DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20623#0128
‘Operae terrestris congregationis in Apostolorum aetate formatae et totius Ecclesiae
COMMUNES PROPRIAE’. RuDOLPH HoSPINIAN’S CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ROLE OF WORKS OF ArT
in the Life of the Reformed Church
During its development in the sixteenth century the Prot-
estant artistic doc-trine was almost exclusively negative (i.e. it
restricted itself to criticising and ąuestioning Catholic concep-
tions). It avoided broad, systematic formulations, preferring
instead to focus on details. It was only the explicit and com-
prehensive exposition of the theory of sacred art by Counter-
Reformation writers, like Carlo Borromeo, Gabriele Paleotti and
Robert Bellarmine that madę Protestant theologians take up
similar actions. The most successful of them was Rudolph Hos-
pinian, a preacher and rector at the Schola Carolina in Zurich,
who in 1587 published a monumental book entitled De temp lis.
In it he argued that according to the old tradition, dating still
from apostolic times, the sole role of works of sacred art was
to facilitate the terrestrial Church community to assemble its
non-hierarchical congregation around the Word of God and the
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
According to Hospinian, the sumptuous artistic setting of
the Church liturgy was a hindrance to this aim, as it completely
contradicted the habit of the first Christians, who used ‘modest
places of gathering, resembling morę hiding places, caves or
grottoes than magnificent temples’. In such spaces the zealous
piety of the ‘Church of Martyrs’ developed, which started to
wane sińce the times of Constantine the Great, after the Christ-
ians had moved to grand, ornate churches. Hospinian saw the
reason for that in the decay of the Church corrupted by large
numbers of newly and only superficially converted pagans, who
brought in their old habits, among which — the conviction that
the magnificence of a tempie was an expression of a deity’s
power. In his opinion, all the elaborate ornaments of God’s
House, such as stone altars with lofty retables, paintings and
sculpture, as well as liturgical vessels and reliquaries madę of
gold, were of pagan origin. All those implements and furnish-
ings were alien to the true Christian tradition and thus could
not serve the purpose of multiplying the glory of one God; they
could only be useful to their founders, who by commissioning
them became confirmed in their vanity while trying to steal a
fraction of divine glory for themselves.
The Zurich theologian stated that religious paintings were
a hindrance in carrying out the true mission of the Church, as
they, too, were an idolatrous insert brought in by converted
pagans. He did not agree with the idea of St Gregory the Great
who maintained that paintings helped in teaching the illiter-
ate. Instead, he recalled that Christ ordered ‘to preach God’s
word to the poor in spirit and not to show them pictures, which
most easily become idols, especially among the least educated
people’. What is morę, Hospinian thought it was impossible
to distinguish between cultus duliae, i.e. the worship of God by
means of venerated pictures, from cultus latriae — the direct and
exclusive reverence for the Highest. Hospinian asserted that
even the most eminent of scholastics, like Thomas Aąuinas
and John Duns Scotus were unable to precisely define this
distinction; therefore, it could not be expected that some less
exquisite minds would be capable of grasping that difference.
The presence of pictures in churches constantly threatens the
congregation with depravity, which, according to the teachings
of the Church, is the greatest sin of the priests.
Hospinian agreed with the Catholic authors in that the church
building is an image of the Church understood as a community
of the faithful. However, he thought that both the hierarchie
stratification of that community and the corresponding layout
of the church interiors, divided into several elements, were in
complete contradiction with the true apostolic tradition. Refer-
ring to St PauTs Letterto the Galatians he stated that all Christians
were equal members of the Church community and the layout of
their gathering places should not suggest any divisions. Following
John Calvin, the author of De templis assumed that Christ makes
himself present only in the congregation of the faithful and fought
the Catholic conviction which maintained that God dwells in
churches in the Eucharistic elements. Consequently, he considered
their worship outside of the Mass to be ‘an obvious idolatry’ and
opposed assigning special spaces in the church to serve that kind
of piety. He therefore asserted that the only principle underlying
the construction of Christian churches was ‘that they can easily
accommodate people who want to worship and invoke God; that
people can listen to the God’s word in them; that sacraments can
be administered in them; and that they are fllled with faith and
love. Consequently, the temples should be spacious enough to
hołd and unitę [...] people who gather in them’. Temples built
on centralized plan best fulfilled such purpose. Thus the reading
of De templis allows us to better understand why churches of such
spatial disposition become dominant in Protestant architecture
at the turn of the seventeenth century.
Hospinian stated that the adherence to traditional Solutions
was the condition of proper development of sacred art, whereas
the Catholic Church started to abandon them from the fourth
century AD. He therefore recommended a return to simple and
strictly functional plans of the primitive Church, noting that
Protestants had already begun this process on the basis of their
study of the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers of the
Church. Therefore, according to Hospinian, Protestant art did
not have the qualities of a novelty but it consistently returned
to the authentic apostolic tradition.
COMMUNES PROPRIAE’. RuDOLPH HoSPINIAN’S CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ROLE OF WORKS OF ArT
in the Life of the Reformed Church
During its development in the sixteenth century the Prot-
estant artistic doc-trine was almost exclusively negative (i.e. it
restricted itself to criticising and ąuestioning Catholic concep-
tions). It avoided broad, systematic formulations, preferring
instead to focus on details. It was only the explicit and com-
prehensive exposition of the theory of sacred art by Counter-
Reformation writers, like Carlo Borromeo, Gabriele Paleotti and
Robert Bellarmine that madę Protestant theologians take up
similar actions. The most successful of them was Rudolph Hos-
pinian, a preacher and rector at the Schola Carolina in Zurich,
who in 1587 published a monumental book entitled De temp lis.
In it he argued that according to the old tradition, dating still
from apostolic times, the sole role of works of sacred art was
to facilitate the terrestrial Church community to assemble its
non-hierarchical congregation around the Word of God and the
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
According to Hospinian, the sumptuous artistic setting of
the Church liturgy was a hindrance to this aim, as it completely
contradicted the habit of the first Christians, who used ‘modest
places of gathering, resembling morę hiding places, caves or
grottoes than magnificent temples’. In such spaces the zealous
piety of the ‘Church of Martyrs’ developed, which started to
wane sińce the times of Constantine the Great, after the Christ-
ians had moved to grand, ornate churches. Hospinian saw the
reason for that in the decay of the Church corrupted by large
numbers of newly and only superficially converted pagans, who
brought in their old habits, among which — the conviction that
the magnificence of a tempie was an expression of a deity’s
power. In his opinion, all the elaborate ornaments of God’s
House, such as stone altars with lofty retables, paintings and
sculpture, as well as liturgical vessels and reliquaries madę of
gold, were of pagan origin. All those implements and furnish-
ings were alien to the true Christian tradition and thus could
not serve the purpose of multiplying the glory of one God; they
could only be useful to their founders, who by commissioning
them became confirmed in their vanity while trying to steal a
fraction of divine glory for themselves.
The Zurich theologian stated that religious paintings were
a hindrance in carrying out the true mission of the Church, as
they, too, were an idolatrous insert brought in by converted
pagans. He did not agree with the idea of St Gregory the Great
who maintained that paintings helped in teaching the illiter-
ate. Instead, he recalled that Christ ordered ‘to preach God’s
word to the poor in spirit and not to show them pictures, which
most easily become idols, especially among the least educated
people’. What is morę, Hospinian thought it was impossible
to distinguish between cultus duliae, i.e. the worship of God by
means of venerated pictures, from cultus latriae — the direct and
exclusive reverence for the Highest. Hospinian asserted that
even the most eminent of scholastics, like Thomas Aąuinas
and John Duns Scotus were unable to precisely define this
distinction; therefore, it could not be expected that some less
exquisite minds would be capable of grasping that difference.
The presence of pictures in churches constantly threatens the
congregation with depravity, which, according to the teachings
of the Church, is the greatest sin of the priests.
Hospinian agreed with the Catholic authors in that the church
building is an image of the Church understood as a community
of the faithful. However, he thought that both the hierarchie
stratification of that community and the corresponding layout
of the church interiors, divided into several elements, were in
complete contradiction with the true apostolic tradition. Refer-
ring to St PauTs Letterto the Galatians he stated that all Christians
were equal members of the Church community and the layout of
their gathering places should not suggest any divisions. Following
John Calvin, the author of De templis assumed that Christ makes
himself present only in the congregation of the faithful and fought
the Catholic conviction which maintained that God dwells in
churches in the Eucharistic elements. Consequently, he considered
their worship outside of the Mass to be ‘an obvious idolatry’ and
opposed assigning special spaces in the church to serve that kind
of piety. He therefore asserted that the only principle underlying
the construction of Christian churches was ‘that they can easily
accommodate people who want to worship and invoke God; that
people can listen to the God’s word in them; that sacraments can
be administered in them; and that they are fllled with faith and
love. Consequently, the temples should be spacious enough to
hołd and unitę [...] people who gather in them’. Temples built
on centralized plan best fulfilled such purpose. Thus the reading
of De templis allows us to better understand why churches of such
spatial disposition become dominant in Protestant architecture
at the turn of the seventeenth century.
Hospinian stated that the adherence to traditional Solutions
was the condition of proper development of sacred art, whereas
the Catholic Church started to abandon them from the fourth
century AD. He therefore recommended a return to simple and
strictly functional plans of the primitive Church, noting that
Protestants had already begun this process on the basis of their
study of the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers of the
Church. Therefore, according to Hospinian, Protestant art did
not have the qualities of a novelty but it consistently returned
to the authentic apostolic tradition.