2. Medieval, Classical, and Biblical Terminology.
The terminology used for reformation was not always
clearly distinguished from the language of renewal
ideologies so that the substance of the conception and
the program for its realization need to be examined
in their historical context before a judgment is ventured
as to whether a movement in question constitutes
reformation, renewal, or a combination of both ideas.
Medieval linguistic usage employed the words
reformare and reformatio in a way parallel to such
words as regenerare (regeneratio, παλιγγενεσία),
renovare, innovare (nova vita), suscitare, resuscitare,
restituere, instituere, surgere, renasci, reviviscere (“to
revive”), revirescere (“to grow green again”). The terms
reformare and reformatio had already occurred in
classical literature and were known in that context to
medieval students of the classics and to Renaissance
humanists. But the major sources of this terminology
in the medieval and Reformation periods were un-
mistakably religious and specifically biblical.
In classical usage the verb reformare and the noun
reformatio, which appeared a little later in the litera-
ture, did not initially suggest the active and willful
reestablishing of a former state of things or the creation
of a new value related to the old. In Ovid's Metamor-
phoses (an adaptation of the Greek μεταμόρφωσις)
reformare refers to a miraculous physical restoration
and to a sudden rejuvenation of an old man for one
day. In Seneca and Pliny the younger reformatio refers
to a moral, educational, and political restoration. In
the Antonine and Severan periods of Roman history
the great jurists applied the term reformatio to legal
and institutional reform. Cicero, Livy, and postclassical
authors used the terms renovatio and renovare to refer
to renewal in various contexts (Ladner, 1959).
There were Old Testament examples of individual
reform, the restoration of the law in the days of King
Josiah (620 B.C., cf. II Kings 22, 23), and many
prophetic admonitions to repentance and reform. The
prophets were often in their own persons reformer
types. They foretold the new heaven and the new earth
in which even the wild beasts would honor the Lord.
Isaiah 43:19 reads: “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”
But the terminology current throughout Western reli-
gious history was drawn predominantly from the
gospels and from the epistles of Saint Paul. The New
Testament tied in the idea of rebirth with an eschato-
logical expectation of the coming of the kingdom and
a new paradise. Thus Matthew 19:28 reads: “Jesus said
to them, 'Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when
the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne....'”
The gospels also associate the spiritual regeneration
of the individual through faith and in baptism with
fitness for entering the kingdom of God. In John 3:3
Jesus says: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born
anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (renatus
fuerit denuo; γεννηΘη̂ ἄνωΘεν). Saint Paul called for the
transformation of individual Christians, the improve-
ment in morals and return to their first love of the
congregation, and the preparation in the present for
the perfection of the post-resurrection life. Romans
12:2 reads: “Do not be conformed to this world but
be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you
may prove what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect” (Burdach, 1918). The Vulgate
Latin used in the West rendered the Greek
μεταμορφου̂σΘαι as reformare or reformari. The two
nouns most common for reformation and renewal were
translated as follows:
μεταμόρφωσις =
reformatio;
ἀνακαίνωσις =
renovatio. The prefix
μετά in Greek can
be understood to imply a change or reversal rather
than a simple direct-line transformation and thus a
reformation rather than a simple renewal is suggested.
In Latin patristic writings things that are
defuncta and
deformata need to be reformed.
