Week 12 · AD 1101–1200
Power, Teaching, and the Cross
Bishops, teachers, councils, and crusades
This week
Power and teaching in dispute
- Popes and emperors end a long fight over who chooses bishops
- Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard, a Paris teacher, argue over Christ’s saving work
- Councils set rules for the church and condemn teachers such as Abelard
- Crusaders lose Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187
Christ’s descent into hell
Unknown English artist, about 1130: Christ grasps Adam’s wrist in the underworld.
Church life
Who chooses bishops
Church life
The Concordat of Worms (1122)
- Emperor Henry V gave up investing bishops with ring and staff, signs of spiritual office
- Bishops-elect still got their lands and civil rights from the emperor
- Bishops ordain the pastors who baptize and give the Lord’s Supper
Church life
Constitutions of Clarendon (1164)
- King Henry II’s rules let the king’s court try clergy accused of crimes
- Church property disputes went before royal judges
- Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, resisted them
- Four knights killed Becket at Canterbury on 29 December 1170
Controversy and heresy
Teaching the church called false
Controversy and heresy
Calls to arms against the Cathars
- Lateran III (1179), canon 27, condemned the Cathars of southern France
- Christians were forbidden to shelter or trade with them
- Christians were told to fight them with arms
- Those who fought got a two-year cut in penance (church punishment for sin)
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Controversy and heresy
Bernard’s charge against Abelard
- Bernard reported that Abelard denied Christ became human to free people from the devil’s power
- Bernard said this attacked the mystery of redemption (Christ’s saving work)
- Bernard taught that God freed man by justice and mercy together
- Read this as Bernard’s report, not a full account of Abelard
Councils and events
Three Lateran councils and the Synod at Sens
Councils and events
Lateran I (1123): church discipline
- Approved the Worms settlement and banned simony (buying or selling church offices)
- Forbade priests, deacons, subdeacons, and monks to marry, and voided such marriages (canons 7 and 21)
- Promised forgiveness of sins to those who set out to defend Jerusalem (canon 10)
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Christ and the sacraments
Lateran II (1139): the sacraments
- After the papal split between Innocent II and Anacletus II, it declared Anacletus’s consecrations invalid
- Canon 23 condemned those who rejected Christ’s body and blood or infant Baptism
- Canons 6 and 7 again forbade clergy to marry
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Councils and events
Lateran III (1179): ending the split
- Met after the 1177 Peace of Venice ended the split with Frederick Barbarossa
- Canon 1 requires a two-thirds vote of cardinals to elect a pope
- Canon 27 condemned the Cathars and called for arms against them
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Councils and events
Sens (1141): Abelard condemned
- A council of bishops at Sens condemned propositions taken from Abelard’s writings
- Abelard appealed to Rome, refused to defend himself, and the pope approved the condemnation
- Peter the Venerable of Cluny reconciled Abelard with Bernard before Abelard died in 1142
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Major people
A merchant who gave up his wealth
Major people
Voices of the century
- Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot, preacher, and opponent of Abelard
- Peter Abelard, Paris teacher condemned in 1121 and 1141
- Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess who wrote Scivias
- Valdes of Lyons, merchant who gave away his wealth to preach
“Go, sell all you have.”
Christ to the rich young ruler, the words that moved Valdes
Wider world
What happened beyond the church
Wider world
From the Second Crusade to 1187
- Pope Eugene III promised forgiveness to those who joined the Second Crusade
- The Second Crusade (1145–1149) failed, though Bernard of Clairvaux preached it
- 1154: Henry II begins his reign as king of England
- 1187: Saladin defeats the crusaders at Hattin and takes their relic of Christ’s cross, a holy object
- 1187: Saladin takes Jerusalem, the city of Christ’s death and resurrection
Confessional Lutheran connection
How the Confessions test medieval teaching
Confessional Lutheran connection
Christ’s saving work
- The Confessions teach that Christ is true God and true man (Augsburg Confession III)
- His obedience and death make satisfaction (payment) for sin
- Compare Anselm’s account (Unit 11) and Bernard’s with this teaching
- Ask what goes beyond it, such as Bernard’s talk of the devil’s lawful claim
Christ and the sacraments
Baptism: sin, grace, and infants
- Examine how views of sin and grace shape the teaching of infant Baptism
- Lateran II condemned those who denied infant Baptism, and the Confessions agree
- Augsburg Confession II and IX, and Large Catechism IV, teach Baptism
- Ask how Hildegard’s Scivias speaks of the church and new birth
For discussion
What do you look for in Abelard’s own writing to test Bernard’s claim that his view of Christ’s work was too small?