Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§3.2 The (Re-)Awakening of Historical Awareness
Christendom. The Reformers were naturally interested in the difference of the
past from the present, but not merely for apologetic reasons. They believed that
the western church had itself changed from the church of Jesus' Apostles and the
Fathers — changed not simply as a matter of historical process, but changed too
far beyond the legitimation provided by NT, Apostles, and Fathers. For the Reformers,
therefore, recognition of that difference was fundamental to their criticism
of the changes which they believed had corrupted the church of Rome. In
the so-called 'Radical Reformation' this criticism of present beliefs and ecclesiastical
structures by reference to the axiomatic purity of the primitive church
went much further, as its proponents sought to return to the simplicities of that
primitive purity. And the so-called Counter-Reformation in its own way also recognized
that historical change carried the unavoidable corollary of semper
reformanda (always to be reformed). Integral to the internal debate within the
western church of the sixteenth century, therefore, was a twofold recognition:
first, that the tradition or visible form and practice of the church may at times
need correction; and second, that the past can provide grounds for proper criticism
of (the abuses of) the present. 14
An integral part of the resulting debate was on the authority of the NT
canon, and on how that authority functioned. Or to be more precise, the debate
was on how the meaning of the NT writings may be perceived, in order that they
may function as authority. Here already in 1496, John Colet, in his lectures on
the Pauline letters at the University of Oxford, provided the paradigm for the
Reformation, by maintaining that the text should be expounded simply in terms
of its literal sense (as understood in its historical context) — the sens us
literalis. 15 Martin Luther likewise insisted on the plain or literal or historical
sense and dismissed mediaeval allegorizing as so much rubbish. 16 Most influen-
14. For bibliography on the Reformation and Counter-Reformation see ODCC 423-24,
1374-75. For the Radical Reformation see G. H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962).
15. This should not be seen as a break with mediaeval interpretation, but as a prioritising
of the literal sense, or indeed as a reassertion of the Antiochene Fathers' emphasis on the 'literal'
meaning of the text as against the Alexandrines' openness to its polyvalency as expressed
through 'allegorical' interpretation. J. H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament
Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University, 1983), sums up Colet's significance
thus: 'Though routinely hailed as a harbinger of Reformation exegesis, Colet's real
achievement was simply to provide a running literal commentary in the patristic fashion, abandoning
the late medieval style of exegesis, which often subordinated the scriptures to the needs
of scholastic theology' (9-10); I owe the reference to my colleague Arnold Hunt.
16. See, e.g., the extracts in Kiimmel, New Testament: 'all error arises out of paying no
regard to the plain words'; 'This is the method I now employ, the final and best one: I convey
the literal sense of Scripture. . . . Other interpretations, however appealing, are the work of
fools' (23). See further A. C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (London: Marshall
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