Author Description

Jared Wicks makes available for the first time in English eleven controversial works of the Dominican theologian, Cardinal Cajetan. This collection gives, in full translation or synopsis, Cajetan's arguments against the claims and teachings of the early Reformation. It begins with his painstaking analyses of Luther's published views on purgatory, penance, and indulgences in preparation for the Augsburg meeting of 1518, and follows his work up to a belated appeal in 1534 begging King Henry VIII to correct the scandalous error of his divorce and remarriage. The genre is controversial theology, where the author analyzes the position of a doctrinal adversary and marshalls arguments in refutation. Where many early Catholic defenders attempted line-by-line rebuttals of Luther's tracts, Cajetan isolated major dogmatic issues and clustered his theological arguments around a few central convictions. He placed a high premium on clarity of conception and avoided all semblance of polemic against personalities. Cajetan was no ordinary Reformation controversialist, and his works deserve the attention of anyone seeking a clear grasp of the issues argued as the great confessional divide opened between Catholics and Protestants in the early sixteenth century.