The Modern Devotion

Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism

Q. Attitude towards the Schism

In this more or less depressed or despairing state of mind Groote wrote, against his will but at the urgent insistance of Salvarvilla, the celebrated piece on the schism. According to the oft-quoted letter No. 20, which must have been written around the turn of the year 1383-1384, Salvarvilla had asked Groote to write on the term schism and its legal content. Groote preferred to write on the schism in his own soul.

‘I am ignorant of the matter of the schism and it has not been precisely dealt with or published by the lawyers either in terms or in arguments or in definitions.’³

Groote thus approached his task mainly from the theoretical point of view. At least he imputes the thus formulated question to Salvarvilla. It is difficult however to accept that this was the intention of Groote's friend and teacher. Groote was by no means enthusiastic, perhaps also because too plain a pronouncement on his part might be harmful to his activities in the other obedience (including the province of Holland). Salvarvilla naturally intended that Groote's piece should be published; he himself ardently fought to end the schism. After the failure of various attempts to bring this about, he considered the only hope of salvation to lie in a general Council, as he later wrote to Groote.⁴ At this point Groote agreed with him.⁵ But it is very remarkable that this active man, preoccupied with the Church and friendly with Salvarvilla, never mentioned the schism in his letters before the turn of the year 1383-1384. The entire Church was preoccupied with it, and Groote's own field of endeavour was split into two obediences, one under Rome and the other under Avignon. In 1379 the diocese of

3 Ibid., no. 20, p. 75. For the dating see: R.R. Post. Brieven van Geert Groote. Archief voor de geschiedenis van de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland. 7 (1965) 269-79.

4 O.G.E. 15 (1941) 77.

5 Ger. M. Ep. n. 35, p. 148.

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Utrecht had been particularly implicated in this question and even afterwards various conflicts occurred in this frontier region, for example on the question of conferring benefices or on taxes. Still people seem to have found a tolerable modus vivendi in practice. Groote had in any case considerable contact with Eemsteyn and with three priests in Amsterdam who were officially obliged to recognize the Pope of Avignon. However this may be, Groote wrote De Schismate in a somewhat overwrought state of mind. He himself was not satisfied with the result and made his apologies to Salvarvilla. ‘Spare me, reverend father, and bear with this document, confused as it is and without shame and disfigured by various repetitions. I fear nothing that you have ordered. You know that I am not certain on this point... I do not willingly follow this trail. May I trample down my inner ambiguity.’¹ Van Asseldonk has rightly pointed out that in view of this passage and in view of what is said about the possession or not of books, it can never have been Groote's intention to publish this letter. It is a private communication to a friend, which is perhaps important when judging some of the passages. Groote's intentions were probably not in accord with the motives of Salvarvilla's request.

What Groote gives us in this hastily composed piece characterizes his opinion on the Church, the hierarchy, his faith and his manner of reasoning, more than it offers any significant solution for the existing situation. In view of the importance of this document and the controversies to which it gave rise and which exist up to the present day, we must give here a detailed analysis.

I am following here the excellent exposition of G. van Asseldonk² who in his turn was able to utilize the study by L. Smit.³ This latter scholar, who is evidently more of a dogmatician than a historian, has expounded the first piece principally and the second to some extent, as a dogmatician, supplementing his arguments with ideas from other letters.

Van Asseldonk takes as his point of departure Groote's letter to Master Bernard, quoted above.⁴ Here, for the rest, I permit myself a shift in accent. Groote thinks and maintains that Urban VI is pope and that others too must recognise him as pope. The uncertainty which

1 Ger. M. Ep., p. 92.

2 G. van Asseldonk m.s.f., De Nederlanden en het westerse Schisma (tot 1398), Diss. Nijmegen 1955, 154-219.

3 Studia catholica 10 (1933-1934), 257-268, 367-277.

4 Ger. M. Ep. n. 59, p. 221.

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still exists, proceeds from the fact that a large section of Europe holds a different opinion. Because of this uncertainty he would be unwilling to declare under oath that Urban is truly pope, but his entire conviction (understanding, mind and thought), and also that of his bishop, tell him so strongly that Urban is pope that he feels he would have to choose death rather than align himself with Clement VII before the general Council. The less he was ordered to speak about Urban the better he liked it.¹ He is an Urbanist, who realized, however, that important things would have to happen before unity was restored. A council would have to lay down the necessary measures and he would comply with them. His friend Salvarvilla had probably also reached this stage around the turn of the year 1383-1384 when he asked for Groote's opinion on the schism. Whereas at first he was mainly preoccupied with the question of how the breach could be healed, and as a professor in Paris he opposed the suggestion that the professors should be required to accept the Clementine obedience, he later evolved into an Urbanist. He was therefore compelled to flee Paris and accepted a benefice and a function in Liège in the other obedience.²

It is possible to assume that Groote and Salvarvilla accepted the idea of a Council since it has been established that the letter on the schism was first written around the period in question, 1383-1384 - whereas Mulder dated it as early as 1381. This also complicated the interpretation for L. Smit.³ Salvarvilla did not ask Groote what seemed to him the best way to resolve the schism. He had already seen that the via cessionis and the via facti had offered no success. For him only one way still lay open - the general council. He was more concerned with the difficulty of how the schism affected the individual conscience. He desired a clear cut theological-legal definition of the concepts schism and heresy and an answer to the question whether a person, by denying the legality of one of the popes, lapsed into heresy or schism.⁴ Salvarvilla defines the first as schismatis verbo et diccione in letter No. 20⁵ and the second may be deduced from Groote's reply. Salvarvilla had long been preoccupied with this second question. It may be deduced from

1 This diverges a little in three places from van Asseldonk. Tenere for example seems to me stronger than to consider; so strongly that is more than so that, corresponding to in tantum ut; he does not refuse to preach but hopes that he will not be called upon to do too much.

2 v. Asseldonk 160-164.

3 Ibid., 163, n. 37.

4 Ibid., 166.

5 Ger. M. Ep. 74.

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the epistola concilii pacis of Henry of Langenstein that the dubium was proposed at the University at Paris in 1381, which in concreto may be formulated thus: must those who refuse to recognise the legality of Clement be treated as heretics and schismatics? More¹ than two years later Salvarvilla posed the same question, but now in precisely the opposite meaning: must those who refused to recognise Urban VI as lawful Pope (Urbanus non est papa or A non est Papa) be considered as heretics and schismatics?² Van Asseldonk sought for reasons which would have led Salvarvilla around 1383 to formulate this question for the obedience of Urban VI and finds them in a commission given to Salvarvilla by pope Urban VI. He was to act against the supporters of Clement VII, in Cambrai for example, as though they were heretics and schismatics.³

Geert Groote begins his answer to this question concerning the relationship between heresy and schism by declaring that nowhere among the newer theologians did he find clearer pronouncements than in St. Thomas, and that considerable confusion reigns in canon law regarding these two concepts. He for his part would wish to draw the sharpest possible line of demarcation between these concepts and their corresponding phenomena in church life. Here however, he immediately comes up against ideas which diverge from the general doctrine before him.

Heresy and schism have this in common, that both bring about a split. The nature of this split, however, differs in each case. Heresy is a separation of an internal nature in the domain of the intellect. Schism is an actual separation, directly affecting the external community. The heretic disagrees with the church on some article of faith, the schismatic refuses to conserve the unity with the members of the church and the community with the head and renounces obedience. Geert Groote agrees with the canonists in general that schism in itself does not imply heresy, although it conduces to heresy and in practice never exists for long without it. He rejects, however, the general opinion, also shared by St. Thomas, that heresy always accompanies schism. In his view a person can be a heretic without abandoning the ecclesiastical unity.⁴

This deviation which W. Spoelhof also considered as one of the signs of Groote's nonconformity, is explained by Van Asseldonk as follows: On the one hand Groote attributes a broader significance to the word

1 v. Asseldonk 168.

2 Ibid., 168.

3 Ibid., 168.

4 Ibid., 169-170.

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heresy, whereby he also includes the obstinate rejection of non-defined truths, and on the other he limits the idea of schism to the directly desired split.¹ On this point one must bear in mind that according to Groote a heretic (also when contesting an article of faith) is always expelled from the Church, is thus separated from the Church and, like the excommunicated, comes to stand outside the Church.²

Having made various other distinctions, Groote gives it as his opinion that the person who, under the given circumstances, denies the legal papacy of Urban VI, is neither a heretic nor a schismatic, provided he has the intention of abiding by the pronouncement of the general Church.³ This thesis is based principally on the conviction that such a person is acting in ignorance, notably in ignorance of what exactly has happened. The inclination to subject oneself to the general Church presumes that one does not wish to attack the legal institutions of the Church. In other words he only intends to deny that Urban VI lawfully occupies the position of pope and not to deny that one owes obedience to the Church of Rome. Furthermore this inclination carries with it the obligation of not breaking away from the ecclesiastical community in which one lives. In other words Geert Groote, who belongs under the Urbanist obedience, may not transfer to that of Clement even though he does not recognise Urban as Pope⁴. He who fulfils these conditions may not be branded as a heretic or a schismatic.

In an argument which is rather difficult to follow, Groote gives as his opinion that, viewed in abstract - whereby he does not detach himself entirely from the schism - refusal to recognize the legality of a pope can never be considered as heresy, although here one must exclude attacks upon the papacy as such.⁵ However, denial of the legality of a pope could indeed lead to schism, if the intention was to split Church unity. This is not so, however, in the present split, at least not for those who were not directly implicated at the outbreak of the schism. The situation was completely different from former schisms.⁶ Groote finally arrives at certain practical conclusions:

1 v. Asseldonk, 170-171.

2 On page 171 van Asseldonk says that according to Groote the heretic can be excluded from the community. However, on p. 79 Groote does not say: can be excluded, but: ecclesia eos dividit et separat. All heretics are in fact excluded. Ger. M. Ep. pp. 79-80.

3 v. Asseldonk 172.

4 Ibid., 173.

5 Ibid., 174.

6 Ibid., 174.

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In his opinion the question of two popes should be no reason for the faithful to leave the bond of the Church or for the Church authority to expel anyone. Everyone must remain in the community with the regional Church to which he belongs. According to St. Thomas one may lapse into schism by cutting oneself off either from the community of the members among themselves or from the connection with the head. If doubt exists concerning the lawful head it is irresponsible to disrupt the certain unity of the members among themselves.¹ But even as it is not permissible for the faithful to secede from the church, still less is it lawful under the given circumstances for the popes to excommunicate each other and each other's supporters. By so doing they show that they esteem their own rights more than the unity of the Church²... If anyone is to be thought guilty of the schism it is the popes themselves and their cardinals, much more than the faithful.³ Indeed the lawful pope who, in such circumstances, insisted too much on his rights would be guilty of schismatic inclinations, and could thus become schismatic. These are strong words and it is evidently the only passage that gave Salvarvilla pause and on which he later demanded clarification.⁴ In this connection Van Asseldonk rightly remarks that this idea pointed in the direction which finally led to the Council of Pisa.⁵

Geert Groote did not adopt a neutral attitude towards the two popes. He supported Urban VI, but in his opinion the latter must also be prepared to make some sacrifice to restore the unity of the Church. Groote did not view the schism from the standpoint of the lawful pope but with the eyes of the believer who sees the one Church divided.⁶ I doubt, however, if he went so far, as Van Asseldonk thinks, as to suggest that a person was free to follow an obedience on condition of subjection to the decision of a general Council. He had to support Urban - and might only recognize the opposing party after a decision by the general Council. The situation was different for the popes. They viewed the split as a common and true schism - and might thus consider their opponents and their supporters as schismatic and apply to them the appropriate church penalties. Groote did not regard the split as a true schism but as an actual division on the grounds of the disputed papal question.⁷

More important than all this is Groote's view on the unity of the

1 v. Asseldonk, 175.

2 Ibid., 175-176.

3 Ibid., 176.

4 Ibid., 176.

5 Ibid., 177.

6 Ibid., 177.

7 Ibid., 178.

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Church. In order to preserve this unity one must not only be subject to the pronouncement of the general Church, but more particularly to the authority of the Church of Rome. Although in determining the idea of ecclesia he follows the general doctrine as found in St. Thomas, he does stress the mutual ties of the members, the bonds of love rather than the ties of authority.¹ In imitation of the patristic literature Groote recognizes beyond the community of the faithful and their attachment to the head, which are both outwardly perceptible, an inner and visible principle of unity of the Church: faith and love, either faith working through love or love alone. The attachment to the Church has a double aspect, one spiritual, inner and by its nature invisible, formed by the bond of faith and love, and another external and visible; the united society of the faithful in the community of the Church, directed and governed by a visible head.

In thinking thus Gerard Groote is firmly rooted in tradition; the tradition itself, however, has many nuances.²

Perhaps in order to refute some difficulty which may arise, perhaps to elucidate his ideas further, he attempts to show that a person who denies the authority of the lawful pope may still retain the link with the head of the Church, since he remains bound to Christ. In order to prove this Groote draws a clear distinction between Christ as head of the Church and the pope as head. It follows from this distinction that the link with Christ is always necessary for membership of the Church, whereas in certain cases association with the pope may be absent. The danger for the integrity of the Catholic concept of the Church is clearly inherent in this idea.³ Spoelhof in my opinion might use this argument with some (apparent) justification to support his theory of Geert Groote's non-conformity. Groote based his theory principally on Augustine, in part on his work De baptismo contra Donatistas but also on his ambivalent method of reference to the petra passage, in Matth. XVI, 1-18, where on one occasion Petra is not Peter, but Christ - without Peter's primacy suffering in any way.⁴ But it is as though Geert Groote has seized upon Augustine's idea, only to accent the mystical unity of the Church at the expense of the visible.⁵ Augustine lays the stress upon the former. The Christian is only a member of the Church in the true

1 v. Asseldonk, 179.

2 Ibid., 181.

3 Ibid., 182.

4 P. de Vooght, Hussiana, Leuven 1960, 94 ss.

5 v. Asseldonk, 185.

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sense of the word, who lives according to the faith. Augustine, however, does not distinguish an invisible and spiritual Church, to which only the righteous belong, alongside the visible. In reality he recognizes only one church of the faithful, that is, of righteous and sinners. Since Groote now has absorbed principally the idea of the Church, he too stresses the invisible element. It would be strange, however, if he should separate the visible from it.

For the rest he clearly states that Christ is in the true sense of the word the head, to whom the community of grace of the Church owes its life and its unity. He then goes on to discuss the pope.

Since the pope can take up a position outside the immaculate Church, he cannot be called automatically the head of the Church. The first impression, therefore, is that Geert Groote supports the doctrine of the double Church with double head, on the one hand the immaculate Church and on the other the visible, juridically organised community of the faithful.¹

One must bear in mind, however, that Groote is making use of borrowed ideas, i.e. the church columba, both body and member, and domus, derived from Augustine. The latter idea is also found in Jerome. Despite the reference to the mystical element however, these ideas refer to the one Church, considered under different aspects. She is viewed as immaculate and holy, and a sharer with Christ in imparting grace, or as the visible community of the faithful on earth, subject to human limitations and imperfections. Groote brings out the one aspect more than the other.²

The visible head with whom the faithful must be joined may be the person of the pope, the contingent or singular head, but according to Aristotle it may also be the regimen, as with the state. If the king dies or is deposed, the administration remains, the apparatus of government. So also with the church. But what is the regimen? For him and for many of his contemporaries it is the Church of Rome, to which the faithful are subject, also as regards what they believe.³ Van Asseldonk now suggests an explanation for a hitherto obscure passage in Groote's letter, in which he speaks of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Groote is here preoccupied with the medieval concept of the angels and their hierarchy, to be found in the pseudo-Dionysius, the Homilia XXXIV and in the Evangelia of Gregory the Great and Hugo of St. Victor.⁴ The Thrones represent God's rule; God reigns in them immediately

1 v. Asseldonk, 189.

2 Ibid., 192.

3 Ibid., 194-196.

4 Ibid., 198-199.

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and completely and through them exercises his power over the lower creation. The choirs of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones from the first hierarchy: ‘Each of these choirs of angels represents a particular principle: the Seraphim love, the Cherubim contemplation or faith, the Thrones God's dominion.’¹ Thinking along the same lines Groote makes the unity of the regimen, viewed hierarchically, correspond to the Thrones. His thesis is that the union with the head does not lie so much in the link with the person of the pope, but in the bond with the ecclesiastical institution which transcends his person. He finds his basis for this theory in the fact that the institute of authority stands in relationship to the Thrones, and the bond of unity, formed by the regimen, corresponds to the bond proceeding from that choir of angels. Considered from the viewpoint of the traditional doctrine on the hierarchy, this must mean that the regimen of the Church is a participation in God's rule, of which the Thrones are the bearers. This constitutes the hierarchical significance of the church's authority - in other words, for this reason the bond with the church's authority is a factor of union with God. For Geert Groote therefore the regimen of the Church, especially founded on the Church of Rome, is more than a purely human institution, and more than a factor of purely external association. In essence it represents God's rule.²

Van Asseldonk renders as follows the contents of the conclusion of the letter, which is so difficult to paraphrase and impossible to translate: Without the supreme or seraphic bond, that is, without love, all hierarchical and ecclesiastical bonds are sterile and vain with reference to the heavenly hierarchy. Unless love which unites all bonds, binds with a sweet and very lightest of bonds that which is already bound and that which is to be bound, there can be no question of the cherubic bond in true faith and true inner wisdom. For there is nothing then but a dead faith and assumed wisdom. There can be no question either of the true bond of authority reposing in the Thrones (which the schismatics reject), nor of any bond whatever according to a lower step in the order of the Hierarchy. The Augustinian and especially the pseudo-Dionysian inspiration for this text is plainly evident; Geert Groote simply intends to say that neither the faith, nor subjection to the Church's authority can unite man with God without the possession of love; without love faith is dead and the subjection to authority vain.³

1 v. Asseldonk, 200.

2 Ibid., 200-201.

3 Ibid., 204.

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On this point therefore, Groote cannot be accused of non-conformity. He views the unity of the Church in the same way as other Catholics. Unity is formed by outward as well as inward bonds: the Church for him is the community of the faithful, held together by the authority constituted by God and animated by the life of grace emanating from Christ.¹

Groote's emphasis on the mystical bonds of Christ diverges from the canon law in which he is usually so at home. His letter on the schism, which at first sight appears to be a theoretical consideration, is in fact an answer to questions which preoccupied Salvarvilla and others of the period. Groote shows that in a short time he could compile a learned and significant treatise on schism and Church. For his preliminary study he had access to works by Augustine and Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, Diederik of Niem and Conrad of Gelnhausen, while he had completely absorbed and assimilated the speculation on the hierarchy and choirs of angels by the pseudo-Dionysius, Gregory the Great and Hugo of St. Victor. He possessed an extensive knowledge and the medieval method of reasoning. Thus his exposition on heresy and schism and on the Church hierarchy could be brief, but at the same time extremely complicated. Although his principal study was law, he also had a penetrating knowledge of theology, history and patrology. No matter how complicated his exposition it commands respect for the subtle nature of the content and for the impartiality with which he dealt with these matters and succeeded in resolving the doubts of his correspondent and friend.

He will have previously reflected deeply on the schism and have discussed it with kindred spirits. He considered the schism to be only a symptom of the ecclesiastical upheaval of his time and a result of the violation of celibacy, the practice of simony by secular priests and the possession of private property by many monastics, contrary to their ideal of poverty and to their rule.

For him these were the causes of the phenomenon and were more to be combatted than the results. He thus associated reform and restoration of unity just as later the Council of Constance placed both items on the programme.² He esteemed the preaching of the Gospel above the combat of the schism and thought that Salvarilla worried too much about the latter. Deeply as he regretted this split, he seems not to have devoted much time to it in his work in the Netherlands. It is most

1 v. Asseldonk 205.

2 Ibid., 216-217.

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probably for this reason that he did not take any public stand on this problem earlier. Salvarvilla, however, through his papal commission and his field of activity was deeply involved.