Diet of Worms

Forwarded from LCE - Catechism

The Importance of Memory

At first glance, Luther's first stage may appear to be nothing more than a form of mindless rote learning. But his concern and approach reaches well back into the early church. In presenting the Creed to the catechumens, the church fathers universally exhorted the catechumen to learn it by heart. For example, Cyril urged his students, "This is what I want you to retain verbatim, and which each of you must carefully recite, without writing it on paper, but by engraving it by memory in your hearts" (Cyril, Catechesis V,12).

Augustine emphasized the same theme:

Receive, my sons, the rule of faith, called the Creed. On receiving it, write it in your heart, and every day recite it among yourselves. Before you fall asleep, before you proceed to anything, gird yourselves with your Creed. No one writes down the Creed just to be read; he stamps it on his soul, lest forgetfulness should lose what diligence had given him. Your book is your memory.

Augustine continues: "Say it on your beds; ponder it in the streets, do not forget it during meals; and even when your body sleeps, keep watch over it in your heart."

The emphasis on memory in the church fathers as well as in Luther reflected an intersection of pedagogical realities (oral learning and high illiteracy among the people) and theological concerns (that the word take deep root in the heart).

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The Importance of Memory

At first glance, Luther's first stage may appear to be nothing more than a form of mindless rote learning. But his concern and approach reaches well back into the early church. In presenting the Creed to the catechumens, the church fathers universally exhorted the catechumen to learn it by heart. For example, Cyril urged his students, "This is what I want you to retain verbatim, and which each of you must carefully recite, without writing it on paper, but by engraving it by memory in your hearts" (Cyril, Catechesis V,12).

Augustine emphasized the same theme:

Receive, my sons, the rule of faith, called the Creed. On receiving it, write it in your heart, and every day recite it among yourselves. Before you fall asleep, before you proceed to anything, gird yourselves with your Creed. No one writes down the Creed just to be read; he stamps it on his soul, lest forgetfulness should lose what diligence had given him. Your book is your memory.

Augustine continues: "Say it on your beds; ponder it in the streets, do not forget it during meals; and even when your body sleeps, keep watch over it in your heart."

The emphasis on memory in the church fathers as well as in Luther reflected an intersection of pedagogical realities (oral learning and high illiteracy among the people) and theological concerns (that the word take deep root in the heart).

BY Diet of Worms