§ 45. The Form of Concord. A.D. 1577.

NAME. ORIGIN AND OCCASION.

The Form of Concord (Formula Concordiæ), the last of the Lutheran Confessions, completed in 1577 and first published in 1580, is named from its aim to give doctrinal unity and peace to the Lutheran 259Church, after long and bitter contention.⁴⁸⁷⁴⁸⁷   The name was chosen after older formularies (e.g., the Henoticon of Emperor Zeno, the Formula Concordiæ Wittenbergensis, 1536, the Formula Concordiæ inter Suevicas et Saxonicas ecclesias, 1576, etc.), and occurs first in the edition of Heidelberg, 1582. In the editio princeps (1580) the book is called 'Das Buch der Concordien,' but this title was afterwards reserved for the collection of all the Lutheran symbols ('Concordia,' or 'Liber Concordiæ,' 'Book of Concord'). It was also called the Bergische-Buch, from the place of its composition. The work was occasioned by a series of doctrinal controversies, which raged in the Lutheran Church for thirty years with as much passion and violence as the trinitarian and christological controversies in the Nicene age. They form a humiliating and unrefreshing, yet instructive and important chapter in the history of Protestantism. The free spirit of the Reformation, which had fought the battles against the tyranny of the Papacy and brought to light the pure doctrines of the Gospel, gave way to bigotry and intolerance among Protestants themselves. Calumny, abuse, intrigue, deposition, and exile were unsparingly employed as means to achieve victory. Religion was confounded with theology, piety with orthodoxy, and orthodoxy with an exclusive confessionalism. Doctrine was overrated, and the practice of Christianity neglected. The contending parties were terribly in earnest, and as honest and pious in their curses as in their blessings; they fought as if the salvation of the world depended on their disputes. Yet these controversies were unavoidable in that age, and resulted in the consolidation and completion of the Lutheran system of doctrine. All phases and types of Christianity must develop themselves, and God overrules the wrath of theologians for the advancement of truth.

LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON.

The seeds of these controversies lay partly and chiefly in the theological differences between Luther and Melanchthon in their later years, partly in the relations of Lutheranism to Romanism and Calvinism.

Luther the Reformer, and Melanchthon the Teacher of Germany, essentially one and inseparable in mind and heart, in doctrine and life, represented in their later period, which may be dated from the year 1533, two types of Lutheranism, the one the conclusive and exclusive, the other the expansive and unionistic type. Luther, at first more heroic and progressive, became more cautions and conservative; while 260Melanchthon, at first following the lead of the older and stronger Luther, became more independent and liberal.

Luther, as the Reformer of the Romish Church, acted in the general interest of evangelical religion, and enjoys the admiration and gratitude of all Protestants; Luther, as the leader of a particular denomination, assumed a hostile attitude towards other churches, even such as rested on the same foundation of the renewed gospel. After his bold destructive and constructive movements, which resulted step by step in the emancipation from popery, he felt disposed to rest in his achievements. His disgust with the radicalism and fanaticism of Carlstadt and Münzer, his increasing bodily infirmities, and his dissatisfaction with affairs in Wittenberg (which he threatened to leave permanently in 1544), cast a cloud over his declining years. He had so strongly committed himself, and was so firm in his convictions, that he was averse to all further changes and to all compromises. He was equally hostile to the Pope, whom he hated as the very antichrist, and to Zwingli, whom he regarded as little better than an infidel.⁴⁸⁸⁴⁸⁸   The deepest ground of Luther's aversion to Zwingli must be sought in his mysticism and veneration for what he conceived to be the unbroken faith of the Church. He strikingly expressed this in his letter to Duke Albrecht of Prussia (which might easily be turned into a powerful argument against the Reformation itself). He went so far as to call Zwingli a non-Christian (Unchrist), and ten times worse than a papist (March, 1528, in his Great Confession on the Lords Supper). His personal interview with him at Marburg (October, 1529) produced no change, but rather intensified his dislike. He saw in the heroic death of Zwingli and the defeat of the Zurichers at Cappel (1531) a righteous judgment of God, and found fault with the victorious Papists for not exterminating his heresy (Wider etliche Rottengeister, Letter to Albrecht of Prussia, April, 1532, in De Wette's edition of L. Briefe, Vol. IV. pp. 352, 353). And even shortly before his death, unnecessarily offended by a new publication of Zwingli's works, he renewed the eucharistic controversy in his Short Confession on the Lord's Supper (1544, in Walch's edition, Vol. XX. p. 2195), in which he abused Zwingli and Oecolampadius as heretics, liars, and murderers of souls, and calls the Reformed generally 'eingeteufelte [ἐνδιαβολισθέντες], durchteufelte, überteufelte lästerliche Herzen und Lügenmäuler.' No wonder that even the gentle Melanchthon called this a 'most atrocious book,' and gave up all hope for union (letter to Bullinger, Aug. 30, 1544, in Corp. Reform. Vol. V. p. 475: 'Atrocissimum Lutheri scriptum, in quo bellum περὶ δείπνου κυριακοῦ instaurat;' comp. also his letter to Bucer, Aug. 28, 1544, in Corp. Reform. Vol. V. p. 474, both quoted also by Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 412, note 38, and p. 434, note 37). But it should in justice be added, first, that Luther's heart was better than his temper, and, secondly, that he never said a word against Calvin; on the contrary, he seems to have had great regard for him, to judge from his scanty utterances concerning him (quoted by Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 414, note 43). Calvin behaved admirably on that occasion; he warned Bullinger (Nov. 25, 1544) not to forget the extraordinary gifts and services of Luther, and said: 'Even if he should call me a devil, I would nevertheless honor him as a chosen servant of God.' And to Melanchthon he wrote (June 28, 1545): 'I confess that we all owe the greatest thanks to Luther, and I should cheerfully concede to him the highest authority, if he only knew how to control himself. Good God! what jubilee we prepare for the Papists, and what sad example do we set to posterity!' Melanchthon entirely agreed with him.

Melanchthon, on the other hand, with less genius but more learning, with less force but more elasticity, with less intuition but more logic and system than Luther, and with a most delicate and conscientious regard for truth and peace, yet not free from the weakness of a compromising and temporizing disposition, continued to progress in theology, and modified his views on two points—the freedom of the will and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist; exchanging his Augustinianism for Synergism, and relaxing his Lutheranism in favor of Calvinism; in both instances he followed the ethical, practical, and unionistic bent of his mind. A minor difference on the human right of the papacy and episcopacy appeared in private letters and in his qualified subscription to the Smalcald Articles (1537), but never assumed a serious, practical aspect, except indirectly in the adiaphoristic controversy.⁴⁸⁹⁴⁸⁹   Kahnis {Luth. Dogm. Vol. II. p. 520) traces the changes of Melanchthon to 'a truly evangelical search after truth, to a practical trait, which easily breaks off the theological edges to bring the doctrine nearer to life, and to the endeavor to reconcile opposites.' Krauth (Conservative Reformation, p. 289), who sympathizes with strict Lutheranism, says: 'Melanchthon's vacillations were due to his timidity and gentleness of character, tinged as it was with melancholy; his aversion to controversy; his philosophical, humanistic, and classical cast of thought, and his extreme delicacy in matters of style; his excessive reverence for the testimony of the Church, and of her ancient writers; his anxiety that the whole communion of the West should be restored to harmony; or that, if this were impossible, the Protestant elements, at least, should be at peace.' Comp. on this whole subject the works of Galle: Characteristik Melanchthon's als Theologen und Entwicklung seines Lehrbegriffs (Halle, 1840), pp. 247 sqq. and 363 sqq.; Matthes: Phil. Melanchthon (Altenb. 1841); Ebrard: Das Dogma vom heil. Abendmahl (Frankf. 1846), Vol. II. pp. 434 sqq.; Gieseler: Church History, Vol. IV. pp. 423 sqq.; Heppe: Die confessionelle Entwicklung der altprotestantischen Kirche Deutschlands (Marburg, 1854), pp. 95 sqq.; Carl Schmidt: Philipp Melanchthon. (Elberfeld, 1861), pp. 300 sqq.; Kahnis, l.c. pp. 515 sqq.

These changes were neither sudden nor arbitrary, but the result of profound and constant study, and represented a legitimate and necessary phase in the development of Protestant theology, which was publicly recognized in various ways before the formation of the 'Form of Concord.' If there ever was a modest, cautious, and scrupulously conscientious scholar, it was Melanchthon. 'There is not a day nor a night for the last ten years,' he assures an intimate friend, 'that I did not meditate upon the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.'⁴⁹⁰⁴⁹⁰   Ep. ad Vitum Theodorum, May 24, 1538 (in Corp. Reform. Vol. III. p. 537): 'Scias, amplius decennio nullum diem, nullam noctem abiisse, quin hac de re cogitarim.'

As to human freedom, Melanchthon at first denied it altogether, like Luther and the other Reformers, and derived all events and actions, good and bad, from the absolute will of God.⁴⁹¹⁴⁹¹   Loci theol. first ed. 1521, A. 7: 'Quandoquidem omnia, quæ eveniunt, necessario juxta divinam prædestinationem eveniunt, nulla est voluntatis nostræ libertas.' In the edition of 1525 he says: 'Omnia necessario evenire Scripturæ docent. . . . Nec in externis nec in internis operibus ulla est libertas, sed eveniunt omnia juxta destinationem divinam. . . . Tollit omnem libertatem voluntatis nostræ prædestinatio divina.' (Mel. Opera in Corp. Reform. Vol. XXI. pp. 88, 93, 95.) In his Commentary on the Romans, published 1524 (cap. 8), Melanchthon calls the power of choice a 'ridiculum commentum,' and derives all things, 'tam bona quam mala,' from the absolute will of God, even the adultery of David ('Davidis adulterium') and the treason of Judas ('Judæ proditio'), which are the proper work of God ('ejus proprium opus') as much as the vocation of Paul; for he does all things not 'permissive, sed potenter.' He saw this doctrine so clearly in the Epistle to the Romans and other portions of Scripture that passages like 1 Tim. ii. 4 (all men, e.g., all sorts of men) must be adjusted to it. See Galle, pp. 252 sqq., and Heppe, Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantismus in 16ten Jahrh. (Gotha, 1857) Vol. I. pp. 434 sqq. In December, 1525, Luther expressed the same views in his book against Erasmus, which he long afterwards (1537) pronounced one of his best works. Comp. p. 215, and Köstlin, Luther's Theol. Vol. II. pp. 37, 323. But on Melanchthon the reply of Erasmus (1526) had some effect (as we may infer from the tone of his letter to Luther, Oct. 2, 1527, Corp. Reform. Vol. I. p. 893). Then he avoided the doctrine of predestination, as an inscrutable mystery, and admitted freedom in the sphere of natural life and morality, but still denied it in the spiritual sphere or the order of grace.⁴⁹²⁴⁹²   So in the Augsburg Confession (1530), Art. XVIII.: 'De libero arbitrio docent, quod humana voluntas habeat aliquam libertatem ad efficiendam civilem justitiam et diligendas res rationi subjectas. Sed non habet vim sine Spiritu Sancto efficiendæ justitiæ spiritualis, quia animalis homo non percipit ea, quæ sunt Spiritus Dei.' In Art. XIX. the cause of sin is traced to the will of man and the devil. At last (after 1535) he openly renounced determinism or necessitarianism, as a Stoic and Manichæan error, and taught a certain subordinate co-operation of the human will in the work of conversion; maintaining that conversion is not a mechanical or magical, but a moral process, and is brought about by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, with the consent, yet without any merit of man. The Spirit of God is the primary, the Word of God the secondary or instrumental agent of conversion, and the human will allows this action, and freely yields to it.⁴⁹³⁴⁹³   First in a new edition of his Commentary to the Romans, 1532, and then in the edition of the 'Loci communes theologici recogniti,' 1535. Here he declares that God is not the cause of sin, but the 'voluntas Diaboli' and the 'voluntas hominis sunt causæ peccati;' that we should keep clear of the 'deliramenta de Stoico fato aut περὶ τῆς ἀνάγκης,' that the human will can 'suis viribus sine renovatione aliquo modo externa legis opera facere,' but that it can not 'sine Spiritu Sancto efficere spirituales affectus, quos Deus requirit. . . . Deus antevertit nos, vocat, movet, adjuvat; sed nos viderimus ne repugnemus. Constat enim peccatum oriri a nobis, non a voluntate Dei. Chrysostomus inquit: ὁ δὲ ἕλκων τὸν βουλόμενον ἕλκει. Id apte dicitur auspicanti a verbo, ne adversetur, ne repugnet verbo.' (See Mel. Opera in Corp. Reform. Vol. XXI. pp. 371–376.) In a new revision of his Loci, which appeared in 1548, two years after Luther's death, and in all subsequent editions, he traces conversion to three concurrent causes—the Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the will of man; and states that the will may accept or reject God's grace. 'Veteres aliqui,' he says (Corp. Reform. Vol. XXI. pp. 567, 659), 'sic dixerunt: Liberum arbitrium in homine facultatem esse applicandi se ad gr tiam, i.e., audit promissionem et assentiri conatur et abjicit peccata contra conscientiam. . . . Cum promissio sit universalis, nec sint in Deo contradictoriæ voluntates, necesse est in nobis esse aliquam discriminis causam, cur Saul abjiciatur, David recipiatur, i.e., necesse est, aliquam esse actionem dissimilem in his duobus. Hæe dextre intellecta vera sunt, et usus in exercitiis fidei et in vera consolatione, cum æquiescunt animi in Filio Dei monstrato in promissione, illustrabit hanc copulationem causarum, verbi dei, spiritus sancti, et voluntatis.' This is the chief passage, which was afterwards (1553) assailed as synergistic. Comp. Galle, pp. 314 sqq.; Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 426 and 434; Heppe, l.c. pp. 434 sqq., and Die confessionelle Entwicklung der alt protest. Kirche Deutschlands, pp. 107 and 130; Kahnis, l.c. Vol. II. p. 505.

This is the amount of his Synergism, so called by his opponents. It resembles, indeed, semi-Pelagianism in maintaining a remnant of freedom after the fall, and furnished a basis for negotiations with moderate Romanists, but it differs from it materially in ascribing the initiative and the whole merit of conversion to God's grace. He never gave up the doctrine of justification by the free grace and sole merit of Christ through faith, but in his later years he laid greater stress on the responsibility of man in accepting or rejecting the gospel, and on the necessity of good works as evidences of justifying faith.

As to the Lord's Supper, he at first fully agreed with Luther's view, under the impression that it was substantially the old Catholic doctrine held by the fathers, for whom he had great regard, especially in matters of uncertain exegesis.⁴⁹⁴⁴⁹⁴   He says (1559): 'Existimo ad confirmandas mentes consensum Vetustatis plurimum conducere' (quoted by Galle, p. 452). He endeavored to prove the agreement of the fathers with Luther in Sententiæ Patrum de Cæna Domini, March, 1530. He there quotes Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Hilary, Cyprian, Irenæus, Ambrose, and John of Damascus, and labors also to bring Augustine on his side, but with difficulty (as he says that the body of Christ in uno loco esse), and he admits that some passages of Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzum, and Basil might be quoted against Luther. See Galle, pp. 390 sqq. He also shared his dislike of Zwingli's theological radicalism, and was disposed to trace it to a certain insanity.⁴⁹⁵⁴⁹⁵   He wrote to Luther from Augsburg, July 14,1530 (Corp. Reform. Vol. II. p. 193): 'Zwinglius misit huc confessionem impressam typis. Dicas simpliciter mente captum esse. De peccato originali, de usu sacramentorum veteres errores palam renovat. De ceremoniis loquitur valde helvetice, hoc est barbarissime, velle se omnes ceremonias esse abolitas. Suam causam de sacra cœna vehementer urget. Episcopos omnes vult deletes esse.' But his deeper and long-continued study of the subject, and his correspondence and personal intercourse with Bucer and Calvin, gradually convinced him that St. Augustine and other fathers favored rather a 264figurative or symbolical interpretation of the words of institution,⁴⁹⁶⁴⁹⁶   In this respect the learned Dialogus of Oecolampadius (1530), directed against his Sententiæ, made a decided impression on his mind. See Galle, p. 407, and Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 428. He found a great diversity of views among the fathers ('mira dissimilitudo,' see letter to Bucer, 1535, Corp. Reform. Vol. II. p. 842), but strong proofs for the figurative interpretation in Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, and all those who speak of the eucharistic elements as figures, symbols, types, and antitypes of the body and blood of Christ (see his letter to Crato of Breslau, 1559, quoted by Galle, p. 452). and that the Scriptures taught a more simple, spiritual, and practical doctrine than either transubstantiation or consubstantiation. Owing to his characteristic modesty and caution, and his deep sense of the difficulties surrounding the problem, he did not set forth a fully developed theory or definition of the mode of Christ's presence, but he substantially agreed with Bucer and Calvin. He gave up the peculiar features of Luther's doctrine, viz., the literal interpretation of the words of institution, and the oral manducation of the body of Christ.⁴⁹⁷⁴⁹⁷   He first renounced Luther's view, after an interview with Bucer at Cassel, in a letter to Camerarius, Jan. 10, 1535 (Corp. Reform. Vol. II. p. 822: 'Meam sententiam noli nunc requirere, fui enim nuncius aliæ,' i.e., Luther's), and in a confidential letter to Brentius, Jan. 12, 1535 (Ib. Vol. II. p. 824, where he speaks in a Greek sentence of the typical interpretation of many of the ancients). Then more fully in the revision of his Loci Theol., 1585 (de cæna Domini, in Corp. Reform. Vol. XXI. p. 478 sq.). In the Wittenberg Concordia (1536) he and Bucer yielded too much to Luther for the sake of peace (compare, however, Dorner, p. 325), but in 1540 he introduced his new conviction into the tenth article of the Augsburg Confession (see above, p. 241), and adhered to it. In his subsequent deliverances he protested against ubiquity and ἀρτολατρεία, and the fanatical intolerance of the ultra-Lutherans, who denounced him as a traitor. Calvin publicly declared that he and Melanchthon were inseparably united on this point: 'Confirmo, non magis a me Philippum quam a propriis visceribus in hac causa posse divelli' (Admonitio ultima ad Westphalum, Opp. VIII. p. 687). Galle maintains that Melanchthon stood entirely on Calvin's side (l.c. p. 445). So does Ebrard, who says: 'Melanchthon kam, ohne auf Calvin Rücksicht zu nehmen, ja ohne von dessen Lehre wissen zu können, auf selbständigem Wege zu derselben Ansicht, welche bei Calvin sich ausgebildet hatte' (Das Dogma u. heil. Abendmahl, Vol. II. p. 437). Yet in the doctrine of predestination they were wide apart. A beautiful specimen of harmony of spirit with diversity in theology! After his death Calvin appealed to the sainted spirit of Melanchthon now resting with Christ: 'Dixisti centies, cum fessus laboribus et molestiis oppressus caput familiariter in sinum meum deponeres: Utinam, utinam moriar in hoc sinu! Ego vero millies postea optavi nobis contingere, ut simul essemus' (Opp. VIII. p. 724). He also repeatedly rejected (as, in fact, he never taught) the Lutheran dogma of the ubiquity of Christ's body, as being inconsistent with the nature of a body and with the fact of Christ's ascension to heaven and sitting in heaven, whence he shall return to judgment.⁴⁹⁸⁴⁹⁸   Dorner, l.c. p. 354: 'Melanchthon hat Luther's christologische Ansichten aus der Zeit des Abendmahlsstreites nie getheilt. Die Menschwerdung besteht ihm in der Aufnahme der menschlichen Natur in die Person des Logos, nicht aber in der Einigung (unio) der Natur des Logos mit der Menschheit in realer Mittheilung der Prädicate der ersteren an die letztere. Die communicatio idiomatum ist ihm nur eine dialektische, verbale: die Person des Logos ist Person des ganzen Christus und trägt die Menschheit als ihr Organon.' But he never became a Zwinglian; he 265held fast to a spiritual real presence of the person (rather than the body) of Christ, and a fruition of his life and benefits by faith. In one of his last utterances, shortly before his death, he represented the idea of a vital union and communion with the person of Christ as the one and only essential thing in this sacred ordinance.⁴⁹⁹⁴⁹⁹   'Responsio Phil. Mel. ad quæstionem de controversia Heidelbergensi (Corp. Reform. Vol. IX. p. 961): Non difficile, sed periculosum est respondere. . . . In hac controversia optimum esset retinere verba Pauli: "Panis, quem frangimus, κοινωνία ἐστὶ τοῦ σώματος." Et copiose de fructu Cænæ dicendum est, ut invitentur homines ad amorem hujus pignoris et crebrum usum. Et vocabulum κοινωνία declarandum est. Non dicit, mutari naturam panis, ut Papistæ dicunt; non dicit, ut Bremenses, panem esse substantiale Corpus Christi; non dicit, ut Heshusius, panem esse verum corpus Christi: sed esse κοινωνίαν, i.e., hoc, quo fit consociatio cum corpore Christi, quæ fit in usu, et quidem non sine cogitatione, ut cum mures panem rodunt. . . . Adest Filius Dei in ministerio Evangelii, et ibi certo est efficax in credentibus, ac adest non propter panem, sed propter hominem, sicut inguit: "Manete in me, et ego in vobis."' Comp. on the whole eucharistic doctrine of Melanchthon the learned exposition of Heppe, in the third volume of his Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantismus im 16ten Jahrh. pp. 143 sqq. He says, p. 150, with reference to the passage just quoted: 'Immer und überall betont es Melanchthon, dass Christi Leib und Blut im Abendmahle mitgetheilt wird, inwiefern daselbst eine Mittheilung des Lebendigen Leibes, der gottmenschlichen Person Christi stattfindet, dass die Vereinigung Christi und der Gläubigen, für welche das Abendmahl gestiftet ist, eine persönliche Gemeineschaft, persönliches, lebendiges, wirksames Einwohnen des Gottmenschen in dem Gläubigen ist.' See also Ebrard, Vol. II. pp. 434 sqq.

Luther no doubt felt much grieved at these changes, and was strongly pressed by contracted and suspicious minds to denounce them openly, but he was too noble and generous to dissolve a long and invaluable friendship, which forms one of the brightest chapters in his life and in the history of the German Reformation.⁵⁰⁰⁵⁰⁰   Their friendship was, indeed, seriously endangered, and for some time suspended, but fully restored again; for it rested on their union with Christ. Luther wrote to Melanchthon, June 18, 1540 (Briefe, Vol. V. p. 293): 'Nos tecum, et tu nobiscum, et Christus hic et ibi nobiscum.' He spoke very highly of Melanchthon's Loci in March, 1545, and in January, 1546, he called him a true man, who must be retained in Wittenberg, else half the university would go off with him (Corp. Reform. Vol. VI. p. 10; Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 432–435). Dorner justly remarks (l.c. p. 332 sq.): 'Wenn zu dem Edelsten in Luther auch die ihn zum Reformator befähigende Weitherzigkeit und Demuth gehörte, womit er die eigenthümlichen Gaben Anderer, vor allem Melanchthon's anerkannte, so war es das Bestreben jener engherzigen Freunde, Luthern auf sich selbst zu beschränken, der Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit auch dieser vielleicht grössten nachapostolischen Persönlichkeit zu vergessen und, was ihnen jedoch nicht gelang, auch ihn selbst derselben vergessen zu machen.' Melanchthon, on his part, although he complained at times of Luther's φιλονεικία (as a πάθος, not a crimen), and overbearing violence of temper, and thought once (1544) seriously of leaving Wittenberg as a 'prison,' admired and loved him to the end, as the Elijah of the Reformation and as his spiritual father. In announcing to his students the death of Luther (Feb. 18, 1546) on the day following, he paid him this noble and just tribute: 'Obiit auriga et currus Israel, qui rexit ecclesiam in hac ultima senecta mundi,' and added, 'Amemus igitur hujus viri memoriam et genus doctrinæ ab ipso traditum, et simus modestiores et consideremus ingentes calamitates et mutationes magnas, quæ hunc casum sunt secuturæ.' Comp. Planck, l.c. Vol. IV. pp. 71–77. He kept down the rising 266antagonism by the weight of his personal authority, although he foresaw the troubles to come.⁵⁰¹⁵⁰¹   While sick at Smalcald, 1537, he told the Elector of Saxony that after his death discord would break out in the University of Wittenberg, and his doctrine would be changed. Seckendorf, Com. de Lutheranismo,' III. p. 165. After his death (1546) the war broke out with unrestrained violence. Melanchthon was too modest, peaceful, and gentle for the theological leadership, which now devolved upon him; he kept aloof from strife as far as possible, preferring to bear injury and insult with Christian meekness, and longed to be delivered from the 'fury of the theologians' (a rabie theologorum), which greatly embittered his declining years.⁵⁰²⁵⁰²   'Ego æquissimo animo,' he wrote to Camerarius, Feb 24, 1545 (Corp. Reform. Vol. V. p.684), 'vel potius ἀναισθήτως fero insolentiam καὶ ὕβρεις multorum, et dum vivam moderate faciam officium meum.' He left the scene of discord April 19, 1560, fourteen years after Luther. His last wish and prayer was 'that the churches might be of one mind in Jesus Christ.' He often repeated the words, 'Let them all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.' He died with the exclamation, 'O God, have mercy upon me for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ! In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust; I shall not be confounded forever and ever.' The earthly remains of the "Præceptor Germamiæ" were deposited beneath the castle church of Wittenberg alongside of Luther's: united in life, they sleep together in death till the morning of the resurrection to everlasting life.

LUTHERANS AND PHILIPPISTS.

The differences between Luther the second and Melanchthon the second, if we may use this term, divided the theologians of the Augsburg Confession into two hostile armies.

The rigid Lutheran party was led by Amsdorf, Flacius, Wigand, Gallus, Judex, Mörlin, Heshus, Timann, and Westphal, and had its headquarters first at Magdeburg, then at the University of Jena, and at last in Wittenberg (after 1574). They held fast with unswerving fidelity to the anti-papal and anti-Zwinglian Luther, as representing the ultimate form of sound orthodoxy. They swore by the letter, but had none of 267the free spirit of their great master.⁵⁰³⁵⁰³   Melanchthon applies to them a saying of Polybius, that 'volentes videri similes magnis viris,' and being unable to imitate the works (ἔργα) of Luther, they imitated his by-works (πάρεργα), 'et producunt in theatrum stultitiam suam.' Calvin more severely but not unjustly remarks (in his second defense against Westphal, 1556): 'O Luthere, quam paucos tuæ præstantiæ imitatores, quam multas vero sanctæ: tuæ jactantiæ simias reliquisti!' See Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 435, and especially Planck, Vol. IV. pp. 79 sqq. They outluthered Luther, made a virtue of his weakness, constructed his polemic extravagances into dogmas, and contracted the catholic expansiveness of the Reformation into sectarian exclusiveness. They denounced every compromise with Rome, and every approach to the Reformed communion, as cowardly treachery to the cause of evangelical truth.

Among these Lutherans, however, we must distinguish three classes—the older friends of Luther (Jonas, his colleague, and Amsdorf, whom he had consecrated Bishop of Naumburg 'without suet or grease or coals'), the younger and stormy generation headed by Flacius, and the milder framers of the 'Form of Concord' (Andreæ, Chemnitz, Selnecker, and Chytræus), who stood mediating between ultra-Lutheranism and Melanchthonianism.

The Melanchthonians, nicknamed Philppists and Crypto-Calvinists,⁵⁰⁴⁵⁰⁴    The term Philippists (from the Christian name of Melanchthon, who was usually called Dr. Philippus) is wider, and embraced the Synergists, while the term Crypto-Calvinists applies properly only to those who secretly held the Calvinistic doctrine, on the eucharist, but not on predestination. Some of the strict Lutherans—as Flacius, Amsdorf, and Heshus—held fast to the original views of Luther and Melanchthon on predestination, and taught that man was purely passive and even repugnant (repugnative) in the work of conversion. Comp. Landerer in Herzog, Vol. XI. p. 538. prominent among whom were Camerarius, Bugenhagen, Eber, Crell, Major, Cruciger, Strigel, Pfeffinger, Peucer (physician of the Elector of Saxony, and Melanchthon's son-in-law), had their stronghold in the Universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig (till 1574), and maintained, with less force of will and conviction, but with more liberality and catholicity of spirit, the right of progressive development in theology, and sought to enlarge the doctrinal basis of Lutheranism for a final reconciliation of Christendom, or at least for a union of the evangelical churches.⁵⁰⁵⁵⁰⁵   Kahnis (Vol. II. p. 520) thus characterizes the two parties: 'Dort [among the strict Lutherans] das Princip des Festhaltens, hier [among the Philippists] das Princip des Fortschreitens; dort scharfe Ausschliesslichkeit, hier Weite, Milde, Vermittelung, Union; dort fertige, faste Doctrin, hier praktische Elasticität.'

Both parties maintained the supreme authority of the Bible, but the 268Lutherans went with the Bible as understood by Luther, the Philippists with the Bible as explained by Melanchthon; with the additional difference that the former looked up to Luther as an almost inspired apostle, and believed in his interpretation as final, while the latter revered Melanchthon simply as a great teacher, and reserved a larger margin for reason and freedom.⁵⁰⁶⁵⁰⁶   In the Preface to the Magdeburg Confession, 1550, Luther is called 'the third Elijah,' 'the prophet of God,' and Luther's doctrine, without any qualification, 'the doctrine of Christ.' See Heppe: Die Entstehung and Fortbildung des Lutherthums, pp. 42, 43. In the Reussische Confession of 1567 (Heppe, p. 76) it is said: 'We quote chiefly the writings of Luther as our prophet (als unseres Propheten), and prefer them to the writings of Philippus and others, who are merely children of the prophet (Prophetenkinder) and his disciples.' The overestimate of Luther is well expressed in the lines—    'Gottes Wort und Luther's Lehr,
   Vergehet nun und nimmermehr.'

Both parties set forth new confessions of faith and bulky collections of doctrine (Corpora Doctrinæ), which were clothed with symbolical authority in different territories, and increased the confusion and intensified the antagonism.⁵⁰⁷⁵⁰⁷   Prof. Heppe, in his Die Entstehung und Fortbildung des Lutherthums und die kirchlichen Bekenntniss-Schriften desselben von 1548–1576 (Cassel, 1863), gives extracts from twenty Luthern Confessions which appeared during this period of twenty-eight years.

THE THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

The controversies which preceded the composition of the 'Form of Concord,' centred in the soteriological doctrines of the Reformation, concerning sin and grace, justification by faith, and the use of good works, but they extended also to the eucharist and the person and work of Christ. We notice them in the order of the 'Form of Concord.'

I. THE FLACIAN CONTROVERSY ON ORIGINAL SIN, 1560–1580.⁵⁰⁸⁵⁰⁸   Disputatio de originali peccato et libero arbitrio inter Matthiam Flacium Illyricum et Victorinum Strigelium, 1563; Flacius: De peccato orig., in the second part of his Clavis Scripturæ Sacræ, 1567; Til. Heshusius: Antidoton contra impium et blasphemum dogma M. Fl. III. 1572, 3d ed. 1579; Wigand: De Manichæismo renovato, 1587; Schlüsselburg: Cat. hær. 1597, Lib. II.; Planck, Vol. V. pp. 1, 285; Döllinger: Die Reformation, etc. Vol. III. (1848), p. 484; Ed. Schmid: Des Flacius Erbsündestreit, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1849, Nos. I. and II.; Frank: Die Theologie der Concordienformel, Vol. I. p. 60; Dorner, p. 361, and the monograph of Preger on Flacius and his Age. Vol. II. p. 310.

This controversy involved the question whether original sin is essential or accidental—in other words, whether it is the nature of man itself 269or merely a corruption of nature. It arose, in close connection with the Synergistic controversy, from a colloquy at Weimar between Flacius and Strigel (1560), extended from Saxony as far as Austria, and continued till the death of Flacius (1575), and even after the completion of the 'Form of Concord.'⁵⁰⁹⁵⁰⁹   About forty adherents of Flacius, driven to German Austria (Opitz, Irenæus, Cölestin, etc.), issued in 1581 a declaration against the 'Form of Concord,' as inconsistent with Luther's pure doctrine on original sin; but in 1582 they fell out among themselves. As late as 1604 there were large numbers of Flacianists in German Austria. Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 492 sq.

Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the impetuous and belligerent champion of rigid Lutheranism, a man of vast learning, untiring zeal, unyielding firmness, and fanatical intolerance, renewed apparently the Manichean heresy, and thereby ruined himself.⁵¹⁰⁵¹⁰   This remarkable man, born 1520, at Albona, Istria (in Illyria, hence called Illyricus), was a convert from Romanism; studied at Basle, Tübingen, and Wittenberg under Luther and Melanchthon, and became Professor of Hebrew in the University of Wittenberg. Luther attended his wedding, and raised him from a state of mental depression almost bordering on despair. In consequence of his opposition to the Augsburg and Leipzig Interim, Flacius removed to Magdeburg (April, 1549), where he opened his literary batteries against Melanchthon and the Interim, and undertook with several others the first Protestant Church history, under the title of 'The Magdeburg Centuries.' In 1557 he was elected Professor in the newly founded University of Jena, but was deposed (1562), persecuted, and forsaken even by his former friends. He spent the remainder of his life in poverty and exile at Ratisbon, Antwerp, Strasburg, and died in a hospital in Frankfort-on-the-Main, March 11, 1575. Many of his contemporaries, and the learned historian Planck, represent him merely as a violent, pugnacious, obstinate fanatic; but more recently his virtues and merits have been better appreciated by Twesten (Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Berlin, 1844), Kling (who calls him one of those witnesses of whom the world was not worthy, in Herzog. Vol. IV. p. 410), and W. Preger (M. Fl. Illyr. und seine Zeit, Erlangen. 1859–61, 2 vols.). Heppe, from his Melanchthonian standpoint, judges him more unfavorably, and thus characterizes him (in his Confessionelle Entwicklung, etc., p. 138): 'M. Flac. Illyricus war ein fanatischer Verehrer Luther's, der von allen Parteigenossen durch Kraft, Consequenz, Klarheit und Sicherheit seiner theologischen Speculation und durch Energie des Willens wie des Denkens hervorragend, kein Opfer und kein Mittel—auch nicht den schändlichsten Verrath am Vertrauen Melanchthon's—scheute, um sein klar erkanntes Ziel, nämlich die, Vernichtung Melanchthon's and der bisherigen Tradition des Protestantisimus zu erreichen und dem Bekenntniss der Kirche einen ganz anderen Charakter aufzuprägen als der war, in dem es sich bisher entwickelt hatte.' The library of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, possesses a rare collection of the numerous polemical tracts of Flacius. He has undoubted merits in Church history and exegesis. His best works, besides the 'Magdeburg Centuries,' are his Catalogus testium veritatis, Basil. 1556, and his Clavis Scripturæ Sacræ, 2 P. Basil. 1567. From an over-intense conviction of total depravity, he represented original sin as the very substance or essence of the natural man, who after the fall ceased to be in any sense the image of God, and became the very image of Satan. He made, however, a distinction between two substances in man—a physical and ethical—and did not mean to teach an evil matter in the sense of 270Gnostic and Manichean dualism, but simply an entire moral corruption of the moral nature, which must be replaced by a new and holy nature. He departed not so much from the original Protestant doctrine of sin as from the usual conception of the Aristotelian terms substance and accidens.⁵¹¹⁵¹¹   By τὸ συμβεβηκός Aristotle means a separable property or quality, which does not essentially belong to a thing. In this sense Flacius denied the accidental character of sin, and maintained that it entered into the inmost constitution, just as holiness is inherent and essential in the regenerate. He quoted many strong passages from Luther, but he found little favor and bitter opposition even among his friends, and was deposed and exiled with forty-seven adherents. The chief argument against him was the alternative that his doctrine either makes Satan the creator of man, or God the author and preserver of sin.

II. THE SYNERGISTIC CONTROVERSY (1550—1567).⁵¹²⁵¹²   For fuller information, see Pfeffinger: Proposit. de libero arbitrio, 1555; Flacius; De orig. peccato et libero arbitrio, two disputations, 1558 and 1559; Schüsselburg: Catal. Hæret. 1598 (Lib. V. de Synergistis); Planck, Vol. IV. p. 553; Galle, p. 326; Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 437; Gust. Frank: Gesch. der Prot. Theol. Vol. I. p. 125, and his art. Synergismus in Herzog, Vol. XV. p. 326; Fr. H. R. Frank: Theol. der Conc. F. Vol. I. p. 113; Dorner, p. 361; and also the literature on the Flacian controversy, especially Schmid and Preger (quoted p. 268).

It extended over the difficult subject of man's freedom and his relation to the converting grace of God. It was a conflict between the original Augustinianism of the Reformers and the later Melanchthonian Synergism, or a refined evangelical modification of semi-Pelagianism.⁵¹³⁵¹³   See above, p. 262.

Pfeffinger, Professor in Leipzig, who opened the controversy by an academic dissertation (1550), and then wrote a book on the freedom of the will (1555), Major, Eber, and Crell, in Wittenberg, and Victorin Strigel, in Jena, advocated a limited freedom in fallen man, as a rational and responsible being, namely, the power of accepting the prevenient grace of God,⁵¹⁴⁵¹⁴   'Facultas se applicandi ad gratiam.' with the corresponding power of rejecting it. They accordingly assigned to man a certain though very small share in the work of conversion, which Pfeffinger illustrated by the contribution of a penny towards the discharge of a very large debt.

Amsdorf, Flacius, Wigand, and Heshusius, on the other hand, appealing 271to the teaching of Luther,⁵¹⁵⁵¹⁵   Especially his book de servo arbitrio. Luther calls the voluntas of the natural man noluntas, and compares him to the column of salt, Lot's wife, a block and stone. Similar terms are used in the 'Form of Concord.' maintained that man, being totally corrupt, can by nature only resist the Spirit of God, and is converted against and in spite of his perverse will, or must receive a new will before he can accept. God converts a man as the potter moulds the clay, as the sculptor carves a statue of wood or stone. They also advocated, as a logical consequence, Luther's original theory of an unconditional predestination and reprobation. But the 'Form of Concord' rejected it as well as Synergism, without attempting to solve the difficulty.

Both parties erred in not making a proper distinction between regeneration and conversion, and between receptive and spontaneous activity. In regeneration, man is passive, in conversion he is active in turning to God, but in response to the preceding action of divine grace, which Augustine calls the gratia præveniens. Conversion certainly is not a compulsory or magical, but an ethical process. God operates upon man, not as upon a machine or a dead stone (as Flacius and also the 'Form of Concord' maintain), but as a responsible, rational, moral, and religiously susceptible though very corrupt being; breaking his natural hostility, making willing the unwilling, and preparing him at every step for corresponding action. So far Melanchthon was right. But the defect of the Synergistic theory is the idea of a partnership between God and man, and a corresponding division of work and merit. Synergism is less objectionable than semi-Pelagianisrn, for it reduces co-operation before conversion to a minimum, but even that minimum is incompatible with the absolute dependence of man on God.

III. THE OSIANDRIC CONTROVERSY (1549–1566).⁵¹⁶⁵¹⁶    Osiander: Disputationes duæ: una de Lege et Evangelio (1549), altera de Justifications (1550), Regiom. 1550; De unico Mediatore Jes. Chr. et Justificatione fidei confessio A. Osiandri, Regiom, 1551; Schmeckbier, Königsberg, 1552; Widerlegung der Antwort Melanchthon's, 1552. Anton Otto Herzberger: Wider die tiefgesuchten und scharfgespitzten, aber doch nichtigen Ursachen Osianders, Magdeburg, 1552; Gallus: Probe des Geistes Osiandri, Magdeb. 1552; Menius: Die Gerechtigkeit, die für Gott gilt, wider die neue alcumistische Theologia Osianders, Erfurt, 1552; Jo. Wigand: De Osiandrismo, Jena, 1583 and 1586; Schlüsselburg: Catal. Hæret. Lib. VI.; Planck, Vol. IV. p. 249; Baur: Disqu. in Osiandri de justif. doctrinam. Tüb. 1831; Lehnerdt: De Osiandri vita et doctr. Berol. 1835; H. Wilken: Osianders Leben, Stralsund, 1844; Heberle: Os. Lehre in ihrer frühsten Gestalt (Studien u. Kritiken, 1844, p. 386); Ritschl: Rechtfertigungslehre des A. Os. (in Jahrb. für D. Theol. 1857, p. 795); R. T. Grau: De Os. doctrina, Marb. 1860; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 469; Gass, Vol. I. p. 61; Heppe, Vol. I. p. 81; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 150; J. H. R. Frank, Vol. II. p. 1–47; Dorner, p. 344. Among Roman Catholic divines, Döllinger in his Reformation, ihre Entwicklung and Wirkungen, Vol. III. pp. 397–437, gives the best account of the Osiandric controversy.

It touched the central doctrine of Evangelical Lutheranism, justification by faith, whether it is a mere declaratory, forensic art of acquittal from sin and guilt, or an actual infusion of righteousness.

Luther and the other Reformers made a clear distinction between justification as an external act of God for man, and sanctification as an internal act of God in man; and yet viewed them as inseparable, sanctification being the necessary effect of justification. Faith was to them an appropriation of the whole Christ, a bond of vital union with his person first, and in consequence of this a participation of his benefits.⁵¹⁷⁵¹⁷   See Köstlin: Luther's Theologie, Vol. II. pp. 444 sqq.

In the Osiandric controversy, justification and sanctification were either confounded or too abstractedly separated, and the person of Christ was lost sight of in his work or in one of his two natures.

Andrew Osiander (1498–1552), an eminent Lutheran minister and reformer at Nuremberg (since 1522), afterwards Professor at Königsberg (1549), a man of great learning and speculative talent, but conceited and overbearing, created a great commotion by a new doctrine of justification, which he brought out after the death of Luther.⁵¹⁸⁵¹⁸   He thought that 'after the death of the lion he could easily dispose of the hares and foxes.' But the germ of his doctrine was already in his tract, 'Ein gut Unterricht und getreuer Rathschlag aus heil. göttlicher Schrift,' 1524. At the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, he requested Melanchthon, in the presence of Brentius and Urban Regius, to introduce into the new confession of faith the passage Jer. xxiii. 6, 'The Lord our Righteousness,' which he understood to mean that Christ dwells in us by faith, and works in us both to will and to do. See Wilkens, p. 37; Döllinger, p. 398. He assailed the forensic conception of justification, and taught instead a medicinal and creative act, whereby the sinner is made just by an infusion of the divine nature of Christ, which is our righteousness. This view was denounced as Romanizing, but it is rather mystical. He did not make justification a gradual process, like the Roman system, but a single and complete act, by which Christ according to his divine nature enters the soul of man through the door of faith.⁵¹⁹⁵¹⁹   'Christus secundum suam veram divinam essentiam in vere credentibus habitat.' He meant justification by faith alone without works, but an effective internal justification in the etymological 273sense of the term. He was Protestant in this also, that he excluded human merit and represented faith which apprehends Christ, as the gift of God. In connection with this he held peculiar views on the image of God, which he made to consist in the essential union of the human nature with the divine nature, and on the necessity of the incarnation, which in his opinion would have taken place even without the fall, in order that through Christ's humanity we might become partakers of the essential righteousness of God.⁵²⁰⁵²⁰   'Per humanitatem devenit in nos divinitas.' He appealed to Luther, but denounced Melanchthon as a heretic and pestilential man.

Osiander was protected by Duke Albrecht of Prussia, whom he had converted, but opposed from every quarter by Mörlin, Staphylus, Stancarus, Melanchthon, Amsdorf, Menius, Flacius, Chemnitz. Between the two parties stood the Swabian divines Brentius and Binder. The controversy was carried on with a good deal of misunderstanding, and with such violence that the Professors in Königsberg carried fire-arms into their academic sessions. It was seriously circulated and believed that the devil wrote Osiander's books, while he enjoyed his meals.

After Osiander's death (1552), his son-in-law, John Funck, chaplain of the Duke, became the leader of his small party; but he was executed on the scaffold (1566) as a heretic and disturber of the public peace. Mörlin was recalled from exile and made Bishop of Samland. The Prussian collection of Confessions (Corpus Doctrinæ Pruthenicum, or Borussicum, Königsberg, 1567) condemned the doctrines of Osiander.

In close connection with the Osiandric controversy on justification was the Stancarian dispute, introduced by Francesco Stancaro (or Stancarus), an Italian ex-priest, and for a short time Professor in Königsberg (d. 1574 in Poland). He asserted, against Osiander and in agreement with Peter the Lombard, that Christ was our Mediator and Redeemer according to his human nature only (since he, being God himself, could not mediate between God and God).⁵²¹⁵²¹   'Nemo potest esse mediator sui ipsius.' Petrus Lombardus says: 'Christus mediator dicitur secundum humanitatem, non secundum divinitatem.' He called his opponents and all the Reformers ignoramuses.⁵²²⁵²²   Wigand: De Stancarismo, Lips. 1583; Schlüsselburg, Lib. IX.; Planck, Vol. IV. p. 449; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 480; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 156.

Another collateral controversy, concerning the obedience of Christ, 274was raised, A.D. 1563, by Parsimonius, or Karg, a Lutheran minister in Bavaria.⁵²³⁵²³   Georg Karg was born 1512, studied at Wittenberg, was ordained by Luther and Melanchthon, became pastor at Oettingen, afterwards at Ansbach, and died 1576. He was a rigid Lutheran in the Interimistic controversies, but otherwise more a follower of Melanchthon. He derived our redemption entirely from our Lord's passive obedience, and denied that his active obedience had any vicarious merit, since Christ himself, as man, owed active obedience to God. He also opposed the doctrine of imputation, and resolved justification into the idea of remission of sins.

Karg was opposed by Ketzmann in Ansbach, by Heshusius, and the Wittenberg divines. Left without sympathy, and threatened with deposition and exile, he recanted his theses in 1570, and confessed that the obedience of Christ, his righteousness, merit, and innocence are the ground of our justification and our greatest comfort.⁵²⁴⁵²⁴   Thomasius: Hist. dogmatis de obedientia Christi activa, Erl. 1845–46; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 158; Dorner, p. 345; Döllinger, Vol. III. pp. 564–74 (together with the acts from MS. sources in the Appendix, pp. 15 sqq., the best account). Karg's view was afterwards defended by the Reformed divines John Piscator of Herborn and John Camero of Saumur, perhaps also by Ursinus (according to a letter of Tossanus to Piscator). See Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 573; Schweizer: Centraldogmen, Vol. II. p. 16.

The 'Form of Concord' teaches that Christ as God and man in his one, whole, and perfect obedience, is our righteousness, and that his whole obedience unto death is imputed to us.

IV. THE MAJORISTIC CONTROVERSY (1552–1577.)⁵²⁵⁵²⁵   D. G. Major: Opera, Viteb. 1569, 3 vols.; N. von Amsdorf: Dass die Propositio: 'Gute Werke sind zur Seligkeit schädlich,' eine rechte wahre christliche Propositio sei, durch die heiligen Paulas und Luther gepredigt, 1559; several tracts of Flacius, Wigand, and Responsa and Letters of Melanchthon on this subject from 1553 to 1559, in Corp. Reform. Vols. VIII. and IX.; Schlüsselburg, Lib. VII.; Planck, Vol. IV. p. 469; Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 493; Thomasius: Das Bek. der ev. luth. Kirche in der Consequenz seines Princips, p. 100; Heppe, Vol. II. p. 264; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 122; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. II. p. 149; Herzog, Vol. VIII. p. 733; Dorner, p. 339.

It is closely connected with the Synergistic, Osiandric, and Antinomian controversies, and refers to the use of good works.

The Reformers derived salvation solely from the merits of Christ through the medium of faith, as the organ of reception, in accordance with the Scripture, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' But faith was to them a work of God, a living apprehension of Christ, and the fruitful parent of good works. Luther calls faith a 'lively, busy, mighty thing,' which can no more be separated from love 275than fire from heat and light.⁵²⁶⁵²⁶   See his classical description of faith in the Preface to the Epistle to the Romans (Walch, Vol. XIV. p. 114, quoted also in the 'Form of Concord,' p. 626, ed. Müller): 'Der Glaube ist ein göttlich Werk in uns, das uns verwandelt und neu gebiert aus Gott und tödtet den alten Adam, macht uns ganz andere Menschen . . . und bringet den heiligen Geist mit sich. O! es ist ein lebendig, geschäftig, thätig, mächtig Ding um den Glauben, dass es unmöglich ist, dass er nicht ohne Unterlass sollte Gutes wirken; er fragt auch nicht, ob gute Werke zu thun sind, sondern ehe man fragt, hat er sie gethan, und ist immer im Thun. Weraber nicht solche Werke thut, der ist ein glaubloser Mensch. . . . Werke vom Glauben scheiden is so unmöglich als brennen und leuchten vom Feuer mag geschieden werden.' In another place Luther says: 'So wenig das Feuer ohne Hitze und Rauch ist, so wenig ist der Glaube ohne Liebe.' Melanchthon, in his later period, laid greater stress on good works, and taught their necessity as fruits of faith, but not as a condition of salvation, which is a free, unmerited gift of God.⁵²⁷⁵²⁷   Loci theol. ed. 1535 (the edition dedicated to King Henry VIII.): 'Obedientia nostra, hoc est, justitia bonæ conscientiæ seu operum, quæ Deus nobis præcipit, necessario sequi debet reconciliationem. . . . Si vis in vitam ingredi, serva mandata (Matt. xix. 17). . . . Justificamur ut nova et spirituali vita vivamus. . . . Ipsius opus sumus, conditi ad bona opera (Eph. ii. 10). . . . Acceptatio ad vitam æternam seu donatio vitæ æternæ conjuncta est cum justificatione, i.e., cum remissione peccatorum et reconciliatione, quæ fide contingit. . . . Itaque non datur vita æterna propter dignitatem bonorum operum, sed gratis propter Christum. Et tamen bona opera ita necessaria sunt ad vitam æternam, quia sequi reconciliationem necessario debent' (Corp. Reform. Vol. XXI. p. 429).

Georg Major (Professor at Wittenberg since 1539, died 1574), a pupil of Melanchthon, and one of the framers of the Leipzig Interim, declared during his sojourn at Eisleben (1552) that good works are necessary to salvation.⁵²⁸⁵²⁸   'Bona opera necessaria esse ad salutem.' He pronounced the anathema on every one who taught otherwise, though he were an angel from heaven. He meant, however, the necessity of good works as a negative condition, not as a meritorious cause, and he made, moreover, a distinction between salvation and justification.⁵²⁹⁵²⁹   He found it necessary afterwards to qualify his proposition, especially since Melanchthon, to his surprise, did not quite approve it. He assigned to good works a necessitas debiti, as commanded by God, a necessitas conjunctionis, as connected with faith, but no necessitas meriti. Our whole confidence is in Christ. 'Hominem,' he said, 'sola fide esse justum, sed non sola fide salvum.'

This proposition seemed to be inconsistent with Luther's solifidianism, and was all the more obnoxious for its resemblance to a clause in the Romanizing Leipzig Interim (1548).⁵³⁰⁵³⁰   Viz., the words, 'Es ist gewisslich wahr, dass die Tugenden Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung, und andere in uns sein müssen und zur Seligkeit nöthig seien.' In Pezel's edition of Melanchthon's 'Bedenken' the words zur Seligkeit are omitted. Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 496.

Hence it was violently opposed from every direction. Nicolas von Amsdorf (1483–1565), appealing to St. Paul and Dr. Luther, condemned 276it as 'the worst and most pernicious heresy,' and boldly advocated even the counter-proposition, that good works are dangerous to salvation (1559).⁵³¹⁵³¹   'Bona opera perniciosa (noxia) esse [not in themselves, but] ad salutem.' Whoever held the opposite view was denounced by Amsdorf as a Pelagianer, Mameluk, zweifältiger Papist and Verläugner Christi. Flacius denounced Major's view as popish, godless, and most dangerous, because it destroyed the sinner's comfort on the death-bed and the gallows, made the salvation of children impossible, confounded the gospel with the law, and weakened the power of Christ's death.⁵³²⁵³²   See the extracts from Flacius, in Döllinger, Vol. III. pp. 503 sqq. Wigand objected that the error of the necessity of good works was already condemned by the Apostles in Jerusalem (Acts xv.), that it was the pillar of popery and a mark of Antichrist, and that it led many dying persons unable to find good works in themselves, to despair. Justus Menius, Superintendent of Gotha, tried to mediate by asserting the necessity of good works for the preservation of faith; but this was decidedly rejected as indirectly amounting to the same error. A synod, held at Eisenach in 1556, decided in seven theses that Major's proposition was true only in abstracto and in foro legis, but not in foro evangelii, and should be avoided as liable to be misunderstood in a popish sense. Christ delivered us from the curse of the law, and faith alone is necessary both for justification and salvation, which are identical.⁵³³⁵³³   See the theses in Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 511 sq. The theses were subscribed by Amsdorf, Strigel, Mörlin, Hugel, Stössel, and even by Menius (although the fifth was directed against him). But now there arose a controversy on the admission of the abstract and legal necessity of good works, which was defended by Flacius, Wigand, and Mörlin; opposed by Amsdorf and Aurifaber as semi-popish. The former view prevailed.

Melanchthon felt that the necessity of good works for salvation might imply their meritoriousness, and hence proposed to drop the words for salvation, and to be contented with the assertion that good works are necessary because God commanded them, and man is bound to obey his Creator.⁵³⁴⁵³⁴   See his brief Judicium on the Majoristic controversy, 1553, Corp. Reform. Vol. VIII. p. 194, and his more lengthy German letter ad Senatum Northusanum (Nordhausen), Jan. 13, 1555; Ibid., pp. 410–413. 'Diese Deutung, 'he says (p. 412), 'ist zu fliehen: gute Werke sind Verdienst der Seligkeit; und muss der Glaub und Trost fest allein auf dem Herrn Christo stehen, dass wir gewisslich durch ihn allein, propter eum et per eum, haben Vergebung der Sünden, Zurchnung der Gerechtigkeit, heiligen Geist, und Erbschaft der ewigen Seligkeit. Dieses Fundament ist gewiss. Es folget auch eben aus diesem Fundament, dass diese andere Proposition recht und nöthig ist: gute Werke oder neuer Gehorsam ist nöthig von wegen göttlicher, unwandelbarer Ordnung, dass die vernünftige Creatur Gott Gehorsam schuldig ist, und dazu erschaffen, und jetzund wiedergeboren ist, dass sie ihm gleichförmig werde.' Melanchthon heard from an Englishman that this controversy created great astonishment in England, where no one doubted the necessity of good works to salvation, nor failed to see the difference between necessity and merit. This middle course was adopted by the Wittenberg 277Professors and by the Diet of Princes at Frankfort (1558), but was rejected by the strict Lutherans.

Major consented (in 1558) no longer to use his phrase, and revoked it in his last will (1570), but he was still assailed, and the Professors at Jena prayed for the conversion of the poor old man (1571) with little hope of success. Flacius prayed that Christ might crush also this serpent. Heshusius publicly confessed that he had committed a horrible sin in accepting the Doctor's degree from Major, who was a disgrace to the theological profession.

The 'Form of Concord' settled the controversy by separating good works both from justification and salvation, yet declaring them necessary as effects of justifying faith.⁵³⁵⁵³⁵   In accordance with the word of Augustine: 'Opera sequuntur justificatam, non præcedunt justificandum.' Three or four of the framers of the 'Form of Concord' were inclined to Major's view, and endeavored at first to prevent its condemnation; but the logic of the Lutheran principle triumphed.

V. THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY (1527–1560).⁵³⁶⁵³⁶   Luther's Werke, Vol. XX. p. 2014 (ed. Walch); Wigand: De antinomia veteri et nova, Jen. 1571; Schlüsselburg, Lib. IV.; Förstemann: Neues Urkundenbuch (Hamburg, 1842), Vol. I. p. 291; J. G. Schulzius: Historia Antinomorum, Viteb. 1708; Planck, Vol. II. p. 399, Vol. V. I. 1; Thomasius, p. 46; Döllinger, Vol. III. p. 372; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p.397; Heppe, Vol. I. p. 80; Gass, Vol. I. p.57; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 146; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. II. pp. 246, 262; Dorner, p. 336; Elwert: De Antinomia Agricolæ Islebii, Tur. 1836; K. J. Nitzsch: Die Gesammterscheinung des Antinomismus, in the Studien u. Kritiken, 1846, Nos. I. and II.

Protestantism in its joyful enthusiasm for the freedom and all-sufficiency of the gospel was strongly tempted to antinomianism, but restrained by its moral force and the holy character of the gospel itself.⁵³⁷⁵³⁷   Gass says (Vol. I. p. 57): 'Die Reformation war selbst Antinomismus, insofern sie mit dem werkheiligen auch das gesetzliche Princip, wenn es die Seligkeit des Menschen bewirken will, verwarf. Melanchthon hatte Gesetz und Evangelium wie Schreck- und Trostmittel einander entgegengestellt und nur auf das letzere die Rechtfertigung gebaut, während er doch unter dem Gesetz den bleibenden Inhalt des göttlichen Willens zusammenfasst.' Luther, in opposition to Romish legalism, put the gospel and 278the law as wide apart as 'heaven and earth,' and said,' Moses is dead.'⁵³⁸⁵³⁸   Many of his utterances, as quoted by Döllinger, Vol. III. pp. 45 sqq., sound decidedly antinomian, but must be understood cum grano salis, and in connection with his whole teaching. Some of the most objectionable are from his 'Table Talk,' as when he calls Moses 'the master of all hangmen' and 'the worst of heretics.' Nevertheless he embodied in his Catechism an excellent exposition of the Decalogue before the Creed; and Melanchthon, as we have already seen, laid more and more stress on the moral element and good works in opposition to the abuses of solifidianism and carnal security.

The antinomian controversy has two stages. The first touches the office of the law under the gospel dispensation, and its relation to repentance; the second the necessity of good works, which was the point of dispute between Major and Amsdorf, and has already been discussed.

John Agricola, of Eisleben, misunderstood Luther, as Marcion, the antinomian Gnostic, misunderstood St. Paul.⁵³⁹⁵³⁹   Agricola (Schnitter, Kornschneider; Luther called him Grickl) was born at Eisleben, 1492 (hence Magister Islebius), and studied at Wittenberg, where he boarded with Luther. He was a popular preacher at Eisleben, and became Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, 1536, and chaplain of Elector Joachim II. at Berlin, 1540. In 1548 he took a leading part in the Augsburg Interim, and denied the essential principles of Protestantism, but protested afterwards from the pulpit against the necessity of good works (1558). He died at Berlin, 1566. Luther was more vexed by him, as he said, than by any pope; he charged him with excessive vanity and ambition, and declared him unfit to teach, and fit only for the profession of a jester (Briefe, Vol. V. p. 321). He refused to see him in 1545, and said, 'Grickl wird in alle Ewigkeit Grickl bleiben.' Bretschneider and Gieseler suppose that Melanchthon incurred Agricola's displeasure by not helping him to a theological chair in Wittenberg. He must have had, however, considerable administrative capacity. Döllinger charges the Reformers with misrepresenting him and his doctrine. He first uttered antinomian principles in 1527, in opposition to Melanchthon, who in his Articles of Visitation urged the preaching of the law unto repentance.⁵⁴⁰⁵⁴⁰   'Prædicatio legis ad pænitentiam.' Chursächsische Visitations-Artikel, 1527 and 1528, Latin and German, ed. by Strobel, 1777. He was appeased in a conference with the Reformers at Torgau (December, 1527). But when Professor at Wittenberg, he renewed the controversy in 1537, in some arrogant theses, and was defeated by Luther in six public disputations (1538 and 1540). He made a severe attack on Luther, which involved him in a lawsuit, but he removed to Berlin, and sent from there a recantation, Dec. 6, 1540. Long afterwards (1562) he reasserted his views in a published sermon on Luke vii. 37. He was neither clear nor consistent.

Agricola taught with some truth that genuine repentance and remission 279of sin could only be secured under the gospel by the contemplation of Christ's love. In this Luther (and afterwards Calvin) agreed with him. But he went much further. The law in his opinion was superseded by the gospel, and has nothing to do with repentance and conversion. It works only wrath and death; it leads to unbelief and despair, not to the gospel. He thought the gospel was all-sufficient both for the office of terror and the office of comfort. Luther, on the contrary, maintained, in his disputations, that true repentance consists of two things—knowledge and sorrow of sin, and resolution to lead a better life. The first is produced by the law, the second by the gospel. The law alone would lead to despair and hatred of God; hence the gospel is added to appease and encourage the terrified conscience. The law can not justify, but must nevertheless be taught, that by it the impious may be led to a knowledge of their sin and be humbled, and that the pious may be admonished to crucify their flesh with its sinful lusts, and to guard against security.

The 'Form of Concord' teaches a threefold use of the law: (a) A political or civil use in maintaining outward discipline and order; (b) An elenchtic or pedagogic use in leading men to a knowledge of sin and the need of redemption; (c) A didactic or normative use in regulating the life of the regenerate. The Old and New Testaments are not exclusively related as law and gospel, but the Old contains gospel, and the New is law and gospel complete.

VI. THE CRYPTO-CALVINISTIC OR EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY (1549–1574).⁵⁴¹⁵⁴¹    Westphal: Farrago confusanearum et inter se dissidentium opiniomum de Cæna Domini ex Sacramentariorum libris congesta, Magdeb. 1552 (chiefly against Calvin, Bullinger, Peter Martyr, and John à Lasco); Recta Fides de Cæna Domini ex verbis Ap. Pauli et Evangelistarum demonstrata, 1553; a tract on Augustine's view of the eucharist, 1555; another on Melanchthon's view, 1557; then Justa Defensio against John à Lasco; and, finally, Apologia contra corruptelas et calumnias Johannis Calvini, 1558. Calvin: Defensio sanæ et orthodoxæ doctrinæ de sacramentis, Gen. and Tiguri, 1555; Secunda Defensio planæ et orthod. de sacram. fidei contra Joach. Westphali calumnias, 1556; Ultima Admonitio ad Joach. Westphalum, 1557; Dilucida Explicatio sanæ doctr. de vera participatione carnis et sanguinis Christi in sacra Cæna, against Heshusius, 1561. (All these tracts of Calvin in his Opera, Vol. IX. ed. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Brunsv. 1870.) Minor eucharistic tracts on the Lutheran side by Brenz, Schnepf, Alber, Timann, Heshusius; on the Calvinistic side by Bullinger, Peter Martyr, Beza, and Hardenberg. Wigand: De Sacramentariismo, Lips. 1584; De Ubiquitate, Regiom. 1588; Schlüsselburg, Lib. III.; Planck, Vol. V. II. 1; Galle, p. 436; Ebrard: Das Dogma vom heil. Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 525–744; Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 439, 454; Heppe, Vol. II. p. 384; Stähelin: Calvin, Vol. II. pp. 112, 198; Schmidt: Melanchthon, pp.580, 639; G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 132, 164; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. III. pp. 1–164; Mönckeberg: Joach. Westphal und Joh. Calvin, 1865; Dorner, p. 400; also Art. Kryptocalvinismus in Herzog, Vol. VIII. p. 122; and the Prolegomena to the ninth volume of the new edition of Calvin's Opera (in Corp. Reform.).

The eucharistic controversy between Luther and Zwingli, although it alienated the German and Swiss branches of the Reformation, did 280not destroy all intercourse, nor discourage new attempts at reconciliation. Calvin's theory, which took a middle course, retaining, on the basis of Zwingli's exegesis, the religious substance of Luther's faith, and giving it a more intellectual and spiritual form, triumphed in Switzerland, gained much favor in Germany, and opened a fair prospect for union. But the controversy of Westphal against Calvin, and the subsequent overthrow of Melanchthonianism, completed and consolidated the separation of the two Confessions.

Melanchthon's later view of the Lord's Supper, which essentially agreed with that of Calvin, was for a number of years entertained by the majority of Lutheran divines even at Wittenberg and Leipzig, and at the court of the Elector of Saxony. It was also in various ways officially recognized with the Augsburg Confession of 1540, which was long regarded as an improved rather than an altered edition.

But the Princes and the people held fast to the heroic name of Luther against any rival authority, and when the alternative was presented to choose between him and Melanchthon or Calvin, the issue could not be doubtful. Besides, the old traditional view of the mysterious power and magical efficacy of the sacraments had a firm hold upon the minds and hearts of German Christians, as it has to this day.

Joachim Westphal, a rigid Lutheran minister at Hamburg, renewed, in 1552, the sacramental war in several tracts against the 'Zurich Consensus' (issued 1549), and against Calvin and Peter Martyr; aiming indirectly against the Philippists, and treating all as sacramentarians and heretics who denied the corporeal presence, the oral manducation, and the literal eating of Christ's body even by unbelievers. He made no distinction between Calvin and Zwingli, spoke of their godless perversion of the Scriptures, and even their satanic blasphemies. About the same time John à Lasco, a Polish nobleman and minister of a foreign Reformed congregation in London, and one hundred and seventy-five Protestants, who were driven from England under the bloody 281Mary (1553), sought and were refused in cold winter a temporary refuge in Denmark, Rostock, Lübeck, and Hamburg (though they found it at last in East Friesland). Westphal denounced them as martyrs of the devil, enraged the people against them, and gloried in this cruelty as an act of faith.⁵⁴²⁵⁴²   See Utenhoven's Simplex et fidelis narratio, etc., Bas. 1560, and the extracts from it by Salig, Vol. II. pp. 1090 sqq., and Ebrard, Vol. II. pp. 536 sqq. Mönckeberg attempts to apologize for Westphal, but without effect. Compare the remarks of Dorner, p. 401.

This intolerance roused the Swiss, who had kept silence for some time, to a defense of their doctrine. Calvin took up his sharp and racy pen, indignantly rebuking 'the no less rude and barbarous than sacrilegious insults' to persecuted members of Christ, and triumphantly vindicating, against misrepresentations and objections, his doctrine of the spiritual real presence of Christ, and the sealing communication of the life-giving virtue of his body in heaven to the believer through the power of the Holy Ghost.⁵⁴³⁵⁴³   'Fatemur,' he says in his First Defense, 'Christum, quod panis et vini symbolis figurat, vere præstare, ut animas nostras carnis suæ esu et sanguinis potione alat. . . . Hujus rei non fallacem oculis proponi figuram dicimus, sed pignus nobis porrigi, cui res ipsa et veritas conjuncta est: quod scilicet Christi carne et sanguine animæ nostræ pascantur' (in the new edition of his Opera, Vol. IX. p. 30). In the Second Defense: 'Christum corpore absentem doceo nihilominus non tantum divina sua virtute, quæ ubique diffusa est, nobis adesse, sed etiam facere ut nobis vivifica. sit sua caro (Vol. IX. p. 76). . . . Cænam plus centies dici sacrum esse vinculum nostræ cum Christo unitatis (p. 77). . . . Spiritus sui virtute Christus locorum distantiam superat ad vitam nobis e sua carne inspirandam' (p. 77). . . . And in his Last Admonition: 'Hæc nostræ doctrinæ summa est, carnem Christi panem esse vivificum, quia dum fide in eam coalescimus, vere aninas nostras alit et pascit. Hoc nonnisi spiritualiter fieri docemus, quia hujus sacræ unitatis vinculum arcana est et incomprehensibilis Spiritus Sancti virtus' (Vol. IX. p. 162). He claimed to agree with the Augsburg Confession as understood and explained by its author, and appealed to him. Melanchthon, for reasons of prudence and timidity, declined to take an active part in the strife 'on bread-worship,' but never concealed his essential agreement with him.⁵⁴⁴⁵⁴⁴   He wrote to Calvin, Oct. 14, 1554 (Corp. Reform. Vol. VIII. p. 362): 'Quod in proximis literis hortaris, ut reprimam ineruditos clamores illorum, qui renovant certamen περὶ ἀρτολατρείας, scito, quosdam p&acelig;cipue odio mei eam disputationem movere, ut habeant plausibilem causam ad me opprimendum.' To Hardenberg, in Bremen, May 9, 1557: 'Crescit, ut vides, non modo certamen, sed etiam rabies in scriptoribus, qui ἀρτολάτρειαν stabiliunt.' And to Mordeisen, Nov. 15, 1557 (Corp. Reform. Vol. IX. p. 374): 'Si mihi concedatis, ut in alia loco vivam, respondebo illis indoctis sycophantis et vere et graviter, et dicam utilia ecclesiæ.' He gave, however, his views pretty clearly and dispassionately shortly before his death in his vota on the Breslau and Heidelberg troubles (1559 and 1560). His enemies re-published his former views. His followers were now stigmatized as 'Crypto-Calvinists.'

The controversy gradually spread over all Germany, and was conducted with an incredible amount of bigotry and superstition.

In Bremen, John Timann fought for the real presence, and insisted upon the ubiquity of Christ's body as a settled dogma (1555), while Albert Hardenberg opposed it, and was banished (1560); but a reaction took place afterwards in favor of the Reformed Confession.

In Heidelberg, Tilemann Heshusius,⁵⁴⁵⁵⁴⁵    His German name was Hesshusen. He was one of the most pugnacious divines of his age; born 1527 at Nieder-Wesel, died 1588 at Helmstädt. See Leuckfeld's biography, Historia Heshusiana (1716), and Henke, in Herzog, Vol. VI. p. 49. General Superintendent since 1558, attacked the Melanchthonian Klebitz openly at the altar by trying to wrest from him the cup. The Elector Frederick III. dismissed both (1559), ordered the preparation of the Heidelberg Catechism, and introduced the Reformed Confession in the Palatinate (1563).

In Würtemberg the ubiquity doctrine triumphed (at a synod in Stuttgart, 1559), chiefly through the influence of Brentius, who had formerly agreed with Melanchthon, but now feared that 'the devil intended through Calvinism to smuggle heathenism, Talmudism, and Mohammedanism into the Church.'⁵⁴⁶⁵⁴⁶   In his last book against Bullinger (1564). See Hartmann, Brenz, p. 252. A colloquy at Maulbronn (1564) between the Würtemberg and the Palatinate divines on ubiquity led to no result.

Ducal Saxony, under the lead of the Flacianist Professors of Jena, was violently arrayed against Electoral Saxony with the Crypto-Calvinist faculty at Wittenberg. The Elector Augustus, strongly prejudiced against Flacianism, deceived by the Consensus Dresdensis (1571), and controlled by his physician, Caspar Peucer, the active and influential lay-leader of the Crypto-Calvinists, unwittingly maintained for some time Calvinism under the disguise of sound Lutheranism. When he became Regent of the Thuringian Principalities (1573), he banished Heshusius and Wigand from Jena, and all the Flacianists of that district.

Thus Philippism triumphed in all Saxony, but it was only for a short season.

Elector Augustus was an enthusiastic admirer of Luther, and would not tolerate a drop of Calvinistic blood in his veins. When he found out the deceptive policy of the Crypto-Calvinists, he suppressed them 283by force, 1574.⁵⁴⁷⁵⁴⁷   He was undeceived by a new deception. The crisis was brought about by the discovery of a confidential correspondence with the Reformed in the Palatinate, and especially by the appearance in Leipzig of the anonymous Exegesis perspicua controversiæ de Cæna Domini, 1574 (newly edited by Scheffer, Marburg, 1853), which openly rejected the manducatio oralis, and defended Calvin's view of the eucharist (though without naming him), while the Consensus Dresdensis (1571) had concealed it under Lutheran phraseology. This work was generally attributed to Peucer and the Wittenberg Professors, in spite of their steadfast denial, but it was the product of a Silesian physician, Joachim Cureus. See the proof in Heppe, Vol. II. pp. 468 sqq. The leaders were deposed, imprisoned, and exiled, among them four theological Professors at Wittenberg.⁵⁴⁸⁵⁴⁸   Cruciger, Moller, Wiedebram, and Pezel (whom the Lutherans called Beelzebub) refused to recant. The first went to Hesse, the second to Hamburg, the other two to Nassau. The old and weak Major yielded to the condemnation of Melanchthon's view. Several other Wittenberg Professors were likewise deposed. Peucer was confined in prison for twelve years, while his children were wandering about in misery.⁵⁴⁹⁵⁴⁹   Peucer was released in 1586, at the intercession of the beautiful Princess Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt, and became physician of the Prince of Dessau, where he died, 1602. He wrote the history of his prison life, Historia carcerum et liberationis divinæ, ed. by Pezel, Tig. 1605. On his theory of the real presence, see Galle, pp. 460 sqq. He rejected the Lutheran view much more strongly than his father-in-law, Melanchthon, and thought it had no more foundation in the Bible than the popish transubstantiation. Comp. Henke: Casp. Peucer und Nic. Crell, Marburg, 1865. Thanks were offered in all the churches of Saxony for the triumph of genuine Lutheranism. A memorial coin exhibits the Elector with the sword in one hand, and a balance in the other: one scale bearing the child Jesus; the other, high up, the four Wittenberg Philippists with the devil, and the title 'reason.'

After the death of Augustus (1586), Calvinism again raised its head under Christian I. and the lead of Chancellor Nicolas Crell, but after another change of ruler (1591) it was finally overthrown: the protesting Professors in Wittenberg and Leipzig were deposed and exiled; the leading ministers at Dresden (Salmuth and Pierius) were imprisoned; Crell, who had offended the nobility, after suffering for ten years in prison, was, without an investigation, beheaded as a traitor to his country (Oct. 9, 1601), solemnly protesting his innocence, but forgiving his enemies.⁵⁵⁰⁵⁵⁰   He was charged with intermeddling in matters of religion, and advising a dangerous treaty with the Reformed Henry IV. of France against Austria. The suit was referred to an Austrian court of appeals at Prague, and decided in the political interest of Austria with a violation of all justice. His confession of guilt before his heavenly Judge was distorted by his fanatical opponents into a confession of guilt before his human judges. It is often stated that he was not beheaded for religion ('non ob religionem, sed ob perfidiam multiplicem,' as Hutter says, Concordia concors, pp. 448 and 1258). But his Calvinism, or rather his Melanchthonianism (for he never read a line of Calvin), was the only crime which could he proved against him; he always acted under the direction and command of the Elector, and he had accepted the chancellorship with a clear confession of his views, and the assurance of his Prince that he should be protected in it, and never be troubled with subscribing to the 'Form of Concord.' As judge, he was admitted, even by his enemies, to have been impartial and just to the poor as well as the rich. Comp. Hasse: Ueber den Crell'schen Process, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1848, No. 2; Vogt in Herzog, Vol. III. p. 183; Richard: Dr. Nic. Krell. Dresden, 1859; G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 296 sqq.; Henke: C. Peucer und N. Crell, Marburg, 1865. Since that time the name of a Calvinist became more hateful in Saxony than that of a Jew or a Mohammedan.

It is characteristic of the spirit of the age and the doctrine of consubstantiation that they gave rise to all sorts of idle, curious, and unwittingly irreverent speculations about the possible effect of the consecrated elements upon things for which they never were intended. The schoolmen of the Middle Ages, in the interest of transubstantiation, seriously disputed the question whether the eating of the eucharistic bread would kill or sanctify a mouse, or (as the wisest thought) have no effect at all, since the mouse did not receive it sacramentaliter, but only accidentaliter. Orthodox Lutherans of the sixteenth century went even further. Brentius decidedly favored the opinion that the consecrated bread, if eaten by a mouse, was fully as much the body of Christ as Christ was the Son of God in the mother's womb and on the back of an ass. The sacrament, he admitted, was not intended for animals, but neither was it intended for unbelievers, who nevertheless received the very body and blood of Christ. An eccentric minister in Rostock required the communicants to be shaved to prevent profanation. Licking the blood of Christ from the beard was supposed to be punished with instant death or a monstrous growth of the beard. Sarcerius caused the earth on which a drop of Christ's blood fell, instantly to be dug up and burned. At Hildesheim it was customary to cut off the beard or the piece of a garment which was profaned by a drop of wine; and the Superintendent, Kongius, was expelled from the city, simply because he had taken up from the earth a wafer and given it to a communicant, without first kneeling before it, kissing, and reconsecrating it, as his colleagues thought he should have done. The Lutherans in Ansbach disputed about the question whether the body of Christ were actually swallowed, like other food, and digested in the stomach. When the Rev. John Musculus, in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, inadvertently spilled a little wine at the communion, 285he was summoned before a Synod, and Elector John Joachim of Brandenburg declared that deposition, prison, and exile were too mild a punishment for such a crime, and that the offender, who had not spared the blood of Christ, must suffer bloody punishment, and have two or three fingers cut off.⁵⁵¹⁵⁵¹   Such details are recorded by Salig, Vol. III. p. 462; Hartmann and Jäger: Brenz, Vol. II. p. 371; Galle: Melanchthon, p. 449 sq.; Ebrard: Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 592, 694; Droysen: Geschichte der Preuss. Politik, Vol. II. p. 261; Sudhof: Olevianus und Ursinus, p. 239; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 164.

There was also a considerable dispute among Lutheran divines about the precise time and duration of the corporeal presence. John Saliger (Beatus) of Lübeck and his friend Fredeland (followers of Flacius, and of his doctrine on original sin) maintained that the bread becomes the body of Christ immediately after the consecration and before the use (ante usum), and called those who denied it sacramentarians; while they in turn were charged with the Romish error of transubstantiation. Deposed at Lübeck, Saliger renewed the controversy from the pulpit at Rostock (1568). Chytræus decided that this was a question of idle curiosity rather than piety, and that it was sufficient to attach the blessing of the sacrament to the transaction, without time-splitting distinctions (1569). The usual Lutheran doctrine confines the union of the bread with the body to the time of the use, and hence the term consubstantiation was rejected, if thereby be understood a durabilis inclusio, or permanent conjunction of the sacramental bread and body of Christ.⁵⁵²⁵⁵²   J. Wiggers: Der Saligersche Abendmahlsstreit, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1848, No. 4, p. 613.

VII. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL OR UBIQUITARIAN CONTROVERSY.⁵⁵³⁵⁵³   Dorner: Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, 2d ed. Vol. II. pp. 665 sqq.; Heppe: Gesch. des D. Prot. Vol. II. pp.75 sqq.; G. E. Steitz: Art. Ubiquität, in Herzog's Encykl. Vol. XVI. pp. 558–616, with an addition by Herzog, Vol. XXI. p. 383; Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 452, 462; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 161; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. III. pp. 165–396. Comp. also the literature on the eucharistic controversy, p. 279.

The Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper implies the ubiquity, i.e., the illocal omnipresence, or at all events the multipresence of Christ's body. And this again requires for its support the theory of the communicatio idiomatum, or the communication of the attributes of the two natures of Christ, whereby his human nature becomes a partaker 286of the omnipresence of his divine nature. A considerable amount of interesting speculation was spent on this subject in the sixteenth century.

All Christians believe in the real and abiding omnipresence of Christ's divine nature, and of Christ's person (which resides in the divine nature or the pre-existing Logos), according to Matt. xxviii. 20; xviii. 20. But the omnipresence of his human nature was no article of any creed before the Reformation, and was only held by a few fathers and schoolmen of questionable orthodoxy, as a speculative opinion.⁵⁵⁴⁵⁵⁴   Origen first taught the ubiquity of the body of Christ, in connection with his docetistic idealism, but without any regard to the eucharist, and was followed by Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. 40, and Adv. Apollinar. c. 59). They held that Christ's body after the resurrection was so spiritualized and deified as to lay aside all limitations of nature, and to be in all parts of the world as well as in heaven. See Gieseler's Commentatio qua Clementis Alex. et Origenis doctrinæ de corpore Christi exponuntur, Gott. 1837, and Neander's Dogmengeschichte, Vol. I. pp. 217, 834. Cyril of Alexandria held a similar view (Christ's body is 'every where,' πανταχοῦ), but in connection with an almost monophysitic Christology. Scotus Erigena revived Origen's ubiquity, gave it a pantheistic turn, and made it subservient to his view of the eucharistic presence, which he regarded merely as a symbol of the every where present Christ. Neander, Vol. II. p. 43. The prevailing doctrine was that Christ's glorified body, though no more grossly material and sensuous, and not exactly definable in its nature, was still a body, seated on a throne of majesty in heaven, to which it visibly ascended, and from which it will in like manner return to judge the quick and the dead. This was the view even of Gregory Nazianzen and John of Damascus, who otherwise approach very nearly the Lutheran dogma of the communicatio idiomatum (the genus majestaticum). The mediæval scholastics ascribed omnipresence only to the divine nature and the person of Christ, unipresence to his human nature in heaven, multipresence to his body in the sacrament; but they derived the eucharistic multipresence from the miracle of transubstantiation, and not from an inherent specific quality of the body. Even William Occam (who was inclined to consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation, and had considerable influence upon Luther) ventured only upon the paradox of the hypothetical possibility of an absolute ubiquity.

Luther first clearly taught the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body, as a dogmatic support of the real presence in the eucharist.⁵⁵⁵⁵⁵⁵   On Luther's Christology and ubiquity doctrine, see Heppe (Ref.): Dogmatik, des D. Protest. im 16ten Jahrh. Vol. II. pp. 93 sqq., and Köstlin (Luth.): Luther's Theol. Vol. II. pp. 118, 153, 167, 172, 512. Köstlin, without adopting Luther's views of ubiquity, finds in them 'grossartige, tiefe, geist- und lebensvolle Anschauungen vom göttlichen Sein und Leben' (Vol. II. p. 154). He based 287it exegetically on Eph. i. 23 ('which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all') and John iii. 13 ('the Son of man who is in heaven'), and derived it directly from the personal union of the divine and human natures in Christ (not, as his followers, from the communication of the attributes). He adopted the scholastic distinction of three kinds of presence: 1. Local or circumscriptive (material and confined—as water is in the cup); 2. Definitive (local, without local inclusion or measurable quantity—as the soul is in the body, Christ's body in the bread, or when it passed through the closed door); 3. Repletive (supernatural, divine omnipresence). He ascribed all these to Christ as man, so that in one and the same moment, when he instituted the holy communion, he was circumscriptive at the table, definitive in the bread and wine, and repletive in heaven, i.e., every where.⁵⁵⁶⁵⁵⁶   In his Grosse Bekenntniss vom Abendmahl, published 1528 (in Walch's ed. Vol. XX.; in the Erlangen ed. Vol. XXX.), he says: 'Kann Christus' Leib über Tisch sitzen and dennoch im Brot sein, so kann er auch im Himmel und wo er will sein und dennoch im Brot sein; es ist kein Unterschied fern oder nah bei dem Tische sein, dazu dass er zugleich im Brot sei. . . . es sollte mir ein schlechter Christus bleiben, der nicht mehr, denn an einem einzelnen Orte zugleich eine göttliche and menschliche Person wäre, und an allen anderen Orten müsste er allein ein blosser abgesonderter Gott und göttliche Person sein ohne Menschseit. Nein, Geselle, wo du mir Gott hinsetzest, da must du mir die Menschheit mit hinsetzen. Die lassen sich nicht sondern und von einander trennen; es ist Eine Person worden und scheidet die Menschseit nicht so von sich, wie Meister Hans seinen Rock auszieht und von sich legt, wenn er schlafen geht. Denn, dass ich den Einfältigen ein grob Gleichniss gebe, die Menschheit ist näher vereinigt mit Gott, denn unsere Haut mit unserm Fleische, ja näher denn Leib und Seele.' Where God is, there is Christ's humanity, and where Christ's humanity is, there is inseparably joined to it the whole Deity. In connection with this, Luther consistently denied the literal meaning of Christ's ascension to heaven, and understood the right hand of God, at which he sits, to be only a figurative term for the omnipresent power of God (Matt. xxviii. 18).⁵⁵⁷⁵⁵⁷   He ridicules the popular conception of heaven and the throne of God as childish: 'Die Rechte Gottes,' he says, l.c., 'ist nicht ein sonderlicher Ort, da ein Leib solle oder möge sein, nicht ein Gaukelhimmel, wie man ihn den Kindern pflegt vorzubilden, darin ein gülden Stuhl stehe und Christus neben dem Vater sitze in einer Chorkappen und gülden Krone. . . . Die Rechte Gottes ist an allen Enden, so ist sie gewisslich auch im Brot und Wein über Tische. . . . Wo nun die Rechte Gottes ist, da muss Christi Leib und Blut auch sein; denn die Rechte Gottes ist nicht zu theilen in viele Stücke, sondern ein einiges einfältiges Wesen.' If this prove any thing, it proves the absolute omnipresence of Christ's body. And so Brentius taught. Here he resorted to a mode of interpretation which he so strongly condemned in Zwingli when applied to the word is.

It is very plain that such an absolute omnipresence of the body proves much more than Luther intended or needed for his eucharistic theory; hence he made no further use of it in his later writings, and rested the real presence at last, as he did at first, exclusively on the literal (or rather synecdochical) interpretation of the words, 'This is my body.' His earlier Christology was much more natural, and left room for a real development of Christ's humanity.

Melanchthon, in his later period, decidedly opposed the ubiquity of Christ's body, and the introduction of 'scholastic disputations' on this subject into the doctrine of the eucharist. He wished to know only of a personal presence of Christ, which does not necessarily involve bodily presence.⁵⁵⁸⁵⁵⁸   De inhabitatione Dei in Sanctis ad Osiandrum, 1551 (Consil. Lat. Vol. II. p. 156): 'Tota antiquitas declarans hanc propositionem: Christus est ubique, sic declarat: Christus est ubique personaliter. Et verissimum est, Filium Dei, Deum et hominem habitare in sanctis. Sed antiquitas hanc propositionem rejicit: Christus corporaliter est ubique. Quia natura quælibet retinet sua ἰδιώματα. Unde Augustinus et alii dicunt: Christi corpus est in certo loco. . . Cavendum est, ne ita astruamus divinitatem hominis Christi, ut veritatem corporis auferamus.' In a new edition of his lectures on the Colossians (1556 and 1559), he maintains the literal meaning of the ascension of Christ, 'i.e., in locum cœlestem. . . . Ascensio fuit visibilis et corporalis, et sæpe ita scripsit tota antiquitas, Christum corporali locatione in aliquo loco esse, ubicunque vult. Corpus localiter alicubi est secundum verum corporis modum, ut Augustinus inquit.' See Galle, p. 448. He also rejected the theory of the communicatio idiomatum in a real or physical sense, because it leads to a confusion of natures, and admitted with Calvin only a dialectic or verbal communication.⁵⁵⁹⁵⁵⁹   See on his Christology chiefly Heppe, Vol. II. pp. 99 sqq. Luther's Christology leaned to the Eutychian confusion, Melanchthon's to the Nestorian separation of the two natures.

The renewal of the eucharistic controversy by Westphal led to a fuller discussion of ubiquity. The orthodox Lutherans insisted upon ubiquity as a necessary result of the real communication of the properties of the two natures in Christ; while the Philippists and Calvinists rejected it as inconsistent with the nature of a body, with the realness of Christ's ascension, and with the general principle that the infinite can not be comprehended or shut up in the finite.⁵⁶⁰⁵⁶⁰   'Finitum non capax est infiniti.'

The Colloquy at Maulbronn.—These conflicting Christologies met face to face at a Colloquy in the cloister of Maulbronn, in the Duchy of Würtemberg, April 10–15, 1564.⁵⁶¹⁵⁶¹   Both parties published an account—the Lutherans at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Reformed at Heidelberg. The latter is more full, and bears the title: Protocollum, h. e. Acta Colloquii inter Palatinos et Wirtebergicos Theologos de Ubiquitate sive Omnipræsentia corporis Christi. . . . A. 1564 Maulbrunni habiti (Heidelb. 1566). See a full résumé of the Colloquy in Ebrard: Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 666–685; Sudhoff: Olevian und Ursin, pp.260–290; in Hartmann: Joh. Brenz, pp. 253–256, and in the larger work of Hartmann and Jäger on Brenz, 1840–42, Vol. II. It was arranged by Duke Christopher 289of Würtemberg and Elector Frederick III. of the Palatinate. Olevianus, Ursinus (the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism), and Boquin defended the Reformed, the Swabian divines, Andreæ, Brenz, Schnepf, Bidenbach, and Lucas Osiander the Lutheran view. Five days were devoted to the discussion of the subject of ubiquity, and one day to the interpretation of the words, 'This is my body.' The Lutherans regarded ubiquity as the main pillar of their view of the eucharistic presence. Andreæ proposed three points for the debate—the incarnation, the ascension, and the right hand of God.

The Lutheran reasoning was chiefly dogmatic: The incarnation is the assumption of humanity into the possession of the divine fullness with all its attributes, and the right hand of God means his almighty and omnipresent power; from these premises the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body necessarily follows.⁵⁶²⁵⁶²   Andreæ asserted that Christ's body, when in Mary's womb, was omnipresent as to possession (possessione), though not as to manifestation (non patefactione). Sudhoff, p. 279. This is the Tübingen doctrine of the κρύψις. See below.

The Reformed based their argument chiefly on those Scripture passages which imply Christ's presence in a particular place, and his absence from other places, as when he says, 'I leave the world;' 'I go to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come again;' 'I have not yet ascended to my Father;' or when the angels say, 'He is not here,' 'Jesus is taken up from you into heaven,' etc. (John xiv. 2–4, 28; xvi. 3, 7, 16; xx. 17; Acts i. 11; iii. 21).⁵⁶³⁵⁶³   The same Lutherans, who so strenuously insisted on the literal interpretation of the ἐστί, outdid the Reformed in the figurative interpretation of all these passages, and explained the ascension and heaven itself out of the Bible. They urged the difference between the divine and human, and between the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation. In the appeal to the fathers and the Creed of Chalcedon they had also decidedly the advantage. Nevertheless, the Colloquy had no other effect than to confirm the two parties in their opinions.⁵⁶⁴⁵⁶⁴   Ebrard says (Vol. II. p. 685): 'So endete das Maulbronner Gespräch mit einer vollständigen Niederlage der Lutheraner.' Sudhoff (p. 290): 'Es kann von niemandem in Abrede gestellt werden, dass die Pfälzer als Sieger aus diesem Streite hervorgegangen,' and he publishes several manuscript letters giving the impressions of the Colloquy on those present. The Swabians returned discontented, but without change of conviction. Dorner, although a Lutheran, and a Swabian by descent, gives the Reformed Christology in many respects the preference before the Lutheran, and says (Vol. II. p. 724): 'Es ist unbestreitbar, dass die reformirte christologische Literatur, die um die Zeit der Concordienformel ihren Blüthepunkt erreicht, durch Geist, Scharfsinn, Gelehrsamkeit und philosophische Bildung der lutherischen Theologie vollkommen ebenbürtig, ja in manchen Beziehungen überlegen ist.' He then gives a fine analysis of the Christology of Beza, Danæus, Sadeel, and Ursinus.

The Consensus Dresdensis.—The Wittenberg and Leipzig Professors and other Philippists in Saxony openly rejected ubiquity in the Consensus Dresdensis (October, 1571), which satisfied even the Elector Augustus. This document teaches that the human nature of Christ was after the resurrection glorified and transfigured, but not deified, and still remains human nature with its essential properties, flesh of our flesh; that the ascension of Christ must be understood literally, and not as a mere spectacle; that Christ's sitting at the right hand means the elevation of both natures to the priestly and kingly office; that the sacramental presence of the body of Christ must be something special and altogether distinct from omnipresence.⁵⁶⁵⁵⁶⁵   See Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 466 sq.

Absolute and Relative Ubiquity. Brenz and Chemnitz.—There was a very material difference among the advocates of ubiquity themselves as to its nature and extent, viz.: whether it were absolute, or relative, that is to say, an omnipresence in the strict sense of the term, or merely a multipresence depending on the will of Christ (hence also called volipræsentia, or, by combination, multivolipræsentia). The Swabians, under the lead of Brenz and Andreæ, held the former; the Saxon divines, under the lead of Chemnitz, the latter view.

John Brenz, or Brentius (1499–1570), the Reformer of the Duchy of Würtemberg, and after Melanchthon's death the most prominent German divine, developed, since 1559, with considerable speculative talent, a peculiar Christology.⁵⁶⁶⁵⁶⁶   In a series of tracts: De personali unione duarum naturarum in Christo, 1561 (written in 1560); Sententia de libello Bullingeri, 1561; De Divina majestate Domini nostri J. Christi ad dexteram Patris et de vera præsentia corporis et sanguinis ejus in cæna, 1562; and Recognitio propheticæ et apost. doctrinæ de vera Majestate Dei, 1564. In Brentii Opera, 1590, T. VIII. pp. 831–1108. Against Brenz wrote Bullinger: Tractatio verborum Domini Joh. XIV. 2, Tiguri, 1561; Responsio, qua ostenditur, sententiam de cælo et dextera Dei firmiter adhuc perstare, 1562; also Peter Martyr and Beza. The Roman Catholics sided with the Reformed against the Lutheran ubiquity. On the Christology of Brenz, comp. Dorner: Entw. Geschichte der Christologie, Vol. II. pp. 668 sqq.; Ebrard: Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 646 sqq. (Brenz und die Ubiquität); and Steitz in Herzog, Vol. XVI. pp. 584 sqq. It rests on the Chalcedonian distinction 291between two natures and one person, but implies at the same time, as he felt himself, a considerable departure from it, since he carried the theanthropic perfection of the exalted Saviour to the very beginning of his earthly life. He took up Luther's idea of ubiquity, and developed it to its legitimate consequences in the interest of the eucharistic presence. According to his system, the incarnation is not only a condescension of the eternal Logos to a personal union with human nature, but at the same time a deification of human nature, or an infusion of the divine substance and fullness into the humanity of Christ at the first moment of its existence. Consequently the man Jesus of Nazareth was omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent in the Virgin's womb, in the manger, and on the cross, as well as he is now in the state of glory.⁵⁶⁷⁵⁶⁷   'Majestatem divinam tempore carnis suæ in hoc seculo dissimulavit seu ea sese (ut Paulus loquitur) exinanivit, tamen numquam ea caruit. . . . Texit et obduxit suam majestatem forma servi.' The only difference is, that these divine attributes were concealed during his earthly life, and were publicly revealed to his disciples at the ascension to the right hand of God, i.e., to the omnipotent and omnipresent power of God.⁵⁶⁸⁵⁶⁸   'Eum tunc manifesto spectaculo voluisse testificari et declarare, se verum Deun et hominem, hoc est, una cum divinitate et humanitate sua jam inde ab initio suæ incarnationis omnia implevisse.' The states of humiliation and exaltation are not successive states, but co-existed during the earthly life of Christ. While Christ's humanity was poor, weak, suffering, and dying on earth, it was simultaneously almighty and omnipresent in heaven. He ascended in his humanity invisibly to heaven even at his incarnation, and remained there (John iii. 13). The visible ascension from Mount Olivet would have been impossible without the preceding invisible exaltation. Heaven is no particular place, but a state of entire freedom from space, or absolute existence in God. Space and time, with their limitations, belong only to the earthly mode of existence. Wherever the divinity is, there is also Christ's humanity,⁵⁶⁹⁵⁶⁹   'Ubicunque est Deitas, ibi etiam est humanitas Christi.' i.e., every where, not, indeed, in the way of local extension and diffusion, but in a celestial, supernatural manner, by virtue of the hypostatic union and the real communication of the properties of the divine nature to the human.

This is the most consistent, though also the most objectionable form 292of the ubiquity dogma. It virtually resolves the earthly life of Christ into a Gnostic delusion, or establishes a double humanity of Christ—one visible and real, and the other invisible and fantastic.⁵⁷⁰⁵⁷⁰   Brenz was followed by Jacob Andreæ, Schegck, and the Swabians generally, who have shown a good deal of speculative genius (down to Schelling, Hegel, and Baur), and also by a few divines of North Germany, as Andreas Musculus, John Wigand, and for a time by Heshusius, who afterwards opposed absolute ubiquity. Leonhard Hutter and Ægidius Hunnius, who were Swabians by birth, likewise took substantially the Swabian view, though more for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the 'Formula of Concord.' See Dorner, Vol. II. p. 775.

Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586), the chief author of the 'Formula of Concord,' next to Andreæ, less original and speculative than Brenz, but superior in patristic learning and sound judgment, elaborated a Christology which mediates between Luther and Melanchthon, and taught only a relative or restricted ubiquity, i.e., a multipresence, which depends upon the will of Christ.⁵⁷¹⁵⁷¹   In his important work: De duabus naturis in Christo, de hypostatica earum unione, de communicatione idiomatum et aliis quæstionibus inde dependentibus, Jenæ, 1570, and often reprinted. Comp. Steitz, l.c. pp. 592–597; and Dorner, Vol. II. pp. 695 sqq. Heppe says (Dogm. Vol. II. p. 131): 'Der Gegensatz der melanchthonischen und der würtembergisch-brenzischen Christologie ist sonnenklar. Jene erbaut sich auf dem Gedanken, dass Gott wirklicher Mensch geworden ist, während diese sich um den Gedanken lagert, dass ein Mensch Gott geworden ist.' He was followed by Selnecker, Chytræus, and most of the Saxon divines. He opposes the Swabian doctrine of a physical, natural communication and transfusion of idiomata, and of the capacity of the finite for the infinite, except in the sense that God may dwell and reveal himself in man. He calls the absolute ubiquity a monstrosity (monstrum, portentum), as Selnecker called it a Satanic fiction (figmentum Satanæ). Christ is an incarnate God, not a deified man. But the Logos may temporarily communicate a divine attribute to the human nature in a supernatural manner as a donum superadditum, without thereby setting aside the abiding limitations of humanity; just as fire may give heat and brightness to iron without turning the iron into fire. Chemnitz agrees with the Reformed, as he expressly says, in adopting the 'simple, literal, and natural signification' of the ascension of Christ as related by the Evangelists, i.e., that 'he was, by a visible motion, lifted up on high in a circumscribed form and location of the body, and departed further and further from the presence of the Apostles,' and is, consequently, in this sense withdrawn from us who are on earth, until he shall in like manner 'descend from heaven in glory in a visible and circumscribed form.' Even in glory Christ's 293body is finite and somewhere (alicubi). Nevertheless, while seated at the right hand of God, he may be present where he chooses to be, and he is present where his Word expressly indicates such presence; as in the eucharist (according to the literal interpretation of the words of institution), or when he appeared to dying Stephen, or to Paul on the way to Damascus.⁵⁷²⁵⁷²   'Præsentia hæc assumtæ naturæ in Christo non est naturalis, vel essentialis, sed voluntaria et liberrima, dependens a voluntate et potentia Filii Dei, h. e. ubi se hmnana natura adesse velle certo verbo tradidit, promisit et asseveravit.'

Chemnitz escaped some difficulties of the Swabian theory, but by endeavoring to mediate between it and the Melanchthonian and Swiss theory, he incurred the objections to both. Christ's glorified body is indeed not confined to any locality, and may be conceived to move with lightning speed from place to place, but its simultaneous presence in many places, wherever the eucharist is celebrated, involves the chief difficulty of an omnipresence, and is just as inconsistent with the nature of a body.

Of subordinate interest was the incidental question, disputed mainly between Wigand and Heshusius, whether the flesh of Christ were almighty and adorable only in concreto, or also in abstracto (extra, personam). Chemnitz declared this to be a mere logomachy, and advised the combatants to stop it, but in vain.

The first creed which adopted the ubiquity dogma was the Würtemberg Confession drawn up by Brenz, and adopted by a Synod at Stuttgart, Dec. 19, 1559.⁵⁷³⁵⁷³   Confessio et doctrina theologorum in Ducatu Wurtembergensi de vera præsentia corporis et sanguinis J. Chr. in Cæna dominica. Here the absolute ubiquity is taught, not, indeed, in the way of a 'diffusio humanæ naturæ' or 'distractio membroram Christi,' but so that 'homo Christus quoque implet omnia modo cælesti et humanæ naturæ imperscrutabili.' See the German in Heppe: Die Entstehung and Fortbildung des Lutherthums und die kirchl. Bekenntniss-Schriften desselben, p. 63. Melanchthon concealed his grief over this change of Brenz beneath a facetious remark to a friend on the poor Latinity of this confession ('Hechingense Latinum:' Corp. Reform. Vol. IX. p. 1036; comp. Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 454; J. Hartmann: Joh. Brenz, p. 249).

The Formula Concordiæ on this subject is a compromise between the Swabian absolute ubiquitarianism represented by Andreæ and expressed in the Epitome, and the Saxon hypothetical ubiquitarianism represented by Chemnitz and expressed in the Solida Declaratio. The compromise satisfied neither party. The Helmstädt divines—Tilemann Heshusius, Daniel Hoffmann, and Basilius Sattler—who had signed 294the written Formula in 1577, refused to sign the printed copy in 1580, because it contained unauthorized concessions to the Swabian view. A colloquy was held in Quedlinburg, 1583, at which the ubiquity question was discussed for several days without result.⁵⁷⁴⁵⁷⁴   Heshusius wrote concerning this Colloquy: 'Constanter rejicio ubiquitatem. Chemnitzius, Kirchnerus, Chytræus antea rejecerunt eam: nunc in gratiam Tubingensium cum magno ecclesiæ scandalo ejus patrocinium suscipiunt, ipsorum igitur constantia potius accusanda est.' Comp. Acta disput.Quedlinb.; Dorner, Vol. II. p. 773; Heppe, Vol. IV. p. 316; and G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 259 (Helmstädt und die Ubiquität). Chemnitz was in a difficult position, as he nearly agreed with the Helmstädtians, and conceded that certain expressions had been wrested from him, but he signed the Formula for the sake of peace, with the reservation that he understood it in the sense of a hypothetical or limited ubiquity.

The Giessen and Tübingen Controversy about the Kenosis and Krypsis.⁵⁷⁵⁵⁷⁵   The Saxon Solida decisio, 1624, and an Apologia decisionis, 1625; Feuerborn: Sciagraphia de div. Jes. Christo juxta humanit. communicatæ majestatis usurpatione, 1621; Κενωσιγραφία χριστολογική, Marburg, 1627; Mentzer: Juxta defensio against the Tübingen divines, Giss. 1624; Thummius: Majestas J. Christi θεανθρώπου, Tüb. 1621; Acta Mentzeriana, 1625; Ταπεινωσιγραφία sacra, h. e. Repetitio sanæ et orthod. doctrinæ de humiliatione Jesu Christi, Tüb. 1623 (900 pp. 4to). On the Romish side: Bellum ubiquisticum vetus et novum, Dilling. 1627; Alter und neuer lutherischer Katzenkrieg v. d. Ubiquität, Ingolst. 1629; Cotta: Historia doctrinæ de duplici statu Christi (in his edition of Gerhard's Loci theologici, Vol. IV. pp. 60sqq.); Walch: Religionsstreitigkeiten, Vol. I. p. 206; Vol. IV. p. 551; Baur: Gesch. der L. v. d. Dreieinigkeit, Vol. III. p. 450; Thomasius: Christi Person und Werk, Vol. II. pp. 391–450; Dorner, Vol. II. pp. 788–809; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 336.—The ubiquity question was revived under a new shape, on the common basis of the 'Formula of Concord' and the dogma of the communicatio idiomatum, in the controversy between the Kenoticism, of the theologians of Giessen, which followed in the track of Chemnitz, and the Krypticism of the theologians of Tübingen, which was based upon the theory of Brenz and Andreæ. The controversy forms the last phase in the development of the orthodox Lutheran Christology; it continued from 1616–1625, and was lost in the Thirty-Years' War.

Both parties agreed that the human nature of Christ from the moment of the incarnation, even in the mother's womb and on the cross, was in full possession (κτῆσις) of the divine attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.; but they differed as to their use (χρῆσις). The Giessen divines—Balthazar Mentzer (d. 1627), his son-in-law, Justus Feuerborn (d. 1656), and John Winckelmann—taught a real self-renunciation (κένωσις, evacuatio, exinanitio),⁵⁷⁶⁵⁷⁶    Hence they were called Kenotiker, Kenoticists. i.e., that Christ 295voluntarily laid aside the actual use of the divine attributes and functions, except in the working of miracles; while the Tübingen divines—Lucas Osiander II. (d. 1638), Theodor Thumm, or Thummius (d. 1630), and Melchior Nicolai (d. 1659)—taught that he made a secret use of them (κρύψις, occulta usurpatio).⁵⁷⁷⁵⁷⁷    Hence their name, Kryptiker, Krypticists.

The Giessen divines, wishing chiefly to avoid the reproach of a portentosa ubiquitas, represented the omnipresence of Christ's humanity, not as an all-pervading existence,⁵⁷⁸⁵⁷⁸    Indistantia, nuda adessentia ad creaturas, præsentia simplex. but as an all-controlling power, or as an element of omnipotence.⁵⁷⁹⁵⁷⁹   Actio, operatio, præsentia modificata. This amounts to pretty much the same thing with the omimpræsentia energetica of the Calvinists. The Tübingen school taught, in consequence of the unio hypostatica, an absolute omnipresence of Christ's humanity, as a quiescent quality, which consists in filling all the spaces of the universe, even from the conception to the death on the cross.⁵⁸⁰⁵⁸⁰   The same applies to omnipotence. The Tübingen divines gave an affirmative answer to the question, 'An homo Christus in Deum assumptus in statu exinanitionis tamquam rex præsens cuncta, licet latenter, gubernarit?' They made, however, an apparent concession to their opponents by assuming a brief suspension of the use of the divine majesty during the agony in Gethsemane and the crucifixion, in order that Christ might really suffer as high-priest. See Dorner, Vol. II. p. 799.

A theological commission at Dresden, with Hoe von Hoenegg at the head, decided substantially in favor of the Giessen theory (1525), and against the Tübingen doceticism, without, however, advancing the solution of the problem or feeling its real difficulty.

The Giessen theory is more consistent with the realness of Christ's human life, but less consistent with itself, since it admits an occasional interruption of it by the use of the inherent powers of the divinity; the Tübingen theory, on the other hand, virtually destroys the distinction between the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation, and resolves the life of Christ into a magical illusion.

The modern Tübingen school of Baur and Strauss forms a strange parallel and contrast to that of the seventeenth century: it starts from the same principle that 'the finite is capable of the infinite,' but extends it pantheistically to humanity at large, and denies its applicability to Christ, on the ground that the divine fullness can not be emptied into a single individual.⁵⁸¹⁵⁸¹   'In an individual,' says Strauss, in the dogmatic conclusion of his first Leben Jesu (Vol. II. p. 710}. 'in one God-man, the properties and functions which the Church doctrine ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race they agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures—the incarnate God—the infinite externalizing itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude.' Therefore, while the old Tübingen school in effect, 296though not in intention, destroys the real humanity of Christ, the modern Tübingen school consistently denies his divinity, and resolves all the supernatural and miraculous elements of the gospel history into a mythic poem or fiction.

In the modern revival of orthodox Lutheranism, the ubiquity of the body of Christ is either avoided, or advocated only in the hypothetical form, and mostly with a leaning towards a more literal acceptation of the κένωσις (Phil. ii. 7) than the Giessen divines contended for.⁵⁸²⁵⁸²   So Thomasius, Liebner, Gess. But the absolute ubiquity also has found an advocate in Philippi (Kirchl. Glaubenslehre, Vol. IV. I. pp. 394). Dr. Stahl, the able theological lawyer, in his Die lutherische Kirche und die Union (Berlin, 1859, pp.185 sqq.), admits that the ubiquity question has no religious interest except as a speculative basis for the possibility of the eucharistic presence, and approaches Ebrard's view of an 'extra-spacial, central communication of the virtue' of Christ's body to the believer. Dr. Krauth defends Chemnitz's view, and what he would rather style 'the personal omnipresence of the human nature of Christ' (l.c. p. 496). But the human nature of Christ is impersonal, and simply taken up into union with the pre-existent personality of the Divine Logos.

VIII. THE HADES CONTROVERSY.⁵⁸³⁵⁸³    Æpinus: Comment, in Psa. xvi. Frcf. 1544, and Enarratio Psalmi lxviii., with an appendix de descensu Christi ad inferna, Frcf. 1553. A. Grevius: Memoria J. Æpini instaurata, Hamb. 1736; Dietelmaier: Historia dogmatis de descensu Christi, Norimb. 1741, Alt. 1762; Planck, Vol. V. I. pp. 251–264; König: Die Lehre von Christi Höllenfahrt, pp. 152 sqq.; Güder: Die Lehre der Erscheinung Christi unter den Todten, Bern, 1853, pp. 222 sqq.; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 160 sq.; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. III. p. 397 sqq.

This controversy, which is discussed in the ninth article of the 'Formula of Concord,' referred to the time, manner, extent, and aim of Christ's mysterious descent into the world of departed spirits. It implied the questions whether the descent took place before or after the death on the cross; whether it were confined to the divine nature, or to the soul, or extended to the body; whether it belonged to the state of humiliation, or to the state of exaltation; whether it were a continuation of suffering and a tasting of the second death, or a triumph over hell. The answer to these questions depended in part on the different views of the communication of idiomata and the ubiquity of the body, as also on Hades, or Sheol, itself, which some identified with hell proper (Gehenna), while others more correctly understood it in a wider sense of the whole realm of the dead. Luther himself had at different 297times very different opinions of the descent, but regarded it chiefly as a victory over the kingdom of Satan.

John Æpinus,⁵⁸⁴⁵⁸⁴   A Hellenized form (Αἰπεινός, high, lofty) for his German name Höck, or Hoch. He was born, 1499, at Ziegesar, Brandenburg; studied at Wittenberg, became pastor at St. Peter's, Hamburg, 1529, Superintendent in 1532, introduced the Reformation into that city, signed the Articles of Smalcald, 1537, stood in high esteem, and died 1553. He was a colleague of Westphal, and opposed with Flacius the Leipzig Interim. a Lutheran minister in Hamburg, started the controversy. He taught, first in 1544 and afterwards more fully, that Christ descended with his spirit into the region of the lost, in order to suffer the pains of hell for men, and thus to complete his humiliation or the work of redemption. So he explained Psalm xvi. 10 (comp. Acts ii. 27, 31). Luther himself had at one time (1524) given a similar exposition of this passage. Flacius sided with Æpinus. But this theory was more Reformed than Lutheran, and was opposed by his colleagues, who carried the dispute into the pulpit and excited the people. Matsberger in Augsburg represented the descent, according to the usual view, as a local change, but had to suffer three years' imprisonment for it. Brenz condemned such locomotion as inconsistent with the dignity and ubiquity of Christ, and denied the locality of hell as well as of heaven. This accords with his view of the ascension. Melanchthon, being appealed to by the magistrate of Hamburg, answered with caution, and warned against preaching on subjects not clearly revealed. He referred to a sermon of Luther, preached at Torgau, 1533, in which he graphically describes the descent as a triumphant march of Christ through the dismayed infernal hosts, so that no believer need hereafter be afraid of the devil and damnation. Melanchthon thought this view was more probable than that of Æpinus; at all events, Christ manifested himself as a conqueror in hell, destroyed the power of the devil, raised many dead to life (Matt. xxvii. 53), and proclaimed to them the true doctrine of the Messiah; to ask more is unnecessary. He advised the magistrate to exclude the controversy from the pulpit.⁵⁸⁵⁵⁸⁵   Sept. 1550, Corp. Reform. Vol. VII. p. 665. Comp. Schmidt, Melanchthon, p. 554 sq. In his Loci, Melanchthon passes by the descensus as unessential. In a letter to Spalatin, March 20,1531 (Corp. Reform. Vol. II. p. 490), he expresses his inability to explain the dark passage, 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. He was pleased with Luther's sermon at Torgau, but added, in a private letter to Anton Musa (March 12, 1543, Corp. Reform. Vol. V. p. 58), that Christ probably preached the gospel to the heathen in the spirit world, and converted such men as Scipio and Fabius. (Zwingli likewise believed in the salvation of the nobler heathen.) He wrote to Æpinus, April 20, 1546 (Corp. Reform. Vol. VI. p. 116), to preach the necessary doctrines of faith, repentance, prayer, good works, rather than speculations on things which even the most learned did not know. 298Several of the most violent opponents of Æpinus were deposed and expelled. The dispute was lost in more serious controversies. It was almost confined to Hamburg.

The Formula of Concord sanctioned substantially the view of Luther and Melanchthon, without entering into the minor questions.

IX. THE ADIAPHORISTIC (OR INTERIMISTIC) CONTROVERSY (1548–1555).⁵⁸⁶⁵⁸⁶   Comp. Flacius: Von wahren und falschen Mitteldingen, etc.; Entschuldigung geschrieben an die Universität zu Wittenberg der Mittelding halben, etc.; Wider ein recht heidnisch, ja Epicurisch Buch der Adiaphoristen, darin das Leipzische Interim vertheidigt wird, etc.; and other pamphlets, printed at Magdeburg (as the 'Kanzlei Gottes'), 1549; Wigand: De neutralibus et mediis, Frcf. 1560; Schlüsselburg: Cat. Hæret. Lib. XIII. (de Adiaphoristis et Interimistis); Biek: Das dreifache Interim, Leipz. 1725, Planck, Vol. IV. pp. 85–248; H. Rossel: Mel. und das Interim (at the close of Twesten's monograph on Flacius, Berlin, 1844); Ranke: Deutsche Gesch., etc. Vol. V.; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 435; Herzog: Encykl. Vol. I. p. 124; Vol. VIII. p. 288; Schmidt: Mel. pp. 491, 495, 524; G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 113, 116; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. IV. pp. 1–120; Dorner, p. 331.

This controversy is the subject of the tenth article of the 'Formula of Concord,' but was the first in the order of time among the disputes which occasioned this symbol. It arose, soon after Luther's death, out of the unfortunate Smalcald war, which resulted in the defeat of the Lutheran states, and brought them for a time under the ecclesiastical control of the Emperor Charles V. and his Romish advisers.

Ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, which are neither commanded nor forbidden in the Word of God, are in themselves indifferent (ἀδιάφορα, media, res mediæ, Mitteldinge), but the observance or non-observance of them may, under testing circumstances, become a matter of principle and of conscience. The Augsburg Confession and Apology (Art. VII.) declare that agreement in doctrine and the administration of the sacraments is sufficient for the unity of the Church, and may co-exist with diversity in usages and rites of human origin. Luther himself desired to retain many forms of the Catholic worship which he considered innocent and beautiful, provided only that no merit be attached to them and no burden be imposed upon the conscience.⁵⁸⁷⁵⁸⁷   See his humorous letter to Buchholzer in Berlin, Dec. 4, 1539 (Briefe, Vol. V. p. 235), which might have considerably embarrassed the anti-Adiaphorists had they known it. He advises Elector Joachim II. that in introducing the Reformation he may, if he desired it, put on one or three priestly garments, like Aaron; may hold one or even seven processions, like Joshua before Jericho; and may dance before it, as David danced before the ark, provided only such things were not made necessary for salvation. But there is a great difference between retaining old forms 299and restoring them after they have been abolished, as also between a voluntary and a compulsory observance. When circumcision was yet lawful and practiced by Jewish Christians, Paul resisted it, and saved the principle of Christian liberty against the Judaizing error which made circumcision a condition of salvation. Some of the Romish ceremonies, moreover, especially those connected with the canon of the mass, involve doctrine, and affect the whole idea of Christian worship.

When the Emperor, with the aid of the treasonable Elector Maurice of Saxony, had broken up the Lutheran League of Smalcald, he required the Protestants to submit to a doctrinal and ceremonial compromise till the final settlement of the religious controversy by an œcumenical Council.

The first compromise was the so-called Augsburg Interim, enacted by the Diet of Augsburg (May, 1548) for the whole empire. It was essentially Romish, and yielded to the Protestants only the marriage of priests and the cup of the laity. It was rigidly executed in the Southern and prevailingly Roman Catholic states, where about four hundred Lutheran preachers were expelled or dismissed for non-conformity.

The second compromise, called the Leipzig Interim, was enacted by the Elector Maurice (December, 1548), with the aid of Melanchthon and other leading Lutheran divines, for his Protestant dominion, where the Augsburg Interim could not be carried out. It was much milder, saved the evangelical creed in its essential features—as justification by the sole merits of Christ through a living faith—but required conformity to the Romish ritual, including confirmation, episcopal ordination, extreme unction, and even the greater part of the canon of the mass, and such ceremonies as fasts, processions, and the use of images in churches.⁵⁸⁸⁵⁸⁸   See the text of the two Interims in Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 193–196 and 201–203; the Interim Lipsiense, also, in Corp. Reform. Vol. VII. The term gave rise to sarcastic conundrums, as Interimo, interitus, Hinterim, der Schalk ist hinter ihm (the villain is behind it). On the political aspects of the Interim, see the fifth volume of Ranke.

The Protestants were forced to the alternative of either submitting to one of these temporary compromises, or risking the fate of martyrs.

Melanchthon, in the desire to protect churches from plunder and 300ministers from exile, and in the hope of saving the cause of the Reformation for better times, yet not without blamable weakness, gave his sanction to the Leipzig Interim, and undertook to act as a mediator between the Emperor, or his Protestant ally Maurice, and the Protestant conscience.⁵⁸⁹⁵⁸⁹   To the Augsburg Interim he was decidedly opposed, and he had also sundry objections to the ceremonial part of the Leipzig Interim. He is only responsible for its doctrinal part. See his letters from this period in Corp. Reform. Vols. VI. and VII., and Schmidt's Mel. pp. 507 and 524. It was the greatest mistake in his life, yet not without plausible excuses and incidental advantages. He advocated immovable steadfastness in doctrine, but submission in every thing else for the sake of peace. He had the satisfaction that the University of Wittenberg, after temporary suspension, was restored, and soon frequented again by two thousand students; that no serious attempt was made to introduce the Interim there, and that matters remained pretty much as before. But outside of Wittenberg and Saxony his conduct appeared treasonable to the cause of the Reformation, and acted as an encouragement to an unscrupulous and uncompromising enemy. Hence the venerable man was fiercely assailed from every quarter by friend and foe. He afterwards frankly and honorably confessed that he had gone too far in this matter, and ought to have kept aloof from the insidious counsels of politicians.⁵⁹⁰⁵⁹⁰   In a letter to his enemy, M. Flacius, dated Sept. 5, 1556, he was not ashamed to confess, after some slight reproaches, 'Vincite! Cedo; nihil pugno de ritibus illis, et maxime opto, ut dulcis sit ecclesiarum concordia. Fateor etiam hac in re a me peccatum esse, et a Deo veniam peto, quod non procul fugi insidiosas illas deliberationes. Sed illa quæ mihi falsa a te et a Gallo objiciuntur, refutabo.' Corp. Reform. Vol. VIII. p. 841 sq. And to the Saxon pastors he wrote, Jan. 17, 1557 (Vol. IX. p. 61): 'Pertractus sum ad aularum deliberationes insidiosas. Quare sicubi vel lapsus sum, vel languidius aliquid egi, peto a Deo et ab Ecclesia veniam, et judiciis Ecclesiæ obtemperabo.' He fully recovered his manhood in the noble Saxon Confession which he prepared in 1551 for the Council of Trent, and which is not merely a repetition of the Augsburg Confession, but also a refutation of the theology, worship, and government of the papal Church.

Flacius chose the second alternative. Escaping from Wittenberg to the free city of Magdeburg, he opened from this stronghold of rigid Lutheranism, with other 'exiles of Christ,' a fierce and effective war against Melanchthon and the 'dangerous rabble of the Adiaphorists.' He charged his teacher and benefactor with superfluous mildness, weakness, want of faith, treason to truth; and characterized the Leipzig 301Interim as an undisguised 'union of Christ and Belial, of light and darkness, of sheep and wolf, of Christ and Antichrist,' aiming at the 'reinstatement of popery and Antichrist in the temple of God.'⁵⁹¹⁵⁹¹   Thus he concisely states the case on the long title-page of his Apology, or Entschuldigung, etc., addressed to the University of Wittenberg, with a letter to Melanchthon, Magdeburg, 1549. The concluding words of the title state the aim of the Interim thus: 'Das Ende ist die Einsetzung des Papstthums und Einstellung des Antichrists in den Tempel Christi, Stärkung der Gottlosen, dass sie über der Kirche Christi stolziren, Betrübung der Gottfürchtigen, item Schwächung, Einführung in Zweifel, Trennung und unzählige Aergerniss.' He relates of Melanchthon that he derived from an eclipse of the moon in 1548 the vain hope of the near death of the Emperor, which would end these troubles. He also published several confidential letters of Luther to Melanchthon, written during the Diet at Augsburg, 1530, upbraiding him for his philosophy and timidity. His chief text was 1 Cor. x. 20–23. He had upon the whole the best of the argument, although in form he violated all the laws of courtesy and charity, and continued, even long afterwards, to persecute Melanchthon as an abettor of Antichrist.

In a milder tone the best friends of Melanchthon remonstrated with him. Brenz preferred exile and misery to the Interim, which he called interitus. Bucer of Strasburg did the same, and accepted a call to England. Calvin on this question sided with the anti-Adiaphorists, and wrote a letter to Melanchthon (June 18, 1550), which is a model of brotherly frankness and reproof. 'My present grief,' he says in substance, 'renders me almost speechless. . . . In openly admonishing you, I am discharging the duty of a true friend; and if I employ a little more severity than usual, do not think it is owing to any diminution of my old affection and esteem for you. . . . I know you love nothing better than open candor. I am truly anxious to approve all your actions, both to myself and to others. But at present I accuse you before yourself, that I may not be forced to join those who condemn you in your absence. This is the sum of your defense: That provided purity of doctrine be retained, externals should not be pertinaciously contended for. . . . But you extend the adiaphora too far. . . . Some of them contradict the Word of God. . . . When we are in the thick of the fight, we must fight all the more manfully; the hesitation of the general brings more disgrace than the flight of a whole herd of common soldiers. All will blame you if you do not set the example of unflinching steadfastness. . . . I had rather die with you a hundred times than see you survive the doctrines surrendered by you. I have 302no fear for the truth of God, nor do I distrust your steadfastness. . . Pardon me, dear Philip, for loading your breast with these groans. May the Lord continue to guide you by his Spirit and sustain you by his might.'⁵⁹²⁵⁹²   Opera, Vol. IX. p. 51, and Letters of Calvin, by J. Bonnet, English translation, Vol. II. p. 257. A letter of similar spirit and import to Melanchthon, by his friend Anton Corvinus (Räbener), a distinguished reformer in Hesse and Göttingen, who suffered imprisonment for his opposition to the Interim, was recently discovered in the Royal Library at Hanover by Iwan Franz, and published in Kahnis, Zeitschrift fur die hist. Theol. 1874, pp. 105 sqq., from which I quote the following passages: 'O Philippe, o inquam Philippe noster, redi per immortalem Christum ad pristinum candorem, ad pristinam tuam sinceritatem! non languefacito ista tua formidine, pusillanimitate et inepta moderatione nostrorum animos tantopere! Non aperito hac ratione ad Papatus recurrentem impietatem ac Idolomanias fenestram ac januam! Non sis tantorum in Ecclesia offendiculorum autor! Ne sinas tua tam egregia scripta, dicta, facta, quibus mirifice de Ecclesia hactenus meritus es, isto condonationis, moderationis, novationis nævo ad eum modum deformari! Cogita, quantum animi ista nostra carnis ac rationis consilia et adversariis addant et nostris adimant.! Perpende, quam placari etiam istis condonationibus adversarii nostri non queant, qui totius Papatus doctrinam et omnes ex cequo impios cultus reposcunt et ex nostra levitate spem concipiunt se hac in re facile voti compotes futuros. Detestatur Dominus apud Jeremiam eos, qui manus pessimormn confortant, ut non convertatur unusquisque a malitia sua. Cur igitur in tam ardua causa non tales nos gerimus ut hujusmodi detestatio competere in nos haud possit? qua perversitate arundo huc illuc ventis agitata dici quam Johannis constantiam imitari malumus! . . . Proinde Te, o noster Philippe, iterum atque iterum per ilium ipsum Christum redemptorem nostrum et brevi futurum judicem rogamus, ut professionis tuæ memor talem te cum reliquis Vitebergensibus jam geras, qualem Te ab initio hujus causæ ad Electoris captivitatem usque gessisti, hoc est, ut ea sentias, dicas, scribas, agas, quæ Philippum, Christianum Doctorem decent, non aulicum Philosophum.'

The defeat of the Emperor by Elector Maurice, who now turned against him, as he had turned before against his fellow-Protestants, and the consequent Peace of Augsburg, 1555, made an end to the Interim troubles, and secured freedom to the Lutheran Churches. But among theologians the controversy continued till the death of Melanchthon.

The conduct of Melanchthon weakened his authority and influence, which had been rising higher and higher before and after Luther's death, especially in the University of Wittenberg. Before this unfortunate controversy he was universally regarded as the theological head of the evangelical Church in Germany, but now a large number of Lutherans began to look upon him with distrust.

X. THE STRASBURG CONTROVERSY ON PREDESTINATION BETWEEN ZANCHI AND MARBACH (1561–1563).⁵⁹³⁵⁹³    Planck, Vol. VI. pp.809 sqq.; Röhrich: Geschichte der Reform. im Elsass, bes. in Strassburg, 3 Theile, Strasburg, 1830–1882; Schweizer: Centraldogmen der Reform. Kirche, Vol. I. pp. 418–470 (a very full and able account); Heppe: Dogmatik des D. Protest. Vol. II. pp. 44–47; G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 178–184; Fr. H. E. Frank, Vol. IV. pp. 121–344.

This is the last specific doctrine discussed in the Formula of Concord (Art. XI.). The German and Swiss Reformers alike renewed, 303as an impregnable fortress in their war against the Pelagian corruptions of Rome, the Augustinian system, with its two closely connected doctrines of the absolute spiritual slavery or inability of the unregenerate will of man, and the absolute predestination of God; though with the characteristic difference that Luther and Melanchthon emphasized the servum arbitrium, Zwingli the providentia, Calvin the prædestinatio. In other words, the German Reformers started from the anthropological premise, and inferred from it the theological conclusion; while Calvin made the absolute sovereignty of God the cornerstone of his system. Luther firmly adhered to the servum arbitrium, but was more cautious, in his later years, on the mystery of the prædestinatio.⁵⁹⁴⁵⁹⁴   The Philippist Lasius first asserted (1568) that Luther had recalled his book De servo arbitrio (1525), but this was indignantly characterized by Flacius and Westphal as a wretched lie and an insult to the evangelical church. The fact is that Luther emphatically reaffirmed this book, in a letter to Capito, 1537, as one of his very best ('nullum enim agnosco meum justum librum nisi forte De servo arbitrio, et Catechismum'). And, indeed, it is one of his most powerful works. Luthardt (Die Lehre vom freien Willen, Leipz. 1863, p. 122) calls it 'eine mächtige Schrift, stoltz, wahrheitsgewiss, kühn in Gedanken und Wort, voll heiligen Eifers, gewaltigen Ernstes, aus innerster Seele herausgeschrieben. . . . Kaum irgendwo sonst ergiesst sich gleich mächtig und reich der Strom seines Geistes.' Only in regard to predestination Luther may be said to have moderated his view somewhat, although he never recalled it, that is, he still taught in his later writings (in his Com. on Genesis, Ch. VI. 6, 18; Ch. XXVI.) the distinction and antagonism between the revealed will of God, which sincerely calls all to repentance and salvation, and the inscrutable secret will which saves only a part of the race; but he laid the main stress practically on the former and the means of grace, and thus prepared the way for the 11th Article of the Formula of Concord. 'Scripsi,' he wrote in 1536, 'esse omnia absoluta et necessaria, sed simul addidi, quod adspiciendus sit Deus revelatus' (Opera exeg. Vol. VI. p. 300). Luthardt (l.c. p. 146) correctly says (in opposition both to Lütkens and Philippi) that Luther never recalled, but retained his earlier views on predestination and the necessity of all that happens, and only guarded them against abuse. The result of Köstlin's investigation is this, that Luther never attempted a solution of the contradiction between the secret and the revealed will of God. 'Das eben ist seine Lehre, dass unser Erkennen nicht so weit reicht, und dass wir uns auch das Unbegreifliche und Unverständliche gefallen lassen müssen. . . . Er selbst spricht aus, dass ein Widerspruch für uns stehen bleibe, den wir nicht lösen können noch sollen.' Luther's Theologie, Vol. II. p. 328. Melanchthon gave up both for his synergism and the universality of grace, though he continued in friendly correspondence with Calvin, who on his part put the mildest construction on this departure. The rigid Lutherans all retained Luther's view of total depravity in opposition to synergism, and some of them (namely, Amsdorf, Flacius, Brenz, Wigand, and, for a time, Heshusius) were also strict predestinarians.⁵⁹⁵⁵⁹⁵   See the proof passages in Frank's Theol. der Concord. formel, Vol. IV. pp. 254–261; Luthardt, pp. 240–244; Planck, Vol. IV. pp. 691–712; and Schweizer, l.c. 304But the prevailing Lutheran sentiment became gradually averse to a particular predestination, all the more since it was a prominent doctrine of the hated Calvinists. The Formula of Concord sanctioned a compromise between Augustinianism and universalism, or between the original Luther and the later Melanchthon, by teaching both the absolute inability of man and the universality of divine grace, without an attempt to solve these contradictory positions. In regard to the slavery of the human will, the Formula of Concord, following Luther, went even further than Calvin, and compared the natural man with a dead statue, or clod, and stone; while Calvin always (so far agreeing with the later Melanchthon) insisted on the spontaneity and responsibility of the will in sinning, and in accepting or rejecting the grace of God.

The discussion of this subject was opened by the fierce polemic Tilemann Heshusius, who, in his defense of the corporeal presence against the Sacramentarians (Jena, 1560), first attacked also Calvin's doctrine of predestination, as Stoic and fatalistic, although a year afterwards, in opposition to synergism, he returned to his former view of an absolute and particular predestination. Beza answered his attack with superior ability.⁵⁹⁶⁵⁹⁶   See Schweizer, l.c. pp. 402 sqq. Heshusius and Westphal invented the name Calvinists, which henceforth was used by Lutherans for the Reformed, as the term Zwinglians had been before. The term sacramentarians was applied to both without distinction.

Of more importance was the controversy between Marbach (a friend of Heshusius) and Zanchi within the Lutheran denomination itself. It decided its position on the question of predestination and perseverance.

The Church of Strasburg had received from its reformer, Martin Bucer (who on account of the Interim followed a call to the University of Cambridge, 1549, and died there, 1551), a unionistic type, and acted as mediator between the Swiss and German churches. The Reformed Tetrapolitan Confession, the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, and the Wittenberg Concordia (a compromise between the Lutheran and Zwinglian views on the eucharist), were held in great esteem. Calvin and Peter Martyr, who preached and taught there, made a deep impression. The celebrated historian Sleidanus, and the 305learned founder and rector of the academy, John Sturm, labored in the same spirit.

Jerome Zanchi (Zanchius, 1516–1590), a converted Italian, and pupil of Peter Martyr, became his successor as Professor of Theology at Strasburg in 1553. He was one of the most learned Calvinistic divines of the age, and labored for some time with great acceptance. He taught that in the eucharist Christ's true body broken for us, and his blood shed for us, are received in the sacrament, but not with the mouth and teeth, but by faith, and consequently only by believers. This was approved by his superiors, since the communion was not a cibus ventris sed mentis, and the same view had been taught by Bucer, Capito, Hedio, Zell, and Martyr. He opposed ubiquity, and the use of images in churches. He taught unconditional predestination, and its consequence, the perseverance of saints, in full harmony, as he believed, with Augustine, Luther, and Bucer. He reduced his ideas to four sentences: 1. The elect receive from God the gift of true saving faith only once; 2. Faith once received can never be totally and finally lost, partly on account of God's promise, partly on account of Christ's intercession; 3. In every elect believer there are two men, the external and the internal—if he sin, he sins according to the external, but against the internal man, consequently he sins not with the whole heart and will; 4. When Peter denied Christ, the confession of Christ died in his mouth, but not his faith in his heart.

Several years before Zanchi's call to Strasburg, a Lutheran counter-current had been set in motion, which ultimately prevailed. It was controlled by John Marbach (1521–1581), a little man with a large beard, incessant activity, intolerant and domineering spirit, who had been called from Jena to the pulpit of Strasburg (1545). Inferior in learning,⁵⁹⁷⁵⁹⁷   Melanchthon called him mediocriter doctus, but his own estimate was much higher, and in his inaugural he spoke with such arrogance that Bucer feared he would prove a great misfortune for the Church at Strasburg. See Röhrich and Schweizer, p. 420. he was superior to Zanchi in executive ability and popular eloquence. He delighted to be called Superintendent, and used his authority to the best advantage. He abolished Bucer's Catechism and introduced Luther's, taught the ubiquity of Christ's body, undermined the authority of the Tetrapolitan Confession, crippled the church of French refugees, to which Calvin had once ministered, weakened discipline, 306introduced pictures into churches, including those of Luther, and began to republish at Strasburg the fierce polemical book of Heshusius on the eucharist. This brought on the controversy.

Zanchi persuaded the magistrate to suppress the publication of this book, because of its gross abuse of Melanchthon and a noble German Prince, the Elector Frederick III. of the Palatinate, and because it denounced all who differed from his views of the corporeal presence as heretics. From this time Marbach refused to greet Zanchi on the street, and gathered from the notes of his students material for accusation that he taught doctrines contrary to the Augsburg Confession. He objected, however, not so much to predestination itself as to Zanchi's method of teaching it a priori rather than a posteriori.

The controversy lasted over two years. Zanchi visited and consulted foreign churches and universities. The answers differed not so much on predestination as on perseverance.⁵⁹⁸⁵⁹⁸   Zanchii Opera, Pt. VII. pp. 65 sqq., and Pt. VIII. pp. 114 sqq.; Schweizer, pp. 448–470.

The theologians of Marburg (Hyperius, Lonicer, Garnier, Orth, Roding, Pincier, and Pistorius), Zurich (Bullinger, Martyr, Gualter, Lavater, Simler, Haller, Zwingli Jr.), and Heidelberg (Boquinus, Tremellius, Olevianus, and Diller) decided in favor of the theses of Zanchi. The ministers of Basel counseled peace and compromise; the divines of Tübingen approved of the doctrine of predestination, but dissented from the theses on perseverance; even Brenz thought the matter might be amicably settled. The divines of Saxony decided according to their different attitudes towards Melanchthon: the Melanchthonians liked Zanchi's doctrine of the eucharist, but disliked his view of predestination; the anti-Melanchthonians hated the former, but were favorable to the latter, because it was so strongly taught by Luther himself (De servo arbitrio).

At last the 'Strasburg Formula of Concord' was adopted (1563), which prescribed the Wittenberg Concordia of 1536 as the rule of doctrine on the Lord's Supper, and asserted the possibility of the loss of faith, yet without denying predestination.⁵⁹⁹⁵⁹⁹   Printed in the Strasburger Kirchenordnung of 1598. and in Löscher's Historia motuum, Vol. II. p. 229 sq. See Schweizer, pp. 440 sqq. Calvin judged that it only threw a veil over the truth. Predestination was with Calvin and Luther an independent and central dogma; the later Lutherans assigned 307it a subordinate and subsidiary position, and denied its logical consequence, the perseverance of saints. This was also the position of Marbach.

Zanchi subscribed the Strasburg Formula with a restriction, but for the sake of peace he soon followed a call to a Reformed Italian church at Chiavenna, and, being driven away by a pestilence to a mountain, he wrote a full account of the Strasburg troubles.⁶⁰⁰⁶⁰⁰   It is addressed to Philip of Hesse (Oct. 1, 1565), and given by Schweizer, pp. 425–436. Zanchi accepted afterwards a call to a professorship at the Reformed University of Heidelberg, where he died, 1590. He received also calls to England, Lausanne, Geneva, Zurich, and Leyden, and was justly esteemed for his learning and character. A complete edition of his works appeared at Geneva in eight parts, in 3 vols. folio. He was supported in his position by the worthy Sturm and several professors, but had the disadvantage of being a foreigner unacquainted with the German tongue. The pastors, backed by the people, triumphed over the professors. What Marbach had begun, his pupil Pappus completed. Strasburg was thoroughly Lutheranized, the Tetrapolitan Confession formally abolished as 'Zwinglian,' and the Formula Concordiæ introduced (1597).⁶⁰¹⁶⁰¹   Comp. Heppe, Gesch. des D. Protest. Vol. IV. pp.312–315.

Yet, after all, the spirit of Bucer never died out. From Strasburg proceeded Spener, with his blessed revival of practical piety and a better appreciation of the Reformed Confession;⁶⁰²⁶⁰²   Spener was born at Rappoltsweiler, in Upper Alsace, but his parents were from Strasburg, and he was educated there, and called himself a Strasburger. Kliefoth (as quoted by Heppe, Vol. IV. p. 399), from his own rigid Lutheran stand-point, says, not without good reason: 'Mit Spener beginnt jener grosse Eroberungszug der reformirten Kirche gegen die lutherische, der seitdem verschiedene Namen, erst Frömmigkeit, dann Toleranz, dann Union, dann Conföderation auf sein Panier geschrieben hat.' and from the theological faculty of Strasburg hail more recently the appreciating biographies of Beza, Bucer, and Capito (by Baum), and Melanchthon (by Carl Schmidt), and the best edition of the works of Calvin (by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss). Thus history slowly but surely rectifies its own mistakes.

THE PREPARATION OF THE FORMULA OF CONCORD.⁶⁰³⁶⁰³   For the fullest account, see the sixth volume of Planck's, and the third volume of Heppe's history.

These controversies turned the Lutheran churches in Germany into a camp of civil war, exposed them to the ridicule and obloquy of the 308Papists, and threatened to end in utter confusion and dissolution. The danger was increased by the endless territorial divisions of Germany, where every Prince and magistrate acted a little pope, and 'every fox looked to his own pelt.'⁶⁰⁴⁶⁰⁴   As Brenz says: 'Es luge ein jeglicher Fuchs seines Balges.'

The best men in the Lutheran communion deeply deplored this state of things, and labored for peace and harmony. Augustus, Elector of Saxony (1533—1588), a pious and orthodox, though despotic Prince, controlled the political part, and paid the heavy expenses of the movement.⁶⁰⁵⁶⁰⁵   80,000 gulden. Augustus was a zealous Lutheran without knowing the difference between Lutheranism and Philippism, and supported or punished the champions of both parties as he happened to be led or misled by his courtiers and the theologians. Jacob Andreæ, Professor of Theology and Chancellor of the University at Tübingen (1528–1590), a pupil and friend of Brentius, a man of rare energy, learning, eloquence, and diplomatic skill, managed the theological negotiations, made no less than one hundred and twenty-six journeys, and sacrificed the comforts of home and family (he had twelve children) to the pacification of the Lutheran Church.⁶⁰⁶⁶⁰⁶   On this remarkable man, see Planck, Vol. VI. pp. 372 sqq.; Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 376 sqq.; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 219; Hartmann in Herzog, Vol. I. p. 312; Johannsen, Jacob Andreæ's Concordistische Thätigkeit, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1853, No. 3. Andreæ has often been too unfavorably judged. His contemporary opponents called him 'Schmidlin' (with reference to his father's trade), 'Dr. Jacobellus, the Pope of Saxony, the planet of Swabia, the apostle of ubiquity, allotrio-episcopus, a worshiper of Bacchus and Mammon,' etc. He no doubt had a considerable share of vanity, ambition, and theological passion (which he displayed, e.g., against poor Flacius, even after his death). But there is no reason to doubt the general purity of his motives, and, compared with some other orthodox Lutherans of his age, he was even liberal, at least in his earlier years. At a later period he denounced the alterations of the Augsburg Confession, and compared Melanchthon to Solomon, who at first wrote glorious things, but was afterwards so far led astray that the Bible leaves it doubtful whether he were saved ('ob er zu unserm Herrgott oder zu dem Teufel gefahren sei'). He seemed to be predestinated for the work of his life. Planck gives a masterly (though not altogether just) analysis of his character, from which I quote a specimen, as it fairly represents the spirit and style of his celebrated history (Vol. VI. p. 274): 'In halb Deutschland herumzureisen, und an jedem neuen Ort mit neuen Menschen zu unterhandlen—hier mit dem Ministerio einer Reichsstadt, und dort mit einer kleinen Synode von Superintendenten, welche die Geistlichkeit einer ganzen Grafschaft oder eines Fürstenthums repräsentiren—heute mit Flacianern und morgen mit Anhängern der Wittenbergischen Schule und Verehrern Melanchthons—jetzt mit den Hauptpersonen, die an dem gelehrten Streit den vorzüglichsten Antheil genommen, und jetzt mit den Schreiern, die bloss den Lärm vermehrt, und dazwischen hinein mit einem oder dem andern Stillen im Lande, die bisher im Verborgenen über den Streit geseufzt hatten—und allen diesen Menschen alles zu werden, um sie zu gewinnen—es gab wirklich kein Geschäft in der Welt, das für ihn so gemacht war, wie dieses, so wie es auch umgekehrt wenige Menschen gab, die für das Geschäft so gemacht waren, wie er. Nimmt man aber noch dies dazu, dass sich auch der gute, Andreæ selbst dazu für gemacht hielt, dass in die natürliche Thätigkeit seines Geistes auch zuweilen ein kleiner Windzug von Ehrgeiz und Eitelkeit hineinblies, dass er auch für den Reiz der bedeutenden Rolle, die er dabei spielen, und des Aufsehens, das er erregen würde, nicht unfühlbar war, ja dass selbst der Gedanke an das [den] Verkehr, in das er dabei mit so manchen Fürsten und Herrn kommen, an die Ehrenbezeugungen, die man ihm hier und da erweisen, an die Raths-Deputationen, die ihn in so mancher kleinen Reichsstadt bewillkommen, an die Gastpredigten, die man ihm auftragen, und an die Ehrfurcht, womit dann die ehrliche Bürger einer solchen Stadt, die noch keinen Kanzler von Tübingen gesehen hatten, mit Fingern auf ihn weisen würden—dass auch der Gedanke daran den heiteren und offenherzigen Mann, der es mil seinen kleinen Schwachheiten nicht so genau nahm und sie eben so leicht sich selbst as andern vergab, auf gewisse Augenblicke sehr stark anziehen konnte—nimmt man alles diess zusammen, so wird man auch hinreichend erklärt haben, wie es kommen konnte, dass er vor den Schwierigkeiten seines übernommenen Geschäfts nicht erschrak, die sich ihm doch ebenfalls bei seiner Klugheit, bei seiner Weltkenntniss, und bei seiner besondern durch manche Erfahrung erkauften Kenntniss der Menschen, die er dabei zu bearbeiten hatte, lebhafter als hundert andern darstellen mussten. Gewiss standen auch diese Schwierigkeiten lebhaft genug vor seiner Seele, aber der Reiz, durch den er in das Geschäft hineingezogen wurde, war so stark, dass er ihm schwerlich hätte widerstehen können, wenn er nicht nur die Mühe und Arbeit, die es ihn kosten, sondern auch den tausendfachen Verdruss, den es ihm machen, die zahllosen Kränkungen, die es ihm zuziehen, und selbst alle die stechenden Erinnerungen, durch die es ihm sein Alter verbittern sollte, vorausgesehen hätte.' Andreæ, in connection with Vergerius, founded the first Bible Society, for Sclavonic nations (1555). His grandson, Johann Valentin Andreæ (1586–1654), was a man of genius and more liberal views, and a great admirer of the order and discipline of the Reformed Church in Geneva, which he sadly missed in Germany. Next 309to him, and at a later period, Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586), the greatest pupil of Melanchthon and the prince among the Lutheran divines of his age,⁶⁰⁷⁶⁰⁷   Author of Loci theologici; Examen Concilii Tridentini; Harmonia Evangeliorum (completed by Polycarp Leyser and John Gerhard); De duabus in Christo naturis, and other works of vast learning. The Romanists called him a second Martin Luther, and said: 'Si posterior non fuisset, prior non stetisset.' This reminds one of the line, 'Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset.' and Nicholas Selnecker (1530–1592),⁶⁰⁸⁶⁰⁸   He prepared the second Latin translation of the Form of Concord, and is best known by one of his hymns ('Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ,' etc.; although it is only in part from him). His numerous theological writings are forgotten. He was a little man with short legs, at first a Philippist, then a rigid Lutheran ('parvus Flacius'); hence in turn attacked by all parties. 'Die Reformirten, gegen die er den Vers wandte: "Erhalt uns Herr bei deinem wort und steur' der Zwinglianer Mord!" und denen er die Schändung seiner Tochter in letzter Instanz zuchreiben zu müssen glaubte, nannten ihn das "Lutheräfflein;" bei den strengen Lutheranern hiess er: "Schelmlecker, Seelhenker, Seelnecator;" bei den Melanchthonianern: "Judas alter in suspensus," Auch mit seinem Freund Andreæ ist er zuletzt zerfallen. . . . Ein Jahrhundert später wurde er unter die deutschen Propheten gerechnet.' G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 221. originally likewise a Melanchthonian, took the most important part in the movement, and formed with Andreæ the theological 'triumvirate,' which finally completed the Form of Concord.⁶⁰⁹⁶⁰⁹   The remaining three authors were David Chytræus, Professor in Rostock (d. 1600), who remained a faithful Melanchthonian, and met the violent abuse of the zealots with silence; Andreas Musculus, Professor in Frankfort-on-the-Oder (d. 1581), who denounced Melanchthon as a patriarch of all heretics, and praised Luther as the sun among the dim stars of the old fathers; and Christopher Körner, Professor in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, a friend of Chytræus, but unfortunate in his children, who sunk into the lowest vices (G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 222).

The first attempts at union were made at the conferences in Frankfort, 1558; Naumburg, 1561; Altenburg, 1568; Wittenberg, 1569; Zerbst, 1570; Dresden, 1571; but they utterly failed and increased the dissension.

After the violent suppression of Crypto-Calvinism in Electoral Saxony (1574), and the death of Flacius (1575) and some other untractable extremists, the work was resumed by the Elector and other Princes. Theological conferences were again held at Maulbronn (1575), Lichtenberg (1576), and Torgau (1576). Three forms of agreement were prepared, which, though not satisfactory, served as a basis for the Formula of Concord. The first is the Swabian and Saxon Formula, written by Andreæ (1574), and revised by Chemnitz and Chytræus (1575).'⁶¹⁰⁶¹⁰   Schwabisch-Sächsische Concordie, Formula Suevica et Saxonica, or Formula Concordiæ inter Suevicas et Saxonicas Ecclesias, published from MS., in the original and revised form, by Heppe, Geschichte des Deutschen Protest. Vol. III., Beilagen, pp. 75–166, and 166–325. They were preceded by six sermons of Andreæ (1573). Likewise republished by Heppe. The second is the Maulbronn Formula, prepared by the Swabian divines Lucas Osiander and Balthasar Bidembach (Nov. 14, 1575), and approved by a convent of Lutheran Princes in the Cloister of Maulbronn (Jan. 19, 1576).⁶¹¹⁶¹¹   See Heppe, Vol. III. pp. 76 sqq. The former was found too lengthy, the latter too brief. Hence on the basis of both a third form was prepared which combined their merits, but omitted the honorable mention of the name of Melanchthon. This is the 'Torgau Book,' consisting of twelve articles.⁶¹²⁶¹²   The 'Torgische Buch' or 'Torgisch Bedenken, welchergestalt oder massen vermöge Gottes Worts die eingerissene Spaltungen zwischen den Theologen Augsburgischer Confession christlich verglichen und beigelegt werden möchten, anno 1576.' It was republished by Semler, with Preface and notes, Halle, 1760, but much better by Heppe, Marburg, 1857; second edition, 1866. It was mainly the work of Andreæ and Chemnitz, and completed by a convention of eighteen Lutheran divines at the Castle of Hartenfels, at Torgau, June 7, 1576. It was sent by the Elector Augustus to all the Lutheran Princes for examination and revision. It was closely scrutinized by twenty conventions of theologians held within three months, and elicited twenty-five vota, mostly favorable; even Heshusius and Wigand, the oracles of orthodoxy, were pleased, except that they wished an express condemnation of Melanchthon and other 'authors and patrons of corruptions.'

At last the present Formula of Concord was completed, on the basis 311of the Torgau Book, by six learned divines—Andreæ (of Tübingen), Chemnitz (of Brunswick), Selnecker (of Leipzig), Musculus (of Frankfort-on-the-Oder), Cornerus, or Körner (also of Frankfort), and Chytræus (of Rostock)—who met in March and May, 1577, in the Cloister of Bergen, near Magdeburg, by order of the Elector of Saxony. Hence it is also called 'The Bergen Formula.'⁶¹³⁶¹³   Or, Das Bergische Buch. English writers usually call it 'Form of Concord,' though 'Formula' is more correct. The Preface was written two years later by the same authors, in the name of the Lutheran Princes, in two conventions at Jüterbock, January and June, 1579. Three years elapsed before the new symbolical book was signed and solemnly published, by order of Augustus, at Dresden, June 25, 1580, the fiftieth anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, together with the other Lutheran symbols, in one volume, called the 'Book of Concord,' which superseded all similar collections.⁶¹⁴⁶¹⁴   See the titles on p. 220, and literary notices in Köllner, pp. 562 sqq. Andreæ directed the editing of the German Book of Concord, Glaser and Fuger read the proof. The manuscript was deposited in the library of the chief church at Dresden, and burned up with it July 19, 1700. The first Latin Concordia (1580) was superintended and edited, though without proper authority, by Selnecker; the second edition (1584) was issued by authority of the Electors. There are few separate editions of the Formula of Concord, the first by Selnecker, Lipz. 1582. See Köllner, p. 561. The Elector Augustus celebrated the completion of the work, which cost him so much trouble and money, by a memorial coin representing him in full armor on the storm-tossed ship of the church.⁶¹⁵⁶¹⁵   See a description in Penzel's Saxon. Numism. as quoted by Planck, Vol. VI. p. 689. Augustus dismissed Andreæ (1580), ostensibly with great honor and rich presents, but in fact much displeased with the garrulus Suevus, who had spoken disrespectfully of his theological ignorance, had fallen out with Chemnitz and Selnecker, and made many enemies. See a full account in Heppe. Vol. IV. pp. 256–270.

The Formula of Concord, like the three preparatory drafts on which it is based, was first composed in the German language, and published, with the whole Book of Concord, at Dresden, 1580. The Latin text was imperfectly prepared by Lucas Osiander, and appeared in the Latin Concordia, at Leipzig, 1580; then it was materially improved by Selnecker for his separate German-Latin edition of the Formula (not the Book) of Concord, Leipzig, 1582; and was again revised by a convent of Lutheran divines at Quedlinburg, 1583, under the direction of Martin Chemnitz. In this last revision it was published in the first authentic Latin edition of the Book of Concord, Leipzig, 1584, and has 312been recognized ever since as the received Latin text. It was also translated into the Dutch, Swedish, and English languages, but seldom separately published.⁶¹⁶⁶¹⁶   See the authorized Latin text of the Epitome, with a new English translation, in Vol. III. pp. 93 sqq. An English Version of the Formula from the German text appeared in The Christian Book of Concord; or, Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, New Market, Va., 1851, 2d ed., 1854. It professes to be literal, hut is very stiff and unidiomatic.