John Colet
John Colet was born to class and privilege. He was the son of Sir. Henry Colet, who in his lifetime, lost twenty-one children. Sir Henry was a wealthy merchant who was elected on three occasions the Mayor of the city of London. In more recent history this was an honor without reimbursement meaning that you enjoyed the title but you received no remuneration to cover your expenses. This meant that it was a title of some distinction but the individual must be a man of great means to maintain that position of honor. The cost involved in maintaining this position was astronomical because you are the one responsible to pay for the many banquets and the entertainment of world dignitaries.
John Colet’s father was much in favor at the court of Henry V11. He had numerous children but they all died in infancy leaving John the sole heir of the family fortune.
Of his early childhood we know little except that we can well believe he was home-schooled for a number of years before proceeding to university.
In his later years he was the contemporary of the greatest scholars of his time. He rubbed shoulders with the brightest in best in European history. Part of his education was “finishing” with a trip to Europe. This was a sightseeing trip but it was so much more. If taken seriously the individual would not simply go to visit the places of historical interest but would soak up the intellectual atmosphere of the universities and to experience the company of the greatest scholars of the age. During this odyssey he came into contact with some German monks whose simple piety made a great and lasting impression on his soul.
John Colet went on this tour but strange to say not one letter survives that would tell us of his enjoyments or his disappointments. It has been suggested that he was greatly influenced by Savonarola of Florence who was the most powerful and influential person of his day. Whether Savonarola directly inspired him we will never know but it can only be assumed that he was influenced because the men who were the most devout followers of Savonarola were Colet’s intellectual peers.
One thing is sure is that he could not have been impressed by the behavior of Pope Alexander V1 and Caesar Borgia because their scandalous behavior was the talk of the nation. Their licentiousness was something that would eternally blacken the reputation of the Roman church.
Men like Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. These men were greatly affected by the spiritual force and idea of Savonarola so it is not to be doubted that many a long day and perhaps night was spent in conversing about their great mentor. He must have learned how Pico underwent a complete change of life and died in the habit of Savonarola’s order.
The greatest of all humanists, in fact, the catalyst for all humanistic thought in Europe, was undoubtedly Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was the spark that lit the flame that set off a conflagration throughout the whole of Europe. He was the incendiary that inspired men like Luther and Melanchthon and a million more through his translation of the New Testament into Greek thus opening the eyes of many to the corruption and errors of the Church of Rome
Although the students at Oxford were encouraged to begin their day with reading the scriptures very few took it seriously. It was not that religious subjects were totally ignored but the manner in which they were conducted was seriously flawed. Earnest, honest study of the scriptures had been lost in the crass intellectualism of the day. No attempt was made to understand the scriptures in their immediate context. The Bible had ceased to be a record of real people and real events. It was merely a treasury of verses that were totally unconnected to the past, present or future. Verses however obscure or unrelated were used to sustain arguments with this proviso that the Holy Spirit could not possibly be mistaken. The verse that covered everything was Ezekiel’s statement that “the wheels were not lifted up, except to follow the Spirit.” Such bigotry and blindness was supposed to end every argument.
“They divided the scripture into four senses, the literal, tropological, allegorical and anagogical—the literal sense has nothing at all…Twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, and with an anti-theme of half an inch some of them drew a thread nine days long….They not only say that the literal sense profiteth nothing, but also that it is hurtful and noisome and killeth the soul. And this they proved by a text of Paul in 2 Corinthians, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” Lo! They say, the literal sense killeth, the spiritual sense giveth life.” It is recorded by the students that they would prove a point of faith from out of a fable of Ovid or any other poet, as out of St. John’s Gospel or Paul’s epistles.” Anywhere was as good as any to jump off to exercise the brilliance of professor’s imagination. This method of interpretation named verbal inspiration led men blindfold where the scriptures were for all practical point of view ignored.
For example one verse in Genesis was shown to have twenty-seven meanings. It was said to be a matter of exceptional skill if one could find another hidden meaning in the verse so the exposition of scriptures was simply a game where the teacher showed his brilliance by his fertile imagination. There was no explanation of the passage in its historical context nor was there any comparison, contrasting, or application to other places in scripture that might enlighten the spiritual message.
In more recent years an Episcopal priest was given the opportunity to preach over the BBC demonstrated a modern example of this sterile method of teaching some years ago. He took his text from the book of Genesis 27:11 where it speaks of Esua being a “hairy man.” He then went on to postulate that Esau was an outdoor type of fellow who loved to hunt and fish. He enjoyed the benefits of the open-air life. He was a man who was interested in the environment. What spiritual or eternal benefits this had on the man in the street are unknown. In short it was a waste of government time and money and expertise to put such a man on the air.
John Colet prefaced his Bible studies by giving a sermon. His sermon was preached before the convocation of the University on the 6th February, 1511-12. Convocation was a regularly called assembly of the professors and scholars. One thing about these men was their profound sense of time. We can think of Calvin’s sermon read before the Sorbonne in Paris by his cousin and the outburst that soon followed.
Something that is undeniable is that John was a scholar of note but it was highly irregular for professors to preach. The burden of his sermon was Reformation in our personal lives and reformation in the Church. No civil war was necessary to carry this out. No changes in church laws were required but what was needed was a personal turning to God for forgiveness and strength to do what was right. His call was not just to the humble parishioner but especially for all in authority in the church.
Just as Luther’s articles caused a stir in Germany so Colet’s sermon stirred up a hornets nest in England. It was immediately printed and distributed to all that would accept it. Of course the hierarchy in the church had their feathers ruffled and some were for imposing discipline on the young upstart that was challenging everyone in the neighborhood. His crimes were recited before the Dean of St. Paul’s in London but he was wise enough to dismiss them as frivolous.
John Colet was a scholar but one with a difference. He was not a theologian from the Middle Ages who spent his time debating and disputing how many angels could stand on the point of a pin. His was a more practical and spiritual ministry. Like many English scholars he was conservative but careless about exact definitions. He had no time for lawyer-theologians whom, he claimed, had greatly corrupted the simple and pure understanding of the scriptures by their headings and sub-headings infinitum. “Tell it like it is” would be John Colet’s method and motto. He despised those who had made a name for themselves in the church by their endless quibbling about matters of no importance to the soul. He disliked Aquinas, Augustine, Tertullian and Ockham. The men who had steered to Church in the direction it had gone were Roman lawyers whose training led them away from the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and into the arid paths of religion and philosophy. Intellectual tyranny ruled the church. Dogma had replaced a genuine living faith in Christ. If a person could articulate the code words of the faith he was commended but, if not, he was branded as a heretic and worthy of death.
It was probable that in his travels and studies in Europe that he came across the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius and believing that he could take him back to the pristine teaching of the New Testament he devoted himself to his writings. It took the scholar Grocyn to shown him that the earliest possible date for these writings was the 6th century so they could not be more accurate or closer to the writing and thought of Paul the Apostle. You can see that John Colet was on a search. Let the humanists of his time he wanted to remove the layers of stucco or paint to get down to the bare facts of the Gospel. What he knew was that the Church had a form of godliness but they denied the power thereof.
On his return from his tour de France and elsewhere John Colet set himself up in Oxford like a man on a mission. He was not at this time a practicing priest or a monk but a mere scholar of great promise. His earlier education at Oxford had secured him great respect as a man of intelligence and ability and he left with a degree but without clerical orders something he declined.
At Oxford he shocked the hierarchy by announcing that he was going to undertake a series of Bible studies for all that wished to attend. His studies were a tour de force. Doctors, abbots, men of all ranks and titles along with the students flocked to hear. Perhaps they were drawn out of mere curiosity but once they came they could not tear themselves away carrying their notebooks with them.
He would tell them “You say what you mean, and mean what you say.” Your words “have birth in your heart, not on your lips.” They follow, “your thoughts, instead of your thoughts being shaped by them.” You express them with ease “what others can hardly express with the greatest labor.” His words were direct and not textarian like the rulers of the church. They were not daisy chain of words strung to no purpose. This is especially so in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans. He treated the book as a whole and not just a thesaurus. Nor were they like the method in some modern schools that daisy chain the sayings of their former denominational heroes and call it a thesis. In his commentary there is hardly a quote from the early church fathers or a schoolman from the medieval period. He always brought out the personal and practical application of the apostle to his hearers.
He was not one to systematize thought. He expounded and explained the verses from their context and not from the ideas of men. He had a dislike for systematic theology because he felt it often imposed on scripture ideas that they did not often contain. It was often a forced exegesis and unnatural.
His manner of exposition became very common after Calvin but this was brand new and therefore suspicious. Discarding ideas that had gone all the way back to men like Origen was not easy to do or to digest. He insisted on the unity of the scriptures. The writings had one consistent, concise message from Genesis to Revelation. He wanted to know the historical and the personal message that the writer intended to express. He needed to know the life and times of the writer to put him, as well as his words, in context. This meant he must read history to know where, what and why things were so in the Biblical world.
It was this approach that led to his exposition of the letter of Paul to the Romans. This method is what we now call the historical interpretation of scripture. It is so common place among us but it was revolutionary in John Colet’s day. He became the father of this type of biblical exposition and application.
His lectures drew great crowds of people. The scholar and the curious thronged the lecture hall. The audience held men like Richard Charnock and Erasmus. Erasmus needs no introduction but Richard Charnock’s books are still being published today by the Banner of Truth. This opened up a New World of thought and understanding to his hearers who had previously known preaching to be an endless string of quotations, appropriate and inappropriate from the early church Fathers. These lectures took six years to complete and they never lost their vitality or their audience.
When he departed Oxford to become Dean of St. Paul’s in London he continued the same practice of teaching the word for six consecutive years out of which came his exposition of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. The interest in London was just as great as in Oxford. These expositions are still being published and can be purchased today.
John Colet is also known as an innovator in education. He devoted a large portion of his personal wealth to the education of young boys. He wanted the boys to have a firm grasp of Greek and Latin. He built a school, adjacent to St. Paul’s Cathedral, out of his own resources. It consisted in a large school building with separate housing for the teachers. Before his departure from this life he made a very important decision. He transferred ownership of a company in Buckinghamshire for the sustenance of the school. A condition for any governing board member was that they must be married men and no clergymen would ever sit on the board. A chaplain would be a full time member of the staff to teach religion. He had a new Latin textbook drawn up by a renowned scholar but he was not satisfied with it to he re-wrote it to his own satisfaction. The result was that this book became the standard textbook in England for many, many years. It was so highly recommended that an Act of parliament made it law that it would be the standard textbook for all children in Grammar Schools throughout England. It became known as the Eton Latin grammar.
Colet re-wrote the book on how teachers are to guide children. Their education could not be of any value unless it included the knowledge of the creed and prayers. Education without religion was unthinkable for Colet.
Colet was among other things a great personality. He was the rich man who did not go away sorrowfully and he used his riches for the establishment of a Christian school for the training of young men for future service to the country and the church.
He personally made it known that he despised relics of any kind and ridiculed those who went on pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a’Becket in Canterbury, England. In his last will and testament he declined to include any prayers to the “Blessed Virgin” and the saints neither did he leave any money to be used to pay for masses to be said for his soul.
He was one of the first to publicly acclaim the translation of the word of God by William Tyndale. His influence remained long after his death and when the Reformation, in the degree that it did come to England, owed much to his thoughts and influence.
1518-19The Closing Years
Life comes to an end for all of us and it did for John Colet. What was called the sweating sickness ravaged England striking many down without mercy. If a patient survived the first twenty-four hours it was a good sign but many did not. The sickness was liable to return and some were struck four times. John Colet was attacked three times and his otherwise strong constitution suffered greatly. He died in 1519 of what was then called dropsy. He had in his life time lost twenty-one brothers and sisters and he knew that his time had come and that he must leave behind his widowed mother. There was a time when Colet thought that marriage was an “unholy thing” but he had a change of heart and had actually advised Thomas More to find a bride. He wrote,” If thou intend to marry, or be married, and hast a good wife, thank our Lord therefore, for she is of his sending.” He handed over the control of his school to “married citizens” and not to celibate monks and when he was asked why he had made such a choice he replied “amongst these he had found the least corruption.” He also said that he had found “less corruption among married people, because of natural affection, the care of children, and domestic duties, are like so many rails which keep them from sliding into all kinds of vice.”