The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself.
The Lutheran Reformers were serious about language. After all, they had no leg to stand on and no proper grounds upon which to reform the church and her teaching if they got their words wrong. They were not inventing a new religion full of new terminology or doctrines that had never existed before. Instead, the evangelical Lutheran Reformation was about restoring the proper definitions, functions, and order of the church's language.
Philip Melanchthon writes of the study of languages: "Many heresies are the result of ignorance of languages and of the forms of speech; this can be demonstrated easily in the history of ecclesiastical strife."1 The consistent accusation of the Lutherans against the Church of Rome was that the central article of the faith had been supplanted by erroneous language. This had happened because the source of divine language and right doctrine had shifted dramatically away from the Scriptures and toward the authority of the papacy and human traditions.
This emphasis on the correct definitions and use of language is a thread connecting some of Luther's earliest grievances, such as the Ninety-Five Theses, to the church's corporate and public confessions, such as the Augsburg Confession. In 1517, Luther's outcry against plenary indulgences was not merely that they were an unfair financial or personal burden, but that they were a lie justified through false and erroneous language. Within the first three theses alone, he identifies an entire system of theology propped up by the words "paenitentiam agite," or "do penance." Penance came to mean a cooperative understanding of repentance in which one does or accomplishes (agit) reparative works that merit the grace of God through heartfelt cooperation. This Latin rendering of the Greek New Testament's metanoia, meaning "repent" or "turn the heart," had been twisted beyond recognition. The consequence was that grace had been misunderstood, repentance had been obscured, and forgiveness had become something that could be purchased. This was not simply because of Jerome's Latin translation, but because the source of a doctrine's meaning had shifted from the divine speech of Scripture to the dictates of the papacy.
It was for this reason that the Reformation was closely tied to the Northern Humanist movement, an academic shift that emphasized a return to original sources for historical knowledge and continuity of thought. This movement rallied around the principle of ad fontes—"to the sources" or "to the fountain." Ad fontes was not an outright rejection of tradition or an embrace of ancient novelties. Rather, it clarified how knowledge is handed down, how terms are defined, and how historical figures are rightly understood.
If one wanted to understand what Plato thought about death and fate, humanists would return to Plato himself, perhaps reading the Apology, where Socrates accepts his condemnation in Athens and underscores death's inability to silence the truth. The ad fontes impulse insisted that Plato's Apology should be read in its entirety rather than through isolated quotations, snippets, or layers of commentary, as had become common in the medieval scholastic tradition.
There was much to gain from reading Plato, Homer, Virgil, and Cicero in their own language and historical context. Yet the Reformers' interest in humanism ultimately collided with the preaching and teaching of the gospel. They found that the church itself needed to apply the same principle and discipline. Melanchthon wrote, "Thus, even if some commendable considerations call us to other arts (and I do not disparage them)...Christian teaching must not be neglected."2 For the Reformers, ad fontes meant not only seeing the doctrines of Scripture from the Scriptures themselves, but also auditing and recovering the tradition and teachers of the church.
By the time of the Reformation, attributions, quotations, and even dogmatic works had become foggy and imprecise. Peter Lombard's Sentences, the standard textbook for Christian doctrine and a compilation of earlier authorities, had even muddled a quotation from the heretic Pelagius with one from St. Augustine in its treatment of sin and merit.3 The Lutheran reformers went back to the source of Scripture, but also to the sources of Augustine and other church fathers.
The aim of the Lutheran Reformation and its concern with precise language was not to destroy tradition or reject the work of the church, but to ground the church's tradition and teaching in the very words God has given. This seemingly simple principle required the acquisition and cultivation of specific skills and vocations.
The recovery of the Gospel depended upon the recovery of language itself. This ought not to be confused with some type of elitist task where truth is available only to theologians, pastors, and university professors. Instead, the recognition of specific and varied vocations or callings and the need for every person to have access to the gospel were the driving forces behind these educational reforms. Rulers, teachers, and pastors have (and still have) the divine obligation to articulate and maintain the simplicity of the gospel.
The Reformation's call to ad fontes remains the church's calling today. It is a call to know and learn the ancient languages, the liberal arts, and philosophy in order to distinguish the works and wisdom of men from the pure word and total will of God in Christ. The Reformers understood this as the command of Colossians 2:8: "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."
For this reason, ad fontes is not merely an academic slogan but the ordinary vocation of the Christian church. In the home, the Small Catechism admonishes, "As the head of the household should teach it in a simple manner." In the schools and universities, it is the study of languages and the classical arts so that Christians learn to speak, teach, and preach with the word of law and the word of gospel rightly distinguished. In the church, it is the preservation of that liturgical form whose order, prayers, and hymns exist for the sake of proclaiming the word and administering the sacraments.
The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself. This generation of the church is therefore called to the same task–to hear His word where He has given it, to distinguish it from every competing word, and to hand it on clearly, faithfully, and simply to those who come after us.
Notes:
1. Melanchthon, "On the Study of Languages" in Melanchthon: Orations on Philosophy and Education, ed. Sachiko Kusukawa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 30.
2. Ibid., 32.
3. Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 75.
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