St. John Fisher (c. 1469-1535) was Bishop of Rochester (England). The son of a well-to-do Yorkshire mercer, he studied at Cambridge and in 1491 was ordained a priest. He not only taught at Cambridge but also helped found colleges at the university and draw leading scholars to it, all the while carrying out pastoral care for the local community.

In 1504 he was consecrated Bishop of Rochester and elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

For many years, he enjoyed the favour and support of the English royal family. That changed irrevocably when he opposed Henry VIII’s bid to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon declared null and the king’s subsequent push to place the crown above the spiritual power of the bishops.

In 1534, he was arrested for appealing to the Holy See against Henry. The following year, Paul III appointed him cardinal, in the hope of thereby protecting him from further harsh treatment. However, Henry VIII condemned him to death for treason on the grounds that he denied that the king was the supreme head of the Church of England.

He was executed on 22 June 1535, two weeks before Thomas More. Henry VIII had his execution moved forward so that it would not coincide with the feast of St. John the Baptist, who had also lost his head for denouncing a king’s illicit marriage. Ironically, he ended up executing him on the feast of St. Alban, the first British martyr.

Pius XI canonised him with St. Thomas More in 1935 and their memorial is celebrated on 22 June.

In this interview, Thomas P. Scheck recommends some books on John Fisher and some of the saint’s writings.

Dr. Thomas P. Scheck (PhD, University of Iowa), taught for 16 years at Ave Maria University as Associate Professor of Classics and Theology. He currently teaches Latin at Naples Classical Academy, Naples, Florida. He is a translator of many works of the Church Fathers, including Origen, St. Jerome, St. Chromatius, and of Renaissance scholars such as Erasmus and St. John Fisher.

A Defense of Free Will against Luther: Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio, Article 36
by St. John Fisher, translated by Thomas P. Scheck
Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms
by St. John Fisher, in modern English and with an Introduction by Anne Barbeau Gardiner
Humanism, Reform, and the Reformation: The Career of Bishop John Fisher
by Brendan Bradshaw and Eamon Duffy
The Works and Days of John Fisher
by Edward Surtz SJ
The Theology of John Fisher
by Richard Rex
…and for some additional recommendations…
Saint John Fisher
by E.E. Reynolds
The Making of Martin Luther
by Richard Rex

Five Books for Catholics may receive a commission from qualifyng purchases made using the affliate links in this post.

From his earliest years, St. John Fisher showed a great passion for learning and his priestly vocation. Could you give some examples of his commitment to learning and holiness?
By and large he welcomed the Renaissance Christian humanism that flourished during the first couple of decades of the sixteenth century. For example he learned Greek as an adult, which was very unusual for theologians at that time, and he was intensely interested in obtaining the new editions of the Church Fathers that were being published at this time.

For example, most of Origen’s writings became available in Latin in a 1512 Paris edition. Fisher acquired it and studied Origen very carefully and made use of Origen in his theological writings. Fisher found Origen’s Commentary on Romans a valuable work of exegesis. When Erasmus's edition of St. Jerome's writings was published in 1516, Fisher acquired it and studied and integrated St. Jerome’s epistles and biblical commentaries extremely carefully into his theological works. This is quite evident in his Defense of Free Will against Luther. It is noteworthy that Martin Luther had deep disdain for both Origen and Jerome.

“Fisher welcomed and embraced the Christian humanism of the Renaissance."

Fisher publicly praised Erasmus's Greek New Testament when it was published, even though it was a controversial work and was opposed by many conservative theologians of the time. Fisher, in contrast, embraced Erasmus’s New Testament works, studied them carefully and made use of Erasmus’s patristic editions in his own theology. Fisher had even assisted Erasmus as best he could by providing him information about textual readings from the manuscripts he had come across in Cambridge. Moreover, Fisher complied with Erasmus’s exhortation to theologians to learn Greek.

So, in general Fisher welcomed and embraced the Christian humanism of the Renaissance which was flourishing in the Catholic Church at the time. On the other hand, this is not to say that he and Erasmus held to precisely the same views on all issues.

Most of Fisher’s writings were works of Catholic apologetics which defended the Church against the innovative Protestant views. However, in mounting his defences of various doctrines of the Catholic Church, he made use of sources that had not been used or had been used very minimally by the scholastic theologians. For example, you can find a few stray passages from Jerome's Commentaries on the Prophets cited by the scholastic writers of the thirteenth century. Fisher, on the other hand, consulted these commentaries very carefully. He would use not only the exegesis of St. Jerome, but that of St. John Chrysostom, St. Hilary of Poitiers and on a far greater scale than the Scholastics had done, whose predominant theological authority was clearly Augustine.

Another noteworthy example of Fisher’s embrace of Renaissance humanism is Fisher’s interest in the third century theologian, Tertullian, whose works had been issued in a new edition in 1521, edited by the humanist scholar Beatus Rhenanus. Tertullian became one of Fisher’s favourite ancient writers.

I am fascinated and deeply inspired by Fisher's embrace of the patristic renaissance of the period. I think it sets a wonderful example to other Catholic theologians, his openness to use new sources and in some respects to break from traditional moulds.

He was an eclectic theologian. He found relevant passages from the Church Fathers on free will or on the Eucharist, for example, to silence Martin Luther and John Oecolampadius, respectively. In defending the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Fisher made use of new and original arguments that he drew from the new editions of the Church Fathers that were being published by many scholars, such as Erasmus. These theologians, Fisher and Erasmus, were engaged in a true ressourcement, well in anticipation of the twentieth-century movement that went by that name.

Sometimes we associate the Renaissance with a return to the pre-Christian sources and culture. You have described another strand of Renaissance humanism, one which was geared towards retrieving early Christian tradition and patristic ressourcement.
Yes. Fisher probably should not be described as a strictly Renaissance theologian. He was far more medieval in his orientation and had much respect for scholasticism. This is one important difference between him and Erasmus. Erasmus, I believe, had great respect for St. Thomas Aquinas, but not for Duns Scotus whom he thought was too lofty and abstract for use. Erasmus ranked Aquinas head and shoulders above his thirteenth-century scholastic peers and had less respect for the other Aristotelian theologians. As I said Erasmus did not care for Scotus and contemporary (sixteenth-century) Scotists, whereas John Fisher had extremely high esteem for Scotus. He said that he was fascinated by Scotus’s subtle mind. Fisher also held in very high esteem even fifteenth-century scholastics. This is shown in his work against Oecolampadius, where he lists and commends dozens of obscure theologians from the 1400’s; whereas Erasmus felt that those later scholastic writers were not worth reading at all except possibly Jean Gerson or Nicolas of Cusa.

Erasmus did respect some streams of thirteenth-century scholasticism, especially Aquinas, but he felt that generally speaking the study of Scholastic writers, who had incorporated almost all of Aristotle into their theological works, diverted one’s attention from the far superior ancient sources for the Church's theology, namely the Church Fathers, Greek and Latin.

It is hard to find an umbrella term that fits each scholar perfectly. However, Fisher was certainly a Renaissance humanist theologian in that he learned Greek and Hebrew. In his day, there was open opposition by Catholic conservatives to the study of Greek and its introduction into theological studies. St. Thomas More, for instance, describes how there were battles at the University of Oxford between the defenders of Greek and those who were opposed to its introduction into theological studies.

Another major difference between Fisher and Erasmus is that Erasmus had the greatest respect, almost veneration, for ancient non-Christian writers, such as Plato, Plutarch, Seneca and Cicero. Erasmus believed that there was great moral value in studying them for their own sake, for their insight into human nature and for the moral heights they reached in their philosophy. Fisher, on the other hand, hardly ever quotes ancient Greek or Roman moral writers and philosophers. Generally, he only ever quotes Christian sources.

“Fisher and Erasmus see eye to eye. The reason for this is that they were united in heart by their mutual admiration for the biblical commentaries of the Church Fathers, which they both agreed should be essential works in Catholic theological formation."

How did St. John Fisher come to the attention of the English royal family, with whom he was closely associated?
Upon completing his doctorate at Cambridge, he was made chancellor of Cambridge University, though still young. I am not certain what personal connections he had that caused him to become connected to the royal family and to become chaplain of the royal household.

By some means he developed a very close rapport with Queen Margaret, the grandmother of Henry VIII and mother of Henry VII. He was her spiritual advisor and influenced her to support the University of Cambridge.

Was he ever the tutor of Henry VIII at Cambridge?
I do not believe that he was, though some scholars have made this speculation. I believe that Henry VIII was tutored by others like John Skelton. I know that Thomas More had some informal influence on the young Henry though never as his formal tutor. Fisher I’m sure also had informal influence on the young king.

To this day, some English coins bear the title Defensor Fidei, which the Pope conferred on Henry VIII because he wrote a Defence of the Seven Sacraments (Assertio septem sacramentorum), a treatise against Luther? Some speculate that Henry did not write it but had a ghostwriter. Some even speculate that the ghostwriter was St. John Fisher. Was he?
I do not believe that Fisher was Henry’s ghostwriter. Henry was primarily responsible for that work. Fisher himself says in his Defense of Free Will Against Luther, that he was inspired to write against Luther because Henry had already entered the battle field bravely against Luther in the way he did. Fisher said essentially, “If my king is exposing himself to the attacks of Lutherans by publicly challenging Martin Luther’s doctrine, how can I stay in the camp? I need to go out to battle myself and set an example for the other bishops.” That does not sound like something a ghostwriter of Henry would say.

I suspect that the legend about Fisher being the writer arose out of embarrassment that the pope had given this title of Defensor fidei to someone who ended up turning against the pope.

1.

First up is your translation of Article 36 of St John Fisher’s Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio (1523). It was a detailed response to the Luther’s forty-one articles Leo X’s censure of him in Exsurge Domine (1520). In Article 36, Luther denied the existence of human freedom of choice. St. John Fisher draws on Scripture and the patristic tradition to show that freedom of choice is a reality affirmed by divine Revelation and sacred tradition that is witnessed in the commentaries of the Church Fathers. Is this work still important or only of historical interest?
It is a very important work, as I tried to demonstrate in my introduction to the translation and in the footnotes.

The story is rather complicated. Luther's original defence of himself against the official censures of pope Leo X was written in Latin in 1520. Later he wrote several other responses to Exsurge Domine, but the Latin one was never included in the American edition of Luther's works. The scholars who prepared that English edition chose to translate Luther’s much shorter German version of it, written in 1521, where Luther had removed some of the most radical and controversial statements from the original Latin Assertion of Article 36 of 1520. It was not until the year 2000 that an English translation of Luther's original Latin Defence of Article 36 of 1520 was published. It was translated by the great Latinist of St. Louis University, Clarence Miller and published in Collected Works of Erasmus 76, which contains Erasmus's A Discussion of Free Will, a defence of the free will against Luther and also the first book of the Hyperaspistes, his second treatment of the matter against Luther. Miller felt that he needed to translate Luther's original defence to make sense of Erasmus's reply to it.

Fisher's reply goes line by line through Luther's 1520 Latin text. He replies to the passages that Luther cites in support of his original defence of his own position. So, by reading Fisher’s book against Luther, you can learn both Luther's claims and assertions and then Fisher's responses, in which very many citations from the Church Fathers are integrated.

The writings of Erasmus against Luther are slightly later than Fisher’s (written in 1524 and 1526/27) and are quite well known to modern audiences, at least his 1524 work, the A Discussion of Free Will, but John Fisher’s work is the missing link and remains largely unknown. Yet in some respects Erasmus had made Fisher’s reply the basis of his own response to Luther. In the notes to my translation, I try to show the correspondences between the two, Fisher and Erasmus. They did not agree on every single point against Luther; sometimes Erasmus gave more credit to Luther’s views than Fisher did; but by and large Fisher and Erasmus see eye to eye. The reason for this is that they were united in heart by their mutual admiration for the biblical commentaries of the Church Fathers, which they both agreed should be essential works in Catholic theological formation. Luther in contrast felt that the early Church Fathers had misunderstood St. Paul. Erasmus and Fisher defended the Pauline exegesis of the Fathers. In summarizing Fisher and Erasmus in this way, I do not mean to take away from the originality of Erasmus's response to Luther, as if he simply copied Fisher’s arguments against Luther. However, I want to give credit to Fisher, who was the bishop-theologian who broke the ground and responded first to Luther's very radical claims about the enslaved will and who challenged Luther’s very innovative exegesis of Scriptural passages. Fisher’s response to Luther is not just of historical interest. It is of great theological significance too, though this is still not widely recognised.

Unfortunately, Erasmus does not have the greatest reputation among many contemporary Catholics, probably even Roman ones, partly because Luther, out of his hostility toward him, has succeeded in throwing dust in people's eyes.

During the nineteen-sixties and seventies, many Catholic theologians in the ecumenical movement, such as Harry J. McSorley, author of the book, Luther: Right or Wrong?, bent over backwards to depict Luther in a more favourable light and to make Erasmus into a scapegoat. They faulted Erasmus for alleged inadequacies in his theology. Some of these finely trained Thomists even accused Erasmus of being Pelagian or “semi-Pelagian.” They interpreted Erasmus is isolation from Fisher, of course, because they were not familiar with Fisher’s work. It is very difficult to make such accusations against Fisher, who is a canonized saint and a Catholic martyr. Erasmus is an easy target since he is not yet canonized. Yet, Fisher and Erasmus saw eye to eye on virtually everything that pertains to Luther's denial of free will. Therefore, to attack Erasmus’s theology as inadequate, to accuse it of being “semi-Pelagian,” is to unwittingly undermine Fisher’s theology as well. These scholars I am referring to are not familiar with Fisher, as I said, and they distort and distrust Erasmus, and that is their problem. Hopefully, my translation will help advance the discussions of these matters in future theological studies. As you can tell, I feel very passionately about these issues!