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Augustinian origins of the Reformation reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2010

Mark Ellingsen
Mark Ellingsen*
Affiliation:
Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta GA 30314, USAmarkellingsen@aol.com
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Abstract

The work of Alister McGrath and Julius Kostlin challenges the often-cited claim regarding Luther's dependence on Augustine. The article demonstrates that such critics fail to recognise the rich diversity of the African father's thought, but have been inclined to read it systematically the way the Roman Catholic interpretative tradition has. Text study of Augustine's writings, as well as Luther's comments about the African father, reveals that the Reformer's insights about soteriology (including the externality and passivity of righteousness as well as other aspects of his dialectical thinking) are affirmed by Augustine. Likewise, even Luther's critiques of Augustine lend insight into the Reformer's appropriation of his thought. The article demonstrates that when Luther diverges from the African father the two men are addressing incompatible pastoral concerns, but when he is inspired by Augustine their pastoral contexts are similar. This insight sheds fresh light on the sense in which we can speak of an Augustinian character of the Reformation. The article's findings also lend further credence to the possibility that there is a pattern to the use of Christian concepts in the history of the church, whereby, in similar contexts such as in response to perceived Pelagianism, Christians have pretty much responded similarly throughout the centuries.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , February 2011, pp. 13 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2010

The work of Julius Kostlin, and more recently of Alister McGrath, has challenged the often-cited claim regarding Luther's dependence on Augustine.Footnote 1 In their view, among other claims, although the influence of Augustine on Luther ‘is indisputable’, the Reformer's core Reformation insights cannot have been derived from the thought of the African father, for several of Luther's characteristic affirmations (the denial of free will, the affirmation that Christians are regarded as just by God purely by faith, unable to perform anything meritorious in God's sight, a corresponding forensic understanding of justification, his construal of the righteousness of God and the tensions he posits between reason and faith) were never made by Augustine. Even Heiko Oberman concedes that the Reformer's treatment of the righteousness of God is not identical with Augustine's construal.Footnote 2

My thesis is that such critics have failed to recognise the rich diversity of the African father's thought, but have been inclined to read it systematically the way the Roman Catholic interpretative tradition has. The text study of Augustine and Luther's writings about Augustine which follows reveals that the Reformer's insights about soteriology (including the externality and passivity of righteousness as well as other aspects of his dialectical thinking) are also affirmed by Augustine. In fact, even Luther's critiques of Augustine lend insight into the way in which the Reformer appropriated the thought of the great North African Christian. I will demonstrate that when Luther diverges from Augustine they are addressing incompatible pastoral concerns but, when he is inspired by Augustine, it is with reference to Augustinian texts addressing pastoral concerns akin to those of the Reformer at that time.

In order to gain historical perspective, let us begin with the way in which Augustine was read by others in Luther's context and in the years prior to the Reformer's career. The influence of Augustine on medieval theology is immense. His original works, however, were not considered, but rather scholars relied on collections of Augustinian comments taken out of context. This could lead to some distortions of the African father's thought by his medieval interpreters.Footnote 3

A related dynamic in reading Augustine in the High Middle Ages was that theologians of the era based their doctrines of justification on the Council of Carthage (418) which used grace in a less precise sense than the Synod of Orange, permitting a wide range of theologies of justification in the era.Footnote 4 The Augustinian Order had a different approach, especially focusing in Luther's lifetime on Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings.Footnote 5 This Renaissance-influenced stress on primary sources, rather than relying on commentaries or compilations, quite naturally led to a different reading of Augustine, one more grace-orientated in the case of the Augustinian Order.

In short, then, Luther's new insights were essentially an abandonment of one specific late medieval option of studying Augustine in favour of another within the spectrum of views of justification in the era. I think that McGrath is correct in contending that the Reformer himself did not seem to realise this, and tended to identify the views of the via moderna with the teachings of the church. In fact, the Reformer's stress on grace was not a departure from one strand of nominalism, insofar as Gregory of Rimini was deemed a nominalist, though heavily indebted to Augustine.Footnote 6 However, I think that Oberman is correct in contending that the Augustinianism which impacted Luther was not received separately from Renaissance humanism and nominalism.Footnote 7 However, none of these historical dynamics negates the clear impact of Augustine on Luther's Reformation insights and his mature theology.

What Luther says about Augustine

In trying to determine the degree to which Augustine influenced Luther, a logical place to start is with the Reformer's Tower Experience. In accounting late in his life in 1545 for that experience, Luther claims later to have read Augustine as interpreting God's righteousness as he has, ‘as the righteousness with which God clothes us when He justifies us’.Footnote 8 Augustine's own language while addressing the Pelagian heresy certainly suggests that Luther had correctly understood him:

the ‘righteousness of God,’ – not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly . . . ‘But righteousness of God by faith of Jesus,’ that is by the faith wherewith one believes in Christ . . . But both no doubt are ours, but yet they are called God's and Christ's, because it is by their bounty that these gifts are bestowed upon us.Footnote 9

Granted, this is not the whole story regarding Augustine's view of the righteousness of God and justification. He will subsequently speak of justification as a process aiming at righteousness, while being concerned with questions about exhorting the practice of the Christian life.Footnote 10 But the preceding quotations clearly indicate that critics of a direct dependence of Luther on Augustine cannot make this point by contending that Augustine never identified the righteousness of God with the righteousness of Christ.

Although Luther's 1545 remarks seem to imply that the Reformer's breakthrough came prior to this awareness of what he shared with Augustine, a study of his Lectures on Romans given in 1515 and 1516 makes it clear that the Reformer did know of Augustine's view of the righteousness of God prior to the beginning of the Reformation.Footnote 11 This important observation seems to verify the accuracy of the Reformer's 1538 account of the Tower Experience; making these remarks over dinner he appears to claim that the insights from Augustine were contemporary with his insights in the Tower Experience.Footnote 12

Other examples of Augustine's influence on Luther prior to the Reformation, perhaps prior to the Tower Experience, might be cited. The Reformer relied on Augustine's insights in some of his pre-Reformation sermons.Footnote 13 No less interesting is his claim in his May 1517 Letter to John Lang that ‘our theology and Augustine are progressing well [at the Wittenberg University]’.Footnote 14

As early as his First Lectures on Psalms, Luther was praising Augustine's teaching as unique for not setting up his own righteousness.Footnote 15 He also invokes him for appreciating that everyone who acknowledges Christ begins to abhor his own vanity.Footnote 16 Granted, Luther did disagree with the African father on some specific texts,Footnote 17 but he relies on the African father frequently in the Lectures, as the Reformer reports on Augustine's exegesis. Luther also invokes Augustine's view of sin as pride which spoils our works.Footnote 18 He cites Augustine for rejecting the transferability of the saints’ merits, a point to which he later appealed in The Ninety-Five Theses.Footnote 19 He may have invoked Augustine in affirming the threefold character of God's image in man.Footnote 20

We have already noted Luther's invocation of Augustine's views in the Reformer's Lectures on Romans. A few other examples should be identified. Luther cited Augustine favourably in these Lectures for regarding sin as concupiscence and for appreciating (breaking with Aristotle) that sin is not removed in baptism, but not imputed.Footnote 21 Something like this forensic understanding of justification may also have been suggested to Luther from the nominalist heritage, most especially from John Duns Scotus and later from Gregory of Rimini.Footnote 22 The Reformer also aligned himself with Augustine in the affirmation of the struggle the baptised continue to have with sin.Footnote 23 The same point is made elsewhere in the Lectures with regard to the identification of sin with concupiscence. Even Augustine's qualifications about the sense in which he identified concupiscence with sin are noted.Footnote 24

Augustine was deemed by the Reformer to hold views much like Luther with regard to the idea of the Christian as simul iustus et peccator.Footnote 25 The African father's realism about politics was also invoked.Footnote 26 Along with endorsing Augustine's affirmation of the enslavement of the human will in sin,Footnote 27 Luther also found Augustine to be an ally in understanding the Law to condemn sin by encouraging our sin.Footnote 28 Indeed the Reformer even claims that the Law–Gospel distinction was derived from Augustinian insights.Footnote 29 No less intriguing is that, when describing a mode of living the Christian life, Luther even endorsed Augustine's efforts to exhort Christian life or to exonerate God from the sceptre of determinism by means of uncharacteristic Reformation affirmations such as his claim in these lectures that we must be prepared for grace,Footnote 30 and that love unties lover and beloved.Footnote 31

Luther's theses in The Disputation Against Scholastic Theology are also revealing of the impact of Augustine on his early development. He rejected those who de-emphasised Augustine's stress on grace by claiming that he exaggerates in speaking against heretics. He further rejected, at one point in Augustine's name, the belief that we can avoid sin and concupiscence naturally.Footnote 32 He also rejected Ockham's concept of the role of the will in meriting grace by works of preparation and also affirmed a kind of forensic understanding of justification – being made righteous by God.Footnote 33 Comments in a Letter to George Spalatin, written less than three months after posting the Ninety-Five Theses indicate that Augustine's theology was for the Reformer the key to understanding scripture in his Reformation breakthrough.Footnote 34

It is true that in 1531 Luther critiqued Augustine. The point of the critique was the African father's claim that, with the Spirit, works justify.Footnote 35 Luther's concern was to deny that works justify. This critique does not seem to take into account Augustine as a whole. In the passage cited, there is some suggestion that the African father thinks that righteousness and perfect love have never been achieved. In addition, Augustine claimed that confession involves being displeased with ourselves and attributing our goodness to God and employed conceptuality, which implies something like Luther's simul iustus et peccator.Footnote 36

The Reformer also once accused Augustine in 1527 of not talking enough of faith.Footnote 37 Could he here have had in mind those instances when he invoked Augustine to authorise some of his pre-Reformation Scholastic assertions? Elsewhere in his Lectures on 1 John he claims that Augustine would not have said anything of faith had he not had Pelagius to counter (an indication that Luther himself preferred the African father's anti-Pelagian writings).Footnote 38

Luther also appealed to Augustine's acknowledgement of the role of faith in sacramentology. And Augustine himself taught that faith is counted as righteousness.Footnote 39

Nevertheless, there are other examples in Luther's remarks about Augustine which seem to support the thesis of Kostlin, McGrath and other critics of the Reformer's dependence on Augustine. In his 1522 Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans he seems unhappy with some of Augustine's interpretations of Paul. We also observe a somewhat critical perspective on Augustine with regard to the father's treatment of the letter–spirit distinction in one of his sermons.Footnote 40

Late in his career, while lecturing on the book of Genesis, the Reformer did not condemn Augustine's views of the image of God, but still worried that their logic might be distorted. In 1532 he stated his preference for The Augsburg Confession over Augustine.Footnote 41 In the same year he seems to claim that Augustine is not as big a deal to him, that once he understood Paul he put Augustine aside.Footnote 42

Despite these comments, a year later, Luther praised Augustine's insights on marriage and also praised the African father's view of the Law in 1538.Footnote 43 In 1539 the Reformer likewise expressed appreciation for the African father's claim that God crowns nothing but his own gifts.Footnote 44 In the same year, he also claimed that Augustine was the best of the fathers.Footnote 45

To clinch my argument, let's look at the other profound evidences of the Augustinian influence on Luther, beginning with the earliest part of his career. In Luther's first book expounding his theology of the cross in 1517, he invokes the African father at several points, including the affirmation of justification by faith.Footnote 46 In his First Lectures on Galatians that year he invokes Augustine for teaching that nothing is pure, since even the Christian is simul iustus et peccator.Footnote 47 Augustine was said to claim in this treatise, as well as in others, that sin is not imputed to the faithful.Footnote 48

Sometimes Luther's stress on the pro nobis, on what Christ has done for us, is seen as distancing himself from Augustine. In 1517 the Reformer fairly and accurately cited Augustine as an ally in regarding Christ as sacrament and example for us, something like Luther's version of the pro nobis. In his On the Trinity, the African father speaks of Christ as a type of what happens to the faithful; what happens to him happens to those in him.Footnote 49

Luther appealed to the Augustinian doctrine of the union of the believer with God through the Spirit at one time in order to refute the Aristotelian concept of a created habit. Of course the Finnish School of Luther interpretation has brought the presence of this image in Luther's thought to our attention. In most of these cases the Reformer does not cite Augustine as an ally.Footnote 50 This was a position held by Staupitz.Footnote 51 Though Luther seems not directly to have appealed to Augustine for his concept of justification as union with Christ, but derived the concept more from mysticism as it is present in Theologica Germanica, he clearly saw the compatibility between the concepts of mysticism and those of Augustine, and so to that extent even this theme can be deemed Augustinian.Footnote 52

An abundance of other examples of the young Luther's dependence on insights drawn from Augustine are readily identifiable. In the Heidelberg Disputation, the Reformer cited Augustine for contending that free will without grace can do nothing but sin. Like Augustine, he contended that free will is just an enslaved will.Footnote 53 It is true that Oberman has a point in noting that Luther's divorce of reason and faith are the result of his nominalism. But there is also evidence that Luther's commitment to affirming theological paradoxes which defy reason is said by him to be derived from Augustine as well as Paul.Footnote 54

The young Luther invoked the African father for a variety of other reasons. In the Proceedings at Augsburg he accurately cites Augustine as advocating scripture as the judge of all doctrine. He made the same point in 1519 and again in 1521.Footnote 55 In a previously cited 1518 letter, Luther even praises Augustine and Ambrose for their teachings on Christ and grace. In the same year, he notes how much he learnt from Augustine. In 1521, as he later reiterated in 1539, the Reformer designates the African father as the best of the fathers.Footnote 56

For other examples of Luther's endorsement of Augustine later in his career, a most obvious one is his 1538 account of the Tower Experience, as well as appeal to the African father in De servo arbitrio.Footnote 57 In fact, as early as 1516 he was claiming that Erasmus would understand Paul better if he studied Augustine's anti-Pelagian works. In a similar vein, in 1531, Luther even claimed that he would have the Pope interpret the Gospels according to Augustine.Footnote 58

Augustine was also said to be a true preacher, unlike the Popes, who cannot hold a candle to him. Indeed at one point late in his life it was said by Luther that Augustine has done more than all the Councils.Footnote 59 In 1536 Luther even claimed that Augustine was totally on his side regarding justification by faith.Footnote 60

Augustine even seems to be an influence on Luther's view of the relationship between church and temporal government. In addition to his unacknowledged overall embrace of the Augustinian two-realms view of world history, the Reformer expressly invokes Augustine's warnings that faith is not to be compelled by government.Footnote 61

Later in life, Luther cites Augustine in support of the authority of the literal sense of scripture.Footnote 62 The African father also was accurately invoked, at least with respect to some of his comments in polemical circumstances, to support the Reformer's appeal to the sole authority of scripture.Footnote 63

To some extent during this later period Luther continued to find his Law–Gospel distinction in Augustine.Footnote 64 And in his final lecture series, the Reformer spoke of Augustine as ‘one of the greatest lights of the Church’ when disagreeing with his claim that the Lord created the cosmos in a single instant while the Reformer himself insisted on a six-day creation in that context.Footnote 65 Elsewhere in the lectures, though, Luther unambiguously praised the African father, commending his modesty about what reason can know about faith (a kind of authorisation for the Reformer's dialectical style of theologising).Footnote 66 The African father's insights have even informed generations of Lutherans, through Luther's endorsement of Augustine's definition of a sacrament in his The Large Catechism.Footnote 67

It is evident that most of the time Luther has broken with the medieval transformation models – justification as a healing process. Clearly Augustine employed this way of thinking, but not all of the time.

Did Augustine really teach what Luther taught?

This is the crucial part of executing the thesis, refuting critics of Luther's Augustinian roots. To some extent the critics and Catholic interpreters of Augustine are correct. He said a lot of characteristically Roman Catholic things, relying on images that are not in line with Luther's later thinking. But when addressing certain heresies (especially in the anti-Pelagian writings) or when just expositing the logic of faith, many of Luther's characteristic Reformation themes are identifiable in the Augustinian corpus.

We have already noted texts where Augustine, despite his appeal to the authority of tradition in some contexts, did affirm the sole authority of scripture against heretics.Footnote 68 There are numerous other examples in Augustine's writings, especially when he addressed Pelagianism or was expounding the logic of the Christian faith, which, contrary to the critics we have noted, testify to the conclusion that Luther did in fact correctly interpret the African father in arriving at a number of his Reformation insights. I cite a few in closing.Footnote 69

True enough, Augustine did posit a correlation of reason and faith, of nature and grace, in some contexts (especially when addressing pastoral issues not related to heresy).Footnote 70 But when concerned with matters of works-righteousness or undue rationalism (issues similar to those Luther addressed when positing his theology of the cross), he in fact posited their tension, much as Luther did in similar contexts. Indeed in his City of God, he posited a dialectical tension between reason and faith:

Here we have two incredibles, – to wit, the resurrection of our body to eternity, and that the world should believe so incredible a thing . . . We see that already one of the two has come to pass, for the world has believed what was incredible . . .Footnote 71

Along the same lines, a point not noticed by critics of the Augustinian roots of Luther's thought, the Reformer's Law–Gospel dialectic is legitimately rooted in Augustine's spirit–letter distinction. In his On the Spirit and the Letter Augustine wrote:

Nevertheless, it is not by the law that the ungodly are made righteous, but by grace . . . The law was therefore given, in order that grace might be sought; grace was given, in order that the law might be fulfilled.Footnote 72

McGrath and his fellow critics insisted that Luther and Augustine do not mean the same thing by the righteousness of God, that the African father did not teach justification by faith as the Reformer did. We have already produced some evidence to the contrary, while acknowledging many times when Augustine did endorse the Catholic transformationist model, even to the point of teaching a role for works in contributing to our salvation by cooperating with grace.Footnote 73 But when addressing Pelagius, even when merely explicating the logic of the faith, Augustine is right in line with Luther's millennium-later appropriation of him. The external character of the righteousness received in justification seems clearly affirmed in The Enchiridion. The African father writes:

He [Christ], then, being made sin, just as we are made righteousness (our righteousness being not our own, but God's, not in ourselves, by in Him) . . .Footnote 74

We have already seen that, contrary to the critics, when Augustine discusses the righteousness of God in On the Spirit and the Letter, in the very text which impacted Luther's insight, he describes God's righteousness in harmony with the righteousness of Christ and in such a way that it seems to contradict our experience. This point is made even more clearly in another text from this treatise. Augustine wrote:

When further on he [Paul] commends in glowing terms this same grace, in the Lord Jesus Christ, until He comes to that vestment of the righteousness of faith, ‘clothed with which we cannot be found naked,’ and whilst longing for which ‘we groan’ . . . This is not the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous, but that whereby we are made righteous by Him.Footnote 75

The role of faith in justifying us is no less clearly affirmed in the anti-Pelagian writings of the African father. At these points Augustine also seems to embrace a forensic view of justification, as he contends that ‘faith is counted for righteousness’.Footnote 76

In another of his anti-Pelagian treatises, A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Augustine spoke of even the beginning of faith as a gift that God works in the hearts of men. Such comments, as well as remarks referring to our ‘being clothed’ in righteousness or God ‘bestowing righteousness’ on the faithful, seem to imply the passivity of faith and the righteousness that saves – language characteristic of Luther.Footnote 77 Even something like Luther's simul iustus et peccator is evidenced in the anti-Pelagian Augustinian corpus. In one of many such texts Augustine wrote:

Carnal concupiscence is remitted, indeed, in baptism; not so that it is put out of existence, but so that it is not to be imputed for sin.Footnote 78

Luther offers a new reading of Augustine in his medieval interpretative context (in the late Middle Ages the Augustinian Order was especially focused on Augustine's anti-Pelagian writingsFootnote 79). But to claim that the Reformer's insights are just a matter of his creativity and biblical insight, not rooted in what Augustine actually wrote, shows a faulty reading of the richness of Augustine. In fact, the Reformer read the Augustinian corpus critically, as is evident in his dispute with Karlstadt over the authenticity of de vera et falsa Poenitentia.Footnote 80

Perhaps one could deal with the differences between the Reformer and the African father by contending that, in order to say things he thought Augustine was trying to say, it was necessary to break with the African father's conceptuality.Footnote 81 I personally believe that their differences pertain to Luther not endorsing what Augustine said when he was addressing issues distinct from those the Reformer was considering. When they addressed similar contexts, Luther was clearly in line with the Augustinian heritage.

Footnotes

Ibid.
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References

1 The claim that Luther's thought continues Augustine's line of thinking has Reformation roots. In The Augsburg Confession (1530), 20.12–13, Philip Melanchthon made this claim, though see the 1531 letter he wrote to Johann Brenz, in Dave Armstrong and Edwin Tait, ‘The Ambiguous Relationship of Luther and the Early Protestants to St Augustine’ (May 27, 2004), at http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2004/05/ambiguous-relationship-of-luther-and.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2010), and see D. Martin Luthers Werke: Briefwechsel (16 vols; Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1930ff.; abbreviated as WABr), vol. 6, p. 100, on Melanchthon contending that sola fide did not characterise Augustine's view of justification. Among modern interpreters inclined to affirm the Augustinian roots of Luther's thought, see Delius, Hans-Ulrich, Augustin als Quelle Martin Luthers (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1884)Google Scholar; Lohse, Bernhard, ‘Die Bedeutung Augustins für den jungen Luther’, Kerygma und Dogma 11 (1965), pp. 116–35Google Scholar; Bainton, Roland H., The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1952), esp. p. 36Google Scholar; von Loewenich, Walther, Luther's Theology of the Cross, trans. Bouman, Herbert J. A. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1976), p. 66Google Scholar; Dillenberger, John and Welch, Claude, Protestant Christianity Interpreted through its Development (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954), pp. 31, 52Google Scholar; Gritsch, Eric, Martin – God's Court Jester: Luther in Retrospect (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983), pp. 12, 16, 73Google Scholar; Stange, Carl, Theologische Aufsätze, vol. 8 (Leipzig, 1905)Google Scholar; Spitz, Lewis W., Luther and German Humanism (Variorum: Aldershot, 1996), pp. 93–101Google Scholar (who claimed that the Augustinian revival and humanism of the late Middle Ages conditioned Luther's mind); Oberman, Heiko A., Luther: Man between God and the Devil, trans. Walliser-Schwarzbart, Eileen (New York and London: Doubleday, 1992), esp. p. 180Google Scholar (as he claims that Luther was inspired by Augustine). The claim is made by implication in Oberman, Heiko A., ‘Headwaters of the Reformation: Initia Lutheri – Initia Reformationis’, in Oberman, (ed.), Luther and the Dawn of the Reformation (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), pp. 40–88Google Scholar; Oberman, Heiko A., The Reformation, Roots and Romification (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), pp. 25–6Google Scholar (on Luther's Augustinian eschatology). For the influence of Augustine on Luther's earliest research on the Bible, see Grane, Leif, Modus Loquendi Theologicus: Luthers Kampf um der Erneuerung der Theologie (1515–1518) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 60–2Google Scholar. He claims that in Luther's Commentary on Romans the Reformer sometimes cited passages from Augustine in the margin and then did something entirely on his own in the gloss. Oberman, Heiko A., The Dawn of the Reformation (Edinburgh: T &T. Clark, 1986), esp. p. 52Google Scholar, claims that affirming the roots of Luther's theology in Augustine characterises contemporary interpretations of the Reformer's thought.

2 Kostlin, Julius, Martin Luther: Sein Leben und seine Schriften, vol. 1 (5th edn; Berlin: Alexander Duncker, 1903), p. 138Google Scholar; McGrath, Alister E., Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (2nd edn; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 25–7Google Scholar, 47; McGrath, Alister E., The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), esp. p. 177Google Scholar. Also see Pelikan, Jaroslav, Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700), vol. 4 of The Christian Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 140–41Google Scholar. Ibid., pp. 252–3, he cites others who felt Augustine was not the principal ancestor of the Reformation. Also see Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation, pp. 72, 119–20 (claiming that, unlike for Luther, sola fide does not characterise Augustine's view of justification and that the righteousness of God is the goal of justification, not given in the righteousness of Christ). A related version of this view is affirmed by Brian Gerrish and Edward Cranz, contending that Luther's earliest views were Augustinian, but that that was his pre-Reformation orientation. See Gerrish, Brian, The Old Protestantism and the New (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1982), pp. 74–6, 85Google Scholar; Cranz, F Edward, An Essay on the Development of Luther's Thought on Justice, Law, and Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 22–7Google Scholar, 51–2, 58–61. Staupitz and Karlstadt are alleged to have been more faithful to Augustine than the mature Luther. See Fitzgerald, Allan D. (ed.), Augustine through the Ages (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 517Google Scholar.

3 McGrath, Intellectual Origins, pp. 23–4, 199, provides a good example from Gabriel Biel of problems which resulted because of medieval theologians’ reliance on collections of Augustine's writings.

4 Ibid., pp. 26–7. See Canons of the Council of Carthage (418).

5 McGrath, Intellectual Origins, p. 87. Luther himself embodies this commitment in his Letter to George Spalatin, no. 27 (1516), in WABr, vol. 1, p. 70, line 8. English trans. in Luther's Works, vol. 48 (54 vols; St Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Publishing House and Fortress Press, 1955ff.), p. 24 (hereafter referred to as LW); Letter to George Spalatin, no. 57 (1518), WABr 1:134.46/LW 48:54.

6 For insights about Luther's relation to other late mediaeval theological options, see McGrath, Intellectual Origins, pp. 27–8. Concerning Gregory of Rimini and Luther's relation to his strand of thinking, see Oberman, , Luther, trans. Walliser-Schwarzbart, Eileen (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 122Google Scholar. Luther's contemporaries saw him in Gregory's line of thinking. See Letter to George Spalitan, no. 187 (1519), WABr 1:422f.89ff./LW 31:322.

7 Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation, p. 79.

8 Martin Luther, Vorrede zum 1. Bande Gesamtausgaben seiner lateinischen Schriften (1545), in D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar Ausgabe: 56 vols; Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883ff.), vol 54, p.186, line 16 (hereafter WA)/English trans. in LW 34:337: ‘Postea legebam Augustinum de spiritu et litera, ubi praeter spem offendi, quod et ipse iustitiam Dei similiter interpretatur: qua nos Deus induit, dum nos iustificat’.

9 Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 9.15/English trans. in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1st ser. 5 (14 vols; reprint edn; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), p.89 (hereafter NPNF): ‘Justitia, inquit, Dei manifestata est: non dixit, Justitia hominis, vel justitia propriae voluntatis; sed justitia Dei, non qua Deus Justus est, sed qua induit hominem, cum justificat impium . . . Justitia autem Dei per fidem Jesus Christi, hoc est, per fidem qua credit Christus . . . Utrumque enim nostrum est; sed ideo Dei et Christi dicitur, quod ejus nobis largitate donator’. Also ibid., 32:56/NPNF 5:108; Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus (416), 26.6.1/NPNF 7:168; Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum (411), 1.13.18/NPNF 5:21.

10 Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 11.18/NPNF 5:90; Augustine, De nature boni contra Manichaeos (404), 31/NPNF 4:357.

11 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief (1515–16), WA 56:172.3ff.; 36:11/ LW 25:151–2, 30.

12 Luther, Tischreden (1538), no. 4007, in D. Martin Luthers Tischreden, vol. 4 (6 vols; Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912ff.), pp. 72–3, lines 27ff. (hereafter WATR)/LW 54:309. Also see Luther's earlier Quaestio de viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia disputata (1516), WA 1:145–51.

13 Luther, First Sermon (c.1510), WA 4:592.15/LW 51:9; Luther, Sermo: Dominica X. post-Trinitatis (1516), WA 1:64.8/LW 51:16; cf. Luther, Dictata super Psalterium (1513–15), WA 3:54.11; 79.7; 94.5/LW 10:64, 86, 99.

14 Luther, Letter to John Lang (1517), WABr 1:99.8/LW 48:42: ‘Theologia nostra et S. Augustinus prospere procedunt et regnant in nostra universitate Deo operante. Aristoteles descendit paulatim inclinatus ad ruinam prope futuram sempiternam’.

15 Luther, Dictata super Psalterium (1513–15), WA 3:26.28/LW 10:27.

16 Ibid., 54.1/LW 10:64.

17 Ibid., 254f.35/LW 10:210.

18 Ibid., 587.20/LW 11:75–6.

19 Ibid., 4:239.10/LW 11:372; cf. Luther, Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, 18 (1517), WA 1:234.11/LW 31:26; Luther, Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (1517), WA 1:563.15ff./LW 31: 138–9.

20 Luther, Dictata super Psalterium (1513–15), WA 3:44f.39/LW 10:50.

21 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief (1515–16), WA 56:273f.9/LW 25:261; cf. Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (418/420), 1.25.28/NPNF 1/5:275.

22 Gregory of Rimini, II Sent. Dist. (1482), xxixqlal; John Duns Scotus, Reportata Parisiensis (c.1305), I dist.xvii, q. 1, nn. 5–6.

23 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:69.24; 353.14/LW 25: 63,342; Augustine, Contra Julianum (421/422), 3.7.

24 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:352.22; 353.5/LW 25:341, 342; cf. Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (418/420), 1.22.25/NPNF I/5:274.

25 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:351.3; 352.22/LW 25:339–40, 341. See Luther, Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (1521), WA 7:342.8ff.; 344.10/LW 32: 27, 28; Martin Luther, Rationis Latominae confutati (1521), WA 8:90.5/LW 32:204.

26 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:189.24/LW 25:172; cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei (413–26), 4.4/NPNF 2:66.

27 Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:385.15–22/LW 25:375. Also see De servo arbitrio (1525), WA 18:665.6/LW 33:108; cf. Augustine, Contra Julianum (421/422), 3.8, 23.

28 Luther, Die Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, WA 56:200.15; 340f.30/LW 25:183–4, 329.

29 Ibid., WA 56:256f.29/LW 25:243–4.

30 Ibid., WA 56:202.15/LW 25:186; cf. Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 27.47–28.49; 33.58–34.60/NPNF 5:103–4, 109–10; Augustine, De natura et gratia, contra Pelagium (415), 27.31; 46.54–50.58; 67.80/NPNF 5:131–2, 139–41, 149.

31 Ibid., WA 56:241.4/LW 25:226–7.

32 Luther, Disputatio contra scholasticum theologiam (1517), 9, 10, 11, 13, WA 1:233f.27ff./LW 31:10. Also see Luther, Vorlesung über den 1. Johannisbrief (1527), WA 20:753.36/LW 30:300.

33 Luther, Disputatio contra scholasticum theologiam (1517), 12, 13, 40, 56, WA 1:233f.33ff./LW 31:10, 12, 13.

34 Luther, Letter to George Spalatin (1518), WABr 1:134.47/LW 48:54.

35 Luther, Tischreden (1531), no. 85, WATR 1:32.7/LW 54:10. Luther makes the same criticism in his In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarius (1519), WA 2:493.27/ LW 27:225–226. Cf. Augustine, Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum (c.420), 3.20/NPNF 5:412.

36 Augustine, Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum 3.21–2/NPNF 5:412–13; Augustine, Confessiones (399), 10.2.2; 8.9.21; 8.5.10/NPNF 1:142, 125, 120–1; Augustine, Sermones (n.d.), 67.1/NPNF 6:311; (c.409) 57.9/NPNF 6:283; Augustine, De natura et gratia, contra Pelagium (415), 53.61/NPNF 6:5:142; Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (418/420), 1.30.33; 1.27.30–1.28.31/NPNF 5: 277, 276.

37 Luther, Vorlesung über den 1. Johannisbrief (1527), WA 20:776.22/LW 30:313.

38 Ibid., WA 20:775f.26ff.

39 Luther, Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers, so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (1521), WA 7:325.27/LW 32:17; Luther, Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentarum virtute (1517), WA 1:595.5/LW 31:193; cf. Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione, et de baptismo parvulorum (412), 1.14.18; 1.17.43/NPNF 5:21–2, 31–2; Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 19.34/NPNF 5:97, 105.

40 Luther, Vorrede aud die Epistel S. Pauli an die Römer (1546/1522), in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Die Deutsche Bibel, vol. 7 (9 vols; Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1906ff.), p. 12, line 21/English trans. in LW 35:372; Luther, Um zwolften Sonntage nach Trinitatis (n.d), 19, in Martin Luthers Sammtliche Schriften (St Louis edn), vol. 12 (23 vols.; St Louis: Concordia, 1881–1910), p. 842.

41 Luther, Vorlesungen über 1. Mose (1536), WA 42:45.2ff. /LW 1:60–1; Luther, Tischreden (1532), no. 252, WATR 1:106.6/LW 54:34.

42 Luther, Tischreden (1532), no. 347, WATR 1:140.3/LW 54:49.

43 Ibid. (1538), no. 2867b, WATR 3:40.20/LW 54:177; no. 4057, WATR 4:105.14/LW 54:315.

44 Ibid. (1539), no. 4331, WATR 4:227f.19ff./LW 54:329.

45 Ibid. (1539), no. 4567, WATR 4:380.23/LW 54:352.

46 Luther, Die sieben Butzpsalmen (1517/1525), WA 18:522.11; 479.3/LW 14:196, 140.

47 Luther, In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarius (1519), WA 2:468.33; 592.4/LW 27:188, 372.

48 Ibid., WA 2:495.9/LW 27:227–8. Also see Luther, Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers, so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (1521), WA 7:344.10/LW 32:28; Luther, Die Disputation de iustificatione (1536), WA 39I:95.22/ LW 34:164.

49 Luther, Commentariolus en epistolam divi Pauli Apostoli ad Hebreos (1517–18), WA 57III:113, 114/LW 29:123; Luther, In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarius (1519), WA 2:501.34/LW 27:238; cf. Augustine, De Trinitate (c.410), 4.7.6/NPNF 3:72–3.

50 Luther, Luthers Randbemerkungen zu den Sentenzen des Petrus Lombardus (1509–12), WA 9:44.1–4. Cf. Luther, Tractatus de liberate christiana (1520), WA 7:54.31–55.27/LW 31:351f.; Luther, Resolutiones Disputationum de indulgentarium Virtute (1518), WA 1:593.4/LW 31:189ff., 192; Luther, In epistolam S. Pauli ad Galatas Commentarius (1535), WA 40I:284.20–33/LW 26:167–8. For the Finnish School of Interpretation, see Mannermaa, Tuomo, Christ Present in Faith: Luther's View of Justification, ed. Stjerna, Kirsi (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

51 Johann von Staupitz, Tractatus de executione aeternae praedestinationis fratris Ioannis de Staupitz, Theologi et Augustinensium Vicarii (1517), 9; cf. Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation, p. 125.

52 Luther, Vorrede zu der vollständigen Ausgabe der ‘deutschen Theologie’ (1518), WA 1:378f.21ff./LW 31:75–6. For the presence of this theme in Augustine, see his Confessiones (399), 1.5.6; 5.7.13; 10.1.1/NPNF 1:46, 83, 142; Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium de fide spe et caritate (421), 31/NPNF 3:247–8; Augustine, Epistulae 188 (406), 2.7–8/NPNF 1:550–1; Augustine, Epistulae 131 (412–13)/NPNF 1:469. For the ‘blessed exchange’, see his Sermones 80 (c.410), 5/NPNF 6:351.

53 Luther, Disputatio Heidelbergae habita (1518), WA 1:360.9/LW 31:49. Also see Luther, Disputatio contra scholasticum theologiam (1517), 10, WA 1:224.3/LW 31:10; Luther, Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers, so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (1521), WA 7:446, 18/LW 32:92; cf. Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 3.5/NPNF 5:84–5; Augustine, Contra Julianum (421/2), 8.23.

54 Luther, Disputatio Heibelbergae habita (1518), WA 1:353.8/LW 31:39; Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation, p. 95.

55 Luther, Acta F. Martini Luther Augustiniani apud D. Legatum Apostolicum Augustae (1518), WA 2:22.22/LW 31:285; Luther, In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarius (1519), WA 2:447.15/LW 27:156; Luther, Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers, so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (1521), WA 7:315.28/LW 32:11. While often endorsing the authority of tradition (most famously in his De utilitate credendi (391–2), 14.31/NPNF 3:362), Augustine did appeal to the sole authority of scripture to counter heresy in his De natura et gratia, contra Pelagium (415), 37.44/NPNF 5:136; Augustine, Epistulae 93 (408), 10/NPNF 1:395.

56 Luther, Letter to George Spalatin (1518), WABr 1:134.1/LW 48:54; Luther, Rationis Latominae confutatio (1521), WA 8:89.23/LW 32:203–4.

57 Luther, Tischreden (1538), no. 4007, WATR 4:73.1/LW 54:309; Luther, De servo arbitrio (1525), WA 18:630.22; 640.5/LW 33:58, 72.

58 Luther, Letter to George Spalatin (1516), WABr 1:70.8/LW48:24; Luther, Glosse auf das vermeinte kaiserliche Edikt, WA 30III:373f.28ff./LW 34:95.

59 Luther, Vorlesung über Jesaia (1527–9), WA 31II:505/LW 17:318; Luther, Von den Konziliis und Kirchen (1539), WA 50:614f.35/LW 41:132.

60 Luther, Antwort auf schrifliche Fragen Melanchthons (1536), WABr 12:191.1–5, 23–4; 193.

61 Luther, Uon welltlicher Uberkeytt wie weyt man yhr gehorsam schuldig sey (1523), WA 11:264.22; 249.24/LW 45:108, 88–9. Oberman, Heiko, in his ‘Martin Luther: Forerunner of the Reformation’, in Pettegree, Andrew (ed.), The Reformation: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 3–4Google Scholar, contends for the Augustinian influence of Luther's eschatology, but has not provided express documentation for this. Bornkamm, Heinrich, Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in the Context of his Theology, trans. Hertz, Karl H. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1966), pp. 19–28Google Scholar, points out differences between Luther and Augustine regarding the two realms, but he does concede that the Reformer's thinking was inspired by the African father.

62 Luther, Auff das ubirchristlich, ubirgeystlich und uberkunstlich buch Bocks Emsers Leypczick Antwortt D.M.L. Darynn auch Murnarrs seynsz gesselln gadacht wir (1521), WA 7:652.8/LW 39:180–1.

63 Luther, Vorrede zum 2. Bande der Wittenburger Ausgabe der deutschen Schriften (1539), WA 50:658.21/LW 34:285; Luther, Von den Consiliis und Kirchen (1539), WA 50:524f.12ff./LW 41:25–6; Luther, Letter to Nicholas von Amsdorf (1521), WABr 2:362.29/LW 48:266; cf. Augustine, De baptismo (c.400), 2.3–4/NPNF 4:427; Augustine, De natura et gratia (415), 37.44/NPNF 5:136.

64 Luther, In epistolam S. Pauli ad Galatas Commentarius (1535), WA 40I:486.20/LW 26: 313. We saw the Reformer make this affirmation in 1519 in his In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarius, WA 2:468f.33ff.; 552.3/LW 27:188, 313–14 (in the latter text contending that the distinction is identical with the letter–spirit distinction). The same affirmation was made by the Reformer in 1518 in the Disputatio Heidelbergae habito, WA 1:356.2/LW 31:42–3.

65 Luther, Vorlesungen über 1. Mose (1536), WA 42:4.26; 91.22/LW 1:4, 121; cf. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri (c.399/415), 12.4.33/CSEL XXVIII/1:133.

66 Luther, Vorlesungen über 1. Mose (1536), WA 42:9.21/LW 1:10–11.

67 Luther, Deutsch Catechismus (1529), 4.18, WA 30I:214.14.

68 See note 55 for references.

69 For a more detailed analysis of the rich, patterned diversity in Augustine's thought on this range of issues, see my The Richness of Augustine: His Contextual and Pastoral Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005).

70 For examples, Augustine, In Johannis Evangelium Tractatus (c.406/421), 29.6/NPNF 7:184; Augustine, De libero arbitrio (387/8–95), 2.2.6/English trans.: J. H. S. Burleigh, ed., Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1963), p. 109.

71 Augustine, De civitate Dei (413–26), 22.5/NPNF 2:481–2: ‘Haec igitur duo incredibili, resurrectionem scilicet nostril corporis in aeternum, et rem tam incredibilem mundum esse crediturum . . . Unam duorum uncredibilium jam factum videmus, ut quod eat incredibile, crederet mundus, sicut jam venit, quod similiter incredible fuit. . .’

72 Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 19.34/NPNF 5:97: ‘Non tamen per eadem legem justificatis impiis, sed per gratiam . . . Lex ergo data est, ut gratia quaereretur: gratia data est, ut lex impleretur.’ Cf. Augustine, De gratia Christi, et de peccato originali (418), 1.13.14/NPNF 5:223.

73 See the references to Augustine's writings in note 30.

74 Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium de fide spe et caritate (421), 41/NPNF 3:251: ‘Ipse ergo peccatum, ut nos justitia; nec nostra sed Dei; nec in nobis, sed in ipso. . .’ Cf. Augustine, De gratia Christi, et de peccato originali (418), 1.13.14/NPNF 5:22.

75 Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 18.31/NPNF 5:96: ‘Et paulo post cum eamdem gratiam uberius in Domino Jesu Christo commendans, usque ad illud veniret indumentum justitiae fidei, quo induti non nudi inveniamur, et propter hoc ingemiscimus mortalitate praegravati . . . Haec est illa justitia Dei, non qua ipse Justus est, sed qua nos ab eo facti.’

76 Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum (411), 1.13.18/NPNF 5:21–2: ‘Unde dicitur, Credenti in eum justificat impium, deputatur fides ejus ad justitiam.’ Cf. ibid. 1.27.43; 2.32.52/NPNF 5:31–2, 65; De spiritu et littera (412), 18.31/NPNF 5:96; Augustine, Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum (c.420), 3.5.14/NPNF 5:408–9.

77 Augustine, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum (428/9), 19.39/NPNF 5:517; cf. Augustine, De perfectione justitiae hominis (415), 11.27/NPNF 5:168; Augustine, In Johannis Evangelium Tractatus (c.406/421), 26.6.1/NPNF 7:168; Augustine, De spiritu et littera (412), 16.45/NPNF 5:102. For Luther on passive righteousness, see his Vorrede zum 1. Bande Gesamtausgaben seiner lateinischen Schriften (1545), WA 54:186, 6–7/LW 34:337.

78 Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (418/420), 1.25.28/NPNF 5:275: ‘ad haec respondetur, dimitti concupiscentiam carnis in Baptismo, non ut non sit, sed in peccatum non impatetur’. Cf. Augustine, De gratia Christi et de peccato original (418), 2.39.41/NPNF 5:253; Augustine, De natura et gratia, contra Pelagium (415), 53.61/NPNF 5:142.

79 McGrath, Intellectual Origins, p. 87.

80 Luther, ‘Zu Augustini Opuscular’ (1519), in Randbemerkungen Luthers, WA 9:4; cf. McGrath, Intellectual Origins, p. 178.

81 Such a position was voiced by George Lindbeck, ‘Classroom Lectures for “Luther and Augustine” Course’, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, 1973.