Historiography of the Reformation

Horizons of Understanding• Hans Georg

Gadamer– Student of Martin

Heidegger, author of Being and Time

• Role of Memory• Role of Community• Question: what do

these reflections imply for our ability to know the Truth?

Eusebius of Caesarea• Eusebius’ meta-historical

perspective:– Christian doctrine as the key

to the meaning of history– Roman emperors: valued

according to their advocacy or persecution

– History is God’s plan unfolding in the human realm

• Question: Why might it be necessary for non-Christians to write the history of Christianity?

The Middle Ages• Ad fontes– Illyricus’

Magdeburg Centuries: story of deterioration from pristine ideal

– Catholic response: Baronius

– “Impartial” history: Gottfried Arnold

Reformation vs. reformatio• Doctrine vs. ethical

renewal• Focus on

justification by grace alone

• Significance of Luther: early characterizations

• Von Ranke: Epoch of the Reformation (incl. counter-Reformation)

• Catholic vs. Counter Reformation

Magisterial vs. Radical Intellectual vs. Social History

• Magister: “teacher”

• Radicals: more the province of social history?

• Intellectual history: focus on doctrine and church history– Dominance of

Luther; polarizing figure

– Pietists– Enlightenment

thinkers• Social history:

focus on more “secular” matters

Psychobiography• Erik Erikson:

identity crisis– Conflict with father

as a basis for understanding conflict with society

• Norman O. Brown: Luther’s anal personality– Neo-Freudian– Reformation a form

of pathology

• Scott Hendrix– Contextual family

history– Irreducible to

simple pathology– Neither

opportunism nor piety alone

• Lortz– Tragic

misunderstanding– Late medieval

nominalism

Social History• Centrality of

social, economic, political goals– Theology an

expression of these more fundamental concerns

– Thomas Brady vs. Lewis Spitz

• Marxist historiography– German Peasants

War

• Lindberg’s approach: – Continuity and

mutuality– “Long sixteenth

century”