[1483] Instructive indeed are the detailed proofs given in Kropatscheck’s work of how the heretical Waldenses, and, after them, Wiclif and Hus, used the “sola scriptura” against tradition and the authority of the Church. The example of the Waldenses had already shown that it was quite impossible to use the principle without accepting at the same time certain of the doctrines of the Church (p. 17 ff.). With Hus “the formula ‘sola scriptura’ rings again and again in his writings as a battle-cry” (p. 76). He wants the “lex Christi” and no “leges novæ,” hence, no Decretals, indulgences, Crusade-Bulls, priesthood or celibacy. The revolutionary force of the formula is noticeable in Hus and still more in the later Hussites; they declared the “Law of Grace” to be sufficient even for civil life, and, as “avengers of Scripture,” proclaimed war on those lords who thought differently, the Princes and the monasteries. Wiclif, “a Bible theologian from head to foot,” who even finds in Scripture all the wisdom and learning of the world, and describes it as a book everyone can understand, registered a success which was “great” only in the revolutionary sense. The Bible standpoint of Occam, to which Kropatscheck also devotes attention, has something in common with that of Luther (cp. Kropatscheck, “Occam und Luther,” in “Beiträge zur Förderung christl. Theol.,” 1900, p. 49 ff.). Kropatscheck emphasises the fact, that Occam, in his opposition to the Pope, had conceded to “the whole Church” the right of interpretation, and, like Marsilius of Padua, wished to set aside man-made laws for the Bible and the law of nature. The history of the Middle Ages and the “apocalyptic, political and social” trends connected with Holy Scripture show how dangerous and subversive any arbitrary treatment of the Bible could be. The written Word of God becomes a weapon wherewith to rouse the passions against the highest powers, an excuse for gross millenarianism and libertinism, and a veritable mine to be exploited by stupid, crazy fanatics.—Cp., on Kropatscheck, M. Buchberger, in “Theol. Revue,” 1906, p. 118 ff.; his review concludes as follows: “that no solid foundation can be won, but that everything totters without an authoritative, and, in the last instance, infallible, exponent of Holy Scripture. The call for such an exponent is the final conclusion powerfully borne in on the mind.”
[1484] Ibid., p. 433.
[1485] “W. Pirkheimers Stellung zur Reformation,” 1887, p. 117.
[1486] From Pirkheimer’s “Oratio apolog.,” for the Convent of St. Clare at Nuremberg, in “Opp.,” ed. M. Goldast, 1610, p. 375 seq.
[1487] Gütersloh, 1903, p. 84 ff.
[1488] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 195; “Opp. lat. var.,” 6, p. 408.
[1489] “Theol. Literaturblatt,” 1905, col. 41.
[1490] “Grundriss der DG.,” etc.³, Leipzig, 1910, p. 130.
[1491] “Lehrbuch der DG.,” 2nd part, Erl., 1898, p. 289.
[1492] Pp. 288, 283, 290 f.