John Knox

John Knox (1513-1572) is the Reformer of the Scottish Église thanks to its liturgy: The Book off common order . Collaborator of Calvin, it organized the Église presbytérienne.

An animated life

Formed at the University of Glasgow (1529), he studies theology with Saint Salvator' S College (1531-1535). Ordered priest in 1536, Knox begins as notary, before becoming tutor towards 1544. Witness of the first movements of reform which occur after the death of Jacques V (1542) and marked by the authorization of the reading of the Bible in vulgar language, it converts with the Réforme shortly after and becomes Pasteur at Saint Andrews (small town located on the North Sea at some 100 kilometers of Glasgow). Captured in 1547 by the catholic armies, he is prisoner in France (July 1547 - March 1549) and sent to the galères. After its release, it goes to England (1549), and starts to preach in Berwick, where it meets his future wife Marjory Bowes. He becomes chaplain of Edouard VI in 1551, and takes part in the revision of the Book off Common Prayer .

With the advent of the catholic Marie Tudor in 1553, it flees of England, gains France (Dieppe - January 1554) then goes to Geneva (where it meets Calvin), to Francfort-sur-le-Main (November 1554 - March 1555) and in Scotland, then returns to Geneva (1556) where he becomes Pasteur of the English Church, equipping it with a liturgy (1556) primarily translated Form of the prayers of Calvin: it will become that of the Scottish Church.

Of return in Scotland on May 2nd, 1559, it introduced there the Reform, by preaching sermons violent one against the queen Marie I {{Re}} Stuart and undertakes the drafting of its work The History off the Reformation off the Religion within the Realm off Scotland . The death of the regent (Marie de Guise) makes it possible the Parliament to adopt a Confession of Scottish faith (August 17th, 1560) which issues the abolition of Catholicism and its replacement by Protestantism which becomes religion of State. January 27th, 1561, the Parliament of the Scottish church adopts a Livre of discipline .

Definitively leaving France, on August 14th, 1561, Marie Stuart returns to Scotland to dead of its husband, the king of France François II. But she does not manage to sit her authority and the French, with the catches with the wars of religion, cannot support it. By his sermons, John Knox opposes hard the queen, to the lifestyle of the court and contributes to his deposition in 1567. Then he exerts a considerable influence on the government of Jacques VI of Scotland (future Jacques Ier of England), but dies before the final establishment of the Church presbytérienne of Scotland.

Energetic preacher, rigid and limited thinker, Knox composed of many treaties. In its writings on the religious responsibilities for the civil capacity, it exceeds the doctrines by far rather passivist of Calvin, for which the faithful one should not resist a sovereign, even iniquitous; Knox developed (the first) the idea that the authorities subordinates (noble, magistrates) have the right and the duty to resist a tyrant who, like Marie Tudor, seeks to impose the idolatry on his subjects…

Source

According to the Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Labor&Fides/the Stag, 1995

See too

External bonds

Selected books by John Knox.

Simple: John Knox

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