Tuesday, November 03, 2026
The Roots Of Low Church Theology
Pointing out how widespread something like infant baptism or the perpetual virginity of Mary was in early Protestantism doesn't address the earlier sources. I'm not just referring to scripture. Advocates of low church theology can cite support for something like credobaptism or Mary's having other children in pre-Reformation sources other than the Bible. Proponents of high church theology can cite pre-Reformation support for their views on those subjects as well. But a lot of relevant pre-Reformation sources, including medieval ones, are often neglected in disputes between proponents of low church and high church theologies. Advocates of high church theology will often rightly recognize some of the roots of Protestant theology in those earlier sources and will be aware of and make some use of the work of groups like the Waldensians and the Lollards. But the low church elements of those earlier sources will often be neglected. Just as Protestantism didn't spring out of nowhere in the sixteenth century, neither did low church theology. When a low church view of an issue is found among individuals and groups who are considered forerunners of the Reformation and is found in earlier medieval, patristic, Jewish, and Biblical sources, it's misleading to frame the discussion by making negative references to the Anabaptists and citing negative comments their Protestant opponents made about them, all the while ignoring or inadequately addressing those earlier sources.
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The Carolingian Frankish resistance in the late 7th and early 8th centuries AD to the so-called 7th ecumenical council, and its image-worshipping enactments, was a genuine, large-scale example of the burst of "proto-Protestant" sentiment, as Charlemagne and his Frankish prelates apparently thought themselves quite capable and justified in high-handedly rejecting the authority of BOTH the Byzantine "general council" and the Roman papacy - that is, the highest authorities of both EO and RC churches! - because they thought their decisions contradicted both the Bible and their own church traditions (at that time, the Hellenistic cult of the icons had not yet arrived in Western Europe, outside of Italy, which had been occupied by Byzantine forces in the days of Justinian). If that is not incipient Protestantism, I do not know what is.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.stempublishing.com/authors/darby/DOCTRINE/22002E_B.html
"Pope Adrian had sent them the decisions of the Council of Nicaea (or Nice), to which they had never been called, and they say, "We receive the Six General Councils, but we reject with contempt novelties, as also the Council held in Bithynia (that is, the so-called Seventh General Council of Nice), to authorize the worship of images, the Acts of which, destitute of style and sense, have come to us"; and then they refute seriously all that the pope had said to the Eastern Emperor. They declare that the Council of Nice is not a general one, because it was not gathered from all parts of the church, and appeal to Gregory the Great's letter to Serenus. But this work of the bishops of France and Germany, then one empire, issued in Charlemagne's name, was not all. In 794 he had a council at Frankfort-on-the-Main, at which were the pope's legates and 300 prelates of Germany, France, and Spain. This council refers to the Council of Nice as the council of the Greeks, and rejects entirely, unanimously, and with contempt its doctrine and decision.
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So here we have an alleged general council received by the pope, disowned publicly by all the West, except Italy, and its doctrine condemned. All the assembled bishops of the West, with the pope's legates, declare that the Council of Nice is not a general council, and reject with contempt unanimously (these are their words) its doctrines and authority; and accordingly it was not for a great length of time received in the Western empire as a general council, and this the Council of Frankfort was."
The Frankish reaction to Nicaea II was real enough, but it doesn’t do the work you’re asking it to do.
DeleteThe big problem was a really bad Latin translation of the acts that got sent to the Frankish court. It was so poorly done that it made the council look like it was demanding the same absolute worship for images that belongs only to God. One key line from Constantine of Constantia got twisted into something that sounded like images were supposed to receive the exact same honor as the Trinity. The actual Greek is careful about the difference between relative honor and the worship due to God alone. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the Caroline Books lays this out pretty clearly: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03371b.htm
Pope Hadrian accepted the council and defended it. The Franks wrote the Libri Carolini and then held Frankfurt in 794, rejecting what they understood the Greeks had decided (see the Wikipedia page on the Council of Frankfurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Frankfurt). But they weren’t claiming some right to just overrule both a general council and the Roman see whenever their reading of Scripture and local custom lined up against it. They were still working inside the same basic structure—the first six councils, the Roman tradition (especially Gregory the Great), and the papacy. Charlemagne’s overall policy stayed solidly supportive of the Roman church.
Calling this a clear burst of proto-Protestantism stretches things. It was a temporary regional disagreement driven by bad information and some anti-Byzantine feeling, not a principled rejection of conciliar or papal authority in the later Protestant sense. The Western church eventually received Nicaea II as the seventh ecumenical council.