Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 650

626

§ 98.

ARTICULATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY

[Div. Ill

period were embarrassed by the removal of theology from the seminary to the university. It was apparent in Paris, Lou-

and elsewhere, that the university life brought with it diversion and temptation than the secluded life at more far the seminaries. Now the Reformation in principle abandoned the seminary, and from principle gave theology its place in the university, and it became necessary to insist more strenuously upon piety and asceticism of life in the future theologians. The piety at the seminary was too much like a hot-house atmosphere, and results showed how little these hot-house plants amounted to the moment they became exposed to the In view of this less favorable atmosphere of common life.

vain,

also they

A

piety,

gave their preference to the freer university life. which there maintained itself and kept its virtue,

was much better acclimatized

to life in the world.

they expressed the desire that the academy

life

At times

should be suc-

ceeded by at least one year of seclusion from the world in a more quiet seminary. But this was merely a corrective and a palliative, and their chief strength lay in exhortation, in moral pressure, in the

clearly the folly

power of the Word, to exhibit ever more and the contradiction of the study of theol-

ogy without the corresponding fear of the Lord, trembling at His word, and communion with God in Christ. This implied at the same time that these demands of Scriptural, ecclesiastical and personal piety were not exacted from the student only, but from every theologian after graduation from academy life. Because it involved the articulation of theology to the spiritual reality, this claim could not be abandoned at a single point of the whole way. Godliness alone is able to foster, feed and maintain that holy sympathy for the object of theology which is

indispensable for success.

There is a difference here also between the studies which touch the centrum of theology and those which lie on its periphery.

A

point of detail in

spiritual

reality at

study by

itself is

Church history touches the

almost no single point, so that such a

not able to stamp a man as a theologian. is taken as an organic whole, and all its

But when theology

subdivisions are viewed from this central interpretation, the

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