chapter 10 Protestant Monasticism between the Reformation Critique and New Monasticism

Jason Zuidema

Introduction1

A half a millennium has passed since the Augustinian hermit Martin Luther began his struggle to understand anew the God with whom he wished to com- municate. His experience of the received patterns of spirituality of his time, even within the context of a highly intensified monastic life, led him to despair that any positive conversation could be had with his judgmental God. None- theless, his study of Scripture, and especially his conception of God’s justice given in Christ to those who believed, led him to posit that God was one with whom he could speak with love rather than with hatred or fear. His insights began his public call for the reform of the Catholic Church, a reform made famous by the discussions of late 1517 surrounding the validity of the practice of offering “indulgences” and his subsequent excommunication. In the ensu- ing years Luther wrote a mass of popular literature that criticised Catholic spirituality, seemingly arguing that his former monastic life was fundamen- tally at odds with his fresh reading of Scripture. In the decades that followed many partisans of Luther’s ideas continued to argue that their understandings of religious life were liberated from what they perceived as a negative, medi- eval Catholic influence. Most were loathe to reintroduce any of the insights or practices of monastic spirituality coming from those from whom Luther was doctrinally separated. Yet, was this the case? Was and is monastic life truly fundamentally at odds with Protestantism? Can monasticism or the religious life be properly protes- tant? A thought experiment: were it possible, could one sit down with John Calvin and actually convince him that the religious life was a normal and use- ful function of the Church? Now, we know that various forms of monasticism or the religious life per- sisted to live on in Protestantism. If nothing else, many sixteenth-century re- formers continued to evidence patterns of thought, practice and spirituality

1 Jason Zuidema expresses his profound thanks to Prof. Donnelly for his kindness and support while writing his doctoral dissertation on Peter Martyr Vermigli.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004331778_011

Protestant Monasticism 147 that revealed influence from monastic life more directly than any other source. Did they remain, as some might have suggested, “unconverted”? Would con- tinued adherence ultimately corrupt their religious programmes? How could monastic influence continue to abide in Protestantism? From the time of the Reformation to the twenty-first century, the implicit and explicit influence of Catholic monastic spirituality continued to preoc- cupy many Protestants. If the critics are right about Protestantism, can this monasticism or religious life be anything more than a “borrowing,” an unlawful appropriation of spiritual practices that cannot be absorbed piecemeal? How should that abiding influence be understood? Like many other scholars in the last centuries, I am persuaded that the search for continuity between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is not a misguided enterprise. Revisionist scholars of Early Modernity have noted that on closer reading of a wide range of Reformation-era texts, one can recognize a great deal more continuity with late-medieval Catholicism than what the rhetoric of the Reformers or nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars might lead us to believe. While studying these historical continuities certainly mer- its attention in itself, our present proposal aims to draw attention to trends that amplify their importance. No doubt, these continuities in religious life became especially motivating during the intense ecumenical conversations between Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars and groups in the mid- to late-twentieth century, with all interested to a greater or lesser extent in retrac- ing a common heritage. However, relatively little has been written, especially in English-language scholarship, about the continuities relating to monastic or religious life. It is clear that most reformers seemed to view monastic life as fundamentally opposed to a biblical religious reform; but must it be so? Is there a way to recover both a deeply Protestant (confessional) theological starting point and a perspective on religious life that is consonant with the continuing post-Reformation Roman Catholic tradition? Is it possible to be both confes- sionally Protestant and canonically Catholic in the matter of the religious life?

“New Monasticism”?

The question of monasticism’s positive relation to and influence on Protes- tantism has actually been studied by a number of scholars from the nine- teenth century on. Highlighted especially in German scholarship at that time, the question of the relation between Evangelical faith and monastic or conse- crated life was framed by the much larger debates on all aspects of early and medieval Christianity. This historiography, especially in continental European