19 April, 2010

No Humanism, No Reformation / No Reformation, No [Wittenberg] Humanism

It's a frequent contention that the Reformation had been an impossibility, historically speaking, without the advent of Humanism, and students of the era quickly recognize this fact as they read through the primary sources. The same impulse that animated Humanism, ad fontes, also animated the reformational desire to return to the source of the Church's life, Scripture itself, without the scholastic accretions, the "human traditions," of the Middle Ages. It's like buying a Gucci purse: you can either go to the guy on the corner and get a knock-off, or you can expend a little extra effort and get the real mccoy. So no Reformation without Humanism.
Same goes for the Wittenberg form of Humanism: it, too, is inconceivable apart from the Reformation. The peculiar brand of Humanism that developed in Wittenberg was reformational Humanism, a Humanism deeply informed by the theological thought of Luther and Melanchthon, as we've had occasion to point out here at Renascentes Musae.
In celebration of the phenomenon of Wittenberg Humanism, Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is hosting a conference entitled "Lutheranism and the Classics." You can read more about it by clicking here. So mark your calendars for 1 and 2 October, 2010, and please join us as we examine, prod, explore, uncover, probe, and revel in the intellectual tradition of earliest Lutheranism.

4 comments:

Rev. Joshua Hayes said...

It's like a dream come true! Question: can we get someone to deliver a sermon Latine?

Jon Bruss said...

Praecator quisquam forte etiam sermonem seu praedicationem Melanthonis vel Lutheri ad diem (proxima dies dominicalis est illa XX. post festum Trinitatis) et latine scriptam vel meditationem sacram Johannis illius Gerhardi ex ambone oraliter legere possit si propriam scribere non vult. Quid Johannes ille Septentrionilius (nomen diminutivum quod de illo haud minimo Nordlingo latine usurpatur) nunc cogitet nescio, sed cum eo libenter loquar. Solum hoc a te scire velim: an et tu illoc adfuturus sis.

Rev. Joshua Hayes said...

Ego certe adero (Deo uolente), eoque studiosior si non solum de rebus linguisque classicis dicamus, sed etiam utamur. molestum mihi est (quod profecto tu quoque contemnis) semper de linguis classicis disserere, uti numquam. non satis est de amore tantum scire et cogitare; amandum est. item cum de classicis loquimur, classice dicamus!

Jon Bruss said...

O mi Josue! Certissime lingua latina in officiis quotidianis (id est, in vesperis atque laudibus) uturi sumus. Solum hoc nescio, an et praedicationes latine habiturae sint (sed maxime volo); de quibus illo cum monstro maximo qui de montibus septentrionalibus descendit qui et nobis ille carissiumus Nordlingus qui et vis et rober et spes rerum graecarum latinarumque in seminariis Synodi Missouriani nunc est loquar.