any trace. The same old material borrowed at third hand from Aristotle is worked over in bad Latin, and then the vain attempt is made to distinguish between this product as philosophic on the one hand and as "theological" on the other. 'As throughout, this question is treated as controversial, with the Roman Catholics on one side and the Anabaptists on the other. * "Se quis dixerit, Christum Jesum a Deo hominibus datum esse, ut redemtoreum, cui fidant, non etiam ut legislatoreum cui obediant, anathema fit," Council Trid., VI, 21. Cf. vol. V, locus, XIII. "De Ecclesia," tom. XI, cap. VI, §§ II and IV. ' Tom. XIII, locus XXV. •Sine ecclesiastico ministerio commode quidem sed non pie, sine politica potestate pie quidem sed non commode vivi potest," locus XXV. 7 Calixtus, Georg: "Epitome theologiæ moralis," Helmstadt, 1634. The influence of renewed legal study and political theory shows itself in the second part of Buddeus's work,' who deals with the difference between the divine and natural law." At the same time the discussion is hopelessly scholastic. Practical theology, he says, is the science which teaches regenerate men, following the leading of divine writings, how they shall live so that they shall grow in the divine image, and at death leaving all imperfections become participants in the eternal and highest felicity. The closed system within which we are supposed to move is the Bible. In reality it is only the traditional mediæval theology slightly tinged by the new colors of the Reformation. Life and the end of life are thought of in the peculiarly narrow and selfish individualism characteristic of the post-Reformation men. The thinking of Malebranche is somewhat reflected in places, and the psychological discussions of the period are taken into account. Regeneration does not change our faculties, but the affections, inclinations, and propensities are changed.* A large part of the book is a polemic against the rationalism of this period, but it is really exceedingly unintelligent and has only authority to set up over against it. Learned and clear, then, as Buddeus undoubtedly is, the outcome is in the last degree unsatisfactory and cannot carry us out of the dogmatism and unreality of the ecclesiastical ethics of that day. The same may be said of Dannæus,5 who does not seem to the present writer to be so nearly the father of reformed ethics as Schweitzer seems to think. Certainly Melanchthon is the 1 Buddeus, Johann Franz: "Institutiones Theologiæ Moralis variis observationibus illustratæ," Leipsic, 1711 and 1727. 2 "Non enim ex ratione, quod Puffendorf fecit, sed ex revelatione, nostra probamus quod theologiæ proprium est, et si subinde, illustrationis caussa, rationis Scita in subsidium vocemus," preface, p. 3. 8 "Proleg. de nat. et indole," § V, p. 6. 'Cap. I, § XXXVII, p. 36. 5 Dannæus (Daneau), Lambert, 1530-1595. Cf. Alexander Schweizer: "Die Entwickelung des Moralsystems in der Reformirten Kirche," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," XXIII, 1850, pp. 5-78, 288-327, 554-580. Luthardt, Chr. Ernst: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik seit der Reformation," Leipsic, 1893, p. 99. organizing spirit in the "Ethica Christiana," 1 and although the legal studies of Dannæus give the ethics, as they give those of Calvin, a certain form, the underlying assumptions are just those of the Lutheran ethics which we have been considering. His interest in the theocracy is not greater than that of Buddeus, nor is the Bible any more of a closed system for him than for Gerhard or Calixtus. The Puritanism that so markedly dominated reformed ethics in Calvin and those who followed in his footsteps does indeed not characterize the Lutheran systems to the same degree. At the same time it is there, nor does it seem to the present writer historical to make it so exclusively an introduction from the Netherlands as Ritschl does." VIII. THE NEW PROTESTANT CASUISTRY By casuistry one may mean the application of general principles to particular cases. But such a definition is so wide that it really ceases to mean what casuistry has historically meant. In a narrower sense it is the attempt in cases of conscience, where pleasure conflicts with duty, or seeming duty with seeming duty, to resolve the conflict on the basis of authoritative decisions. In this sense Roman Catholic morality had a final code in the decisions of the church. Where she had spoken the case was closed. It was inconceivable for faith that there should be any conflict between her decisions. An elaborate casuistry thus grew up out of the simple faith that through appointed officers the Christian could come into direct contact with a final and definite authority, and that all cases of conscience could be resolved in the confessional. Protestantism by several stages broke with priest and bishop, with pope and even general council, but stopped at the pages of the New Testament. Here in the words of Scripture are laws which are the final rules of faith and practice. This law is binding on each conscience, hence it becomes eternally impor 'Published in 1577 and appearing in many editions. |