[This is last post in the Oberman series. I hope to begin a new series of "guest posts" this weekend].
In section 4, “Pax and the Third Age,” Oberman observes that peace and concord were the “two most prominent themes in treatises and reform proposals throughout the later Middle Ages” (p. 29). We see a close connection in the late medieval mindset between reform and peace, which indicates that the threat of peace was understood as arising from within the Church. According to Oberman, the goals of conciliarism should not be understood primarily as anti-papal (though of course such sentiments could be found). In other words, the goal was to engage the current crisis of the Church with the intent to reform it and to “re-establish pax and concordia” (p. 30).
Oberman goes on to discuss the relationship between the sacred and the secular. The ever-present awareness of living in the “Third Age”—an age where the sacred was being threatened—brings about reflection on the mutual relationship between the sacred and the secular (p. 31). “Without the sanction of the sacred, the secular cannot provide for a truly human society. If this is the case, then a relation of the sacred and the secular is assumed which itself must disintegrate under the onslaught of the crisis of the later Middle Ages. When the very sources of peace and justice themselves can no longer be regarded as sacred, sanctioned and legitimated, the guarantee for peace and justice in state and society is henceforth seen in terms of partnership between the sacred and the secular, which provides enlightened, rational man with the basis of his covenanted responsibility” (p. 32).
In section 5, “Summa Misericordia … Super Summam Miseriam Directe Cadit” (“Highest mercy … falls immediately upon deepest misery”), Oberman examines three quotations from the early writings of the following theologians (Gerson, Staupitz, and Luther), all of which deal with the relationship “between Christ and the sinner in terms of love and marriage symbolism” (p. 33). Though each of the above passages have a mystical tone, the “mystical” aspect (i.e. the intimate union between God and the believer) is applicable or available to all believers and just a select few. The first point that Oberman emphasizes is that for Gerson the soul must be pure (“fully purged”) before it can experience the “embrace of the Bridegroom, where what is his, pure divinity, becomes yours and what is yours, pure humanity, becomes his.” This expresses a more or less tradition medieval position. In this exegetical tradition, the individual and the Church are interchangeable. Secondly, Gerson’s description of the penitent moving from a view of God as a punishing God to that of desirable, embracing Bridegroom shows that Luther’s so-called “personal” experience in regard to the (punishing) iustitia Dei of Rom 1:17 to the iustitia Christi for us harmonizes well with the medieval tradition of his day (p. 34). The second passage is from Staupitz. The significance of the passage from Staupitz is that on his account “purgation is not the precondition for that union in which justification takes place; instead purgation takes place in the marriage union itself” Sin alone (i.e., our being sinners) is the precondition for this exchange of possessions” (p. 35). Here we do not ascend to Christ, rather he descends to us for our justification. Again, we see the closing of the gap between the secular and the sacred. Third, Oberman examines a passage from Luther. As was the case with Staupitz, Luther too differs from Gerson in that the sinner in no way prepares him/herself for receiving Christ’s redemptive blessings, but rather is justified as a sinner. The distinguishing point between Luther and Staupitz is that “for Luther the union with Christ is mediated through his word, through faith in his promises” (p. 36). Also in distinction from Gerson, the Church (as is the case with the individual soul) is not first purified or purged as a precondition for restoration—such would impossible in Luther’s view. For Luther, reformation has a dual focus: (1) an “acknowledgement of the perpetual nature of the crisis of man and his society” [given our fallen condition] and (2) “the trust in the reality of the sacred embrace of the secular condition” (p. 37).
In sum, Oberman says that given what we have said so far, “we find no reason to conclude that the Reformation movement has a unique claim upon penetration into the modern era” (p. 37). Rather, the crisis of the late medieval period is perhaps best described as the “birth pangs of the Modern era” (p. 38).