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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2018
The debate over counsels of perfection was a crucial aspect of the formation of political and ethical thought in the sixteenth century. It led both Protestants and Catholics to consider the status of law and to consider how far it obliged human beings, rather than simply permitting particular actions. From Luther onwards, Protestants came to see God's standards for human beings in absolute terms, rejecting any suggestion that there were good works which were merely counselled rather than commanded, and therefore not obligatory. This view of ethics underpinned the Protestant theological critique of Catholic doctrines of merit but it also shaped the distinctively Protestant account of natural law. It enabled Luther and his allies to defend magisterial control over the church, and it also formed a crucial element of Protestant resistance theory. By examining the Lutheran position on counsels, expressed in theological and political writings, and comparing it with contemporary Catholic accounts, this article offers a new perspective on Reformation theology and political thought.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Cambridge History of Christianity Seminar and I would like to thank the participants for their comments. I am also grateful to Noah Dauber and the anonymous reviewers of the Historical Journal for their suggestions and advice.
1 Höpfl, H., ed., Luther and Calvin on secular authority (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 3–4Google Scholar. The text can also be found in Luther's works (hereafter LW) (55 vols., St Louis, MO, and Philadelpha, PA, 1955–86), xlv:2, pp. 75–131, entitled ‘On temporal power: to what extent it can be obeyed?’.
2 For an overview, see e.g. von Friedeburg, R. and Seidler, M., ‘The Holy Roman Empire of the Christian nation’, in Lloyd, H., Burgess, G., and Hodson, S., eds., European political thought, 1450–1700: religion, law and philosophy (New Haven, CT, 2007), esp. pp. 114–20Google Scholar; Oakley, F., ‘Christian obedience and authority, 1520–1550’, in Burns, J. H., ed., The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450–1700 (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar.
3 Baylor, M., ‘Political thought in the age of the Reformation’, in Klosko, George, ed., The Oxford handbook of political philosophy (Oxford, 2011), p. 232Google Scholar. J. A. Carty remarks, in a fascinating thesis, that Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount ‘quickly became a defining political problem of the early Reformation’ yet he does not link this to Luther's views on counsels. See his ‘Machiavelli, Luther, and the reformation of politics’ (Ph.D. thesis, Notre Dame, 2006), p. 181.
4 For example Guy, J., ‘The rhetoric of counsel in early modern England’, in Hoak, D., ed., Tudor political culture (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Rose, J., ed., The politics of counsel in England and Scotland, 1286–1707 (Oxford, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Paul, ‘Counsel and command in anglophone political thought’ (Ph.D. thesis, Queen Mary, London, 2013).
5 Luther's views on counsels have not been extensively discussed but some analysis can be found in works concerned with his theology such as Janz, D., Luther on Thomas Aquinas: the angelic doctor in the thought of the Reformer (Stuttgart, 1989), pp. 52–3Google Scholar; Lohse, B., Mönchtum und reformation; Luthers auseinandersetzung mit dem mönchsideal des mittelalters (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 265–7Google Scholar and 364. In Martin Luther's theology: its historical and systematic development, trans. R. Harrisville (Minneapolis, MN, 2011), Bernhard Lohse quotes Luther's reference to the political implications of an erroneous view of counsels on p. 154 but does not link this to his theological discussion of the issue (found earlier, on p. 142). Meanwhile, counsels are not mentioned even in such important studies of Luther's political thought as Thompson, W. Cargill, The political thought of Martin Luther (Brighton, 1984)Google Scholar; or Estes, J., Peace, order and the glory of God: secular authority and the church in the thought of Luther and Melanchthon, 1518–1559 (Leiden, 2005)Google Scholar.
6 The point is made, albeit briefly, in a number of studies of supererogation, such as Heyd, David, Supererogation (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 26–9Google Scholar; Mellema, G., Beyond the call of duty: supererogation, obligation, and offence (Albany, NY, 1991), pp. 44–54Google Scholar. Tierney, B., Liberty and law: the idea of permissive natural law, 1100–1800 (Washington, DC, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, offers a broad account of the concept of permissive law but says little specifically about the early sixteenth century or Protestant political thinking; Conti, G., ‘Jean Barbeyrac, supererogation, and the search for a safe religion’, Modern Intellectual History, 13 (2016), 1–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows the continuing relevance of questions of supererogation into the later seventeenth century.
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11 LW, xlv:2, pp. 81–2; Höpfl, ed., On secular suthority, pp. 3–4.
12 Luther's approach to these issues is set out most clearly in Raunio, A., Summe des christlichen Lebens: die ‘Goldene Regel’ als Gesetz der Liebe in der Theologie Martin Luthers von 1510–1527 (Mainz, 2001)Google Scholar. See also Mäkinen, V. and Raunio, A., ‘Right and dominion in Luther's thought and its medieval background’, in Mäkinen, V., ed., Lutheran Reformation and the law (Leiden, 2006)Google Scholar.
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15 Aquinas, Summa theologica Ia Iae Q 184, esp. a. 4.
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17 LW, li, pp. 9–10, 12–13.
18 LW, xxxi, p. 235.
19 Luther's own experience as a monk may have been important here; see the fascinating article by Köpf, Ulrich, ‘Luther als Mönch’, Luther: Mitteilungen der Luthergesellschaft, 55 (1984), pp. 66–84Google Scholar.
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21 Ibid., p. 257.
22 For the relationship between the two Reformers at this time, see Estes, Peace, order and the glory of God, pp. 58–68; Brecht, Martin Luther, ii, pp. 104–5.
23 The 1521 Loci communes are printed in W. Pauck, ed., Melanchthon and Bucer (London, 1969), quotation from pp. 57–8.
24 The document is entitled ‘Errores excerpti ex probationibus et declarationibus conclusionum Martini Luther ordinis fratrum Heremitarum sancti Augustini’ and printed in Kalkoff, P., Luther und die Entscheidungsjahre der Reformation: von den Ablassthesen bis zum Wormser Edikt (Munich, 1917), pp. 194–203Google Scholar, see esp. pp. 198–9.
25 Determinatio theologicae facultatis Parisiensis, super doctrina Lutheriana, hactenus per eam visa (Paris, 1521), sig. biiiiv (‘Illud verbum Xti Matthaei quinto. Qui percusserit in maxillam dextram &c. Et illus ad Romanos xii. Non vos defendentes charissimi &c non sunt consilia, sicut etiam multi Theologi errare videntur, sed praeceptum. Haec proposition est falsa, legis Christianae nimium onerativa, & sanae intelligentiae scripturae adversa.’) The document is discussed in Farge, J., Orthodoxy and reform in early Reformation France: the Faculty of Theology of Paris, 1500–1543 (Leiden, 1985), pp. 165–9Google Scholar.
26 An account of the events surrounding the Council of Pisa and a selection of relevant texts can be found in Burns, J. H. and Izbicki, T. M., eds., Conciliarism and papalism (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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31 Ibid. Gerson is discussed on fo. 65r–v. Brian Tierney emphasizes Almain's commitment to self-preservation in this text in The idea of natural rights (Atlanta, GA, 1997), pp. 236–7.
32 Acutissimi…Jacobi Almain, fo. 66r.
33 Mair, In Mattheum ad literam, fo. 19v (‘Tenetur plus seipsum diligere quam proximum’).
34 Ibid., fo 21v.
35 Determinatio Theologicae facultatis Parisiensis, under the heading ‘De constitutionibus ecclesiae’.
36 The ongoing importance of the writing of Almain and Mair is also noted in Farge, Orthodoxy and reform, p. 103.
37 Erasmus, Dulce bellum inexpertis, in Phillips, M. Mann, ed. and trans., Erasmus on his times: a shortened version of the ‘Adages’ of Erasmus (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar; also Adams, R., The better part of valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on humanism, war, and peace, 1496–1535 (Seattle, WA, 1962)Google Scholar.
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43 Ibid., p. 114.
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49 Ibid., p. 58.
50 The final, 1559, version of the Loci praecipue theologici is printed in Corpus reformatorum, xxi (Halle and Brunswick, 1834– ), quotations from cols. 722–3.
51 Ibid., cols. 711–16 (‘de lege naturae’).
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58 Der Prediger zu Magdeburgk wahre, gegründte Antwort auff das rühmen ihrer Feinde (Magdeburg, 1551), sig. [Ciiiv], English translation from Schoenberger, ‘The Confession of Magdeburg’, p. 139.
59 Confessio, sig. Br, ‘Depravant legem, cum ex praeceptis de non vindicando, de desertione facultatem & similibus faciunt consilia, opera supererogationis ac perfectionis. Item cum praeferunt opera electitia vitae monasticae, & alia traditionum humanarum, operibus legis divinae praeceptis.’ See also sig. Cv.
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