The roots of Augustine and Luther’s queries on Sacred Scripture

Abstract

This article proposes gathering and expanding the content of Augustine and Luther’s doctrine about the Sacred Scripture, especially regarding the hunch that they followed, while they were still alive, in stark contrast to their respective opponents about the real place of interest they should give to the literal sense of the Bible. As he tried to attenuate any doubt raised because a precedent book, Augustine wrote the De spiritu et littera, making references to the letter of Paul to Romans to grapple with the pelagian theories that have a bias towards human autonomy against the divine grace. Luther became rival of Erasmus and Emser for what appeared to him to be a form of semipelagianism, writing a commentary on the letter of Paul to Romans with explicit mentions of Augustine’s De spiritu et littera. Therefore, in Augustine and Luther it is possible to reckon the deep connection between the biblical question and the issues that involved grace, free will and human autonomy.