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The Christian Tradition #4
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700)
This penultimate volume in Pelikan's acclaimed history of Christian doctrine--winner with Volume 3 of the Medieval Academy's prestigious Haskins Medal--encompasses the Reformation and the developments that led to it.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
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694 people want to read
About the author
Jaroslav Pelikan
178 books134 followersJaroslav Jan Pelikan was born in Akron, Ohio, to a Slovak father and mother, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Sr. and Anna Buzekova Pelikan. His father was pastor of Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois, and his paternal grandfather a bishop of the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches then known as the Slovak Lutheran Church in America.
According to family members, Pelikan's mother taught him how to use a typewriter when he was three years old, as he could not yet hold a pen properly but wanted to write. A polyglot, Pelikan's facility with languages may be traced to his multilingual childhood and early training. That linguistic facility was to serve him in the career he ultimately chose (after contemplating becoming a concert pianist)--as a historian of Christian doctrine. He did not confine his studies to Roman Catholic and Protestant theological history, but also embraced that of the Christian East.
In 1946 when he was 22, he earned both a seminary degree from Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Pelikan wrote more than 30 books, including the five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971–1989). Some of his later works attained crossover appeal, reaching beyond the scholarly sphere into the general reading public (notably, Mary Through the Centuries, Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible Is It?).
His 1984 book The Vindication of Tradition gave rise to an often quoted one liner. In an interview in U.S. News & World Report (June 26, 1989), he said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
"Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."
According to family members, Pelikan's mother taught him how to use a typewriter when he was three years old, as he could not yet hold a pen properly but wanted to write. A polyglot, Pelikan's facility with languages may be traced to his multilingual childhood and early training. That linguistic facility was to serve him in the career he ultimately chose (after contemplating becoming a concert pianist)--as a historian of Christian doctrine. He did not confine his studies to Roman Catholic and Protestant theological history, but also embraced that of the Christian East.
In 1946 when he was 22, he earned both a seminary degree from Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Pelikan wrote more than 30 books, including the five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971–1989). Some of his later works attained crossover appeal, reaching beyond the scholarly sphere into the general reading public (notably, Mary Through the Centuries, Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible Is It?).
His 1984 book The Vindication of Tradition gave rise to an often quoted one liner. In an interview in U.S. News & World Report (June 26, 1989), he said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
"Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 29, 2025
Really enjoyed how Pelikan traces the development of certain ideas within the church. Tracing the diversity of thought prior to the reformation, up into the reformation and beyond bears much fruit for understanding the thought of the reformers themselves.
There were a few lines of thought I wish he would’ve pursued further, and some areas where I felt more depth would’ve been beneficial (for example, he basically equates the satisfaction model with the PSA model of the atonement).
Overall a valuable read for understanding the history of ideas and development of doctrine around the time of the reformation.
There were a few lines of thought I wish he would’ve pursued further, and some areas where I felt more depth would’ve been beneficial (for example, he basically equates the satisfaction model with the PSA model of the atonement).
Overall a valuable read for understanding the history of ideas and development of doctrine around the time of the reformation.
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August 4, 2011Review of Jaroslav Pelikan The Christian Tradition: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700) volume 4.
Pelikan continues his story of Western Christendom. As in volume 3, the events leading up to the Reformation can be seen as fractures in the Augustinian synthesis. While Warfield is incorrect to say that the Reformation was Augustine vs Augustine, there is some truth in it as both sides could claim Augustine as their champion.
While it is a truism in historical theology, it needs to be said that doctrine does not develop in a vacuum. It is naïve to claim that Luther opened the bible and, like anyone else, seeing “pure bible,” refound the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Equally naïve is the view that the ancient church taught the Mass and Transubstantiation in the same way as the 4th Lateran Council (in fact, it’s easily demonstrable to show that late Catholic practices of the Mass are obvious departures from the apostolic norm—and Catholics admit this as well!).
The student of history is then to ask, “If it is so obvious to my generation about doctrine _______, why did past generations see it differently?” Pelikan tells the narrative of early modernity in the West. He shows that philosophical and cultural pressures formed the context in which the doctrines of the Western Church, both Reform and Catholic.
Pelikan explains the pressures of medieval nominalism upon the Christian world. While he doesn’t pin all of the world’s evils on Scotus and Occam, they do force the Western narrative forward in ways that would prove…momentous. The cracks in the Augustinian synthesis appear when Wycliffe and Hus take part of Augustine’s view of the church as the body of the predestined. This opens the seeds for Reform.
Pelikan gives a thorough explanation of the gospel as the treasure of the Church. At this time still being a Lutheran, Pelikan brings his intimate familiarity of Lutheranism to the discussion. And he is not blind to Luther’s theological faults: Luther’s denial of free will opened himself to the church of Manicheanism. Through linguistic gymnastics later Lutheran thinkers would soften this charge.
Calvin carried Luther forward with a few exceptions. While Luther denied free will and affirmed predestination (as did Augustine, so it seems), Calvin was the first major thinker to affirm double predestination. No, Augustine didn’t teach that but it was consistent with his thought. I think Calvin is correct in this, but Pelikan doesn’t expound upon it. If you agree with St Augustine on defining God as “absolute divine simplicity,” which all Westerns—Protestant or Catholic—agree, and you place God’s will within that absolute simple essence, then double predestination is the conclusion. And frankly, is there any real pastoral difference between predestination to life and passing over the reprobate versus predestinating both—since both go to hell? I think Calvin has read Augustine correctly on this point.
Roman Catholic Particularity
The Roman church, for all its opposition to Luther, admitted that the Reformation forced Rome to deal with sensitive problems from the conciliar movement in the previous century. Part of the dilemma of the Reformation was that the Reformers were not starting from a blank sheet. The 16th century inherited many unresolved problems. One could honestly admit the Reformers asked the right questions. As Pelikan notes, “What the Protestant Reformation had done with its doctrine of justification by faith alone, as the debates at the Council of Trent were to make clear, was to bring into the open some of the unresolved questions about justification in late medieval theology” (253). The Council of Trent was aware of this. They knew that while they would appeal to “antiquity,” some had the suspicion that antiquity was a slippery eel. Pelikan notes, “Although that pluralism was voiced throughout the debates at Trent, the council fathers sought in their definition to respond to the Reformation without involving themselves in the disputes of several schools of theology within Roman Catholicism (280).
Ultimately, though, Trent could not answer all questions.
Both Trent and Geneva would have to deal with the horror of the Radical Reformation. The Protestants were particularly sensitive to this charge. Were not the chaotics (e.g., Anabaptists) also using sola scriptura, if more radically? What separates the Magisterials from the Radicals on this point, besides the formers’ apparently arbitrary appeal to “tradition?” In response to this the Magisterials posited that Scripture “norms the lesser norms.” A nice response, to be sure, but one effective only to those who like Latin phrases.
Both Rome and the Protestants would form their covenant theological systems, taking them in different directions. While the broad overview of Covenant theology was simple—and little difference between both camps—the specifics were tricky: problems Reformed are still facing. See the self-slaughter that is the response to the Federal Vision.
Rome, too, had its internal problems. Jansenism had raised other difficulties with Augustine and grace, the response to which created the famous “middle knowledge” of Molina and would later set the stage for Henri de Lubac.
Pelikan continues his story of Western Christendom. As in volume 3, the events leading up to the Reformation can be seen as fractures in the Augustinian synthesis. While Warfield is incorrect to say that the Reformation was Augustine vs Augustine, there is some truth in it as both sides could claim Augustine as their champion.
While it is a truism in historical theology, it needs to be said that doctrine does not develop in a vacuum. It is naïve to claim that Luther opened the bible and, like anyone else, seeing “pure bible,” refound the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Equally naïve is the view that the ancient church taught the Mass and Transubstantiation in the same way as the 4th Lateran Council (in fact, it’s easily demonstrable to show that late Catholic practices of the Mass are obvious departures from the apostolic norm—and Catholics admit this as well!).
The student of history is then to ask, “If it is so obvious to my generation about doctrine _______, why did past generations see it differently?” Pelikan tells the narrative of early modernity in the West. He shows that philosophical and cultural pressures formed the context in which the doctrines of the Western Church, both Reform and Catholic.
Pelikan explains the pressures of medieval nominalism upon the Christian world. While he doesn’t pin all of the world’s evils on Scotus and Occam, they do force the Western narrative forward in ways that would prove…momentous. The cracks in the Augustinian synthesis appear when Wycliffe and Hus take part of Augustine’s view of the church as the body of the predestined. This opens the seeds for Reform.
Pelikan gives a thorough explanation of the gospel as the treasure of the Church. At this time still being a Lutheran, Pelikan brings his intimate familiarity of Lutheranism to the discussion. And he is not blind to Luther’s theological faults: Luther’s denial of free will opened himself to the church of Manicheanism. Through linguistic gymnastics later Lutheran thinkers would soften this charge.
Calvin carried Luther forward with a few exceptions. While Luther denied free will and affirmed predestination (as did Augustine, so it seems), Calvin was the first major thinker to affirm double predestination. No, Augustine didn’t teach that but it was consistent with his thought. I think Calvin is correct in this, but Pelikan doesn’t expound upon it. If you agree with St Augustine on defining God as “absolute divine simplicity,” which all Westerns—Protestant or Catholic—agree, and you place God’s will within that absolute simple essence, then double predestination is the conclusion. And frankly, is there any real pastoral difference between predestination to life and passing over the reprobate versus predestinating both—since both go to hell? I think Calvin has read Augustine correctly on this point.
Roman Catholic Particularity
The Roman church, for all its opposition to Luther, admitted that the Reformation forced Rome to deal with sensitive problems from the conciliar movement in the previous century. Part of the dilemma of the Reformation was that the Reformers were not starting from a blank sheet. The 16th century inherited many unresolved problems. One could honestly admit the Reformers asked the right questions. As Pelikan notes, “What the Protestant Reformation had done with its doctrine of justification by faith alone, as the debates at the Council of Trent were to make clear, was to bring into the open some of the unresolved questions about justification in late medieval theology” (253). The Council of Trent was aware of this. They knew that while they would appeal to “antiquity,” some had the suspicion that antiquity was a slippery eel. Pelikan notes, “Although that pluralism was voiced throughout the debates at Trent, the council fathers sought in their definition to respond to the Reformation without involving themselves in the disputes of several schools of theology within Roman Catholicism (280).
Ultimately, though, Trent could not answer all questions.
Both Trent and Geneva would have to deal with the horror of the Radical Reformation. The Protestants were particularly sensitive to this charge. Were not the chaotics (e.g., Anabaptists) also using sola scriptura, if more radically? What separates the Magisterials from the Radicals on this point, besides the formers’ apparently arbitrary appeal to “tradition?” In response to this the Magisterials posited that Scripture “norms the lesser norms.” A nice response, to be sure, but one effective only to those who like Latin phrases.
Both Rome and the Protestants would form their covenant theological systems, taking them in different directions. While the broad overview of Covenant theology was simple—and little difference between both camps—the specifics were tricky: problems Reformed are still facing. See the self-slaughter that is the response to the Federal Vision.
Rome, too, had its internal problems. Jansenism had raised other difficulties with Augustine and grace, the response to which created the famous “middle knowledge” of Molina and would later set the stage for Henri de Lubac.
February 8, 2025
A three for the material and a five for Jaroslav Pelikan's scholarship averages out to a four. Again, as with volume four, the wranglings over the details of western Christianity's view of salvation, which I no longer ascribe to, were wearisome, though informative. Even if the system, in my view, is faulty, the questions in regard to free will and grace are important.
December 22, 2022
Pelikan manages to account for both the Reformation and Counter Reformation without being obviously biased in favor of one side over the other.
I’ve now read four of the five volumes in this series (volume two is the only one I have left) and cannot commend them highly enough.
I’ve now read four of the five volumes in this series (volume two is the only one I have left) and cannot commend them highly enough.
November 5, 2023
Pelikan's impressive ability of generally eschewing the historical/cultural forces of a given time to speak only of the contours of Doctrine as espoused by the Church is second to none, primarily because no-one else I have read has been capable of doing it at all, not to mention the style with which Pelikan accomplishes it.
This volume takes us to the Reformation, a clear battleground, and yet Pelikan is humane and honest with his presentation of both sides of the reformation divide. He mentions each doctrinal subset fairly, pointing out mainly the strengths of the arguments while very rarely mentioning possible flaws. While I was reading his summaries of protestant thought I couldn't help find myself shaking my head in agreement, whether he was pointing out the good or the bad. I can only imagine if I were a Tridentine Catholic I would be making the same reaction. A truly incredible accomplishment, and not to be taken lightly. Looking forward to re-reading the earlier volumes and finishing the latter volume.
This volume takes us to the Reformation, a clear battleground, and yet Pelikan is humane and honest with his presentation of both sides of the reformation divide. He mentions each doctrinal subset fairly, pointing out mainly the strengths of the arguments while very rarely mentioning possible flaws. While I was reading his summaries of protestant thought I couldn't help find myself shaking my head in agreement, whether he was pointing out the good or the bad. I can only imagine if I were a Tridentine Catholic I would be making the same reaction. A truly incredible accomplishment, and not to be taken lightly. Looking forward to re-reading the earlier volumes and finishing the latter volume.
February 22, 2023
This is my first Jaroslav Pelikan book that I finished, but I would like to read all five in the series on the Christian tradition as I learned a lot by reading this. It is fairly academic reading. I wanted to learn the key distinctions between Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed theology and I think this book helped me understand the positions much better.
The book shows how plurality of dogma developed during the Middle Ages, and then goes on to explain Luther and Calvin's theology in great depth, contrasting that with the Catholic position, and then moves to show how the challenges brought forth during the Reformation period were answered by a more divided Christendom.
It took me a while to get through this book, I took many notes, as it raised a lot of questions for me. I knew it was a text that I would want to come back to as I read further on the subject to compare with other books on the subject. A worthwhile read!
The book shows how plurality of dogma developed during the Middle Ages, and then goes on to explain Luther and Calvin's theology in great depth, contrasting that with the Catholic position, and then moves to show how the challenges brought forth during the Reformation period were answered by a more divided Christendom.
It took me a while to get through this book, I took many notes, as it raised a lot of questions for me. I knew it was a text that I would want to come back to as I read further on the subject to compare with other books on the subject. A worthwhile read!
October 15, 2019
Pelikan's engaging, clear writing is on good display here as he gracefully handles the stormy centuries of church splits and schisms. Because of the upheaval during 1300-1700, this volume might be the most essential, for Pelikan is faithful to his project of studying church doctrine. His portions on Catholicism are particularly helpful, since most Protestant resources have atrophied sections on Catholic reform in books about this time period.
March 17, 2019
As with the other three volumes, Pelikan is dry, dry, dry...but very informative. Where he excels is in explaining the theological method--that is, how and why people arrived at the conclusions they did in forming Christian doctrine and theology. Pelikan also does a wonderful job of explaining the lasting impact of the Great Schism...I just wish the narrative was quite so dull.
August 16, 2019
Really impressed by this book. It is absolutely useful for those wishing to have an idea about the Christian Reformation.
December 19, 2025
Pelikan is so good. Quippy, objective, and historically rigorous as far as I can tell. I’ve really enjoyed reading his works.
July 3, 2014
Pelikan's 4th volume in his 5-volume Christian Tradition focuses on perhaps the most familiar topic of historical Christianity (at least after the life of Jesus and the Resurrection): The Reformation. And scholar that he is, Pelikan has a nine-page "Preface" of sorts titled "Reformation Defined" -- as if the 400-plus pages that follow weren't enough. Pelikan is nothing if not thorough.
For Pelikan -- one can reasonably substitute "truth" for his exhaustive research -- the Reformation is much more than Luther's rabble-rousing. He traces a "pregnant plurality of fourteenth-century thought" that predated Luther by a century and a half, including names both familiar and unfamiliar. If one can critique Pelikan's work to this point, it would ironically be the lack of it: corners actually had to be cut to get the text down to the 400-plus pages in volume 4. The reader is invariably left wanting more information; but of course, Pelikan's expansive bibliography and notes offer more than enough opportunity for further research.
What higher praise can I offer than this: I will be learning from these volumes for the rest of my life. They will be among the most important books in my library. But it is not easy reading; what good has been accomplished without significant effort? And now off to begin volume 5!
For Pelikan -- one can reasonably substitute "truth" for his exhaustive research -- the Reformation is much more than Luther's rabble-rousing. He traces a "pregnant plurality of fourteenth-century thought" that predated Luther by a century and a half, including names both familiar and unfamiliar. If one can critique Pelikan's work to this point, it would ironically be the lack of it: corners actually had to be cut to get the text down to the 400-plus pages in volume 4. The reader is invariably left wanting more information; but of course, Pelikan's expansive bibliography and notes offer more than enough opportunity for further research.
What higher praise can I offer than this: I will be learning from these volumes for the rest of my life. They will be among the most important books in my library. But it is not easy reading; what good has been accomplished without significant effort? And now off to begin volume 5!
July 23, 2012
This book is magisterial. Not for the casual reader, Pelikan traces the doctrinal splits as they developed through the Council of Trent and beyond. In typical Pelikan style, the book is impeccably researched, and dense to the point of unreadability at times. To the layperson, some of the disputes are so esoteric that the modern Christian can only wonder at the violence that resulted from some of the disputes. To anyone who wants to understand the specific details of doctrinal development in this period of history, read this book. No other needs to be written.
January 25, 2012
Pelikan was brilliant. If you want a reputable history of Christan church doctrine from the beginning almost up to the present then you should read this five volume set. It is worth of being studied to see how every concept of Christian doctrine was arrived at and how other ideas where rejected.
This is an intellectual feast.
This is an intellectual feast.
April 21, 2009
Pelikan does a good job of presenting the many sides of the doctrinal issues of the time period.
October 20, 2021
Good book if you want a new angle on reformation, I definitely felt like I learned something new even though this is such a familiar subject.
December 23, 2009
Outstanding!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews