medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yes, but there are clear differences (and major ones in the 16thc debates) about what happens after death and whether people (saints) in heaven ought to be invoked as intercessors. Some of the Reformers initially maintained some elements of the traditional veneration of saints, but for the most part this faded by the later 16thc and 17thc. Robert Kolb had a book on this in Lutheranism, I think, about 10 years back.
There was a definite retention of the evangelists' and apostles' feasts in the liturgical calendar for Lutherans, perhaps in some Calvinist circles. But even that actually marks out a difference: these could be retained liturgically because they were the first generation and were "biblical".
Honoring the memory of the deceased in stained glass windows etc. may look like the same thing as declaring definitively that someone is in God's presence in heaven and a source of intercession with God. Yes, all deceased Christians who died in faith (who were of the Elect in Calvinist terms) are in heaven, but from the Protestant perspective one did not add them to liturgical calendars or invoke their intercession. One honored the memory of the great figures and martyrs s as God-inspired heroes of faith but even they were not invoked as intercessors. The martyr-books (John Foxe etc.) and heroic stories were very important sources of inspiration and were identity-giving, but as historical figures. This does mark a difference from the Catholic approach.
Gregory's book concerns itself with martyrs, does it not? Martyrdom is the place where Catholics and Protestants probably intersected most. But the non-martyr Catholic saints really have no counterpart in Protestant religious devotion--there are great heroes of the faith (Luther) and even miracle-accounts associated with them, but there's more to the Catholic religious practice than these two aspects, and precisely there the simliarities end and
differences begin.
At least so it would seem to me. One may, of course, deemphasize the differences and emphazise the similiarities, as long as one realizes that one has done that for the sake of some profit to be gained by so doing. Otherwise, I think, one fails fully to understand and be fair to both Protestant and Catholic approaches to the matter.
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/16/02 05:40PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear John & Co:
Brad Gregory's wonderful book "Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in
Early Modern Europe" (Harvard UP 1999) is what made me stop drawing a clear
line between medieval Christian and Protestant notions of sanctity. He
presents a very large body of evidence that shows that Protestants and
Anabaptists viewed their martyrs very much in the terms that people of the
early sixteenth century understood---as "saints," at least in the fairly
broad sense of "people who in some way demonstrated their particular
closeness to God." Certainly saint as example is stressed, rather than
saint as miracle-worker. My impression reading Gregory's work and a little
supplementary material is that the hagiography and iconography shifted, but
there wasn't a clear break from the medieval past. In fact, just a couple
of weeks ago I was in a Lutheran church that included a stained glass
window of Martin Luther looking heavenward with a Bible in his hand, with
something suspiciously like a nimbus around him. And then of course
there's the Anglican branch of Protestantism, which acknowledges saints
both ancient and modern, including special commemorations of such
Protestant greats as Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley.
I happened across a little mine of early "Protestant saints" at the website
Oekumenisches Heiligenlexikon, at http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/. That's
what I'm using as my source.
Phyllis
>>
>>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>
>>Dear Phyllis Jestice: I applaud your listing Protestant martyrs.
>>But was there any Protestant sect that considered them to
>>be "saints"? As to martyrs, you'll be flooded if you start to list
>>the anabaptists. Incidently, what is the printed source you are
>>using for these unhappy (or happy!) folk? Yours, with much thanks,
>>John Mundy
>>
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>
>--
>Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
>University of Southern Mississippi
Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
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