Inventing authority
Subtitle: the use of the Church Fathers in Reformation debates over the Eucharist
By: Esther Chung-Kim
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Waco, Tex
Language: eng
Number of pages: 197
ISBN-13: 9781602582132
Subjects: Lord's Supper; History of doctrines; History; Religious disputations; Fathers of the church
Description: The Use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist.

Adding great historical insight to the events of the sixteenth century, Inventing Authority uncovers how and why the Protestant reformers came, in their dissent from the Catholic church, to turn to the church fathers and align their movements with the early church. Discovering that the reformers most frequently appealed to patristic sources in polemical contexts, Esther Chung-Kim adeptly traces the variety and creativity of their appeals to their forebears in order to support their arguments-citing them to be authoritative for being "exemplary scriptural exegetes" and "instruments of choice."

Examining three generations of sixteenth-century reformers-from Calvin and Luther to the lesser-known Oecolampadius and Hesshusen-Chung-Kim offers an analysis of striking breadth, one that finds its center by focusing in on the perennially contentious topic of the Eucharist. Filling a significant lacuna in the early history of the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, Inventing Authority is an important and eye-opening contribution to Reformation studies. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-188) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : reformation of the ancient tradition : interpreting the Fathers in the eucharistic debates --; title: Colloquy of Marburg (1529) : the Fathers as allies or liabilities --; title: John Calvin's use of the Fathers in the Institutes and New Testament commentaries --; title: John Calvin and Joachim Westphal : first phase of the debate (1555-1556) --; title: Calvin and Westphal, continued : second phase of the debate (1557-1558) --; title: Calvin versus Hesshusen : the Fathers as a challenge to biblical interpretation --; title: Use of the Fathers at the Colloquy of Montbéliard (1586) : Theodore Beza versus Jakob Andreae.