These days it is popular for history revisionists to degrade the reformers to that of being a bunch of fanatics who were ignorant and unsophisticated. Such an accusation is typical of our age, but backed up by little evidence. Perhaps if they had been brought quietly to the house of one of them, they would have been astounded to observe John Row sitting at his table, surrounded by his children and pupils, discussing with them deep theology in French. The sceptics would have been even more stunned to see Row’s boys reading the Bible at family devotions in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. This man had become John Knox’s right-hand man in theological discussions, being also the first to teach Hebrew in Scotland, and yet he was highly sought after in Europe for his scholarship and razor-sharp mind.
John Row (c.1525-1580) discovered he had an aptitude for law in Scotland, which he studied at the University of St Andrews; he was also appointed as a priest in Perth. In 1550 he was appointed as the agent for the Scottish clergy at Rome, after which he was awarded his doctorate in law at the University of Padua. His sharp mind and intellectual prowess came to the attention of Pope Paul IV, and had it not been for his ill health, he would have been promoted to a high position in the Romanist Church. He was appointed as the Pope’s personal ‘Papal Nuncio’, or messenger in Scotland, to spy out the work of the Reformation and report back to the Vatican, and seek to prevent it. However, such a plan backfired. Having observed and exposed a false ‘miracle’ at the hands of the Romanist priests at the Chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Loretto near Musselburgh, he began to seriously question the religion which he had preached and defended. A friendship grew between him and John Knox, and by the Spring of 1559 he had become a Protestant reformer. When the first ministers of the reformed church were appointed in 1560, John Row was given the parish of Kennoway in Fife in April, then that of St Johnstoun, Perth, in July.
Such was the reformers’ esteem for John Row, that he was selected, with John Knox and four other Johns, to put together the Scots’ Confession of Protestant faith in 1560, which was ratified by the Scottish Parliament. Furthermore, he was a key person in drawing up the First Book of Discipline, a church manifesto, written in that same year, as well as being a significant influence in producing the Second Book of Discipline in 1578. Although he has been in the shadow of John Knox, his part in the Scottish Reformation was hugely important, for his acute mind, once it had been liberated from Romanism, focused like a laser beam on the development of the Protestant Church in this nation, acting as a sharpener for Knox and the other reformers.
‘Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding’ (Proverbs 4:7, NKJV).
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