In a sermon on Judges 5:20, preached in 1622, the great Anglican poet-preacher John Donne provides the following excellent discussion of catechesis. (My thanks to Sam Bray for pointing me to this sermon.)
The sermon more broadly is on the importance of the instruction of preachers, and Donne explains that this practice is rooted in the church’s catechisms, the 39 Articles, and the Book of Homilies. The catechism, he says at one point, provides the “foundation,” while the 39 Articles offer an “extension” and the Homilies provide an “application.”
In the section on catechesis, he gives a thorough discussion of the utility and antiquity of catechesis. He explains its role in the conversion of the Gentiles, as well as its origins in Hebrew culture and the high dignity it received in the patristic era. He also knows Calvin’s Institutes originated as a catechism (and makes the connection between catechism and institutiones). And he even appeals to his enemies—the Jesuits!—as proponents of catechesis, whom Protestants should surpass in their efforts to remain diligent in catechesis.
I am especially struck by his sense of the need for catechesis as a means for those who do not have the capacity to understand the liturgy without an understanding of their “signification”—that is, their biblical and theological sense. Barred from receiving the sacraments, converts received catechesis as a way to prepare them for receiving the mysteries of the faith.
He clearly knows his catechetical history well, and he puts it to judicious use. In the following passage, I’ve modified the language slightly and broken up the paragraphs to make it a bit easier to read. You can find the original here: IV:-203-205.
Are these new ways? Certainly not: for they were our first way in receiving Christianity, and our first way in receiving the Reformation. Take a short view of them all: as it is in the Catechismes, as it is in the Articles, as it is in the Homilies.
First, you are called back to the practice of Catechising. Remember what Catechising is; it is Institutio viva voce. And in the Primitive Church, when those persons who, coming from the Gentiles to the Christian Religion, might have been scandalized by the outward Ceremonial and Ritual worship of God in the Church (for Ceremonies are stumbling blocks to them who look upon them without their Signification, and without the reason of their Institution), to avoid that danger, though, they were not admitted to see the Sacraments administred, nor the other Service of God performed in the Church, yet in the Church, they received Instruction—Institution by word of mouth—in the fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion, and that was Catechising.
The Christians had it from the beginning, and the Jews had it too: for their word Chanach is of that signification, Initiare, to enter. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Train up, says our translation in the text; Catechise, say our translators in the margin, according to the natural force of the Hebrew word. And Sepher Chinnuch, which is Liber Institutionum, that is, of Catechism, is a Book well known amongst the Jews, everywhere, where they are now: Their Institution is their Catechisme. And if we should tell some men that Calvin’s Institutions were a Catechisme, would they not love Catechising the better for that name? And would they not love it the better, if they gave me leave to tell them that of which I had the experience.
A founder of this City brought his Child to me, to admire (as truly there was much reason) the capacity, the memory, especially of the child. It was but a Girl, and not above nine years of age, her parents said less, some years less; we could scarce propose any Verse of any Book or Chapter of the Bible, but that that child would go forward without Book. I began to Catechise this child; and truly, she understood nothing of the Trinity, nothing of any of those fundamental points which must save us: and the wonder was doubled, how she knew so much, how so little.
The Primitive Church discerned this necessity of Catechising: And therefore they instituted a particular Office, a Calling in the Church of Catechisers. Which Office, as we see in Saint Cyprian’s 42nd Epistle, that great man Optatus exercised at Carthage,* and Origen at Alexandria. When St. Augustine took the Epistle, the Gospel, and the Psalm of the day, for his Text to one Sermon, did he, think you, much more then paraphrase, then Catechise? When Athanasius makes one Sermon, and, God knows, a very short one too, Contra omnes Haereses, to overthrow all Heresies in one Sermon, did he, think you, any more then propose fundamental Doctrines, which is truly the way to overthrow all Heresies?
When Saint Chrysostom enters into his Sermon upon the 3rd Chapter to the Galatians, with that preparation, Attendite diligenter, non enim rem vulgarem pollicemur, “Now hearken diligently, says he, for it is no ordinary matter that I propose,” there he proposes the Catechistical Doctrine of faith and works. Come to lower times, when Chrysologus makes six or seven Sermons upon the Creed, and not a several Sermon upon every several Article, but takes the whole Creed for his Text, in every Sermon, and scarce any of those Sermons a quarter of an hour long, will you not allow this manner of Preaching to bee Catechising?
Go as low as can be gone, to the Jesuits; and that great Catechizer amongst them, Canisius, sayes, Nos hoc munus suscipimus: We, we Jesuits make Catechising our Profession. I doubt not but they do recreate themselves sometimes in other matters too, but that they glory in that they are Catechisers. And in that Profession, says he, we have Saint Basil, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Cyril, in our Society; and truly as Catechizers, they have; as State-Friars, as Jesuits, they have not. And in the first capacity they have him, who is more then all; for as he says rightly, Ipse Christus Catechista, Christ’s own Preaching was a Catechising. I pray God that Jesuits conclusion of that Epistle of his, be true still; There he sayes, Si nihil aliud, If nothing else, yet this alone should provoke us to a greater diligence in Catechising; Improbus labor, & indefessa cura. That our Adversaries, the Protestants do spend so much time, as he says, day and night in catechizing.
Now, if it were so then, when he wrote, and be not so still amongst us, we have intermitted one of our best advantages: and therefore God hath graciously raised a blessed and a Royal Instrument, to call us back to that, which advantaged us, and so much offended the Enemy. That man may sleep with a good Conscience, of having discharged his duty in his Ministery, that hath preached in the forenoon, and Catechised after. Queer, says Tertullian, (and he sayes that with indignation) an Idolatriam committat, qui de Idolis catechizat: “Will any man doubt,” says he, “whether that man be an Idolatrer, that catechises Children, and Servants in Idolatry?”**
Will any man doubt, whether he be painful in his Ministerie, that catechises children, and servants in the sincere Religion of Christ Jesus? The Roman Church hath still made her use of us; of our fortunes, when she governed here, and of our example, since she did not: They did, as they saw us do; And thereupon they came to that order, in the Councell of Trent, That upon Sundays and Holydays, they should Preach in the forenoon, and Catechise in the afternoon; till we did both, they did neither. “Except ye become as little Children, yee shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven,” says Christ.
Except ye, ye the people be content at first to feed on the milk of the Gospel, and not presently to fall to gnawing of bones, of Controversies, and unrevealed Misteries, And except ye, the Ministers and Preachers of the Gospell, descend and apply your selves to the Capacitie of little Children, and become as they, and build not your estimation only upon the satisfaction of the expectation of great and curious Auditories, you stop theirs, you lose your own way to the kingdom of Heaven. Not that we are to shut up, and determine our selves, in the knowledge of Catechistical rudiments, but to be sure to know them first. The Apostle puts us upon that progress, “Let us leave the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ, and goe on to perfection.” Not leav at them; but yet not leave them out: endeavour to increase in knowledge, but first make sure of the foundation. And that increase of knowledge, is royally, and fatherly presented to us, in that, which is another limne of his Majesty’s directions, the 39 Articles.
*Cyprian, in Letter 23, writes, “in appointing Optatus from among the readers to be a teacher of the hearers — examining, first of all, whether all things were found fitting in them, which ought to be found in such as were in preparation for the clerical office.”
*Tertullian, On Idolotry 10.