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Conciliar authority in Reformation Scotland: the example of the Kennedy/Davidson debate, 1558–63*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
‘For to the most parte of men, lawfull and godlie appeareth whatsoever antiquitie hath received’, complained John Knox in his 1558 First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women – and indeed for Knox and his fellow Protestants, the question of historical pedigree was troublesome. Catholic polemicists frequently posed some form of the question, ‘Where was your Church before Luther?’, and contrasted this problem with their own historical continuity, unbroken since the apostle Peter. Knox’s homeland of Scotland saw comparatively little sixteenth-century theological debate, but as in Reformation disputes on the continent, in Scotland historical superiority was claimed by Catholic and Protestant alike. A useful means of legitimation for either side, as Knox had said, was to demonstrate greater similarity to the primitive Church than one’s opponent. The appeal to superior historical precedent was particularly central to one Scottish debate, the printed theological exchange between Quintin Kennedy and John Davidson, and here it was slightly unusual in that these authors focused on the general council, rather than the papacy or episcopacy, as the means of historical legitimation.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1997
Footnotes
*
I would like to thank my supervisors, Mr D. F. Wright and Dr Jane Dawson, for their helpful comments on this paper.
References
1 Knox, John, The Works of John Knox, ed. Laing, David, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1846-64), 4, p. 370 Google Scholar (also in John Knox on Rebellion, ed. Roger A. Mason [Cambridge, 1994],
2 For a general discussion of the argument from historical continuity, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols (Chicago, 1971–89), 4, pp. 303–6; comments on Luther and Calvin may be found in Steinmetz, David, Luther in Context (Bloomington, Ind., 1986), pp. 85–97 Google Scholar.
3 An overview of sixteenth-century debates concerning the authority of Church councils may be found in G. R. Evans, Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 241–59. On Protestantism and the conciliar principle see McNeill, J. T., Unitive Protestantism (New York, 1930), pp. 89–129 Google Scholar.
4 See especially three works by Burns, J. H., Scottish Churchmen at the Council of Basle (Glasgow, 1962)Google Scholar; ‘The conciliarist tradition in Scotland’, ScHR, 42 (1963), pp. 89–104; ‘Conciliarism, papalism, and power, 1511–18’, in Diana Wood, ed., The Church and Sovereignty c. 590–1918, SCH.S, 9 (1991), pp. 409–28.
5 Mair’s arguments are analysed in James K. Cameron, ‘The conciliarism of John Mair: a note on A Disputation on the Authority of a Council’, in Wood, The Church and Sovereignty, pp. 429–35. Cameron has also translated the relevant portions of Mair’s commentary on Matthew in Matthew Spinka, ed., Advocates of Reform (London, 1953), pp. 175–84.
6 See John Durkan and Anthony Ross, Early Scottish Libraries (Glasgow, 1961), as indexed. See also Burns, ‘The conciliarist tradition’, pp. 99–100. No copy of Mair’s commentary on Matthew, containing his fullest conciliarist argument, has been found in a Scottish library of the time.
7 There was another council in 1559. For an account of the workings of these councils, see Thomas Winning, ‘Church councils in sixteenth-century Scotland’, in David McRoberts, ed., Essays on the Scottish Reformation 1513–1625 (Glasgow, 1962), pp. 332–58. Winning’s belief that these councils anticipated the Trent decrees seems improbable, but neither can they be called anti-papal: Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History, rev. edn (London, 1992), p. 194.
8 Statutes of the Scottish Church 1225–1559, ed. David Patrick, Scottish History Society, 54 (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 126–7. Only two heresy trials took place after the 1549 provincial council had issued this list: those of Adam Wallace in 1550 and Walter Myln in 1558, for which Foxe records no accusations regarding either the papacy or the councils: The Acts and Monuments of fohn Foxe, ed. Stephen Reed Cattley, 8 vols (London, 1837–41), 5, pp. 636–41, 644–7. The only trial in which Foxe records an accusation of defiance of the authority of general councils is that of George Wishart in 1546: ibid., 5, p. 633.
9 The Catechism of John Hamilton, ed. Thomas Graves Law (Oxford, 1884) [hereafter Ham. Cat.].
10 This point is made by Maurice Taylor, ‘The conflicting doctrines of the Scottish Reformation’, in McRoberts, Essays, p. 263. Taylor attempts to demonstrate that in fact there was significant ‘deference’ to the pope in Scotland at this time, but most historians have maintained rather that the papacy found considerable disregard and indifference. See, e.g., Donaldson, Gordon, The Scottish Reformation (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 35, 43–5 Google Scholar; or Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland 1470–1625 (Edinburgh, 1981), pp. 78–9, 120.
11 It would seem probable that he attended the other provincial councils as well, but no registers of attendance survive.
12 Ed. Laing, David, in The Miscellany of the Wodrow Society (Edinburgh, 1844), pp. 95–175 Google Scholar [hereafter Wod. Misc.]. Two other tracts are found in Quintin Kennedy (1520-1564): Two Eucharistic Tracts, ed. Cornelis Henricus Kuipers (Nijmegen, 1964).
13 Ed. David Laing, in Wod. Misc., pp. 181–258 (quotation at p. 186).
14 It is worth noting that the ‘Reformation Parliament’ did not end theological debate in Scotland; to the contrary, after the political disaster of 1560, Scottish Catholic apologists stepped up their efforts to offer theological challenges to the Protestant Church. Kennedy produced some tracts after 1560, and held a public debate with Knox at Maybole in 1562. A second Catholic apologist, Ninian Winzet, also began writing polemical tracts after 1560, including – significantly for the present theme – a translation of Vincent of Lérins’ Commonitorium in 1563.
15 For the conversion, see John Durkan, ‘The cultural background in sixteenth- century Scotland’, in McRoberts, Essays, p. 330. The Winzet quotation is cited by Laing, Wod. Misc., p. 179. Further biographical details of both men can be found in Laing’s introductions to their works; ibid., pp. 89–94, 177–80.
16 Ibid., pp. 186–7.
17 Ham. Cat., pp. 40–1; cf. p. 47.
18 Ibid., pp. 45, 47.
19 Kennedy’s arguments also bear comparison to those of Jacopo Sadoleto in his letter to the Genevans: A Reformation Debate: John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, trans. Henry Beveridge, ed. John C. Olin (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1976), pp. 29–48.
20 Wod. Misc., p. 100.
21 Ibid., p. 101.
22 Ibid., pp. 100–2.
23 Ibid., p. 103.
24 Ibid., pp. 118–19.
25 Ibid., pp. 110–13.
26 Ibid., p. 119.
27 Ibid., pp. 105–6.
28 The later councils could, by this time, be easily referenced in either of two editions, that of Merlin (1525) or Peter Crabbe (1538, second edition 1551). The second edition of Crabbe, as well as Merlin’s edition of the first four councils (1535), are known to have been in Scottish libraries of the time. See Durkan and Ross, Early Scottish Libraries, as indexed.
29 Though one wonders what Scriptures Kennedy thought existed at this point!
30 Wod. Misc., pp. 107–8, 119–20.
31 Ibid., pp. 135–7. It is perhaps surprising that Kennedy did not level a charge of Donatism – a popular accusation in Reformation debates – against those who denied conciliar authority on the basis of wicked ministers in attendance. See D. F. Wright, ‘The Oonatists in the sixteenth century’, in the forthcoming papers of the Second Symposium on the Church Fathers in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Copenhagen, 1–5 April 1995.
32 Luther, Martin, On the Councils and the Churches, trans, and ed. Jacobs, Charles M., in Works of Martin Luther, 6 vols (Philadelphia, 1915-32), 5, pp. 125–263 Google Scholar. See also Steinmetz, Luther in Context, p. 89.
33 Wod. Misc., pp. 146–7, 155–6.
34 Ibid., pp. 157–60, 166.
35 Ibid., pp. 168–70. The quotation from Augustine is mis-cited in the margin of Kennedy’s work as Depraescriptione haereticorum, which is in fact a work of Tertullian. The correct reference is to Augustine, Contra epistolam quant vocant fundamenti, 5, for which see Sancti Aurelii Augustini De Militate credendi; De duabus animabus; Contra Fortunatum; Contra Adimantum; Contra epistulam fundamenti; Contra Faustum, ed. J. Zycha, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 25 (Prague, Vienna, and Leipzig, 1891), p. 197 (also in PL, 42, col. 176). This statement of Augustine’s had been debated for some time; for examples from Luther, see Luther’s Works, 55 vols (Philadelphia, 1955–86), 35, pp. 150–2; 36, pp. 107–8; cf. Ham. Cat., p. 41.
36 Wod. Misc., pp. 171–2. Kennedy mis-cites the Matt, passage as Matt. 15.
37 There is one passing reference to the pope, ibid., p. 125, but it has nothing to do with the argument itself: ‘Hes nocht Christ bocht us als deir as older Bischop, Abbot, Prior, or Pape?’
38 Although he does mention that Constantine assembled the Council of Nicaea, and praises the fact that he did not himself sit in judgement: ibid., p. 111.
39 It is, however, possible that Kennedy had Trent in mind when discussing whether the laity should read Scripture; he may speculate on the issue ‘because the Kirk as zit hes nocht diffynit thairupon’: ibid., p. 132.
40 See Shaw, Duncan, The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland 1560–1600 (Edinburgh, 1964)Google Scholar, as well as the introduction to the Second Book of Discipline, ed. James Kirk (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 101–2, 116–21. Strangely, the formation of General Assemblies had not been specifically prescribed in the 1560 Book of Discipline or Scots Confession of Faith, and these works mentioned Assemblies only incidentally. See the introduction to The First Book of Discipline, ed. James K. Cameron (Edinburgh, 1972), p. 69.
41 Knox, Works, 2, p. 296 (also in John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. William Croft Dickinson, 2 vols [London and New York, 1949–50], 2, p. 26).
42 Second Book of Discipline, pp. 205–6. A basic conciliar principle may also underpin the Exercise, a regular meeting of ministers and laypeople to discuss the Scriptures, prescribed in the First Book of Discipline, pp. 187–90.
43 Scots Confession, 1560 and Negative Confession, 1581, ed. G. D. Henderson (Edinburgh, 1937), p. 77. The Confession was penned by a committee of six, including Knox.
44 Ibid., p. 79. This standard Protestant position is also found in the First Book of Discipline, pp. 87–8. It was certainly nothing new; see, for example, Calvin’s Reply to Sadoleto, in Olin, A Reformation Debate, p. 92; or Calvin’s Institutes, IV, ix.
45 Henderson, Scots Confession, p. 79. Kennedy had specifically denied holding this view.
46 It is difficult to trace influences on this article, though it does bear similarities to article 21 of the English Church’s 42 Articles of 1552. See Thomas Muir, ‘The Scots Confession of 1560: its sources and distinctive characteristics’ (Edinburgh University, Ph.D. thesis, 1926), p. 73. Interestingly, the draft of these articles, originally numbering 45, was sent to Edward VI’s royal chaplains for approval – one of whom was Knox, who subscribed them: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the reign of Edward VI, 1547–1552 preserved in the Public Record Office, rev. edn, ed. C. S. Knighton (London, 1992), p. 268. Article 21 began with the phrase, ‘Generalia Concilia sine jussu et voluntate Principum congregari non possum’; Knox appears to have changed his mind on this by 1561: see n. 41 above. The manuscript version of the 45 Articles which Knox subscribed also included a significant phrase that was later excised, ‘Possunt reges et pii magistratus non expectata conciliorum generalium sententia aut convocatione in republica sua juxta Dei verbum de rebus religionis constituere’: cited in Charles Hardwick, A History of the Articles of Religion, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1859), p. 302 n. 5.
47 Henderson, Scots Confession, p. 81. This understanding was repeated in the Second Book of Discipline, pp. 197, 205–6.
48 A brief statement of this view, together with a short discussion of conciliarism in the Scots Confession may be found in W. Ian P. Hazlett, ‘The Scots Confession 1560: context, complexion, and critique’, ARC, 78 (1987), pp. 305–6.
49 Wod. Misc., p. 183.
50 Ibid., pp. 190–1. Davidson does not discuss the issue of the perspicuity of Scripture in the Answer; but for Luther and Calvin alike, this was the source of ‘exegetical optimism’ in their refutations of conciliar authority. See Steinmetz, Luther in Context, p. 96. The 1549 provincial council had complained of ignorance of the liberal arts, which Davidson mentions here. See Patrick, Statutes, p. 84.
51 Wod. Misc., p. 195.
52 Ibid., pp. 193–5.
53 Ibid., pp. 184, 199–202. Davidson cites Exod. 14 to defend this position, which reflects his use of the Geneva Bible of 1560; Exod. 14 is found in the Geneva Bible’s cross-references for Acts 15, and Davidson’s statement ‘thay belevit the doctryne that he teachit thaim in the name of the Lorde’ is a direct quotation of the Geneva Bible’s note on Exod. 14.31 (rendered into Scots); ibid., p. 202.
54 On this point, Davidson is stricter than the Scots Confession, which did attribute to councils the occasional refutation of heresy.
55 Ibid., pp. 211–15.
56 Ibid., pp. 216–18.
57 Ariminum, the ‘Robber Synod’ of Ephesus, and Cyprian’s African council; he also mentions the seventeen followers of Arius at Nicaea.
58 Ibid., pp. 218–19.
59 This is an artificially forced translation of the compound verb cum-movere hence ‘moved with’, or ‘co-moved’. Bucer discussed whether the verb was commoveret or commoneret: Martin Bucer, Common Places of Martin Bucer, ed. D. F. Wright, The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics, 4 (Appleford, 1972), pp. 191, 217–18.
60 Wod. Misc., pp. 224–7. On this point, Davidson does not substantially differ from Kennedy; it is the Church’s establishment of extra-scriptural teaching that divides them. The illustration was nothing new; see, e.g., Bucer’s use of it in Common Places, pp. 184, 198 n. 53.
61 This point had also been made previously by Bucer: ibid., p. 214.
62 The priesthood of Melchisedek had been an issue in Kennedy’s 1562 debate with Knox at Maybole; reprinted in Knox, Works, 6, pp. 169–220.
63 Wod. Misc., pp. 231–5.
64 Ibid., pp. 238–46. Kennedy had not mentioned the papacy in connection with the apostle James here, though earlier authors had argued that James’s role in the council disproved Petrine primacy among the apostles, and demonstrated the authority of councils: Pelikan, Christian Tradition, 4, pp. 114–15. Davidson does not appear to have been familiar with Luther’s lengthy exposition of Acts 15 in On the Councils and the Churches.
65 Wod. Misc., p. 249.
66 Knox’s appeals may be found in Knox, Works, 4, pp. 431, 469 (also in Mason, John Knox, pp. 49, 74); those of the Scottish Protestant nobility in Knox, Works, 1, pp. 310, 367 (also in Dickinson, John Knox’s History, 1, pp. 155, 195).