Those Medieval Monks You Were Warned About

elieve me, medieval monks have gotten a bum rap. For far too long, most of us have thought of the Middle Ages as a time when Europeans wandered in the dark, constantly checking their calendars to see if it was time for the Enlightenment yet. The darkness, according to Protestants, was spiritual in nature, as the true Gospel was subverted by a power-hungry clergy which lived and breathed to keep layfolk subjugated to works-righteousness. “The church of that day taught that men must work hard to earn their salvation” is a quote I found on one Protestant website; it is representative of what many Protestants believe concerning medieval Catholic doctrine. As any historically ignorant person will insist, the Church of the Middle Ages had allowed the lamp of truth to burn so low that no one knew that it is by grace that we are saved through faith, or that we must be born again, or that Christianity is a relationship with a Person. Works-righteousness ruled, they will tell you. After all, former Augustinian monk Martin Luther claimed that no one read the Bible in those days. In fact, if you believe him, few people even knew what the Bible was!

Thirty years ago, no one read the Bible, and it was unknown to all. The prophets were not spoken of and were considered impossible to understand. And when I was twenty years old, I had never seen a Bible. I thought that the Gospels or Epistles could be found only in the postills [lectionaries] for the Sunday readings. Then I found a Bible in the library, when I first went into the monastery, and I began to read, re-read and read it many times over and reread the Bible many times….

Immersing himself in Bible study as an Augustinian monk, however, seemed to exacerbate Luther’s fears of judgment:

I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him.

I was myself more than once driven to the very depths of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated him!

Luther tried as hard as he could to please this seemingly implacable God:

I was indeed a pious monk and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever a monk could obtain Heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortifications even to death, by means of my watchings, prayers, reading and other labors.

With claims like those, Luther succeeded in making himself the poster boy for recovering medieval Catholics. Reading these assertions, Protestants allow themselves to be convinced that it was a suppression of the Gospel perpetrated by the Catholic Church which pushed Luther to the brink of despair.

We must note at the outset that Luther’s story about the Bible being unavailable to the common man (before he himself translated it into German) has not held up very well. Historian Jaroslav Pelikan put it politely:

Partisans of Martin Luther and of his Reformation have sometimes given the impression that the translation of the Bible into German begins with him, an impression that his remark that the Bible had been lying “under the bench [unter der Bank]” before the Reformation seemed to foster. The historical situation is, of course, quite otherwise….. [Mentelin’s Biblia Germanica] was followed by seventeen other printed High German and Low German Bibles that appeared before Luther’s September Testament of 1522.

Eighteen different editions of the Bible in German printed before Luther translated his Bible – where did they go? Unless they were printed, boxed up and deep-sixed, those Bibles went somewhere – to someone, right? After all, the law of supply and demand mandates that if no one was willing to buy them, printers wouldn’t have kept printing them. Someone was buying those Bibles. University of Alberta historian Andrew Gow contends that “Luther’s Bible translation was a hit because burghers had been reading vernacular Bibles and biblical texts for so long, not because they had been denied access to the Bible.” Read Professor Gow’s article here; it contains fascinating quotes from other authors like these:

In 1494 a worthy merchant wrote in his diary: “My country abounds in Bibles, works on salvation, editions of the Fathers, and other books of a like sort.”

…Johannes Eck, claimed to have read almost the entire Bible by the time he was ten years old; and the Xanten chaplain Adam Potken had to learn the four Gospels by heart in his youth in the 1470s and read excerpts from the Old and New Testaments daily with his eleven- and twelve-year-old fellow pupils.

Rost notes that eighteenth-century scholars were often surprised to discover that German Bibles had been circulating in large numbers well before Luther’s translation, so steeped were they in the story of Biblical inaccessibility started by Luther himself.

Obviously, the “near-total absence of Bibles” story has to be taken with a grain of salt; since “Hyperbole” was Dr. Luther’s middle name, we should not be surprised. But Martin Luther was adamant when it came to his charge that he had never heard the true Gospel preached when he was a monk. And let’s face it, if monks believed and taught that one had to work one’s way into Heaven by means of “mortifications even to death, by means of watchings, prayers, reading and other labors” such as those Luther claimed to have practiced, then no wonder he exploded with such vehemence against the Catholic system!

Dr. Luther has presented his charges. Now, in the interest of fairness, let’s let his contemporaries, medieval monks and friars, speak for themselves. What did they know about grace, mercy, forgiveness, and the love of God? Did they get worked up over their inability to impress God with their righteousness? Did they despair? Did they even join Luther in periodically hating this God Who seemed impossible to appease? I’ve invited a panel of experts from the High Middle Ages to tell us in their own words what they believe about God, grace, Heaven and how to get there. We have representatives from three different religious orders, three centuries, and four countries: the 12^th-century Cistercian monk St. Bernard of Clairvaux (France), the 13^th-century Dominican friars Blessed Jordan of Saxony (Germany) and St. Thomas Aquinas (Italy), the 13^th-century Franciscan friar St. Anthony of Padua (Portugal), and the 14^th-century Franciscan friar St. Bernadine of Siena (Italy).

Gentlemen, thank you for being here! Let’s start with the works-righteousness charge. Tell me, St. Bernard, what’s your plan for working your way to Heaven?

What I need to enter Heaven, I appropriate from the merits of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to procure for me that glory of which I was unworthy. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153), Cistercian monk

Really? I was told that medieval Catholic monks and friars trusted in their works to save them – with little interest in the Bible, they knew nothing about the necessity of being “born again.” Right? St. Thomas Aquinas, you wouldn’t be familiar with the concept of being born again, would you?

We must be guided and guarded by God, Who knows and can do all things. For which reason also it is becoming in those who have been born again as sons of God, to say: “Lead us not into temptation,” and “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and whatever else is contained in the Lord’s Prayer pertaining to this. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Dominican friar

St. Bernadine, are you men saying that one becomes a son of God through faith in Jesus Christ?

The Church is indeed built on the Name of Jesus which is its very foundation, and hence it is the greatest honor to cleave through faith to the Name of Jesus and to become a son of God. St. Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444), Franciscan friar

Hey, Blessed Jordan, help me out here – I’m trying to prove a point! If you were acting as a spiritual father to a group of impressionable young women who had their hopes set on Heaven, what would you teach them about works-righteousness?

See to it then, my dearest daughters, that you receive not this grace in vain, this matchless boon which is His gift, the perfect gift which took not its beginning from you but is from above, coming down from the Father of all light, who through His grace has shone in your hearts, calling you into His marvelous light! Bl. Jordan of Saxony (1190-1237), Dominican friar

Right, right….

But I’m sure you guys don’t understand the concept of asking Jesus into your heart. St. Anthony, what do you tell people who want to draw closer to God?

When God dwells in the soul, the soul becomes even more beautiful. For who can be more blessed or more happy than the one in whom God has set up His dwelling place? What else can you need or what else can possibly make you richer? You have everything when you have within you the One Who made all things, the only One Who can satisfy the longings of your spirit, without Whom whatever exists is as nothing. O Possession Which contains all things within Yourself, truly blessed is the person who has You, truly happy whoever possesses You because he then owns that Goodness which alone can make the human mind completely happy. St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)

That sounds weirdly like someone who has a personal relationship with Christ! St. Anthony, are you saying that you don’t believe that you have to work your way to Heaven? What do you say when you pray to God?

Dear God, what can I give to come to possess You? … O Lord, I already know Your answer. ‘Give me yourself,’ You say, ‘and I will give you Myself. Give Me your mind and you will have Me in your mind. Keep all your possessions, but only give Me your soul. I have heard enough of your words; I do not need your works; only give Me yourself, forever.

You gentlemen are making it awfully hard for me to pin a works-righteousness charge on you! St. Bernard, do you love God? Do you know how much God loves you??

The faithful know how much need they have of Jesus and Him crucified; but though they wonder and rejoice at the ineffable love made manifest in Him, they are not daunted at having no more than their own poor souls to give in return for such great and condescending charity. They love all the more, because they know themselves to be loved so exceedingly…. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153), Cistercian monk

Oh, I give up!
Seriously, nobody who has read your writings can claim that you men don’t know that it is by grace that we are saved through faith, or that we must be born again, or that Christianity is a relationship with a Person. Yet that false charge is the prevailing Protestant wisdom….

Was the Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) a confused soul who suffered from scrupulosity, or did all medieval monks believe they needed to work their way to Heaven while trembling in fear that they were headed to hell? Let’s get the opinion of one last monk – the Augustinian St. Thomas of Villanova, a Spanish contemporary of Martin Luther’s. St. Thomas, your fellow Augustinian Martin Luther is tormented by the thought that God is a strict and terrible Judge Who will condemn most of us to hell because we’re just not good enough for Heaven. Is that what you believe about God? What would you say to Brother Martin?

Fear not to approach Him with confidence, for He is called by the name of Jesus. He is the Savior and will not reject those whom He ought to save. If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation. St. Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555), Augustinian monk

It seems to me that the Church, which was purportedly trying to replace the Gospel with a lethal combination of works-righteousness, fear, and ignorance of Scripture, certainly shot herself in the foot when she canonized men like you! Contrary to popular opinion, you medieval monks believe that your salvation is a gift from God, that you must be born again as sons of God, that you must have the One Who created all things living in your heart, that God has no need of your works but wants your soul, and that you will only go to hell if you reject this abundant and certain Source of salvation!

And Martin Luther’s problem was… what exactly? It’s certainly plausible that Luther had no idea what his Spanish contemporary St. Thomas of Villanova was teaching. But Luther claimed to be well-read, and all the other men on our panel pre-dated him – their writings were well-known. Yet he was unaware of the Gospel that they preached, and claimed that the Church taught him works-righteousness? Really?

The medieval Church taught exactly what she had learned from the apostles, that we are saved by grace and justified by faith. The witness of these medieval saints attests to that fact. These are the truths that the Church is still teaching today – our doctrine has not changed, though it is commonly misrepresented by the adherents of Luther’s faith ALONE heresy.

Now, were there medieval monks who set a terrible example, living sinful lives and besmirching the good name of their order? You better believe it! Chaucer’s contemporary, English poet John Gower, wrote a description of 14^th-century monks gone wild:

A monastic order is good in itself, but we say that those who betray it are evil. There are certainly monks whom ownership of property has made a claim on, men whom no religious order can hold in check through moral precepts. For some men of property seek the leisure of an order so that they cannot suffer any hardships. They avoid being hungry and slake their thirst with wine. They get rid of all cold with their warm furred cloaks. Faintness of the belly does not come upon them in the hours of night, and their raucous voice does not sing the heights of heaven in chorus with a drinking cup. A man of this kind will devour no less than several courses at table, and empties a good many beakers in his drinking. . . . And while you are bringing him wine, he allures women to himself; wanton monasteries now furnish these two things together.

But note how Gower prefaces his complaint: “A monastic order is good in itself, but we say that those who betray it are evil.” Amen! The entire history of the monastic orders depicts the cycle of foundation, decline, and reform. Following the Second Universal Law of Spiritual Thermodynamics, what began well often degenerated into an ugly mess. Spanish Carmelite friar St. John of the Cross, for example, devoted his adult life to reforming his order – the same St. John, by the way, who wrote:

I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labors, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfill His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love.

But prevailing Protestant wisdom says that medieval monks and friars were lazy, venial, hard-headed, hard-hearted and smelly, and that they were like that because they were ignorant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That would be news to St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas of Villanova, St. Anthony, St. John of the Cross, St. Bernadine and Blessed Jordan, whose theology received the Catholic Church’s wholehearted support – she canonized them, didn’t she? If they were teaching something other than what she believed, why in the world would she give them her Good Faithkeeping Seal of Approval?

Dr. Luther, can you explain this discrepancy?

 

On the memorial of Bl. Nazju Falzon

Deo omnis gloria!

My, How Things Haven’t Changed – Part Two

In my last post we took a tour through the Middle Ages and saw that the Catholic Church has been teaching from the beginning that we are saved by grace through faith. I’ve decided to go back and examine the commonly held belief that the Church kept the faithful from reading the Bible so that they wouldn’t realize how “unbiblical” Catholic doctrine is. After all, in the words of “prophecy expert” Tim LaHaye, the Catholic Church made sure the Scriptures were “locked up in monasteries and museums” during the Middle Ages. It is simply “common knowledge” among Protestants that the Church has opposed access to the Scriptures down through the ages, something I used to believe – until I went to the trouble of doing a little research….

When I was a Protestant I KNEW that Martin Luther was the first German to translate the Holy Scriptures into the vernacular so that everyone could understand them. After all, he himself said, “”Thirty years ago, no-one read the Bible, and it was unknown to all. The prophets were not spoken of and were considered impossible to understand. And when I was twenty years old, I had never seen a Bible. I thought that the Gospels or Epistles could be found only in the postills [lectionaries] for the Sunday readings.” That’s Herr Luther’s story, and most Protestants buy into it. Let’s take another stroll down through the centuries to see how the situation looked on the ground. In 312 A.D. Constantine saw his “In Hoc Signo Vinces” vision. We’ll start there, looking for signs of devotion to God’s word…. (Don’t be shy about clicking on the links – there’s some good info there.)

St. Ambrose (330-397) “The reading of Holy Scripture is the life of the soul; Christ Himself declares it when He says: ‘The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life’.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c.395) “We are not allowed to affirm what we please. We make Holy Scripture the rule and the measure of every tenet.”

St. John Chrysostom (347- 407) “…each of you take in hand that part of the Gospels which is to be read in your presence on the first day of the week or even on the Sabbath; and before that day comes, sit down at home and read it through; consider often and carefully its content, and examine all its parts well, noting what is clear, what is confusing…. And, in a word, when you have sounded every point, then go to hear it read. From such zeal as this there will be no small benefit both to you and to me.”

St. Jerome (347-420) “I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find. Christ will not say to me what he said to the Jews: You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and not knowing the power of God. For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

St. Egeria (4th century) “And as he [the bishop] explained the meaning of all the Scriptures, so does he explain the meaning of the Creed; each article first literally and then spiritually. By this means all the faithful in these parts follow the Scriptures when they are read in church.”

Sounds like Christian leaders in the 4th century not only loved the word of God themselves, but also were committed to teaching it to the faithful. But the Dark Ages began in the 5th century. Perhaps that is when the Scriptures were taken from the people….

St. Mesrop Mashtots (5th century) “To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding” – the first words written by St. Mesrop as he translated the Scriptures into Armenian.

Unknown translators (5th century) translated the Scriptures into the Syriac, Coptic, Old Nubian, Ethiopic and Georgian languages.

St. Gregory the Great (540-604) “Those who are zealous in the work of preaching must never cease the study of the written Word of God.”

St. John Damascene (c. 645-749) “Like a tree planted by streams of water, the soul is irrigated by the Bible and acquires vigor, produces tasty fruit, namely, true faith, and is beautified with a thousand green leaves, namely, actions that please God.”

St. Bede the Venerable (c. 672- 735) “I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, teaching and writing.” St. Bede translated the Gospel of John into English.

Unknown translator (8th century) translated the Gospel of Matthew into German.

Unknown translator (8th century) translated the Psalms into English (Vespasian Psalter).

Sts. Cyril and Methodius (9th century) translated the Scriptures into Old Church Slavonic.

Unknown translator (9th century) translated the Scriptures into Arabic (Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151).

Unknown translator (10th century) translated the four Gospels into Old English (Wessex or West-Saxon Gospels).

Ælfric of Eynsham (11th century) translated the first seven books of the Old Testament into English.

Benedictine missionaries (11th century) translated portions of the Scriptures into Hungarian.

Throughout the “Dark Ages,” the Bible was being read in Latin (the official language of the Church in the West. If you could read, you could read Latin!) I know people who believe that Bible reading in the Middle Ages was strictly forbidden. Certainly if that were the case, no translations would be made of the Scriptures into the vernacular languages of the faithful. What would be the point? Yet we have seen numerous examples of vernacular translations of Scripture before the turn of the first millennium!

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) “He who does not know Scripture, knows absolutely nothing.”

St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) “We must study Holy Scripture carefully, and teach it and listen to it in the same way.”

Jaume de Montjuich (13th century) translated the Scriptures into Catalan.

Guyart des Moulins (13th century) translated the Scriptures into French.

Unknown translator (13th century) translated the Scriptures into Spanish (Biblia Alfonsina).

Unknown translator (13th century) translated the Psalms into Polish.

John Wycliffe (1320-1384) praises Anne of Bohemia (1366–1394) because she possesses copies of the Gospels in three languages, Bohemian, German, and Latin.

King Denis of Portugal (14th century) translated the first 20 chapters of Genesis into Portuguese.

John of Montecorvino, Franciscan missionary to China (14th century) translated the New Testament into Uyghur, the language of the Mongols.

Unknown translator (14th century) translated the books of Genesis through II Kings into Norwegian (Stjorn).

Unknown translator (14th century) translated the Scriptures into the Czech language.

Unknown translator (14th century) translated the book of Revelation into English.

Matthias von Beheim (14th century) commissioned the translation of the Gospels into German.

Unknown translators (14th century) translated the Psalms into Polish and German (St. Florian Psalter).

Unknown translator (14th century) translated the Old Testament into German (Wenzel Bibel).

King John I of Portugal (15th century) translated the Psalms and parts of the New Testament into Portuguese.

Andrzej z Jaszowic (15th century) translated parts of Scripture into Polish (Biblia królowej Zofii).

Unknown translator (15th century) – translated parts of Scripture into Croatian.

Unknown translator (15th century) – translated the New Testament into English.

Johannes Mentelin (1460-Strasburg) printed the first German language Bible.

Heinrich Eggestein (1466 -Strasburg) printed the Bible in German.

Jodocus Planzmann (c. 1470-Augsburg) printed the Bible in German.

Wendelin von Speyer (1471-Venice) printed the Bible in Italian.

Guenter Zainer printed two Bible editions in German, in c. 1475 and 1477 (Augsburger Bibel).

Johann Senseschmidt and Andreas Frisner (c. 1470-Nuremburg) printed the Bible in German.

Anton Sorg (1477-Augsburg) printed the Bible in German.

Barthélemy Buyer (1477-Lyons) printed the Bible in French.

Jacob Zoen and Mauritius Temants Zoem (1477-Delft) printed the Bible in Dutch (De Delfste Bijbel).

Niccolò Malermi (1477) printed the Bible in Italian.

Bonifacio Ferrera (1478-Valencia) printed the Bible in Spanish.

Heinrich Quentel (1480-Cologne) printed the Bible in German.

Anton Koburger (1483-Nuremburg) printed the Bible in German (Koburger Bibel).

Martin Luther is born (1483).

Johann Gruninger (1485-Strasburg) printed the Bible in German.

Hans Schoensperger printed two Bible editions in German, in 1487 and in 1490, in Strasburg.

Joan Ross Vercellese (1487) printed the Bible in Italian.

The Bible is printed in Bohemian (1488-Prague).

Stephan Arndes (1494-Luebeck) printed the Bible in German.

Hans Otmar (1507-Augsburg) printed the Bible in German.

Silvan Otmar (1518-Augsburg) printed the Bible in German.

When Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church, he began the task of translating the Scriptures into German. This was quite obviously not the ground-breaking, cutting-edge undertaking that many Protestants would like to believe. I had always thought of it as something hitherto unheard of – but look at all those German editions of Holy Scripture that came before Luther’s!

Catholics after Luther’s time continued doing what they had been doing….

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) ” Taking Scripture as our guide we do not err, since the Holy Spirit speaks to us through it.”

St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619) “God’s word is so rich that it is a treasury of every good. From it flow faith, hope, love, and all the virtues, the many gifts of the Spirit.”

St. John Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719) “Let your chief study be the Bible, that it may be the guiding rule of your life.”

Ignazio Arcamone (17th century) translated parts of Scripture into Konkani, a language spoken in India.

Jesuit missionaries (17th century) translated parts of the New Testament into Japanese.

Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) “…it is well to recall how, from the beginning of Christianity, all who have been renowned for holiness of life and sacred learning have given their deep and constant attention to Holy Scripture.

Pope Benedict XV (1854- 1922) “Our one desire for all the Church’s children is that, being saturated with the Bible, they may arrive at the all-surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

Blessed Titus Brandsma (1881-1942) Particularly the reading of Holy Scripture, which is the law of God, should fill us with great joy from the fact that God lives in us by his grace, and we are able to progress like giants, carried away beyond our strict obligations by the pure love and joy which is the cause of our election.

Blessed John Paul II (1920-2005) “Theology must take its point of departure from a continual and updated return to the Scriptures read in the Church.”

Enough?

The above list of translations of Holy Scripture into various vernacular languages down through the centuries is not complete; I simply couldn’t include them all. Bear in mind that these vernacular translations are the ones that we know about. Not all translations, especially those from the first millennium, are extant.

The writings of the saints are full to bursting of quotes from Scripture. Sit down one afternoon and read St. Bernard (12th century), St. John of the Cross (15th century), or St. Alphonsus Liguori (18th century). According to the Carmelites, St. Teresa of Avila quoted from Scripture over 600 times in her writings. So many of the saints wrote commentaries on the Scriptures. You can’t seriously investigate the writings of the saints down through the ages, and then try to claim that the Church didn’t want anyone to know what the Bible said!

I’d like to re-emphasize that in the Middle Ages to be educated meant to know Latin. In other words, the Latin Scriptures were not the mystery to the educated layperson of the Middle Ages that they would be to 21st-century North Americans. IF YOU COULD READ, YOU COULD READ LATIN! On that point alone, the entire “vernacular argument” falls apart….

On the memorial of Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon and Paul Chong Hasang and companions

Deo omnis gloria!

My, How Things Haven’t Changed!

Over the years I have read claims that Catholic teaching has changed, that it has “learned from Protestant doctrine” over the nearly 500 years since the Reformation, becoming more “Biblical.” “Pope Benedict admits that Luther was right!” people crow, (pretending that the Holy Father said “Luther was right – period!” rather than “Luther was right, IF….). This reasoning originates with people who have bought into standard-issue anti-Catholic propaganda, along the lines of: “Romanists believe that you have to work your way to heaven, worship the Pope, the saints, and Mary, and pretend that a flat, tasteless wafer is God.” They then hear the Holy Father say something that sounds suspiciously “Christian” and, stymied, can only attribute the Pope’s “change of heart” to Protestant influence. Catholic doctrine is changing, they assume. Assumption is so much less trouble than research. I know that from first-hand experience….

Take the subject of justification. If you had asked me back when I was a Protestant why Catholics don’t agree with the Protestant doctrine of “faith alone,” I would have explained to you that the pernicious doctrine of justification by works had wormed its way into Church doctrine as man-made “wisdom” superseded the preaching of the Gospel. The clergy and religious brothers and sisters of the Middle Ages were steeped in ignorance of the Scriptures and in the traditions of men. That’s why God raised up Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who came to realize that the Catholic Church was teaching error concerning justification. God called this simple monk to lead people back to the Bible, to teach them to have faith, and trust in the blood of Jesus Christ for their salvation!

Not that I actually did any research on this – I was just buying into the prevailing Protestant wisdom that permeated the teaching of the churches I attended. I now wish that I had actually tested these assumptions against the historical record. Here are some quotes taken from the High Middle Ages, the 11th to the 13th century. Is prevailing Protestant wisdom correct? Did Catholics know anything about salvation by grace through faith before the time of Luther?

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153) What I need to enter Heaven, I appropriate from the merits of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to procure for me that glory of which I was unworthy.

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) Christians must lean on the Cross of Christ just as travelers lean on a staff when they begin a long journey.

St. Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444) The Church is indeed built on the Name of Jesus which is its very foundation, and hence it is the greatest honor to cleave through faith to the Name of Jesus and to become a son of God.

These men all lived and died before Luther’s time. These are the guys your Protestant mother warned you about: medieval priests and monks. But those quotes sound suspiciously “Christian.” Is that a fluke?

Martin Luther lived from 1483 to 1546. Here is a sampling of quotes from the Catholic writings of that era:

St. Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555) Fear not to approach Him with confidence, for He is called by the name of Jesus. He is the Savior and will not reject those whom He ought to save. If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation.

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) Not for ourselves, Lord, for we do not deserve to be heard, but for the blood of Your Son and for His merits.

St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) In His infinite love for us, though we were sinners, He sent His only Son to free us from the tyranny of Satan, to summon us to heaven, to welcome us into its innermost recesses, to show us Truth itself, to train us in right conduct, to plant within us the seeds of virtue, to enrich us with the treasures of His grace, and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.

St. Thomas of Villanova’s timeline runs almost exactly parallel to that of Luther. St. Thomas was an Augustinian monk, as was Luther. Luther suffered from scrupulosity, and was plagued by doubts that his sins could be forgiven. Surely these words of St. Thomas, “If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation,” address Luther’s fundamental concern. Yet Luther claimed that the Catholic Church knew nothing of salvation by grace through faith. It’s certainly hard to believe that St. Thomas was the only man of his time who preached these things….

St. Charles Borromeo, too, was a contemporary of Luther’s, and one of his fiercest critics. Borromeo seems to be awfully interested in Jesus and “the treasures of His grace” for someone who is trying to teach “works-righteousness” instead of salvation by grace through faith. Kind of counter-productive reasoning….

The Council of Trent, perhaps the heyday of anti-Protestantism, took place between 1545 and 1563, with its decisions being codified in the Roman Catechism (1566), the revised Roman Missal (1570), and a revised edition of the Vulgate Scriptures (1592). What were Catholics declaring about justification during that time period?

Council of Trent – But when the Apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely, [Rom 3:24, 5:1] these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God [Heb 11:6] and to come to the fellowship of His sons; and we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification. For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the Apostle says, grace is no more grace. [Rom 11:6]

That bears repeating: None of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification!

Some well-known Catholic saints lived at this time. What were they saying?

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) It is by the merits of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that I hope to be saved.

St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) He leaves us for our part all the merit and profit of our services and good works, and we again leave Him all the honor and praise thereof, acknowledging that the commencement, the progress and the end of all the good we do depends on His mercy by which He has come unto us and prevented us, has come into us and assisted us, has come with us and conducted us, finishing what He has begun.

He repairs all, modifies and vivifies; loves in the heart, hears in the mind, sees in the eyes, speaks in the tongue; does all in all, and then it is not we who live, but Jesus Christ who lives in us.

That could be a Protestant preacher talking! But St. John of the Cross was a Catholic mystic, and St. Francis de Sales was a Catholic bishop who, by God’s grace, brought some 70,000 converts to Protestantism back into the Catholic fold! Could it be that those reverts realized how wrong they had been about actual Catholic teaching on justification?

If the Catholic Church taught “salvation through works,” the saints of the 17th, the 18th and the 19th centuries seem not to have realized it:

St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.

St. Claude de la Colombiere (1641-1682) It is yours to do all, divine Heart of Jesus Christ. You alone will have all the glory of my sanctification if I become holy. That seems to me clearer than the day.

St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716 ) Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ.

St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) I hope that God will save me through the merits of the Passion of Jesus. The more difficulties in life, the more I hope in God. By God’s grace I will not lose my soul, but I hope in His mercy.

St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696- 1787) And when the enemy represents to us our weakness, let us say with the Apostle: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Of myself I can do nothing, but I trust in God, that, by His grace I shall be able to do all things.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821) I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself.

St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved!

This all seems a far cry from the perception of Catholics trying to earn Heaven through worthless good works, with no reliance on faith or trust in Christ’s blood. It seems to be a continuous stream of reliance on grace and faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The 20th-century saints speak:

St. Edith Stein (1891-1942) His blood is the curtain through which we enter into the Holiest of Holies, the Divine Life. In baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, His blood cleanses us of our sins, opens our eyes to eternal light, our ears to hearing God’s word.

St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) I fly to Your mercy, Compassionate God, who alone are good. Although my misery is great, and my offences are many, I trust in Your mercy, because You are the God of mercy; and from time immemorial, it has never been heard of, nor do heaven or earth remember, that a soul trusting in Your mercy has been disappointed.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) Keep the light of faith ever burning, for Jesus alone is the Way that leads to the Father. He alone is the Life dwelling in our hearts. He alone is the Light that enlightens the darkness.

“Catholics sure have changed their tune!” is what a lot of folks claim when they read comments like the following from Pope Benedict:

Benedict XVI (1927- ) “Luther’s expression ‘by faith alone’ is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence, to believe is to be conformed to Christ and to enter into his love.”

“Paul knows that in the double love of God and neighbor the whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole law is observed in communion with Christ, in faith that creates charity. We are just when we enter into communion with Christ, who is love.”

You see, this is no capitulation to Protestant doctrine – it’s just the Catholic Church teaching what’s she’s taught all along. If by “faith” you mean “faith that creates charity,” then you understand the subject of justification the way the Council of Trent proclaimed it – faith without works is dead.

Realize, please, that the above-quoted individuals (Benedict XVI excepted – for now) aren’t just anybody; they are saints and blesseds. This means that the Catholic Church has set them up on a pedestal with a flashing neon sign proclaiming, “Pay attention to this person! Imitate her life! Listen to what he said!” Kind of counter-productive if the Church has secretly been cherishing the works-righteousness heresy all these centuries….

But as a Protestant, I didn’t know any of this, basically because I didn’t bother to do research on the subject. Prevailing Protestant wisdom was good enough for me. Little did I realize that Catholic doctrine cannot change!

Next time we’ll examine the prevailing Protestant wisdom on the subject of the Catholic Church and the Bible.

On the memorial of St. Robert Bellarmine

Deo omnis gloria!