An Apology for the Medieval Church From One Protestant to Another
“Are
Catholics Christians?” I once asked one of my evangelical mentors as a teenager.
“Some of them
are,” he replied. “For many, it is just a cold, empty religion. But for those who have a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, then, yes, they certainly are Christians.” Of course, the same could be said about Protestants,
but I credit him for resisting the anti-Catholic thinking that still lingered
in certain conservative evangelical circles during the 1980’s.
This
paper, by necessity very broad in scope and woefully lacking in nuance,
attempts to offer a brief, clear apology (in the traditional sense of the word,
meaning “defense”) for the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.
Obviously, some chapters of the church’s
history are indefensible; however, I contend that the Medieval Church is
frequently misunderstood by Protestant clergy and laity – evangelicals, in
particular – due, in part, to a lack of knowledge about the history and context
of the theological ideas that emerged from the millennium between the fall of
Rome and the moment Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of
Wittenberg Castle in 1517.
In order to offer this
apologia, I have chosen to briefly address six controversial
doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, all prominent in the
Middle Ages, which have been “stumbling blocks” for Protestants in the past.
1.
Who
Runs this Joint, Anyhow? The Bible v.
the Pope
A fundamental
concern of the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century – and the
proto-reformers before them such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus – was the
authority of Scripture over and against the supposedly fallible interpretations
of the church. Proclaiming their
unswerving fidelity to sola scriptura,
Luther, Calvin, and others drew attention to the unbiblical nature of certain
Catholic teachings. The Catholic Church
in the Middle Ages did not reject the authority of the Bible, but rather
recognized the need for an authoritative community to interpret it
properly. After all, the biblical canon
itself was formed by the church for the church’s use.
As
St. Vincent of Lérins (d. circa 445 CE) taught as early as the fifth century,
the universal church
needs tradition
in order to ensure that the grand deposit of the faith that St. Paul wrote
about to Timothy is not perverted by heretics who would twist and contort the
word of God to their own ends.
Vincent
noticed even in his own day a tendency that is still true today: “even
heretics… make use of [Scripture] and vigorously!”
Thus, for the Catholic Church of the Middle
Ages, the church hierarchy functioned as the interpreter of Scripture not
primarily out of a lust for power, but out of a desire to faithfully “guard
what has been entrusted to your care” (1 Timothy 6:20).
Protestants frequently misunderstand that
the Catholic Church does not seek to subordinate Scripture to the Church; on
the contrary, the Church submits to the authority of Scripture as it speaks
through the Spirit.
This leads to the next common objection.
2.
Scripture
& Hoi Polloi
It is true that
the average working man or woman did not own a Bible in the Middle Ages, but
there are several reasons for this.
First, except for a very small minority of wealthy and highly educated
aristocrats, Europeans were illiterate; they would not know what to do with a
Bible even if they had owned a copy.
Secondly, before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg
in the middle of the fifteenth century, Bibles were incredibly rare and
expensive because they had to be copied by hand. A typical village might have one copy – if
fortunate – and it would be housed in the church. Third, the Bibles were written in Latin, the
language of scholarship, rather than in the vernacular.
Finally,
it is important to understand the hierarchical mindset of all of medieval
life.
After Rome fell and the feudal
system had been firmly established across Europe, humans did not believe in
social mobility, egalitarianism, or the democratic ethos as we do today.
The universe was perceived to have a layered
structure to it – a structure ordained by God – which should not be questioned.
Thus, just as the church was shaped like a
pyramid with God at the top and, in descending order, the Pope, the bishops,
the priests, and the laity, so too the socio-political world had a
structure:
God, King, regional lords,
local lords, knights/merchants, surfs/peasants.
This structure was unquestioned because, in the medieval mind, God had
ordained it this way.
Thus, even if a
peasant has been literate and attained a copy of the Bible in her own language,
the thought would have never occurred to her, “I should form my own opinion
about what this says.”
She knew her
place in the world and her place was not to dissent from divinely appointed arrangement.
Furthermore, she understood the hierarchy
within the educational world and wouldn’t have foolishly defied the conclusions
of scholars who had devoted their entire lives to the study of Scripture and
the Christian tradition.
(Only after the
Enlightenment did unschooled Christians begin to think, “I should interpret
this for myself.”
Such a concept is what
Alister McGrath has called “Christianity’s dangerous idea.”)
3.
Why All the
Saints and Dead People?
The practice of
praying to the saints, long a bugaboo of Protestant thinkers seeking to
emphasize the sole sufficiency of Christ, is also a frequently misunderstood practice
due to the failure to make a crucial theological distinction:
that between
worship and
veneration.
Worship is reserved for God the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit alone.
According to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church,
worship is “to adore God [which] is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute
submission, the ‘nothingness of the creature’ who would not exist but for God.”
Veneration, on the other hand, refers to a
special honor and devotion that “differs essentially from the adoration that is
given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit…”
Returning
to the medieval times, however, it is essential to note the porous boundaries
that were thought to have existed between the realm of the living and the dead
in the minds of the general populace.
Whereas in our own culture we emphasize the
discontinuity between this life and the next, medieval theology –
perhaps because of the ever-present reality of death all around – emphasized
its
continuity.
As a result, the baptized believed that it
was possible to communicate with loved ones or with favored saints who had
passed on and who were now in the presence of Christ.
Christians were officially instructed not to
pray
to the saints, but rather to ask
the saint to pray
on their behalf or
to
intercede for them before the
Father, in much the same way we might ask our Christian friends to pray for us
during trying times.
Lastly, it is
necessary to note that saints were perceived to have acquired through their
good works a “credit” of good deeds, which could then be applied to cover over
minor, venial sins. This credit – called
merit – could not offer salvation
since salvation came only through Christ, but it could cover certain
post-baptismal sins, alleviating some of the suffering of purgatory (discussed
below). This motivated many to offer
devotion to certain patron saints. But,
in short, the practice of praying to and for the dead/saints was rooted in a
literal belief that Christians are “surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).
4.
There’s
Something About Mary
Protestants to
this day continue to be mystified by the devotion and veneration paid by
Catholics
However, the same distinction
between worship and veneration discussed above also applies here.
Beyond this, however, is an important
theological difference between the two traditions:
whereas Protestants tend to emphasize the
crucifixion of Christ, Catholics, especially in the Middle Ages, tended to
emphasize the centrality of the Incarnation.
Mary, according to the early church, is the
Theotokos, the “Bearer of God” or the “Birth-giver of God,”
according to the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE.
As such, she not only holds a unique place in all of humanity as the
only human being to ever literally hold God inside of her body – although those
who take the Eucharist also do this (see below) – but she also represents the
one who utterly submitted herself to the will of the Father (cf. Luke
1:35ff).
As a result, she stands as the
exemplary model Christian for all who follow Jesus.
to Mary, and they interpret it as a threat to the worship of Christ
alone.
In
a medieval culture where very little dignity was given to the lowest members of
society – the serfs, the women, the children, the poor – the devout found in
Mary a biblical character that was “one of them.” Here was a poor servant girl, chosen by God,
and exalted so highly that she could sing, “All generations will call me
blessed” (Luke 1:48). The secular
historian Thomas Cahill writes in his typical lyrical style about why the
Virgin Mary held such vast appeal in the twelfth century:
This early exaltation of Mother and
Child already demonstrates the innovative Christian sense of grace, no longer
something to be reserved for the fortunate few – the emperors and their
retinues – but broadcast everywhere, bestowed on everyone, “heaped up, pressed
down, and overflowing,” even on one as lowly and negligible as a nursing
mother.
In the words of a Latin hymn,
‘God… is born in the guts of a girl.’
For the most ordinary people in their most ordinary actions can serve as
vessels of God’s grace.
In short, then,
Mary functioned in the medieval world to bring the message of the gospel to the
masses. She has done in death what she did
in life: pointed people to Jesus. Thus, in Catholic spirituality she stands
even today as a mediatrix – a female mediator – who intercedes for people
through prayer, and as a moral exemplar of one who forever says to God, “I am
the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as
you have said” (Luke 1:38).
5.
Hocus
Pocus
Protestant
inheritors of Lutheran consubstantial sacramental theology or Zwingli’s
memorialism – and, even more importantly, as post-Enlightenment scientifically
oriented rationalists and philosophical nominalists – generally look askance at
historic Catholic teachings about transubstantiation of the elements in the
Eucharist.
This is dismissed as
superstitious, magical poppycock or “a bunch of hocus pocus.”
Yet the degree to which this centuries-old
doctrine has been maligned, often without much serious critical reflection,
reveals precisely how deeply influenced (dare I say, subverted?) modern
Protestantism has been by the modernist project and by radical philosophical
nominalism.
But first, the
Medieval Catholic view:
I have already
stated that for Catholics the ultimate miracle was not the cross, but the
incarnation.
The Eucharist is, simply
understood, a reenactment (or, to use the theological term, a “recapitulation”)
of that miracle, over and over again.
Just
as God himself became flesh, so too the Bread and the Wine – though the
accidents (outward appearances) do not change – transform
in essence into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Historically, this precise understanding
dates back to the ninth century when King Charles the Bald asked, “Is the
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in Truth or in Mystery?”
Two theologians, Radbertus and Ratramnus,
debated the answer to this question in painstaking detail.
Radbertus and his articulation of
transubstantiation eventually won the day.
Sacraments, for as
long as there have been sacraments, have always been understood by the church
as that which changes a person ontologically before God. That means that taking the bread and the cup literally cleanses sin, restores right
relationship, and purifies the soul. In
the medieval church (as well as today), you
are not the same person after taking the Eucharist as you were before taking it. Just as the Incarnation was a miracle, so too
is the Eucharist. Medieval theologians
rooted this view of the Blessed Sacrament in their reading of Scripture,
especially the Gospel of John. Jesus
said,
Very truly I tell you, unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is
real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
(John 6:53-56)
Rather than interpreting this
individually and hyper-spiritually (both inventions of modernity), the
scholastics believed Jesus to be speaking of the literal, physical act of
eating. The medieval hermeneuts further
reasoned that when Jesus talked about “real food” and “real drink,” he meant real.
And, of course, the laity of the church took them at their word.
6.
“As
soon as a coin in the coffer rings / The soul from purgatory
springs."
…Or so my seventh
grade home school curriculum taught me that the corrupt John Tetzel would sing as
he bilked the poor out of their money while selling indulgences to fund grand
cathedrals in Rome.
While Catholics
today would almost universally condemn such corruption, I was never taught in
that same curriculum the theological origins of the doctrine of purgatory in
the Middle Ages (and before).
Purgatory
is the answer to a theological problem:
What happens when a baptized Christian dies with unconfessed venial sin
on their hands?
After all, the Bible
clearly teaches, “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews
12:24).
Catholics in the Middle Ages,
and at all times, have never believed that baptism covers an individual’s sin
for her entire life – past, present, and future.
Such an idea did not emerge until the
Reformation.
Rather, baptism only washed
away past and present sin.
Post-baptismal sin, on the other hand, posed a different problem since
continual, habitual sin (especially mortal sin) could cause a believer to lose
one’s salvation.
Protestants
fundamentally miss this key aspect about the medieval teaching about
purgatory:
Purgatory is about grace and
restoration, not about punishment.
Because a holy God demands perfect holiness and desires to make his
people into saints, he needs to purge them of all impurities.
Thus, purgatory is a liminal, temporary state
through which one passes on the way to heaven.
From the Council of Orange in 529 CE, it was taught that all Christians
do participate in their own salvation,
albeit assisted by the grace of God available through the Church and the
Sacraments.
Medieval Christians, then, took seriously the
exhortation of Paul to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”
(Philippians 2:12).
Purgatory was God’s
gracious way of providing for those who could not finish the job before they
died.
Conclusion
This
paper has, of course, merely scratched the surface regarding these important
theological issues.
However, the Western
church of the Middle Ages – all of which was Catholic – was not utterly
irrational or backwards, as some Protestants have supposed.
Consider:
Charlemagne of the ninth century instituted the first public education
system and universalized clergy education; during the age of feudalism, the
monastery flourished as the center of education and economic development, and
invented the hotel and hospital; the northern Italians gave the world
capitalism and trade;
Aquinas, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and others laid the foundation for
the modern scientific world;
William
Ockham planted the seeds for the separation of church and state,
-- not to mention the preservation of the entire Western theological tradition.
It
is my belief that much of the suspicion that remains to this day between
Protestants and Catholics is rooted in ignorance. Hopefully this paper has offered for the
layperson an accessible explanation of the Medieval Catholic Church. Likely, I have not addressed all questions or
concerns (after all, I still have plenty!), but my goal is to show that the
church of the millennium before Luther was not lost in darkness and
superstition. In fact, it was quite
reasonable and we remain ignorant about its history to our own detriment.
Bibliography
