Profs. Ayris/Selwyn's "Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar," 33ff.

Section 1: The Ideological Background

1.     Cranmer’s Relations with Erasmianism and Lutheranism—B. Hall, 3-38. English Bible, two English BCPs, Homilies, Forty-Two Articles, and Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum using the Bible, the Fathers and “sound reason” (3). Two views since 1830s: (1) Foxe’s views, providence, and God and (2) Tractarianized views excluding foreign theologians wherein Cranmer was “suitably rebuked or condemned” (4). 1511—quadrivium and trivium. Trilingual learning at Cambridge, 1505—Latin, Greek, Hebrew. 1511—Erasmus at Cambridge. Cranmer studies Erasmus’s writings for the next twenty years (5). 1526—Cranmer gets his doctorate (7). Cranmer owned the Fathers in Greek. Also, Concordantiae Majores (Basel, 1516—Greek concordance), Mammotrechtus (1494) Nicholas of Lystra’s 6-volume Vulgate with glosses and commentary, Cardinal Cajetan’s commentary on the Pentateuch (1539), several commentaries on the Psalms, Faber Stapulensis’s (Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples) commentary on the Gospels and Pauline epistles, Bucer’s Romans, Jacques Merlin’s study of the early church councils and Acquinas on NT studies. Cranmer studies the Councils of history. 1526—D.D. and becomes university examiner for B.D. and D.D. students (9). Study of the Scriptures themselves in the original languages, promoted by Erasmus, is Cranmerian too. Irenaeus, Hilary, Basil, the two Cappadocian Gregorys, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Cyprian, Arnobius, Gregory the Great, Tertullian, and Erasmus’s Jerome-edition (9 volumes)—studied in Greek and Latin “with pen in hand” (10). Prof. Hall states: “Cranmer spent the length of a generation at Cambridge forging the tools of scholarship and theology that were to open new ground and lay the foundations of the Church of England reformed” (11). Erasmianism “gave Cranmer a thirst for biblical learning” (11). Prof. Hall leaves open the dating of Cranmer’s anti-Papalism—1526 or 1529?—based on Cranmer’s 1536 sermon at Canterbury and his reminiscence in a letter to Henry. A Paulinism was ascendant. Also, an anti-clerical satire was in the Erasmian air. Erasmus in a letter to Zwingli claims that he teaches Lutheranism but “less offensively” (15). Erasmianism prepared Cranmer for Lutheranism. Lutheran books were “flowing into the English universities (15) and were featured in White Horse Inn discussions. Prof. Hall thinks Cranmer was atop the Erasmus-Luther debate on free will and predestination in 1524-1525. Cranmer owned: Clichtove’s Antlutherus (1524), Fisher’s Assertionis Lutheranae Confutation (1525), Erasmus’s De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe (1524), Luther’s De Servo Abitrio (1525), Erasmus’s Hyperaspistes Diatribe adversus servum arbitrium M. Lutheri (1526) and Johannes Cochlaeus’s De libero arbitrio adversus locos communes P. Melanthonis (1525) (16). Prof. Hall surmises that Cranmer had all of Luther’s writings in the 1520s and “it is surely impossible that he had not read them” (17), including the explosive Freedom of a Christian Man (1520). Cranmer is beginning to deal with justification, works, pilgrimages, indulgence merits, shines, images, purgatory, chantry masses, and other appendages. He looks to Augustine. One may surmise he has Melancthon’s Loci Communes (1521? 1535?) and the Augsburg Confession (1529). The “first positive date for Cranmer’s interest in Lutheranism” is March 1532, a resident ambassador to the Court of Charles V, including the Diet of Regensburg. He meets Spalatin, the Saxon Elector, and Osiander (and picks up a wife, Margaret). Cranmer also met other Lutherans in his travels in Germany. 1533—Chapuys from England is reporting to Charles V that Cranmer is Lutheran. Bucer’s 1537 commentary on Romans is dedicated to Cranmer. Osiander’s 1537 Harmony of the Gospels is dedicated to Cranmer. Osiander recalls Cranmer in his home in Nurenberg “discussing many things seriously and wisely in an inspired manner concerning Christian doctrine and true religion” (21). Cranmer in a sermon at St. Paul’s, Feb 1536, addressed Rome as having no jurisdiction in England, being Antichrist, and of image worship, adoration of saints, purgatory, and the monasteries. The Ten Articles of Religion, 1536, a committee project, show Lutheranizing, a “compromise between the Old and New Learning” (23). He’s still Romanized on the Eucharist in 1536, although he chides Adam Damplip’s remarks in a letter to Crumwell, 15 Aug 1538, who has denied Roman or Lutheranized views. Henry wants Melancthon to visit England in 1538. The English Bible gets to the churches via Crumwell largely, but Cranmer very supportively. 1547—Cranmer is loosed from Henry. BCPs, Justus Jonas’s catechism, Homilies and Articles. Cranmer was Eramianized and Lutheranized.