Book Briefs: December 19, 1960

Background Of The Reformation

Erasmus and the Humanist Experiment, by Louis Bouyer (Geoffrey Chapman, 1959, 220 pp., 18s.), is reviewed by Gervase E. Duffield, Secretary to the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research, Tyndale House, Cambridge.

Few people today know much about the humanism of the Renaissance but a knowledge of it is an essential prerequisite for grasping the background and context of the Reformation. To most, humanism has come to mean a system of morality and thought based solely on man’s ideas to the exclusion of everything divine. In the Renaissance era it had an element of this, but it was more a realization of man’s potentiality, his wonder and his achievements. The age was everywhere one of discovery, with Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus finding new lands, and Galileo and Copernicus exploring the mysteries of the universe; but though these were part of the whole movement, the main impact of humanism was in art and literature. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 had driven the Greek scholars westward and sparked off the Renaissance in Italy. Its artistic aspect, the paintings of Raphael and the sculptures of Michelangelo, and so on, are well enough known, so Bouyer concentrates on its literary side. He shows us the changing attitudes of the Popes to the new learning, as it began with the classical studies of Petrarch and the speculative mysticism of Nicholas of Cusa. The author traces it through the education reforms of Vittorino da Feltre, and the brilliant but eccentric cabalism of Pico della Mirandola and so on to Erasmus, the central figure.

There were in fact two humanisms, related but yet distinct. The writer at times seems aware of this, but it is not brought out with sufficient clarity. The Alps were the dividing line intellectually as well as geographically. To the south the emphasis was more secular, more artistic, and permeated by a greater scepticism. To the north it was more religious and educational, and linked with a pietism that had grown weary of scholastic dogma. The chief reason for the difference lay in the Brethren of the Common Life, who originated in the Low Countries.

Bouyer gives us much useful information about Erasmus, going through his Method of True Theology and his Colloquies. In the process he expounds his way of writing, his patristic interests, and his commentating, together with some of his political and moral ideas. The author takes issue with the French scholar Renaudet, who explained Erasmus in terms of the undogmatic approach of the 19th century Liberalism, and made him the virtual founder of the Renan type of Modernism. This is fair criticism, but we must ask if Bouyer himself is not guilty of some preconceptions in his analysis of the great Rotterdamer. Renaudet is accused of vagueness and lack of supporting references on p. 139, but what of Bouyer? Can we explain away The Praise of Folly as a mere verbal pleasantry from a select group and the result of a long chat with Sir Thomas More (p. 99)? Did Erasmus never attack monasticism as such? Did he not say some very strong things about the Pope? Later on, when he saw the way the Lutherans were moving, he drew in his horns, and, wishing to stay within the Roman fold, he claimed he had been misinterpreted, but all this does not mean he never made the attacks in the first place.

What, then, was the historical Erasmus like? His roots were in northern humanism, and he shared its concern for moral improvement and the pietist’s unconcern with dogma. He had more faults than Bouyer mentions, for he loved flattery and was too ambitious for the uninfluential circles of his monastery at Steyn. He advocated a conciliatory policy towards the Lutherans till he was coerced into attacking Luther. Our book passes lightly over this contest and total victory for Luther in The Bondage of the Will, and mentions only Erasmus’ moderation and Luther’s violence (p. 132). It is clear Erasmus was at best a poor theologian, and that his real milieu was the literary world where he could edit texts and write satires. In fact he used the same flippancy in attacking Luther’s view of predestination as he had earlier in his Praise of Folly, and we imagine Bouyer would not deny he really meant to attack Luther. The author places Erasmus between the ultra-conservative Catholics and the Protestant innovators (p. 98), and while this is very convenient, we must note that Trent later decided what Romanism was, and the Tridentine Fathers were certainly ultra-conservative. Further it would be more accurate to say that Erasmus, like his great hero Origen before him who tried to be a Platonist and a Christian, sought to be an orthodox Roman and a Humanist. Formally he was always a Roman, for it hardly occurred to him to be anything else: he hated division and strife of any sort, and though he had inherited the methods of historical and literary criticism from Lorenzo Valla, he was not a critical theologian and did not think theologically. His method of assailing the decadence around him was that of satire, but it breathed a different spirit from the Council of Trent.

Bouyer’s uneasiness with humanism appears towards the end of the book, when he discusses Pope Paul Ill’s three humanist cardinals: Contarini the Italian reformer, Sadoleto the commentator who sought to steal Geneva back from the Protestants, and Pole the Archbishop of Canterbury who so nearly became Pope. “The Christian spirit in these dedicated Churchmen still retained and embraced the humanist spirit, but could not penetrate it” (p. 218). The pietistic humanism of the north had some influence on the Counter-Reformation, but much of it was rejected by Tridentine rigidity. The Reformers had set aside the general man-centred view of life with its Pelagian tendencies and took up the literary tools of humanism, the study of philology, texts, grammar and syntax, historical criticism exposing frauds, and linguistic, classical, and patristic research. When these things ceased to be the domain of satirists and literary dilettantes—well, we know what Bucer, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli, and Peter Martyr did, and they all came from humanist backgrounds.

The book is well written and printed in a large type which helps the reader. An index would have been an improvement, but the work is packed with valuable information, even if the Roman Catholic viewpoint is in evidence at times.

In expressing his opinion of the work of Renaudet Bouyer says that, though his “judgment seems untenable, his book is a valuable guide through a maze of events” (p. 251). We venture to suggest that this appraisal may be applied with equal appropriateness to the work of Bouyer himself.

GERVASE E. DUFFIELD

A Living Faith

The Royal Route to Heaven: A Study in First Corinthians, by Alan Redpath (Revell, 1960, 256 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Richard C. Halverson, pastor Fourth Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C.

Alan Redpath accomplished his purpose, to provide “both food and fire for the hungry heart to which God has revealed the shallowness and ineffectiveness of the church in the world today.” In language notably free from the stereotypes so deadening to familiar truth, he writes as though First Corinthians was meant for twentieth century Christians. Fundamental ideas such as peace, perishing, salvation, mystery, carnality, separation are redefined in a way that stimulates new appreciation for the relevance of ancient truth to contemporary life. Difficult matters like schism, judgment, Tongues are handled with great care and delicate matters such as immorality, sex, marital relations, chastity bear the touch of reverence and wisdom. Discussions on the centrality of the Cross and the ministry of the Spirit commend this book to every reader who seeks to be all he believes Christ intends him to be.

RICHARD C. HALVERSON

Russian Christianity

The Russian Religious Mind, by George P. Fedotov (Harper, 1960, 431 pp., $1.95), is reviewed by Georges Florovsky, Professor of Eastern Church History, Harvard Divinity School.

The standing value of this volume is in its rich documentation. The author surveys in turn all basic writings of the early Russian literature up to the Mongol invasion, in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, and endeavors to discern behind the documents living persons, with their beliefs and convictions, their hopes and achievements, their disappointments and failures. He seeks to show, by a kind of case analysis, the variety and the growth of Russian Christianity, in its first formative age. This task is accomplished superbly.

The author has an unusual insight into the human soul. According to his own admission, Professor Fedotov was interested mainly in the “subjective side” of religion. Not only does he distinguish between the “subjective” and “objective” sides, but he opposes them. He writes as an historian, not as a theologian. This approach has its advantages, but also grave inconveniences. The author is actually interested in the “religious man,” not in the “objective” values to which this man is committed and dedicated. Yet, in the last resort, he does not, because he cannot, abstain from judgment, and this takes him beyond psychology.

The book is a kind of special pleading for a particular type of Christianity, which, according to the author, was characteristic of the Russian mind. He labels it as “Kenotic” (from the Greek word kenosis—self-humbling, humiliation). He contrasts it with the Byzantine pattern, dominated, as he believes, by the attitude of dread and fear. This section of the book is not only the weakest, but is a complete failure. The author does not know Byzantium well enough, and utterly dislikes its religion. The book should be widely read as an introduction to Russian religious psychology, but the reader must be cautious in adopting Professor Fedotov’s theological conclusions. In any case, the Christ of the Russian faith was not only “the Humiliated Christ,” but also the Risen Lord, and the Judge to come. This was also the Christ of the Byzantine.

GEORGES FLOROVSKY

Refined Wellhausenism

A Christian Theology of the Old Testament by George A. F. Knight (John Knox, 1959, 381 pp., $5), is reviewed by Earl S. Kalland, Dean and Professor of Old Testament, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.

G. A. F. Knight, lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew in St. Mary’s and St. Salvator’s Colleges of St. Andrew’s University, in this work, has given to those interested in Biblical studies a positive, modern view of Old Testament theology.

Methodologically, the twin excellences of historic-grammatical analysis and positive presentation grace the book even though many of the historical and grammatical judgments might not be accepted as true.

With almost unfaltering consistency the alleged writers or editors of every section of the Old Testament are chronologically fitted into a somewhat refined and modernized Graf-Wellhausen scheme of authorship. Without a complete committal to this modern reconstruction of Old Testament formation the developmental order of Old Testament theology here espoused cannot be accepted.

An evolutionary historical approach leads Professor Knight to confuse the religion which Israel practiced with the religion which God revealed.

The ancient Near Eastern myths and the terminology which they have in common with the Old Testament have been taken much too seriously in this book.

While corporate Israel often stands out in the Old Testament, here corporate Israel becomes what the New Testament and what many writers since New Testament times interpreted as a prefigurement of Christ Himself. Extremely limited mention is made of the prophecy of an individual Messiah.

For one who is equipped to read it critically, this “theology” should afford some interesting reading but it is not a book for beginners.

EARL S. KALLAND

Backgrounds Of Freedom

Christian History of the Constitution, Volume I, a compilation by Verna M. Hall, edited by Joseph Allan Montgomery. Introduction by Felix Morley (American Christian History Press, 481 pp., no price given), reviewed by Stewart M. Robinson, pastor Second Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, New Jersey.

It is like finding “pieces of eight” to be able to see some of the monuments of our Anglo-Saxon freedom through the photographic skill which brings the ancient page under our eye. The volume is an organized selection of some great chapters out of our national past, from original sources and later historians, indexed and illustrated by pictures of men and places of early days. Other volumes are promised. This is a book to read and ponder. Every portion of our history cost fortune, ease and even life itself to stalwart folk who scattered the seed of a free civil life under God.

Joseph Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, wrote: “The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues;—these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community. It is indeed difficult to conceive how any civilized society can well exist without them. And at all events, it is impossible for those who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster and encourage it among its citizens and subjects,” (Paragraph 1871). This and many other quotations from historic documents make this volume eminently valuable to patriotic Americans.

STEWART M. ROBINSON

Study In Patristics

A Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church Fathers, by Robert R. Williams (Eerdmans, 1960, 224 pp., $4), is reviewed by Earle E. Cairns, Professor of History, Wheaton College.

Those who are interested in the theological, ecclesiastical, and political problems of the Old Catholic Church between A.D. 100 and 400 and the solutions suggested by the Fathers of the Church will find this book quite useful. The title seems to be slightly misleading because the book is really the historical theology of the era with emphasis upon the teachings of the Fathers. These teachings are set forth by pertinent, brief quotations from their writings. Helpful primary and secondary bibliography opens the way for further study. The author’s evangelical treatment of this subject is a welcome addition to the history of the early church.

EARLE E. CAIRNS

Faith And Science

Protestant Thought and Natural Science, by John Dillenberger (Doubleday, 1960, 300 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Systematic Theology, California Baptist Theological Seminary.

This work by a professor in Drew University who is already a recognized scholar in historical theology sketches the reactions of some of the more important theologians and scientists of Christian faith to the critical problems modern science has raised in its course through the past four hundred years. It is a book based upon considerable research in continental libraries and is carefully and clearly written. If there is any over-all thesis to be deciphered from the book it is this: it took the theologians four hundred years to learn to differentiate between a theological sentence and a scientific one. The principal blunder by those who defended the Scriptures and by those who attacked the Scriptures was that the statements in Genesis 1–3 were interpreted as literal statements of scientific facts instead of literary statements of theological truth.

The book has two great values: (1) it is a good history for any professor or preacher or student who wishes to inform himself of the subject, its historical roots, and the essential issues. (2) It can serve as an eye-opener to the person who thinks his own views on Scripture and science are impeccably orthodox. By reading Dillenberger’s work he will discover that some of the opinions held today as constituting orthodox faith are very heretical compared to those of his predecessors. For example, the immobility of the earth was once considered established by very sound exegesis and any view that the earth moved was judged as heretical and contrary to God’s truth!

On the other hand I would question two features of the book:

(1) Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr, and Bultmann are treated as if they are more or less on the same team—they just take “a different stance at bat.” Whatever Barth may have in common with the other men is dwarfed into insignificance when we note his differences from them. Barth, for example, devotes four huge volumes of his Dogmatik to the doctrine of creation and treats the creation account with a seriousness which is far beyond anything found in the works of the other theologians.

(2) The author states that his theological opinion is “neither to the right of Barth nor to the left of Tillich. This is another way of saying that no single interpretation is assumed, but that Protestant orthodoxy, forms of Protestant liberalism, and fundamentalism are rejected” (p. 15). Certainly from such a theological stance no great new interpretation or no great new synthesis can come. It is this standing in three places at once which cripples the concluding part of the book. Dillenberger does admit that the important part of the volume is the longer historical section and with this we concur. While not contributing anything new in the science-theology debate it nevertheless is a most substantial historical contribution which no person who wishes to be completely informed on the subject can afford to overlook.

BERNARD RAMM

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