The Fury of Theologians: Lutheran Theology after Luther

THE FURY OF THEOLOGIANS:

LUTHERAN THEOLOGY AFTER LUTHER

When Philip Melanchthon was on his deathbed, he asked to be taken to his study so that he might look at his books one last time. As he lay on a bed in his study, with his friends and former students gathered around him, he asked for a piece of paper. On one side of the paper, he listed the reasons why he would be glad to die: “You shall be done with sin. You shall be free from trouble and vexations and from the fury of the theologians.” After reflecting on what he would leave, Philip turned the paper over and wrote about what he would gain: “You shall come into the light. You shall see God. You shall behold the Son of God. You shall learn secret mysteries which in this life you cannot understand.” Two days later, on April 19, 1560, Philip Melanchthon was free and in the presence of God.

Well might Melanchthon have longed to be free from the fury of theologians. Even before Luther’s death in 1546, the developing evangelical church movement in Germany used the teaching of Luther as the standard by which all other theological formulations were judged. To be sure, the Augsburg Confession was the doctrinal standard for the Protestant city-states, and Melanchthon was the key author of that document. And yet, Augsburg drew its authority from its consonance with Luther’s own theology. Even more, from 1530 on, Augsburg would be interpreted through the lens of Luther’s thought.

As Melanchthon developed Luther’s insights, and sometimes disagreed with his older Wittenberg colleague, a fissure developed within Lutheran theology. Those who sought to preserve Luther’s theological formulations came to be known as the “Gnesio-Lutherans” (the “true” or “genuine” Lutherans). Those who followed Melanchthon’s moves away from certain of Luther’s statements were called the “Philippists” or, pejoratively, “the crypto-Calvinists.” This fissure began early in Lutheran theology—shortly after the Augsburg Confession in 1530—and lasted until the adoption of the Formula of Concord in 1577.

All of this meant that Philip’s life, and Lutheran theology, would be dominated by controversy. Though Melanchthon desired to make positive theological contributions and to bridge the gaps between Lutheran and Reformed theological formulations in the turbulent period of the mid-sixteenth century, he found himself constantly defending his work, especially in his Loci Communes, the systematic theology that he produced in four editions between 1521 and

1550. Melanchthon’s thought, along with all other German evangelical theologians, would be tested on these grounds: What did Luther say, and how close were these new theological propositions to Luther?

The Preceptor of Germany

Philip Melanchthon was born in southwest Germany in the town of Bretten in

1497. The nephew of the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin, he inherited the family’s brilliance with languages. As he studied at Heidelberg, he embraced humanist ideals, evidenced in his translating his family name, Schwartzerdt (black earth), into Greek as Melanchthon. By 1512, he was at Tübingen, where he received his master’s degree. There he read some theology, but focused mainly on classics; eventually, he began to lecture on Virgil and Cicero.

At age 21, Melanchthon accepted a call to become professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. It was 1518, just months after Luther had sought disputations on scholastic theology and indulgences in Wittenberg and on the theology of the cross in Heidelberg. And yet, Melanchthon did not go there as a result of a prior familiarity with Luther. No matter—shortly after arriving, he came under the Reformer’s influence as Luther urged him to study theology and to set aside his planned studies on Aristotle. Melanchthon did earn a theological degree and started to lecture on the Bible.

In the 1520s, Melanchthon served as Luther’s most important lieutenant. He participated in the Leipzig Disputation with Luther against Johann Eck in 1519 and led the Reformation movement in Wittenberg when Luther was squirreled away in Wartburg Castle in 1521–22. More importantly, he arranged Luther’s wide-ranging insights into a single, synthetic whole.

That synthesis was called the Loci Communes, published in 1521. Merging his own interest in rhetoric with Luther’s theological insights, Melanchthon came to see that the central proposition in Romans, and in all Pauline theology, was the righteousness that comes by faith. From there, Melanchthon combed Romans for “topics” (or loci) that developed this central proposition. These topics served as “basic concepts” that were necessary to know for salvation in and through Christ. This first edition led with justification by faith alone and a general suspicion of philosophy’s impact on theology. Above all, Melanchthon focused on Christ: “I do not see how I can call that man a Christian who is ignorant of the remaining topics such as the power of sin, the law and grace. For by them is Christ properly known, if indeed this is to know Christ, to wit, to know his benefits.”

Not only would Melanchthon’s Loci Communes serve as the main theology textbook for ministerial students in the days ahead, but he and Luther were profoundly interested in general education throughout Germany. In 1527, the two men participated in ecclesiastical visitations throughout the country. They were especially appalled by the lack of knowledge among the priests and people. Melanchthon returned with a determination to redouble his efforts in education. His consistent attention to these issues led him to be called “the Preceptor of Germany.”

The Antinomian Controversy

Even as he was seeking to teach German priests and peoples the rudiments of the gospel, Melanchthon had to deal with someone who should have known better. In 1527, Johannes Agricola, an erstwhile Luther ally, former faculty member at Wittenberg, and pastor at Eisleben, began publishing his views, which denied any role for works or the law in a believer’s life. He further denied any continuing use of the law in producing repentance. Instead, as historian Timothy Wengert noted, Agricola suggested that repentance occurred only in response to gospel promise, not in response to law’s conviction: “One does not move from an anxious conscience to absolution, but from the promise of God to sorrow over sin and, better still, to refraining from sin completely.” Likewise, the law does not serve to guide the Christian life; rather, the Christian life is a response to the free promise of gospel forgiveness.

Melanchthon responded forcefully to this developing antinomianism within the Wittenberg movement. First, he argued that the law had important roles both at the beginning of and throughout the Christian life. “The beginning of the Christian life is hearty and earnest terror of God’s wrath for our sins,” Melanchthon argued. However, the law also played a role in the continuing Christian life, for it teaches “the righteousness of the heart.” That was why several of the commandments were repeated in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Lest we imagine that that part of the law has been abrogated,” Jesus repeated this law to guide those who belong to His kingdom.

Second, Melanchthon also stressed that repentance as well as faith must be preached and that the law is as necessary for repentance as the gospel. “Pastors ought to follow the example of Christ” in preaching both repentance and faith for the remission of sins, he argued. To preach faith without repentance, “without teaching the fear of God, without teaching the law,” would simply produce a false faith and a carnal security. “Those who neglect to teach poentitentia[repentance] take away one of the principal parts from the Gospel.” Finally, the law must be taught as a guide to the Christian life, Melanchthon noted, if holiness is to be pursued. “May those who teach in the churches diligently teach the doctrine of the law,” he wrote. “Otherwise, where the doctrine of faith is taught without the law, infinite scandals arise, the common folk become secure, and they imagine that they possess the righteousness of faith because they do not know that this faith is possible only in those who have contrite hearts through the law.” As Melanchthon continued to grope toward a “third use” of the law—the law as a guide to the Christian life—he was able to deal with this burgeoning antinomian controversy at this point.

However, even without a fully articulated third use of the law, Melanchthon was keen to continue to debunk both nomistic Catholic and antinomian Lutheran claims that the evangelical faith was law-free and works-free. In the 1530 Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon complained, “Our people are falsely accused of prohibiting good works.” Far from prohibiting good works, Lutheran preachers have “given useful instruction concerning all kinds and walks of life: what manner of life and which activities in every calling please God.” They also taught that genuine faith “is bound to yield good fruits and that it ought to do good works commanded by God on account of God’s will.” What Lutherans have stood against are “childish and needless works”—feast and fast days, brotherhoods, pilgrimages, rosaries, monasticism, and the cult of saints. In addition, the Lutheran movement also sought to clarify the proper basis for works: faith in Christ’s promise of salvation and power from the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Moreover, repentance was to be preached to all as the pathway to faith and good works. “True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror about sin,” the Augsburg Confession taught, “and yet at the same time to believe in the gospel and absolution that sin is forgiven and grace is obtained through Christ.” Once the heart is thus assured, “improvement [good works] should also follow, and a person should refrain from sins.” Clearly, the Lutheran tradition was not going to tolerate a licentious abuse of the gospel.

Confessing the Faith

Of course, the entire process of confessionalization that led to the Augsburg Confession was not tied directly to the antinomian controversy, but to larger political issues that battered the nascent Lutheran movement. In 1529, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sent his brother, Ferdinand, to be his regent at the Second Diet of Speyer. Ferdinand commanded the German princes to work against the Lutheran Reformation. Six rulers and fourteen imperial cities protested against this direction. Their formal appeal—or protestatio—was the first time that Luther’s followers would be called “Protestants.”

However, Charles was frustrated with his brother’s heavy-handed approach with the Germans. He needed the princes’ support for a war against Turkish imperial forces, which had laid siege to Vienna. In order to secure their support, he wanted to settle “the religious question.” And so, he called for another imperial diet to be held in Augsburg in January 1530. When the princes and their theologians arrived at the diet—without Luther, who was banned from the empire, even though he continued to live in safety at Wittenberg—they were confronted by a publication from Johann Eck that lumped the Wittenberg theology with less-orthodox positions. Unanswered, this document would scuttle any chance for religious freedom for the Lutherans.

In response, Melanchthon determined to write a confession that would show that the Wittenberg theology stayed true to the catholic tradition. This confession would defend biblical truth as articulated by Luther and his followers while also condemning a range of false teachings also rejected by Roman Catholics. In order to prepare this document, Melanchthon drew upon articles written the previous year, called the Schwabach Articles, as well as working papers that he and Luther had developed in advance of the meeting, now called the Torgau Articles.

After several weeks of negotiation with the Roman Catholic representatives in an attempt to secure freedom for the Lutheran faith, seven Lutheran princes and two municipal governments subscribed to Melanchthon’s confession and presented it to the emperor on June 25, 1530. Chancellor Christian Beyer, representing the government of Elector John of Saxony, read the German version of the confession to the diet; his voice was so loud that it carried down into the street below. In response, Charles’ representatives tried to negotiate further, but when those talks broke down, they produced a “Confutation,” which they presented to the emperor. Charles gave the Lutheran princes until April 15, 1531, to return to the Roman Catholic Church or face suppression.

The German princes and their theologians were already acting in response to these decisions. By September, Melanchthon had prepared a reply to the Confutation; however, while his response was being typeset in October, he was forced to redraft several sections once he actually received a copy of the Catholic document. The final Apology of the Augsburg Confession appeared in late April or early May 1531. A second version of the Apology was produced several months later as Melanchthon continued to work on his statement of justification. This version, published in September 1531, became the official Latin version of the Apology until a later German version was approved for use in the Book of Concord in 1580. In addition, in February 1531, the German princes formed the Schmalkaldic League, which would serve the causes of both religious liberty and military combination should they be attacked by imperial forces. At its height, thirty-five states belonged to the league, representing Zwinglian and Lutheran theological commitments.

In order to provide some sort of theological unity for the league, Elector John Frederick of Saxony asked Luther to set forward his theological position for potential negotiation with Roman Catholic opponents as well as a statement of Luther’s own final theological position. The resulting document, the Smalcald Articles, would serve as a final summary of Luther’s teaching. While John Frederick would not use it for his negotiations with the pope’s representatives, the Schmalkaldic League would subscribe to the document in 1537.

The Smalcald Articles would join with the Augsburg Confession and Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms as the definitive confessional documents for Lutheran theology. After Luther’s death in 1546, Melanchthon continued to work out his own theological trajectory. As he did so, both he and his followers would be judged against these definitive Lutheran summaries. At stake was not only theological precision, but also personal loyalty and religious identity: How close would the Philippists remain to Luther? What did it mean to be genuinely or truly “Lutheran” (or, in their terms, “evangelical”)? How could the Reformation continue to advance in Germany without some measure of theological agreement?

The Adiaphoristic Controversy

As Lutherans sought to work out their theological identity, they often used the polemical skills that were part of late medieval university life: “For a generation they hammered out their definition of [Luther’s] doctrine as they hammered at each other in the polemical style of seeking the truth common in the period.” The upshot would be that, for the thirty years prior to the Formula of Concord, the Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans would work out their differences and the definition of the Lutheran faith in painful controversies that often sapped the energies of the movement.

There were three major controversies—and several minor ones—that would shape Lutheran thought in the thirty years after Luther’s death. The first was the adiaphoristic controversy. From the beginning, the Lutheran movement had viewed most forms in worship as adiaphora, or “things indifferent.” While some parts of the Mass and other worship forms were viewed as idolatrous or superstitious, Luther himself wanted to give space for pastors to lead their congregations gently toward a service that was shaped by God’s Word. Even in the Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran circle could note that “no noticeable changes have been made in the public celebration of the Mass, except that in certain places German hymns are sung alongside the Latin responses for the instruction and exercise of the people. For after all, all ceremonies should serve the purpose of teaching the people what they need to know about Christ.” While the Reformed tradition would view the Mass differently, Luther was content to reform it more slowly as a way of caring for the consciences of his people.

This general approbation of the adiaphoristic principle held until Luther’s death. After that, however, the ground began to shift for political, instead of theological, reasons. Charles V had finally consolidated power in his empire to the degree that he was ready to deal with the Schmalkaldic League. He was also able to secure the support of Duke Mortiz, the Lutheran son-in-law of Landgrave Philip I of Hesse and cousin of Elector John Frederick of Saxony, both leaders of the league. In less than a year, Charles was able to smash the league, capture both John Frederick and Philip, and establish a measure of control over the German lands.

As a result, Charles decided to launch his own reform of the church. Composed at the imperial diet in Augsburg in early 1548 and published on May 15, 1548, his reforming document has come to be known as the Augsburg Interim. It was an “interim” policy because the Council of Trent was meeting at this time; Charles expected that whatever reforms came from Trent would replace those that he enacted at Augsburg. But the Tridentine reforms were simply a return to Roman Catholicism, albeit of a gentler, Erasmian kind. The Augsburg Interim defended the authority of the pope and his hierarchy and argued that only this magisterium could interpret Scripture authoritatively. It also saw the Roman Mass as having a sacrificial nature because the body and blood of Jesus are present in a corporeal manner, as the doctrine of transubstantiation teaches. Further, the Augsburg Interim upheld seven sacraments and restored a range of medieval practices in clothing, ritual, festivals, and other practices.

The Augsburg Interim was anathema to most German evangelicals. While it led to the exile of many Lutherans, especially in the southern portions of the German states, it also produced anxious opposition from Mortiz and others in the northern territories. As part of his responsibility to advise Mortiz, his new sovereign over the ducal lands of Saxony and the University of Wittenberg, Melanchthon wrote a document that “urged rejection of the Interim, noting the many points at which it deviated from biblical truth, as understood by the Wittenberg theology.”

However, Mortiz was torn. He owed his current lands and titles to Charles; and yet, his own Lutheran commitments led him to reject the interim document as unacceptable. Was there a way to find a middle ground between Luther’s teaching and the Augsburg Interim? Mortiz asked Melanchthon to prepare a document that could be used as such a middle-ground proposal. Melanchthon agreed to do so, both because he felt it was his duty in obedience to his direct ruler and because he sought to protect the university from falling into Catholic hands.

The resulting proposal came to be known as the Leipzig Interim. In the document, Melanchthon gave ground on what he considered to be “nonessential matters,” or adiaphora. As he would put it in the Leipzig document, “Our first consideration is that everything that the ancient teachers regarded as adiaphora, that is, things that are neither commanded nor forbidden by God, may still be regarded as adiaphora without compromising Scripture.” And so, when it came to the Mass, Melanchthon provided for “bells, lights, vessels, chanting, vestments, and ceremonies.” He also suggested that it be performed entirely in Latin, except for the reading of the epistle and gospel, which would be done in both Latin and German.

While the document was never officially published—having been rejected by the other Saxon leaders and Lutheran princes—as it circulated around Germany, Melanchthon’s former students “found it an appalling betrayal of God, Luther, and their Preceptor’s own integrity.” For those, especially in the south, who had lost their livelihood as a result of the Augsburg Interim, the Melanchthon proposal was a bitter compromise on those very issues that had sent them into exile. Others, especially Nicolaus von Amsdorf, criticized Melanchthon’s Catholic-friendly allowances on the Mass. While Amsdorf agreed that these forms were generally indifferent, they were no longer indifferent if they were being forced upon the church. At that point, indifferent things are not indifferent. The times demanded confession, not compromise.

The adiaphoristic controversy was more important for the distrust sown by the Leipzig Interim than for the actual theological issues raised. Those who saw themselves as true or genuine Lutherans never forgave Melanchthon and his colleagues for being prepared “to betray the gospel and compromise away their Lutheran heritage.” On the other side, Melanchthon and his supporters became “embittered by what he saw as bad faith and purposeful misunderstanding of his efforts to save the church and Lutheran teaching.” Without a Luther-like figure present to smooth over the tensions, the 1550s and 1560s would bring other controversies that caused great division in the Lutheran movement.

The Synergistic Controversy

The second controversy that divided the Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans was over the role of the will in salvation. In his On the Bondage of the Will, Luther had taken a strong stand regarding the will’s utter inability to turn to God on its own. Not only were human beings contingent upon God as Creator, but also, because of original sin, they were dependent upon His working within them for salvation. Those human beings whom God saved were those whom He graciously chose to save, predestinating them before the foundation of the world and acting in time through the Spirit’s use of God’s Word to move their wills to respond to Him. Such a high view of God’s sovereignty in relation to human agency was necessary to preserve the Reformational principle of salvation by grace alone.

In his initial version of the Loci Communes in 1521, Melanchthon agreed with Luther’s views in On the Bondage of the Will, published four years later. He argued that the will is not free because God the Creator is sovereignly responsible for all that happens in His world and because human sin vitiated humans’ ability to choose the good. Likewise, in the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon affirmed that “without the grace, help, and operation of the Holy Spirit a human being cannot become pleasing to God, fear or believe in God with the whole heart, or expel innate evil lusts from the heart. Instead, this happens through the Holy Spirit, who is given through the Word of God.” Again, God’s sovereign grace alone turned the will to believe and so become pleasing to God. The two factors in one’s conversion were the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

As Melanchthon continued to wrestle with these things, however, he began to worry about two aspects of Luther’s teaching. One was the psychological side of human experience. The individual in the pew cannot sense the Holy Spirit’s work in her heart; rather, she simply believes the good news that Jesus died for sinners. It would not do to suggest that human beings are simply as passive as stones or blocks of wood; their wills act in conversion. That belief as an exercise of the will had to be accounted for in some fashion. The second concern was whether strong statements of divine sovereignty and absolute necessity might make God responsible for evil as its author. Even though Luther had repeatedly denied that this is the case in On the Bondage of the Will, still Melanchthon feared that some stricter Luther followers were not as careful as their master.

And so, as he revised his Loci Communes, Melanchthon suggested that “we meet three causes of good works, namely, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the human will which assents to and does not contend against the Word of God. For the will could disregard the Word of God, as Saul did of his own free will.” He also further agreed with some early church fathers that “the free choice in man is the ability to apply oneself toward grace, that is, our free choice hears the promise, tries to assent to it and rejects the sins which are contrary to conscience.” While, at the time, few engaged Melanchthon on these points, they would be read and heard differently after the Leipzig Interim.

That was the result of moves that Melanchthon made in the Leipzig proposal that appeared to accommodate a semi-Pelagian perspective. He brought two statements from the detested Augsburg Interim into his own proposal: “They do not receive Christ’s benefits if the will and the heart are not moved by prevenient grace, so that they stand in fear of God’s wrath and detest sin” and “For this reason to say it briefly, it is easy to understand that good works are necessary [for salvation] for God has commanded them.” The first statement seemed to echo Melanchthon’s claim in the Loci that the will coordinates with prevenient grace as an independent factor in salvation; the second appeared to bring works back into justification through the back door.

As the 1550s progressed, Melanchthon’s followers continued to affirm that it was the individual’s own willing or choice that made the difference in his or her salvation or damnation; that is, the will is a factor in conversion. Johann Pfeffinger, theologian at the University of Leipzig, argued that “all people have received God’s promise of forgiveness and offer of salvation through it. God is no respecter of persons. The difference [therefore] between the elect and the damned must lie in themselves.” And this difference that was within the individual was the personal necessity to assent to the gospel as it “lies in us and not to resist the Holy Spirit as he moves.”

Nicolaus von Amsdorf opposed Pfeffinger’s position again. He argued that the Holy Spirit must renew and engage the individual’s will before anyone can turn in faith to God. Further, this work of the Holy Spirit has its prior motivation in God’s own sovereign, undetermined will. God’s electing will and the Spirit’s renewing work are irresistible; while sinners resist until they are converted, no sinner can return to God without God’s working in him. While Amsdorf was content to deal directly with Pfeffinger, his allies, such as Nicolaus Gallus, knew that the source of the synergistic teaching was Melanchthon himself.

The Sacramentarian Controversy

A third controversy centered on the Lord’s Supper. Luther had held that the sacrament is “the true body and blood of the Lord Christ, in and under the bread and wine, which we Christians are commanded by Christ’s word to eat and drink…. It is bread and wine set within God’s Word and bound to it.” It is not the believer’s faith that makes the sacrament, but rather God’s Word joined with the elements that make the sacrament. Hence, whether someone is a worthy receptor or unworthy does not invalidate the sacrament: “Even though a scoundrel receives or administers the sacrament, it is the true sacrament (that is, Christ’s body and blood), just as truly as when one uses it most worthily.” Further, it was necessary to ensure that only genuine believers took the Lord’s Supper, because unbelievers who ate and drank the elements were taking Jesus’ body unworthily and so brought judgment upon themselves.

When Melanchthon wrote the Augsburg Confession, he was content simply to replicate Luther’s teaching that “the true body and blood of Christ are truly present under the form of bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper and are distributed and received there.” However, Melanchthon never stopped tweaking or revising the confession; over time, this article came to say that “on the Lord’s Supper they teach that with the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ are truly exhibited to those who eat the Lord’s Supper.” On the whole, Melanchthon was uncomfortable with explaining how the presence of Christ is connected to the elements; he often referred to ¹ Corinthians 10:16 and suggested that the supper offered a “participation” in the body and blood of Christ. He was more concerned to explain how the elements serve as a sign of Christ’s presence and so assure believers of the forgiveness of sins.

Even before Luther’s death, Melanchthon also distanced himself from Luther’s teaching that the attributes of Christ’s divine nature were communicated to His human nature, so that Christ’s body and blood became ubiquitous. He also hedged on Luther’s insistence that the sacrament was Christ’s body and blood even for unbelievers and that the sacrament remained Christ’s body and blood even after the ritual action was over. On the whole, Melanchthon and his followers tried to avoid “metaphysical speculation” and emphasized a more “functional” approach to the Lord’s Supper.

Because he had been present at the 1529 Marburg Colloquy, Melanchthon saw how divisive this issue of Christ’s presence in the supper was for the Reformation movement. He dedicated himself to trying to broker some measure of peace on the issue. In 1536, he and Martin Bucer crafted the Wittenberg Concord. The document affirmed that the body and blood of Christ are “truly and essentially present” and “distributed and received” in the Lord’s Supper. This is because there is a sacramental union between the elements themselves and Christ’s body and blood. The concord further affirmed that the unworthy do receive Christ’s body and blood and so misuse the sacrament and bring judgment upon themselves. However, the Wittenberg Concord did not emphasize the more metaphysical aspects of Luther’s sacramental teaching.

Melanchthon’s willingness to moderate aspects of Luther’s teaching on the sacrament led some to accuse him and his followers of being “crafty sacramentarians.” And his slide toward aspects of John Calvin’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper—especially Calvin’s criticism of Luther on the communication of Christ’s divine attributes to His human nature—would cause others to accuse Melanchthon of being a “crypto-Calvinist.” The fact was that Melanchthon’s own position was closer to Bucer’s than Calvin’s; not only this, but he would not defend Calvin publicly when Calvin was engaged in an ongoing dispute over the Lord’s Supper with the Gnesio-Lutheran Joachim Westphal. Still, this would be another ongoing controversy for the Lutheran movement.

Finding Concord

The so-called Thirty Years’ War among Lutheran theologians left them and their churches weakened, divided, and distracted. It was necessary to work toward a consensus, or concord, that would bring peace to the warring Philippist and Gnesio-Lutheran factions. However, in order to forge a lasting peace, there needed to be honest brokers whom both sides could trust to speak to those issues. The two key figures in this process were Martin Chemnitz and Jakob Andreae.

Chemnitz was one who could bridge the divide. Undoubtedly, this was the result of his time on the faculty at the University of Wittenberg, where he expounded Melanchthon’s Loci Communes. He would later write theological lectures, the Loci Theologici, that were generally Philippist in orientation. Yet on one of the major controversies of the day, he sided with the Gnesio-Lutherans: he defended Luther’s claim that Christ’s body and blood are ubiquitous and so united to the elements in the Lord’s Supper. Andreae, professor of theology and chancellor of the University of Tübingen, was a Gnesio-Lutheran who was generally moderate in tone and who was tasked by his prince, Duke Christopher of Württemberg, with trying to find a way forward for the splintering Lutheran movement.

Andreae and Chemnitz worked with David Chytraeus and Nikolaus Selnecker as a committee of theologians in seeking to craft a consensus document that would put an end to the controversies of the day. In 1576–77, this committee, along with Andreas Musculus and Christopher Korner, worked through a process that would eventually produce what would be called the Solid Declaration. Because of its length, some German princes desired a condensed version or an “epitome.” These two documents, the Solid Declaration and the Epitome, together would become the Formula of Concord. Eventually, through the political skills of Andreae especially, two-thirds of the German theologians signed the document, and it gained a sort of confessional status when it was included in the Book of Concord in 1580.

The Formula of Concord dealt with the significant controversies and generally sided with the Gnesio-Lutherans while admitting key points that the Philippists got right. For example, in article II on free will, the document clearly states that “the unregenerated human will… has become God’s enemy [and] it has only the desire and will to do evil and whatever is opposed to God.” As a result, the document rejects Melanchthon’s claims that the will applies itself to grace or in any way prepares itself for grace and that individuals could resist or reject the work of the Holy Spirit. In the end, Formula of Concord holds plainly that “before the conversion of the human being there are only two efficient causes, the Holy Spirit and God’s Word as the instrument of the Holy Spirit, through which he effects conversion.”

In dealing with the adiaphoristic controversy, the Concordists agreed that religious forms belong to things indifferent: “the community of God in every place and at every time has the authority to alter such ceremonies according to its own situation.” That said, they sided with Amsdorf over against Melanchthon in the controversy itself, pointing out that “in a time of persecution, when an unequivocal confession of the faith is demanded of us, we dare not yield to the opponents in such indifferent matters…. For in such a situation it is no longer indifferent matters that are at stake. The truth of the gospel and Christian freedom are at stake.” Melanchthon and the Philippist approach in the Leipzig Interim were wrong.

Finally, in the sacramentarian controversy, the authors of the formula sided with Luther’s position. Before unpacking their affirmations and denials, they noted that there were two kinds of sacramentarians: “crude sacramentarians,” a position that largely coheres with John Calvin’s, and “cunning sacramentarians,” by whom they meant the Philippists. In the affirmations, the formula affirmed that “in the Holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present, truly distributed and received with the bread and wine.” The authors also explicitly affirmed Luther’s understanding of the communication of divine attributes to Jesus’ human nature, quoting Luther in the document itself. Finally, they held that unworthy receivers of the supper actually eat and drink Christ’s body and blood and so bring judgment upon themselves. Luther’s position was upheld in strong fashion. In the negative theses, the crude and cunning sacramentarian positions were rejected along with those of the Zwinglians, Anabaptists, and Roman Catholics.

In the end, through the Formula of Concord, Lutheran theology would answer its major question about theological identity by standing fairly close to Luther’s own teaching. While the confessional documents in the Book of Concord would serve a regulating function, they stood alongside the continued authority of Luther’s own words in adjudicating various disputes within the movement. In this regard, a major difference between the Lutheran and Reformed traditions emerged. While Lutheranism emphasized the importance of the Luther’s own prophetic teaching for deciding the meaning of God’s Word, the Reformed tradition has contained multiple streams under its umbrella. This is the result, in part, of the multiple starting points and theologians in the Reformed tradition—Bucer in Strasbourg, Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich, and Calvin in Geneva all were contributors to and representatives of the Reformed tradition in the sixteenth century. While this reality did not lessen theological controversy in the Reformed tradition, it did give it a different shape. By contrast, as we have seen, Lutheran theological conflict centered on what Luther said and one’s fidelity to his teaching. For Lutherans, and especially for Philip Melanchthon, it made the sixteenth century a period of theological fury—a period that Melanchthon was glad to be done with when he went to his reward.

Notes

Notes

1. E. Gordon Rupp, “Philip Melanchthon and Martin Bucer,” in Hubert Cunliffe-Jones and Benjamin Drewery, eds., A History of Christian Doctrine(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 378.

2. Robert Kolb, Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 1530–1580(St. Louis: Concordia, 1991), 60.

3. A convenient biographical summary can be found in Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings, 49–57. A standard biography is Manschreck, Melanchthon.

4. For the importance of rhetorical studies for Melanchthon’s theological development in the Loci, see John R. Schneider, “Melanchthon’s Rhetoric as a Context for Understanding His Theology,” in Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence beyond Wittenberg, ed. Karin Maag (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999), 153–54; Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings, 51.

5. Wengert, Law and Gospel, 45.

6. Melanchthon quotations in Wengert, Law and Gospel, 78, 93.

7. Ibid., 97.

8. Ibid., 102. Wengert suggests that the “third use” of the law developed by Melanchthon would date from 1534: see Law and Gospel, 177–210.

9. Augsburg Confession, Articles VI and XX, in The Book of Concord(2000), 41, 53.

10. Augsburg Confession, Article XII, in The Book of Concord(2000), 44. I quote here from the German version; the bracketed insert comes from the Latin version of the same article.

11. Both the Schwabach Articles and the Torgau Articles can be found translated in Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen, eds., Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 83–87, 93–104.

12. “Editors’ Introduction to the Augsburg Confession,” in The Book of Concord(2000), 28.

13. Charles P. Arand, Robert Kolb, and James A. Nestingen, The Lutheran Confessions: History andTheology of the Book of Concord(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 107–38.

14. Ibid., 139–58.

15. Ibid., 161.

16. See, for example , LW, 53:20, 31, 37; Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV, The Book of Concord(2000), 68.

17. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 176. A translation of the Augsburg Interim can be found in Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, 146–82.

18. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 177.

19. Leipzig Interim, in Kolb and Nestingen, eds., Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, 184, 194.

20. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 179–81, 183; Timothy J. Wengert, A Formula for ParishPractice: Using the Formula of Concord in Congregations(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006), 165–79.

21. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 182.

22. See the excellent summary in Robert Kolb, Bound Choice, Election, and Wittenberg TheologicalMethod: From Martin Luther to the Formula of Concord(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 30– 66.

23. Kolb, Bound Choice, 76–78; Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII, in The Book of Concord(2000), 50.

24. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 201; Kolb, Bound Choice, 87–95.

25. Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes 1543, trans. J.A.O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia, 1992), 43, 44.

26. Compare the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Interim in Kolb and Nestingen, eds., Sources andContexts of the Book of Concord, 152, 185, 190.

27. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 201–2.

28. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 203, 204.

29. The Large Catechism in The Book of Concord(2000), 467, 468.

30. Augsburg Confession in The Book of Concord(2000), 44; Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 175, 229.

31. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 229–30.

32. Ibid., 230–31; The Marburg Articles, in Kolb and Nestingen, eds., Sources and Contexts of theBook of Concord, 88–92.

33. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 232–34; Timothy J. Wengert, “‘We Will Feast Together in Heaven Forever’: The Epistolary Friendship of John Calvin and Philip Melanchthon,” in Maag, ed., Melanchthon in Europe, esp. 36–42.

34. Arand et al., Lutheran Confessions, 265–76; Wengert, Formula for Parish Practice, 5–6. A good entry point to Chemnitz’s life is J.A.O. Preus, The Second Martin: The Life and Theology of MartinChemnitz(St. Louis: Concordia, 1994).

35. Epitome, Article II, in The Book of Concord(2000), 492–94.

36. Epitome, Article X, in The Book of Concord(2000), 515–16.

37. Epitome, Article VII, in The Book of Concord(2000), 504–8. Also, Article VIII continued to deal with the christological questions raised by Luther’s teaching on ubiquity; see The Book of Concord(2000), 508–14.

38. For some of the differences between the Lutheran and Reformed tradition in this regard, see Phillip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004).