John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564) was born in Noyon, Picardie. By his early twenties he had grown unsettled in his religious experiences and turned from studying law to the priesthood. Calvin turned from Catholicism and underwent a personal religious experience adopting a simpler form of Christianity after hearing a discourse on the sovereignty of the scriptures by the Rector of the Sorbonne, Nicholas Cop.  By 1533 he had become prominent in Paris as an evangelical preacher following his adoption of Luther's ideas. The following year, fearing repression if his beliefs were made public, Calvin fled to Basle where he where he published the first edition of his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536.
That same year he accepted an invitation by William Farel to help reform the church in Geneva. The city council resisted the implementation of Calvin and Farel's ideas, and he was expelled in 1538 because of public resentment against the numerous and too drastic changes he introduced. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg, where he became the minister of a church of French refugees. He continued to support the reform movement in Geneva, and was eventually invited back in 1531 to lead its church, where in the face of strong opposition, he established a rigorous theocracy.  Following an influx of supportive refugees, Calvin's opponents were forced out. Calvin spent his final years promoting the Reformation both in Geneva and throughout Europe.

Calvin's writing and preachings provided the seeds for a theological system known as Calvinism, which was subsequently adopted by the Reformed and Presbyterian branches of Protestantism.




 

Karl Barth

In 1919 Karl Barth (1886-1968), a young Swiss Theologian, began working through the problems posed by the First World War and the failure of liberal theology to account for such a dark episode in human history. The outcome of this was his commentary The Epistle To The Romans, which opened the way for a revival of orthodox Protestantism based on the Bible.
Barth continued to argue that liberal theology was bankrupt and to teach that God's word stands over against man and judges him. By 1932, when he published the first volume of his Church Dogmatics, which made the resurrection of Jesus the focal point of Christianity, Barth was recognized as the most influential current theologian. After 1945 the influence of Barth's theology began to wane but still today it has its champions.

Augustine of Hippo

In 386 a lecturer of rhetoric in Carthage, St Augustine (354-430), was converted to Christianity. Though he’d learnt the Christian faith from his Mother, Monnica, doubts had began to creep in as a result of his Rhetoric studies and at the age of 19 a treatise by Cicero made him realize he should make truth his life search. For the next 10 years he was attached to the heretical Manicheanism beliefs and during this time his concerned mother sent a certain bishop to debate with him. The prelate found him to be too clever a disputant and the bishop counselled Monnica to "content yourself with praying for him." She went to her charge weeping and he sent her away saying, "Go, continue as you have done till now; it is impossible that the son of so many tears should perish."
Later he found himself in Milan, where Bishop Ambrose's sermons began to speak to his heart but he was still too entwined in the world to convert. After reading an account of the lives of Anthony and other Egyptian hermits, Augustine was thrown into deep inner turmoil but he was still unable to break free. However whilst walking through his garden, he heard a child saying in a sing-song voice "Take it and read it." Under a fig tree, Augustine read Romans 13 v13-14 and in tears he finally found the Savior that his mother had told him about. "As if the light of peace was poured in my heart and all the shades of doubt faded away", he later wrote in his spiritual autobiography Confessions.
The following year Bishop Ambrose baptized St Augustine in the Milan Easter vigil service on the night of Holy Saturday. In his book Confessions, Augustine described later the ceremony “I wept at the beauty of the hymns and canticles and was powerfully moved at the sweet sound of your churches singing…My feeling of devotion overflowed and the tears ran from my eyes and I was happy in them.” The hymn Te Deum, based on the text “Te Deum Laudamus”, (“We praise thee O God”) originated during this baptism.
In 391 Augustine visited the Mediterranean port of Hippo, 60 miles away, to set up a monastery there and one Sunday he attended Mass where the local Bishop Valerius was preaching. The aged bishop, who was looking for an assistant, preached the need for another ordained man in the town. The church members decided they want Augustine for this post and Valerius agreed however Augustine felt inadequate and declined. The congregation would have none of it and he was jostled to the front of the church where he was ordained on the spot. The new priest began devoting himself to the mastery of Scripture and within six years he was ordained Bishop of Hippo.
Augustine is generally held to be the greatest doctor of Christianity. He precached innumerable sermons, of which more than four hundred have come down to us. His orthodoxy prevented Catholicism being unduly influenced by alternative teaching. The great theologian developed many Catholic doctrines helping make infant baptism, belief in purgatory and the teaching that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church normal practice. In addition he encouraged ascetic monasticism and the use of relics.
Of his 96 known works a couple are known by all educated people. They are:
(a) His spiritual autobiography Confessions, a prose poem addressed to God spread over 13 books. It tells the honest, objective story of his childhood and education, his worldly views at this stage and his conversion to Christianity. He recounts the sins of his youth and how even his prayers of repentance are tainted with insincerity, “Give me chastity but not yet”, he wrote.
(b) His epic tome, City of God, split over 22 books, which took Augustine 13 years to complete. City of God is an answer to the question “Why did God allow Rome to fall to the Barbarians so soon after enveloping Christianity?” In it he argues that there are two cities, one earthly, Rome, which is bound to pass away in time and one the City of God, heavenly, founded on goodness and justice which will survive the onslaught of the enemy and will last eternally.
Tragically many in the church misunderstood Augustine's masterpiece, as their interpretation of his book was that the church should have its own empire ruled by bishops.

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) was a Dutch Protestant priest who from 1603 was professor of theology at Leiden in Holland. Arminius opposed John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination and asserted that forgiveness and eternal life are bestowed on all that repent of their sins and believe wholeheartedly in Jesus Christ. His theology is referred to as “Arminianism."
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, embraced Arminian theology and it became the basis of Wesleyan Methodism

Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was was born into a family of the south Italian nobility. The youngest Son of Count Landuff, a Nobleman of Lombardic descent, his mother was Countess Theadora of Theate. Thomas' family were related to the Emperors Henry VI and Frederick II, in addition to the King of France.
A fat, slow, pious boy, Thomas was placed by his parents in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, where his uncle was the Abbot. Early in his life Thomas was noted as being diligent and devoted to prayer.
As a teenager Thomas decided to enter the Dominican order. His mother and father determined that it was an improper way for an upper class member of an Italian family to behave, and opposed him. They had set their heart on Thomas becoming a Benedictine abbot.
Between 1239 and 1244 Thomas attended University of Naples. Diligent in study, Thomas was often heard to ask such profound questions as "What is God?" It was at Naples that he came under the influence of the Dominican preacher John of St. Julian. Impressed by the Dominican, he joined that order whilst still an Undergraduate.
Between 1245 and 1252 Thomas was a pupil of Albertus Magnus,(Albert the Great) at Paris and Cologne (a fellow Dominican ,and one of the most learned men of his time-he needed to be with a name like that). Heavy but well proportioned with a large head, bearded, receding hairline, and one huge eye dwarfed his other, Thomas was nicknamed at Paris University by fellow Students, "The Dumb Ox", due to his lofty bulk and slowness. Despite this Albertus predicted that "this Ox will one day fill the world with his bellowing." In 1256 Aquinas was awarded a doctorate in theology. He spent the rest of his life teaching in Paris and in Italy.
In his lifetime Thomas produced an enormous literary output with about 80 works are ascribed to him. The Bible, Augustine, Aristotle, Plato and the "sentences" of Peter Lombard were among his influences. At first, Thomas wrote his works with his own hand. His writing suggests someone left-handed, writing in great haste in the Latin shorthand of the time. Thomas's hand has been dubbed the litera inintelligibilis, unreadable writing. No wonder that with time he was assigned secretaries to take dictation. In his later years , at times he was dictating to several different scribes on several different subjects at the same time. His two most important works are the Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theological. Summa Contra Gentiles was written at the request of an obviously persuasive Ramon de Penatuerle to convert the Spanish Muslims, this three volume masterpiece reconciled reason with revelation. Summa Theological. Aquinas' epic, unfinished work which strove to account for all phenomena logically. Basically a compendium of all human knowledge in relation to religion, written for novices, it is still accepted as the final authoritative exposition of the Catholic doctrine.
In 1273 Aquinas had a mystical experience that convinced him to stop writing. All he had written seemed like straw compared to what he had seen during that experience. Or so he said.
Thomas' books were banned, burnt and not widely read for three centuries but became influential leading up to the renaissance and became the embodiment of the world view taught in Universities for the following three centuries.

Thomas Aquinas was a gifted preacher in a Neapolitan dialect who preached the Word of God. He argued that Scripture alone was the basis of all theology and his sermons were full of solid instruction, scriptural illustrations and quotes. A great admirer of Mary, he once wrote, "As sailors are guided to port by a star, so are Christians guided to Heaven by Mary." However he opposed the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Christ's Mother was, by a special act of grace preserved free from sin. The Dominican scholar introduced the word "limbo" as a place for the souls of those who weren't Christians, but didn't deserve to go to hell went. Those in limbo he argued include unbaptised infants and the prophets of the Old Testament. He was instrumental in developing the doctrine of transubstantiation, by which the communion bread and wine upon consecration, became the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Angelic Doctor defended the practice of veneration of saint's relics during a time when some regarded it as mere superstition. Aquinas argued that the bodies of the saints are vessels of the Holy Spirit. He taught that man was a sinner and needed Christ's saving grace which comes to man exclusively through the seven sacraments which are, baptism, confirmation, the Lord's Supper, confession, anointing of the sick, marriage and ordination. To sum up, Thomas Aquinas is recognized as the greatest scholastic theologian of the Middle Ages and the influence he has exercised on Roman Catholic thought and doctrine is enormous.
His system of Philosophy called Thomism is still active in France, Philosophers such as Jacques Maritian and Etienne Gilson still operate within its framework.

Saint Anselm

Saint Anselm (d 1109) was born at Aosta in Piedmont about 1033. After devoting much of his youth to pleasurable pursuits he became a monk at the abbey of Bec in Normandy, where flourished one of the most celebrated schools in Europe. Anselm flourished under the tuition of the famed Lanfranc. He became abbot of the monastery in 1078, making it the greatest center of scholarship in Europe, whilst personally writing some much admired philosophical works. Much influenced by Augustine Anselm sought 'necessary reasons' for religious beliefs. In his Proslogion, (Addition), in which he attempted to use reason to explain belief, Anselm stated that the capacity of human beings to conceive of the existence of God was proof that God must exist.

The interests of his abbey sometimes took Anselm to England and he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by William II of England in 1093, but was later forced into exile. He is considered to be one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of the middle ages.

Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was born in Pallet, near Nantes. In 1115 be became canon of Notre Dame in Paris and master of the cathedral school, where he taught theology and logic. Abelard found himself falling in love with Héloïse, a pupil of his, who was 20 years his junior. Because marriage would get in the way of his career they married covertly but their secret was discovered. As a consequence, her uncle, a Parisian Cathedral canon, sent Héloïse away to a nunnery and had the unfortunate Abelard castrated. He became a monk at St Denis monastery and their feelings for each other turned from earthly to spiritual love as they continued to correspond with each other. Resuming teaching a year later, Abelard began writing theological tomes. His first published work, a treatise on the Trinity, was condemned and ordered to be burnt by a Roman Catholic council. Despite the controversy surrounding him, Abelard in time came to be recognised as one of the major Christian thinkers of his day. His scholastic text, Sic Et Non (Yes And No), which discussed the relationship between faith and reason, was read by learned men throughout western Europe, and his lectures attracted crowds of students.