Religious order

The council met for extended discussions in three periods: 1545– 7 (Sessions 1– 10); 1551– 2 (Sessions 11– 16); and 1562– 3 (Sessions 17– 25). The first two periods dealt with the clarification of Catholic teaching in the face of the Protestant challenge; the third with the internal reform of the Catholic church. The issue of justification was debated during the sixth session in the summer of 1546.

The Council of Trent was faced with a group of formidable problems as it assembled to debate the question of justification in June 1546. The medieval period had witnessed the emergence of a number of quite distinct schools of thought on justification, all of which could lay claim to be considered legitimate representations of the teaching of the Catholic church. The Council of Trent was not concerned, however, with settling long-standing debates between the various Catholic schools of theology, but with attempting a definition of the Catholic consensus on justification in the face of the Protestant challenge. The suggestion of the Bishop of Vaison, that the theologians present at Trent to debate the matter of justification should initially meet as separate orders under their respective generals, was rejected, presumably because this procedure would merely heighten the differences between the schools of thought present at Trent. In this chapter, we shall aim to identify the main schools of thought which were represented at Trent, as this has an important bearing upon the relation of the final decree to late medieval Catholic theology in general.

We have already noted five main schools of thought which developed during Catholicism during the Middle Ages with specific and distinctive views on justification. One of the most significant was the Dominican school of thought which appealed to Thomas Aquinas , who was widely regarded as the most significant theologian within the Order of Preachers. Two of these schools – the schola Aegidiana and the schola Augustiniana moderna – emerged within the Augustinian Order. The former based its views on justification on the teachings of Giles of Rome, where the latter – characterised by writers such as Gregory of Rimini – appealed to the dialectic between the two powers of God to uphold an essentially Augustinian position on divine grace. Franciscans were divided into two schools, depending on whether they aligned themselves with Bonaventure or Duns Scotus . The challenge faced by the Council of Trent was to avoid condemning any of these positions, while at the same time offering clear and persuasive criticisms of the views of justification associated with the evangelical group at Wittenberg. At this stage, the Council’ s theologians were aware of the writings of Luther and Melanchthon , but had yet to understand the significance of the Reformed school of theology associated with cities such as Strasbourg, Zurich and Geneva.

So what schools of thought on justification were represented during the Tridentine debates on justification in the summer of 1546? In an important 1936 study, Eduard Stakemeier argued for the existence of three main theological schools at Trent during the proceedings on justification: the Thomist, Scotist and Augustinian schools. 2 This division of the theological schools present at Trent has exercised considerable influence over subsequent discussion, and does not appear to have been subjected to the critical examination that such an ambitious hypothesis would seem to require. It is, in fact, quite difficult to establish the precise allegiance of many of the speakers during the proceedings on account of the similarities between the schools in relation to the points under discussion.

It is beyond question that a significant Thomist school was represented at Trent. By the middle of the fourteenth century, Aquinas had attained an authoritative status within the Order of Preachers. 3 A revival of the Thomist school took place in the fifteenth century under Capreolus, 4 who established the fundamental principle that Thomas Aquinas’ s views should be determined on the basis of the Summa Theologiae , rather than on that of the earlier Commentary on the Sentences . As we noted earlier, Thomas’ s views on justification altered significantly in the intervening period, with the result that Capreolus’ s decision about the priority of sources led to a more Augustinian understanding of justification being defined as ‘ Thomist’ than would otherwise have been the case. 5 It is this presupposition which underlies Cajetan’ s use of Thomas. The authority with which Thomas was invested may be judged from the fact that he was cited more than any theologian – other than Augustine – during the course of the Tridentine debate on justification, despite the fact that only seven of the fifty-five theologians involved in the debates were Dominicans. 6

The Salamantine school in Imperial Spain, which developed under Francisco de Vitoria, represented an approach to justification which was similar to that of Thomas. 7 It is therefore significant that Charles V chose the Thomist Domingo de Soto, who held the chair of theology at Salamanca in the period 1532– 45, as the Imperial theologian at Trent. The most significant position associated with the Thomist faction present at Trent is the total and unequivocal rejection of the notion of a meritorious disposition towards justification. 8

As will be clear from Table 23.1 , 9 the Franciscans constituted the largest group present at the Tridentine proceedings on justification. Yet, as noted earlier, the Franciscans were not unanimous in recognising a single authoritative doctor of their order, and it is clear that several doctors were treated as authoritative during the course of the Tridentine proceedings, representing the early Franciscan school (such as Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure ), the later Franciscan school (Duns Scotus ), and even the via moderna (such as Gabriel Biel ). The obvious reluctance on the part of certain Franciscans to concede the precedence of Scotus over Bonaventure 10 serves to emphasise the importance of this point.

The most significant Franciscan theologian present at Trent during the proceedings on justification was the Spanish Observant Andrés de Vega , whose Opusculum de iustificatione was published in time for it to be in the hands of those involved in the debate. In this work, Vega defends the notion of the necessity of a human disposition towards justification which is meritorious de congruo . The extreme opinions on this question, according to Vega, are the Pelagians, who affirm the concept of justification ex meritis , and the Thomists, who denied all merit prior to justification. 11 Vega argues for a via media : the denial of merit de condigno and recognition of merit de congruo prior to grace – a doctrine which he associates with Duns Scotus and Gabriel Biel, among other recent theologians. 12 Vega here draws upon the common teaching of the Franciscan order, and it is worth recalling that the whole medieval Franciscan tradition taught that the disposition for justification was meritorious de congruo . 13 Stakemeier appears to designate the common Franciscan teaching on this question ‘ Scotist’ on the basis of certain presuppositions which more recent scholarship has explicitly called into question – for example, Hünermann’ s dichotomous restriction of possible theological alternatives within Catholicism to either Thomism or Scotism. 14 Franciscan writers at Trent made frequent reference to two leading doctors of the Franciscan order, Bonaventure and Scotus, 15 as well as occasional reference to two others (Alexander of Hales and Gabriel Biel). In view of this broad theological foundation upon which the Franciscan contingent based their opinions, it is both unduly restrictive and quite inappropriate to designate this contingent as ‘ a Scotist school’ . 16

The third school which Stakemeier identified as being present during the discussion of justification at the Council of Trent was the ‘ Augustinian school’ . Our understanding of medieval Augustinianism has changed significantly in the last few decades, and it is difficult to concur with Stakemeier’ s ambitious thesis that the General of the Augustinian order, Girolamo Seripando , defended a doctrine of duplex iustitia during the Tridentine proceedings on justification, which represented a theology of justification characteristic of the theologians of the Augustinian order during the later medieval period. 17 The ‘ Augustinian school’ at Trent, Stakemeier declared, could therefore be regarded as adopting a position on justification, exemplified by Seripando, representing a theological tradition within the Augustinian order since the time of Simon Fidati of Cassia and Hugolino of Orvieto . This thesis has not stood up to critical examination in the light of the massive research undertaken by scholars on the views of late medieval Augustinian theologians. 18 There are no good grounds for suggesting that Seripando’ s doctrine of duplex iustitia (‘ double justice’ ) is characteristic of some late medieval Augustinian school of theology. Indeed, it is difficult to demonstrate that there is a distinctively Augustinian school of any kind present at Trent.

The Tridentine proceedings on justification suggest that the Thomist school, the early Franciscan school and the later Franciscan school were all represented at Trent, along with a variety of other positions which defy rigid classification. While Trent appears to have taken some care to avoid censuring, or judging between, the traditional teachings associated with the major religious orders (a policy particularly evident during the proceedings on original sin), these teachings appear to have exercised considerably less influence upon the proceedings on justification than might be expected.

One possible explanation of this observation is that the whole matrix of traditional disputed questions concerning justification was recognised as occasionally having little bearing on the crucial new questions thrown up by the rise of Lutheranism within Germany. The new questions thus raised demanded new answers, with the result that the appeal to the traditional positions of the theological schools associated with the orders had to give way to speculation concerning the most appropriate responses to these new questions. A further factor of importance here is the rise of an increasingly independent intellectual environment, particularly in Italy, which enabled theologians to break free from the thought patterns of the medieval theological schools. 19 This is especially clear in the Council’ s decision to avoid the conventional technical language of many medieval theologians concerning created habits of grace, in favour of using biblical language and imagery that was more attuned to popular early modern Catholicism, as well as being likely to resonate more fully with their Protestant opponents.

In the following chapter , we shall consider the Tridentine debates on certain crucial aspects of the doctrine of justification, with a view to casting further light upon the proper interpretation of the final decree on justification itself.