5th Scientific Symposium Days of Justinian I:
Byzantium and the Slavs: Medieval and Modern Perceptions and Receptions
Skopje MK November 17th and 18th 2017
Dick van Niekerk
Luther 500 (1517-2017): The alleged Continuity between
Bogomilism and Protestantism1
“Protestantism as we know it today began to penetrate into Macedonia
in the second half of the nineteenth century. As long ago as the tenth
century, however, the Bogomil movement, which I regard as a variety of
Protestantism, took root in Macedonia due to specific social and
economic conditions and the exceptionally difficult circumstances in
which most of the population lived. The official church had to a
significant extent <subjected itself to the secular authorities>. The priest
Bogomil based his teaching on dualism, on a belief in the existence of an
opposition between good and evil, and completely rejected church
hierarchy.” 2
This is just one of the numerous quotations I can mention about the
connection between Bogomilism and Protestantism: Bogomils are the
“precursors of Reformation”3, the Bogomil movement introduced into
the Renaissance, and thence also into the Reformation, its civilizing
element, the freedom of the individual and the right to freedom of
worship.4”; “below the bogomilian ashes of the Inquisition the
movement of the Reformation came into being”5 and “bogomilism was
actually the first Protestantism, many centuries before Luther”.6
Published in: Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium “Days of Justinian I”, ed. M. Panov (Skopje
2018) 78-87
1
R. Cacanoska, “The Emergence and Development of Protestantism in Macedonia”, Religion State and Society,
29:2, (2010), 115-119
2
3
G. Vasilev, Bogomilism – An Important Precursor of the Reformation, http: //www.utoronto.ca/tsq 142-161
4
The Russian historian A. Veslovsky here cited in Giorgio Nurigiani, The Macedonian Genius through the
Centuries, (London 1972), 83-84
5
J. Ivanov, Livres & Légendes bogomiles, (Partis 1976), 72
6
B. Chulev, “The Bogomils in Macedonia – Medieval Roots of Protestantism, Renaissance and Socialist
Movements”, (Skopje 2015) – Internet Pamphlet
1
That linkage between bogomism and protestantism is scarcely a new
idea. Back in 1879, L. P. Brockett published already a book entitled The
Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia; or, The early Protestants of the East; an
attempt to restore some lost leaves of Protestant history (Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publishing Society). Reading all these quotations one
could easily assume that Protestantism is more or less a kind of
continuation of Bogomilism.
But is this really the case? That‘s the key question which I will try to
answer in this contribution. Are there indicating influences or even
connections? In the huge documentation about this subject I have chosen
one subject as a touchstone: the freedom of the human will7. This was a
controversial subject for both Bogomils - originally from Macedonia and during the Reformation, and it raised intrusive comments.
-.-.-.-.-.-.Parallels and similarities
There are numerous parallels and similarities when it comes to beliefs
and a shared, strong aversion to the Church of Rome. When we read
early orthodox authors like Presbyter Cosmas8 (972) and the Byzantine
monk Euthymios Zigabenos9 (about 1045) much of the heretics’ appeal
clearly lay in their radical anti-clericalism and anti-sacramentalism, a
visceral hostility to priests, institutional churches and all their
works. This is very recognizable for nascent protestantism. This
movement never had no sympathy whatever for dualist theologies10, but
their own views – sola fide, sola scriptura– led to “almost identical
practical consequences” (as of June 7, 2013 the known author P.Jenkins
wrote on the website www.patheos.com in his letter about “Dualists and
Protestants). “Calvinists, particularly, were proud of not relying on
priests, not making the sign of the cross or resorting to icons, not
venerating Mary, not relying on formal liturgies, and generally acting
7
I agree with M. Matthias (M. Matthias, Vrijheid Essays over de moeilijkheid vrijheid te begrijpen [Freedom
Essays about the difficulty to understand freedom, (Eindhoven 2017), 79-105] who strongly puts forward the
proposition that the true theme of Luther’s work is not “mercy” but “freedom”.
8
Puech, H.C. and Vaillant A, Le traité contre les Bogomiles de Cosmas le prêtre, (Paris, 1945), 53-128 and
passim
9
Euthymios Zigabenos, Panoplia dogmatica, in:, Die Phundagiagiten: ein Beitrag zur Ketzergeschichte des
byzantinischen Mittelalters, ed. Ficker G, (Leipzig 1908), 87 – 125,
10
For Dualism as a concept see fn. 12
2
exactly like the Bogomils had done in the time of early Orthodox writers
like Cosmas the priest.”
Anabaptist echoes are also strong. Bogomils held that the baptism of the
official church was invalid, relying as it did on the material substance of
water, and corresponded only to the baptism of John. The sect therefore
rebaptized its new members – an enormous scandal in the context of the
time – supplying them with what it presented as the true Christian
baptism in the Spirit. Anabaptists precisely followed Bogomil precedent
when they declared that the New Testament explicitly prohibited
Christians from ever taking oaths.
When they had the chance, Protestants swept images and statues from
the churches quite as thoroughly as Bogomils or Cathars could ever have
wished. “In both cases, Protestant and Dualist, iconoclasm was the
logical conclusion to their opinions”, so Jenkins.
-.-.-.-.-.God as creator of heaven and earth
However different the theologies, might we legitimately see a continuity
from the medieval gnostic dualists like the Bogomils through the
Reformation? Besides the already mentioned similarities I hardly have
found any indications for direct adoptions of Protestants from Bogomils,
even when we move the date of the start of the Reformation forward to
1517, leading to synchronicity between both phenomena. Neither I found
indications that a movement, for instance the Devotio Moderna, the
German and Rhineland mysticism, or the Beguines, functioned as an
interface with the Bogomils and Reformation. At best, I can say that,
timewise, the Reformation followed rather directly after the Bogomils,
and that the Bogomils have served as an “enzyme”11 or “eye opener.”
On the contrary, there exists a fundamental difference between the
Bogomil teachings and the theological views that are current during the
early Reformation and during the Reformation itself. Catholics,
Orthodox, and reformers such as Hus, Luther, and Calvin12 are
11
W. Gesemann, Bogomilentum in Niedersachsen, in: Festschrift für Rumjana Zlatanova zum 60. Geburtstag,
Sofia 2006, 191
12
I am slightly reserved considering Wycliffe’s famous quote “God must obey the devil,” as we can question if
this is a signal of Wycliff’s dualism, as claimed by J. Seifert, Die Weltrevolutionäre Von Bogomil; über Hus zu
Lenin, Wien 1931 passim
3
unanimous when it comes to the dogma of God as “creator of heaven
and earth.” Contrary to that, the Bogomils, as purely immaterial and
solely soul-conscious, condemn all that is visible and material, in short,
this world, as the work of the devil, of Satan! They follow the Gnostics of
early Christianity. The Bogomils essentially distinguish themselves from
every form of the Reformation with their teachings of the two strictly
separate spheres of life, the divine and the worldly; and two strictly
separate principles, good and evil. The only reformation they accepted
was the inner reformation of the soul.13
The practical consequences of this view on human existence in relation to
God are best expressed in dualism and the subject of free will, which
became current in the late fifteenth century. About this subject we will
provide a quote from the groundbreaking, famous oration of Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola e Concordia (1463–1494) in 1487 about human
dignity, exactly thirty years before Martin Luther allegedly posted his
famous Ninety-Five theses on the door of the Castle Church in the
German town Wittenberg:
“We have given you, O Adam, no fixed seat nor features proper to
yourself nor endowment peculiar to you alone, in order that whatever
seat, whatever features, whatever endowment you may responsibly
desire, these same you may have and possess according to your desire
and judgement. Once defined, the nature of all other beings, is
constrained within the laws prescribed by us. You, on the contrary,
constrained by no limits, may determine it for yourself, according to
your own free will, in whose hand we have placed you. I have placed
you at the world’s center, so that you may thence more easily look
around at whatever is in the world. We have made you neither of heaven
nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that you may, as the free
13
Dualism as a concept has only been in existence for two centuries and it can be applied to almost all gnostic
systems. There are two completely separate worlds: the divine world created by God and this world, being the
world of Satan and the world of evil. These worlds are often designated as the realm of light and the realm of
darkness. Analogically, the human being is also of dual nature. He is matter, but there is also a divine principle
in him which reminds him of his divine origin and, when his consciousness rises, guides him back to his divine
source. Satan in bogomilian and catharist dualism was created by the higher God and because of his rebellion
was cast out of heaven and created the material cosmos. Conversely, in medieval radical dualism Lucifer
proceeds immediately from the eternal principle of evil, from an evil god, who was coeternal and coexistent with
the good God. (Y. Stoyanov, The Other God, Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar heresy, (New
Haven and London 2000), 274
4
and extraordinary shaper of yourself, fashion yourself in the form you
prefer. It will be in your power to degenerate into the lower forms of life,
which are brutish; you shall have the power, according to your soul’s
judgement, to be reborn into the higher orders, which are divine.”14
Would the Bogomils (about 950-1480) have recognized themselves in
this statement of Pico? In other words: are the Bogomils precursors of
the optimistic view of Pico on human dignity? My answer would be yes,
but not without some reservations.
Let’s take a look at the Bogomils first.15 When discussing free will for
the Bogomils, we have to take into account that free will solely has to do
with beings, entities, located in the divine heavenly sphere of life. The
destiny of the soul in this world is the result of a primordial event, a Fall
in the transcendent sphere and certainly not the result of a sin during
earthly life,16 that is, the story of Paradise of Adam and Eve. The human
being, in this world, is subject to an “evil” worldly ruler, the demiurge.
As a means for the effective addiction of the incorporated, imprisoned
soul, the sensory passion was poured into the human being
mechanically, as it were, by Satan. This is the Gnostic Genesis story. The
human being who becomes conscious of this, and who chooses to return
to his origins, behaves ascetically in order to try to escape this fate, hence
the strong puritan features of Bogomilism. He does this, realizing that
evil does not originate internally from the human being, nor due to
misuse of free will, no: it is an external power, which is almost
inescapable for the human being from birth onward. However, by means
of intense mortification and asceticism, with the redeeming power of
their only known sacrament, the consolamentum (Greek. the teleiosis), the
human being, the Bogomil, can become worthy and a permanent
14
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e concordia, Over de Menselijke Waardigheid, Arnhem 1987
For this part of my paper I have been guided by M. Loos, Dualist Heresy in the Middle Ages, (Praag 1974); M.
Loos, Die Frage der Willensfreiheit im mittelalterlichen Dualismus, in Menschenbild in Gnosis und
Manichäismus, (Wittenberg1979), 195-210; L. Denkova, “Hérésie et utopie: le modèle céleste pour une société
terrestre, Heresis (1995-5), 233-256; J. van Rijckenborgh, De ontbrekende schakel tussen christendom en
humanisme [The Missing Link between Christianity and Humanism], Pentagram (1998-6), 2-7; K.Flasch, Das
philosophische Denken im Mittelalter, von Augustine zu Machiavelli (Stuttgart 1988), passim; S. Aschenbach,
Die Reformation des Landes Dinslaken, in: Unterwegs 500 Jahre Reformation im Land Dinslaken, (Dinslaken
2017), 10-22
16
Hereby, we instantly encounter a substantial difference between Christianity and Gnosticism: is Adam guilty
of the Fall or is it due to higher powers?; is the Fall a human concern or is it about a Fall from divine spheres?; is
the Fall something that occurred within creation or something that happened outside creation?
15
5
connection with the “other” new, divine sphere of life can arise. That is a
totally different domain of unique, transcendent quality. The consolated
Bogomil is completely free of the oppression and temptations of the
body.17 He or she has therewith become a perfectus, a Perfect and
completely free in God. One could compare that to a fish that needs
water in order to be free, or a bird that needs air in order to be able to fly.
In this world but not of this world
A Perfect is present in this world, but is not of this world anymore. It is
the ultimate abolishment of the fatal heavenly Fall. Perfects remain
human beings, of course, with their minor and major defects. However,
the boni homines, bonshommes can purify themselves from their “daily
sins” (peccata venialia)18 during their monthly communal confession. The
boni homines are therefore already transformed in the temple of the Holy
Ghost during their lives in this world.19
God is omnipresent and can therefore not be located in church buildings,
according to the Bogomils. This also differs remarkably from the
Reformation, which did hold onto churches. The only place where God is
present, is the human soul, which, through the abovementioned
description of rebirth, “transports” the kingdom of God in time and
space.20 The Perfects have become theotokoi, God bearers, they are
pregnant of God. They give birth to Him by preaching the Word and by
bringing Him to life in this world. They are able to give birth to “eternity
in time.”21 Also, they experience a feeling of ecstatic freedom and they
have direct contact with the transcendental spiritual sources. “While
they preach, they are in heaven,” the presbyter Cosmas writes during the
end of the tenth century.22 They are very conscious of their own
perfection and therefore they radically reject the worship of images
17
The known authors of gnostic works, T. Freke and P. Gandy, make the following comparison: the body is the
“nightclub of the soul.” (T. Freke and P. Gandy, The laughing Jesus – Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom, (New
York Random House 2005)
18
Loos 1974, 208
19
1 Corinthians 6-19
20
Denkova, passim
21
According to Frances Yates, the Cathar and Bogomil Perfects have encouraged high standards of behavior
during the centuries they were active within the ruling Church. “When the heretics were eradicated, the pressure
was off, and during the beginning of the sixteenth century the reputation of the Vatican was pretty polluted due
to many scandals and the bizarre behavior of popes.”( F. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition,
(Chicago 1991) 203 )
22
Puech, passim
6
(compare with iconoclasm as we already saw ).23 They perceive
themselves as “living icons” and they believe that the only possible
image of God was their morally outstanding behavior.
How can we understand this in relation to the freedom of thought of
Pico?
The Bogomils walk a structured path of salvation of the self and call
upon the gnostic authors and texts of primitive Christianity, like Origin
and Clemens of Alexandria and the Apocryphon of John. After all they
needed their only known sacrament the teleiosis to reach the “other”
sphere. On the other hand Pico adopts his theses from the classical
authors (like Plato), but also Arabian and Jewish thought. Thanks to his
fabulous knowledge of all known languages, it also included Kabbala
and various kinds of mysticism and magic that were unknown to
western thought until then.24 Pico has placed thinking about the free
human will on the agenda during his time in a unique manner and he
saw it as fixed for all contemporary modes of thought.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The famous Dutch philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) is a
significant link that we will discuss before we examine Luther’s ideas
about freedom. Erasmus is one of the most important representatives of
the ideas that were developed during the Renaissance in Europe. In his
The Praise of Folly (1509) he argued – satirically – for a return to Christian
values by means of Classical thought and the Church Fathers. His works
expressed strong reformative ideas, and therefore he is often called the
“Father of the Reformation.”25 Wrongly, however. In 1517, when Luther
published his protests, Erasmus’ life took a different turn. Although he
remained a member of the Church, he shared his insights with the
Protestants, without wanting to be perceived as Lutheran.
23
Denkova, passim
Pico, 5
25
J. van Rijckenborgh, De ontbrekende schakel tussen christendom en humanism [The Missing Link between
Christianity and Humanism], Pentagram 1998-6, 2-7
24
7
Encouraged by distant friends, he started writing against Luther in 1524
in his work De libero arbitrio (On Free Will or The Freedom of the Will).26 He
responded to the relatively (non)freedom of will that was promulgated
by the contemporary Church and which could only be redeemed by
grace. Therefore, Erasmus gets rid of all restrictions of the freedom of the
will and therewith grace. Erasmus’ aim was to pave the way in a
moderate manner for a world of thought based on the idea that the
human being should govern himself. Luther reacted sharply against it in
his work De Servo arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will) in 1525. He
removed the freedom of will completely and emphasized divine grace.
Every attempt of the human being to see himself as free is an expression
to try to think of himself as divine, says Luther.27 The core of this is that
the human being is completely powerless, according to Luther, at least
when it comes to everything regarding his spiritual wellbeing.
The personal judgement of human beings is without any value, so
Luther28. In a certain way Luther liberated mankind of the authority of
the church but simultaneously he delivered man to a much more
tyrannical authority to a God who required of man a complete
submission and destruction of the individual self as the necessary
condition for his salvation.29 Was this the same man who signed his texts
in the beginning of his career with the epithet eleutherios30 (Late Greek:
the liberator)31?
Luther regarded a human being as a slave of the almighty God, Who is
not answerable to his “slaves” for32 his election or damnation. Starting
point of Luther was his claim for obedience to the authority which he
judged the highest. Not the authority of the pope or the emperor but that
of the Bible, the medieval dogmatics and Lutheran monarchs33. The
26
J. Passmore, The Perfectibility of Man, (London 1972) 105
Here cited from Passmore, 105
28
B. Moerland, Luther, Calvijn en de terugkeer naar Augustinus, in: Katharen en de Val van Montségur, (Den
Haag 2003), 76-85
29
E. Fromm, De Angst voor vrijheid [ Escape from Freedom], (Utrecht 199), 70-79
30
Display in the permanent exhibition in “Luther Sterbehaus”, Lutherstadt Eisleben; showcase during the
exhibition “Luther” in Museum Catharijne Convent, Utrecht (September 22nd 2017- January 28th 2018)
31
According to K. Deschner the christian name for Dionysos was Eleutherios with the meaning: the Redeemer
(K. Deschner, Abermals krähte der Hahn eine kritische Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart 19620) 353
32
A. Constandse, History of the Humanism in the Netherlands, (Den Haag 1978), 40
27
33
That is why Luther got the support of the German monarchs. He required absolute submission to the regional
authorities, referring to Paul:( Romans 13: 13) “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For
8
absolutism which he ascribed to the God head was his own ideal. When
he wrote his pamphlet “On the Bondage of the Free Will” he was so
arrogant to say the indisputable truth: “What I have written in this book
is not arbitrary but the preaching of the Truth. Nobody I allow to reject
it. I advise everybody to submit to the contents.” 34
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Conclusions
*It is common practice to regard Protestantism as caused by the moral
decay of the catholic church with all kinds of excesses of the church men.
Especially the indulgences which one could buy for money in the church
and which safeguarded against a stay in the purgatory after death
should have been a stumbling block. But you can approach
Protestantism in quite another way too. The protestant revolt against the
reigning church was a return to the values of Augustinian Christianity
from thousand years ago. Luther and Calvin strongly appealed to
Augustine and his doctrine of the original sin. The protestant movement
– as ended in the doctrine of Luther and Calvin – was not a renewal but
an attempt to restore this doctrine of the original sin, which meant that
every human being was corrupt.
*There is a big difference between the self-awareness of the Bogomils
and the reconfirmation of the Augustine insignificance of the human by
Luther and Calvin who were strongly against any freedom of thinking. I
consider this is a fundamental and unbridgeable gap between the
Bogomils who believed in the possibility of salvation of the self and the
Reformation in which there was no room for the free will of the human
being.
there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever
resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment”
34
Here cited by Constandse, 40
9
*Reformers such as Jan Hus, Martin Luther and John Calvin are
unanimous when it comes to the catholic dogma of God as creator of
heaven and earth. That is not under discussion with the church of Rome.
The Bogomils however condemn this world as the work of the devil,
Satan. Those who call the Bogomils the “early Protestants of the East,” or
Protestantism “a variation of Bogomilism” probably overlook this
gnostic-dualistic concept of the Bogomils.35
*It is too simple to explain the origin of Protestantism just as the result of
a “clash of cultures”36 between the theologians of Rome and an “endless
vain German monk” who did not get recognition and who only wanted
to destruct the institution “pope”. The regional authorities in Germany
had their own reasons and interests to protect this eloquent, boorish
monk.
* I look upon the difference between Bogomils and Protestants as a
matter of divergent teachings, of taking different positions and especially
incompatible perceptions of God and humans. On the one hand you
have the approach of the free person who is capable of perfection, of
becoming a “perfect” and to develop on the spiritual path so as to
participate in the Gnosis, and thus testify from It. Such a striving
“ascending” man has no need of priests or institutes; rather he may seek
fellow travelers on his way. On the other hand the theology of the
established churches (Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox) speaks of a God
“descending” from on high to save a passive human being living in
“sin”.
35
36
Brocket, 1879; Cacanoska 2010
V. Reinhart, Luther, der Ketzer [Luther the Heretic] Rom und die Reformation (München 2017)
10
abstract
The year 2017 marked the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and it has been
celebrated throughout Europe. In this paper, the author aims to examine the
connection between beliefs of the Bogomils and the ideas of the Reformation.
Controversially, the former have been called “the precursors of the Reformation”
and even “the first Protestants in Europe.” These claims will be investigated
here in the light of the subject of free will.
Both the similarities and differences between the bogomilian way of thinking
and the ideas of the influential reformer, Martin Luther, will be discussed. Based
on textual sources, it is argued that there are some shared beliefs between
Bogomils and Luther, and that both have a strong will to reform the religious
life, but we cannot say that there is clear evidence that ideas of the Reformation
have been adopted directly from these early “dissidents”.
The author concludes however that Bogomil ideas served as an eye-opener for
protestant thinkers, though beliefs about free will changed throughout history.
Whereas Bogomils believed in the free will of their Perfects, Pico della
Mirandola, being inspired by the Gnostic tradition, adopted this, together with
humanists such as Erasmus. However, the instigator of the Reformation,
Luther, changed his mind radically, and rejected the idea of a free will for human
beings altogether in favor of the grace of God.
Erfurt (D), Goirle (NL), Mansfeld, Eisleben (D)
autumn 2016
11