Commencement of a new movement at Oxford.
The announcement by Colet of this course of lectures on St. Paul’s Epistles was in truth, so far as can be traced, the first overt act in a movement commenced at Oxford in the direction of practical Christian reform—a movement, some of the results of which, had they been gifted with prescience, might well have filled the minds of the Oxford doctors with dismay.
They could not indeed foresee that those very books of ‘the Sentences,’ over which they had pored so intently for so many years, in order to obtain the degree of Master in Theology, and at which students were still patiently toiling with the same object in view—they could not foresee that, within forty years, these very books would ‘be utterly banished from Oxford,’ ignominiously ‘nailed up upon posts’ as waste paper, their loose leaves strewn about the quadrangles until some sportsman should gather them up and thread them on a line to keep the deer within the neighbouring woods.[14] They could not, indeed, foresee the end of the movement then only beginning, but still, the announcement of Colet’s lectures was likely to cause them some uneasiness. They may well have asked, whether, if the exposition of the Scriptures were to be really revived at Oxford, so dangerous a duty should not be restricted to those duly authorised to discharge it? Was every stripling who might travel as far as Italy and return infected with the ‘new learning’ to be allowed to set up himself as a theological teacher, without graduating in divinity, and without waiting for decency’s sake for the bishop’s ordination?
On the other hand, any Oxford graduate choosing to adopt so irregular a course, must have been perfectly aware that it would be one likely to stir up opposition, and even ill-will,[15] amongst the older divines; and it maybe presumed that he hardly would have ventured upon such a step without knowing that there were at the university others ready to support him.
II. THE RISE OF THE NEW LEARNING (1453-92).
The old and new school of thought.
In all ages, more or less, there is a new school of thought rising up under the eyes of an older school of thought. And probably in all ages the men of the old school regard with some little anxiety the ways of the men of the new school. Never is it more likely to be so than at an epoch of sharp transition, like that on which the lot of these Oxford doctors had been cast.
An age of progress and transition.
Advance of Infidel arms in Europe.
We sometimes speak as though our age were par excellence the age of progress. Theirs was much more so if we duly consider it. The youth and manhood of some of them had been spent in days which may well have seemed to be the latter days of Christendom. They had seen Constantinople taken by the Turks. The final conquest of Christendom by the infidel was a possibility which had haunted all their visions of the future. Were not Christian nations driven up into the north-western extremity of the known world, a wide pathless ocean lying beyond? Had not the warlike creed of Mahomet steadily encroached upon Christendom, century by century, stripping her first of her African churches, from thence fighting its way northward into Spain? Had it not maintained its foothold in Spain’s fairest provinces for seven hundred years? And from the East was it not steadily creeping over Europe, nearer and nearer to Venice and Rome, in spite of all that crusades could do to stop its progress? If, though little more than half the age of Christianity, it had already, as they reckoned it had, drawn into its communion five times[16] as many votaries as there were Christians left, was it a groundless fear that now in these latter days it might devour the remaining sixth? What could hinder it?
Internal weakness of the Church.