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Martin Luther
During the Protestant Reformation travel as a spiritual discipline was associated with what the Reformers saw as spiritual abuses within the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, reflection on travel as a spiritual exercise was neglected. In developing his views of travel and pilgrimage Martin Luther was influenced by both John Wycliffe and John Hus as well as his own reading of the Bible. Like Wycliffe's followers, the Lollards, Luther took a hard line against the practice of pilgrimage. In his essay Treatise on Good Works [8 June 1520] Luther wrote: "The first commandment forbids us to have any other gods. This means we are to believe in one God, the true God with a firm faith, and with trust, confidence, hope, and love These are the only good works by which a man may have, honor, and hold the one God … There is no need at all to make a distant pilgrimage or to see holy places." [Luther’s Works, LW, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, ed. James Atkinson, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1966, 44:40].
Later in the same treaties he argues that the home is a true church where good works should be expressed through charity and care for both children and the poor. Then he writes: "There is no pomp or show about them; therefore we assume they are worth nothing. … Those whom God has commanded a man to keep in body and soul he leaves behind, and wants to serve God in some other place … No bishop forbids and no preacher rebukes such a perverse practice. In fact, in the interests of their own covetousness they clergy endorse such practices. Every day they think up more and more pilgrimages …"[LW 44:86]
A few weeks later in To the Christian Nobility [23 June 1520], Luther wrote: "To eradicate such false, seductive faith from the minds of simple Christian people and to restore a right understanding of good works, all pilgrimages should be dropped. There is no good in them … If any man wants to go on a pilgrimage today … he should first show his reasons … If it turns out that he wants to do it for the sake of good work, then let the priest or master put his foot down firmly … But if he wishes to make the pilgrimage out of curiosity, to see other lands and cities, he many be allowed to do so. [LW 44:171] Clearly, what Luther objects to is not travel or "pilgrimage" as such, but the misuse of such travel by a corrupt church. This he makes clear when he argues that "every bishop" seeks a pilgrimage site in his own diocese for the purpose of raising revenue [LW 44:186]. All of these themes, especially the charge that pilgrimages create salvation by works, are to be found in Luther’s exegetical works. For example his 1535 lectures on the book of Galations [LW 26:26, 32, 40, 135, 180, and 283], and 1537 sermons on John [LW 22:168-169, 220, 250-258, 278, 347-374, 385, 392-398, 404, 410, 451, and 502-522].
Luther also linked pilgrimage to the abuse of the sacraments [LW 38:109-110] and praises God because He "suppressed pilgrimages" which abused people’s faith [LW 38:149]. As time went by though a darker reason for attacking pilgrimage crept into Luther’s writings. In 1533 pilgrimages became an abuse because they were "no different from the way in which Turks and the Jews console themselves with their works and worship" [LW 38:159]. Consequently, they were the creation of the anti-Christ [LW 38:175] and the works of "Turks and heathens" [LW 38:183].
Generally, John Calvin [1509-1564] takes an even stronger line against what he sees as abusive Roman Catholic practices associated with travel and pilgrimage than Martin Luther or the English Reformeres. Thus in his Ordinances for the Supervision of Churches in the Country [1547] Calvin lists pilgrimages among those things he considers "Faults Contravening the Reformation" [Calvin 19674:80]. But, even here the main thrust of Calvin’s critique is the abuse of spiritual practices associated with pilgrimage. Thus, while he rarely mentions pilgrimage directly, he often attacks what he calls "innumerable superstitions" and "ancient idolatry" which he associates with Roman Catholic practices such as the veneration of relics [Calvin 1964; 239-243].
Thus it is "fictitious worship", "supplication" to "dead men’s bones" and the "images of saints," and alleged miracles used by religious authorities to generate income and worldly power that are the main thrust of his attacks [Calvin 1964:187-192]. Travel and pilgrimage, as spiritual practices, are rejected because in Calvin's view they were bound up with numerous spiritual abuses that he wished to remove from society. Calvin also associated pilgrimages with "human traditions" which, when "made binding on conscience" tend "to destroy Christian liberty" ["The Genevan Confession" article 17, in Calvin: Theological Treaties, translated by J.S.K. Reid, London, SCM Press, 1954:31].
In his Necessity of Reforming the Church [Calvin: Theological Treaties, translated by J.S.K. Reid, London, SCM Press, 1954:184-216] Calvin spends a considerable amount of time attacking "superstition," "images," and "supplication" to "dead men’s bones" all of which he sees in terms of "idolatry" [Calvin 1954:188-191].
Despite these criticisms of spiritual abuse found in many churches, Calvin appeals to the imagery of pilgrimage to understand Christian living. Consequently, he tells his readers that Christ taught his disciples that "to travel as pilgrims in this world" [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, London, SCM Press, 1960:693; or Book 3, cp. 7, section 3].
The Anabaptist leader Menno Simons [1496-1561] makes only one mention of pilgrimage in his extant writings. This comes in The True Christian Faith [1541] where he says that while Roman Catholics teach basic Christian doctrines they also add "that we must obey the pope and belong to his church, hear masses, receive the holy water, go on pilgrimages …" [Simons 1956:332]. This statement if very helpful because Simons makes it quite clear that what he is actually attacking is the abuse of pilgrimage and what he sees as false teachings associated with it, not pilgrimage itself.
During the Reformation, the attack of English Reformers on pilgrimage was kicked off by the great Bible translator William Tyndale [1494-1536] in his Obedience of the Christian Man [1527-1528] where the abuses, but not actual practice are criticized [Tyndale 1848:280-282]. Later in his Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue [1532] he argues that Christians can go on pilgrimage provided they have fulfilled all their moral duties at home [Tyndale 1850:62-63 and 84-87].
In other words are not running away from debts or responsibilities towards their families, and do not believe that one place is more holy than another. William Tyndale, the great English Bible translator who was also burned at the stake in 1536, argued "Neither needeth a Christian man to run hither or thither, to Rom, to Jerusalem, or St James, or any other pilgrimage far or near, to be saved …" [William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises and Introduction to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures, Cambridge, The University Press, 1858:281].
Yet he acknowledged that the "sight of such riches as are shewed at St. Thomas’s shrine, or at Walsingham, move a man to love the commandments of God better …" because such encounters encouraged devotion [Tyndale 1858:436]. Therefore, he concluded, pilgrimage, if rightly understood and devotely undertaken, was possible [Tyndale 1858:437]. During his dialogue with Sir Thomas More, Tyndale was explicit when he wrote:
"To speak of pilrimages, I say, that a christian man, so that he leave nothing undone at home that he is bound to do, is free to go whither he will; only after the doctrine of the Lord, whose servant he is, and not his own … If he go to this or that place, to hear a sermon, or because his mind is not quiet at home; or if, because his heart is too much occupied on his worldly businesses, by reason of occasions at home, he get him into a more quiet and still place, where his mind is more abstract, and pulled from worldly thoughts, it is well done." [William Tyndale An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, the Supper of the Lord After the True Meaning of John VI and 1 Cor XI and WM. Tracy’s Testament Expounded, Cambrige, The University Press, 1850:63]
Later English Reformers, many own whom studied in Geneva under Calvin’s guidance, took an equally nuanced approach. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer [1489-1556], for example, criticizes the abuse of pilgrimage in chapter 11 of his Confutation [1547] and in his Homily on Good Works [1547]. But, as he makes clear in his Collection of Tenets [1553], it is the abuse of pilgrims by an authoritarian and greedy church which is the real object of his attacks [Cranmer 1846: 62-64, 146-147, and 74].
Cranmer’s colleague, and fellow martyr, Hugh Latimer [1485-1555], addressed the issue of pilgrimage in several sermons [1536]. Far more than any of the other Reformers Latimer makes it very clear that the actual practice of visiting holy places is not a problem. His criticisms of pilgrimage are solidly rooted in medieval Christian practice which didn’t reject the practice totally, but, rather, rejected the many abuses documented by authors like Chaucer [Latimer 1844: 54-57, 474-475]
The attitude of the English Reformers was therefore very similar to that of Calvin who gave many of them refuge in Geneva during the Marian persecutions. For them "pilgrimage" was a worthy image of the Christian’s life on earth. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake in 1556, attacked the misuse of pilgrimage as a means of raising money for the church [Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1556, London, Cambridge University Press, 1846:63-64]. Like Luther he associates pilgrimage with "the Jews in their most blindness" which he links to "innumerable superstitions" [Cranmer 1846:147].
Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, who was also burnt at the stake in 1555, took a more charitable view of pilgrimage that he developed at length. The "common people," he argued, misunderstood the true nature of pilgrimage which they associated with vows and the worship of images [Sermons of Hugh Latimer, Sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr 1555, London, Cambridge University Press, 1844:54-55]. Such "idolatry, superstition, error, false faith, and hope in the images" had to be destroyed before ordinary folk could attain "true faith" [Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer, Sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr 1555, London, Cambridge University Press, 1845:232-234]. Nevertheless, he distinguished between "the christian man’s pilgrimage" and "popish pilgrimage." True pilgrimage, he declared, consists in following Christ and his commandments [Latimer 1844:474-475].
From these passages we see that what the Protestant Reformers objected to was not so much travel and pilgrimage as the abuse of a practice which had a long history in Christian spirituality. But, when the Reformers reflected on the value of travel and the need of believers to seek solitude or an escape from the cares of life they retained a sympathy for the idea of pilgrimage devoid of abuse. Further, the idea of life as a pilgrimage and the imagery of pilgrimage as a journey appealed to their sense of piety because it reflected a biblical theme.
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John Calvin