The early Christian idea of reform is of biblical or more exactly of
Pauline origin. A study of its beginnings must be preceded by a survey
of the terminology used to express it. ¹

In pre-Christian usage the verb rfformare itself, which occurs earlier
than the noun reformatio, did not at first clearly express the reassertion
or augmentation of value characteristic of the reform idea. The first
occurrence of reformare seems to be in Ovid Metamorphoses, where it
once refers to a miraculous physical transformation "backward,"
that is to say, to the undoing of a previous change. ² and another time
to sudden rejuvenation of an old man for one day. ³ Reformare thus
may be an Ovidian adaptation of the late Greek term μεταóρΆωóǷ6ς
the ideological background of which is in Ovid distinctly cosmological. ⁴

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