# Hadrian Saravia - 1590



## Pergamum (Nov 3, 2007)

Hadrian Saravia in 1590 wrote a book and included a chapter on world missions. Beza opposed him. 


Does anyone have more info on this man, his book, or his biography or Beza's argumentation against him? Any primary sources still left about him?


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## Guido's Brother (Nov 3, 2007)

The following is an excerpt from the rough draft of my dissertation:

2.6.2 Adrian Saravia

Adrian Saravia was born in Flanders in 1532, making him nearly 30 years old when the Belgic Confession was written and published. Saravia is an important figure in our study for he spent much of his life and some of his ministry in the Lowlands where the Belgic Confession first appeared. In later life, in a 1612 letter to Uytenbogaert (a Remonstrant leader), Saravia showed familiarity with the origin and authorship of the Confession. While he was an early promoter of the Confession, it is certain that he was not involved with its writing. 

Saravia’s adult life featured many moves between England and the Netherlands. Having been a Franciscan friar, by 1557 he was converted to the Reformed faith and then spent time in Paris, Geneva, and England. A couple of moves later in, he was back in the Netherlands serving as a pastor of the Walloon church in Antwerp (1562). The following year he moved to Guernsey to become a headmaster of a school and a minister in St. Peter’s Church. This officially signalled his change of sentiments regarding church polity from Reformed/Presbyterian to Episcopalian. This change had taken place some time earlier, but it took some time before Saravia acted on his new beliefs. However, he returned to the Netherlands as a professor in Leiden in 1584, becoming rector of the university the following year. Because of political troubles between England and the Netherlands (which included the church at Leiden), Saravia was forced to flee to England in 1588 and then he finally remained there for the rest of his life. 

Bosch describes Saravia as a Reformation-era champion “of the idea that the ‘Great Commission’ continued to be binding on the church and had to be understood in the sense of going out to those beyond the boundaries of Christendom.” Thomas asserts (wrongly as we have seen with Bucer) that Saravia was the only Reformation period theologian who “was able to emancipate himself completely from the dominant Lutheran and Calvinist view that the Great Commission was fulfilled by the apostles.” In this way, says Thomas, Saravia was a pre-cursor to William Carey. J.H. Bavinck likewise (again, wrongly) identifies Saravia as the first Protestant theologian to argue that the command of Matthew 28:19-20 is meant for the church of all ages. Let us now move on to consider briefly the mission conception of this unique man in the history of the church. 

Saravia’s writings on mission cannot be separated from his agenda for the justification of Episcopalian polity. When he argues for the abiding validity of Matthew 28:19-20, he does so on the basis that the bishops of the church are the appointed successors of the apostles. This is evident in several of his writings, but it is most fully developed in his 1590 work De Diversis Ministrorum Evangelii Gradibus. 

Two chapters of that work (17 and 18) are particularly devoted to mission, but the concept already emerges on the first page when Saravia writes, “The preaching of the Gospel is Christ’s mission to all peoples.” We can note already the use of the word “mission,” something we did not encounter in Bucer’s De Regno Christi. According to Nijenhuis, Saravia insisted that this mission is valid for “unlimited time and knows no boundaries.” Saravia wrote, 

The command of preaching the gospel and the sending to every nation are precepts to be understood of the apostles, but are also understood to obligate the church. For the command of announcing the gospel to unbelieving nations referred not only to the age of the apostles, but to all peoples which might exist until the end of the world. 

We can note here that Saravia understands the preaching of the gospel to be at the heart of mission. Further in that same chapter, Saravia goes on to argue that the continuing validity of the Great Commission hangs on the successors of the apostles. He explained,

If the apostolic authority had been temporary, a purely personal and peculiar gift, and not intended for their associates and helpers, they would be present for the Lord’s work for which they were destined. Yet since they knew their ministry and those things for which they enjoyed authority rather to have been given to the church than to persons, they understood the making of companions in their apostolic power, whom they also understood as their successors. 

Thus, in the thinking of Saravia, the abiding validity of the mission imperative is not something given to individuals, but to the church and specifically to the successors of the apostles. Moreover, because mission was a matter of the whole church, Saravia argued that it was necessary to entrust this task to more than a local ministerial office. 

Like Bucer, Saravia also conceived of mission in terms of the kingdom of Christ. This is evident when he writes that,

The fact that at the present no one is sent by the churches of Christ to the nations who do not know him, does not count against the authority for mission but proves a lack of persons fit to be sent, or certainly a want of enthusiasm for the spread of Christ’s kingdom. 

Saravia therefore equated the spreading or propagation of Christ’s kingdom with the mission of the church and noted the lack of zeal for such in his day.

There are two more important features of Saravia’s mission-conception. Dealing with the question of whether the gospel has indeed come to every nation (as many in his day alleged), Saravia writes,

Is it necessary to parade examples of the fathers from the primitive church? With what application, with what labor, and with what blood of martyrs have not the churches been planted and irrigated? The story is so well known that simply to rehearse it would not be profitable. 

Saravia goes on to write that in spite of all those efforts over 1500 years, much of the world remains unevangelized. From these words, we can note (as Nijenhuis does) that Saravia believes that the abiding mission imperative applies to both the preservation and strengthening (irrigation) and the planting of new ones. A second important feature is that he connects the blood of martyrs with the mission of the church in antiquity. Though he does not appear to develop this, this is suggestive and this notion will be explored more fully later in this study.

Saravia’s writings on this subject were not widely accepted and in fact created controversy, especially with Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza. Beza could not accept Saravia’s interpretation of Matthew 28:19-20 and his aversion can perhaps be attributed to the fact that this interpretation was closely tied to Saravia’s polemicizing for Episcopalian polity. A sort of hermeneutical suspicion made it difficult for Beza and others in the Reformed churches to separate the abiding validity of the Great Commission from arguments for the abiding validity of apostleship in the Church of Christ. In due time, we will have to consider whether this hermeneutical suspicion has any bearing on the missiological relevance of the Belgic Confession. 

Summarizing, we can note that Saravia was indeed a scholar of the 16th century who had a mission-conception whose contours are readily identifiable. We discovered that Saravia used the word “mission” and by it he understood the Christ-mandated preaching of the gospel to the nations – a command which is permanently valid for the church of all times and places. However, he also included in that the strengthening of existing churches and the planting of new ones. Further, he conceived mission to be the spreading of the kingdom of Christ. Historically, that has taken place through preaching and through martyrdom. Finally, he conceived of mission as being the responsibility of the whole church and particularly of the apostolic successors in the episcopacy. 

Sources:

Adrianus Saravia (1532-1613): Dutch Calvinist, First Reformed Defender of the English Episcopal Church Order on the Basis of the Ius Divinum, Willem Nijenhuis (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980). 

Zending in een wereld in nood, J.H. Bavinck (Wageningen: N.V. Gebr. Zomer en Keuning’s Uitgeversmij, 1948)

Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time, Gustav Warneck (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901

Classic Texts in Mission & World Christianity, Norman Thomas ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995)


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 3, 2007)

There is a Wikipedia article about Hadrian Saravia here. He was an Anglican confidant of Richard Hooker. He is said to have been the only non-English translator of the King James Bible. The work he wrote in 1590 was called: _De Diversis Ministrorum Evangelii Gradibus_. A 19th century translation is available online here. See chap. 17 for his treatment of the "apostolic commission" to preach the gospel being still binding today. Beza's response was entitled _Ad Tractationem de Ministrorum Evangelii gradibus, A Saraviae_. Saravia responded to Beza in _Defensio Tractationis de diversis Ministrorum Evangelii gradibus H.S., etc._.


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## Pergamum (Nov 3, 2007)

Cool...I'd love to read that finished dissertation!


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## Guido's Brother (Nov 3, 2007)

Pergamum said:


> Cool...I'd love to read that finished dissertation!



It will be some time, unfortunately. I have the rough drafts finished of approximately three chapters (of 8).


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## JohnOwen007 (Nov 3, 2007)

Guido's Brother said:


> It will be some time, unfortunately. I have the rough drafts finished of approximately three chapters (of 8).



You say that Bosch _wrongly _believed Saravia was the 1st to believer the Great Commission was not just for the apostles. Who were some of the others that believed the GC was for all time?


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## Guido's Brother (Nov 3, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> Guido's Brother said:
> 
> 
> > It will be some time, unfortunately. I have the rough drafts finished of approximately three chapters (of 8).
> ...



As I mentioned in the other thread on the GC, Martin Bucer appears to be one of those. My doctoral advisor, Leen Joosse, develops this extensively in his book, _Reformatie en zending: Bucer en Walaeus, vaders van reformatorische zending_ (Goes: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, 1988). Unfortunately, it's not translated into English.


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