The pattern of ministerial education is traceable to the patristic period in certain respects and to the medieval educational pattern.

After the Renaissance, in the Reformation, before university students studied the trivium -grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Study of these loci continued in university. Prepatory school tended to focus on the aquistion of languages (the vulgar, Latin, and, in some cases, Greek). In University students would come face to face with Aristotle in the Organon and other "greats." The trivium was designed to foster the ability to explain and defend a point of view. The MA was more focused on the quadrivium (music, astronomy, maths, geometry -- students would read more difficult texts in Aristotle).

Depending upon the curriculum and university, divinity students would take a bachelor's degree in the Bible, and then in the sentences (theology, in the medieval schools). Luther's entire program from BA to MA at Eurfurt took about 4 years, but in the more traditional curriculum it could take much longer and the MA longer still.

The English clergy were expected, under Elizabeth I, to have an MA. The reformation of ministerial education in the 16th century made things somewhat fluid. E.g. Olevianus had a BA and a somewhat ad hoc and brief ministerial education in Geneva and in Zurich. Ursinus took his BA and spent a 7-year long post-grad internship with Melanchthon. Calvin had essentially a BA in classics. Many of the 16th-century Reformers had essentially an BA in liberal arts or classics. It took time for Protestants to develop theology faculties (departments).

In the post-Reformation period the pattern moved back toward the medieval pattern in some respects, depending upon the circumstances.

rsc

__________________
R. Scott Clark, D.Phil
Professor of Church History and Historical Theology

"For Christ, His Gospel, and His Church"
Associate Pastor
Oceanside URC
The Heidelblog