Wartburg Speaks

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-08T08:55:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Ninth Commandment

You shall not covet your neighbour's house.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not scheme to get our neighbour's inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it.

Almighty God, You have commanded us not to covet our neighbor's house. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not scheme to get our neighbor's inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-07T09:43:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Eighth Commandment

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbour, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest possible way.

Almighty God, You have commanded us not to give false testimony against our neighbor. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-06T06:10:00.001-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Seventh Commandment

You shall not steal.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbour's money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.

O Lord, You have commanded us not to steal. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not take our neighbor's money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-05T08:45:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Sixth Commandment

You shall not commit adultery.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honour each other.

Almighty God, You have commanded us not to commit adultery. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husbands and wives love and honor each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-04T00:15:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Fifth Commandment

You shall not murder.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbour in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.

Lord of life, You have commanded us not to murder. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Second Sermon-1534

Matthew 5:20-26

In the fifth commandment God commands us to have one another’s welfare at heart. Therefore, whoever has sinned against this must not cover up his sin, but without delay turn to God and say, Dear Lord God, I, a poor sinner, have sinned against the fifth commandment. I have conducted myself unkindly toward my neighbor in thoughts and behavior, and that grieves me. Forgive my sins, dear God, and help me to become a different person. Such a confession pleases God. For he does not want us to cover up our sins, or gloss over our unrighteousness and say, I have brought so many offerings, given alms, and so on; therefore, I am pious and holy; but he wants us freely to confess our sins and pray for mercy and forgiveness.

Then God also wants us seriously to take hold of ourselves and quickly bridle anger; but if we cannot instantly rid the heart of it, then at least grapple with it so that the animosity still harbored in the heart may not manifest on the face and the tongue, much less with the fist. Whoever wants to be a true Christian should say to God, Dear God, in this commandment you have poured out your heart and will, as to how I should conduct myself toward my neighbor; that is your Word and truth. Well then, dear God, I want to treat my neighbor kindly and help him; grant me your grace, power, and Spirit so that I may bring it to pass. If our attitude is composed in this way, we then have a gracious God and Father, and he then finds us to be grateful and obedient children. He has throne us all together so that we might help and not harm one another, neither with fist, demeanor, nor tongue.

Therefore, father and mother have special instruction relative to children and servants, that when children and servants do something wrong, they are to treat it not as a laughing matter or with indulgence, but become angry, reprimand, and, without hesitation, punish. This God commands them. And if they do not do it, they are disobedient and are acting contrary to their position and command.

We must keep the place of secular authority properly distinguished in its relationship to the fifth commandment. In the kingdom of Christ there is to be no anger, only kindness and love; the heart is not to be bitter against anyone, and neither mouth nor hand are to cause anyone grief. But in the kingdom of the world, in secular and domestic headship, there mouth, tongue, and hand, in accord with each person’s rank and function, should act, reprimand, and punish all who do what is wrong and refuse to perform what they are commanded. If they refuse, then punishment is in order, not indulgence and mercy. Moreover, whoever hesitates to punish gives occasion for the highest judge, God himself, to come and administer punishment. There, one has little choice. For when God comes, it is indeed with force and power.

So perfectly, of course, things don’t go in this life. Therefore, if we trip, stumble and fall, the next step, then, is that we acknowledge our sin and pray for mercy. May God keep us from the sin which still seeks to vindicate itself, as the Pharisees did. For Pharisees, monks, and priests are indeed pious; however, in God’s sight they are murderers. May God guard us against this and grant us grace that we become truly holy. Amen.

The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils
Volume 6; pages 323 thru 326
Sermons on Gospel Texts for Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity, and the Fourteen Sundays after Trinity
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Translated by John Nicholas Lenker and Others

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Text. Mat. 5:20-26. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the
judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

THE EXPLANATION OF THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

THE SUMMARY OF THIS GOSPEL: 1. The righteousness of God is through faith and that is the righteousness of the heart. The outward righteousness, however holy and beautiful it may appear, is hypocritical, deceptive righteousness.
2. The Lord wants a good tree, without which the fruit can not be good.
3. It is a hypocritical, deceptive righteousness, if one does not commit murder with the hand, and yet at the same time cherishes anger in his heart; but the Christian righteousness requires that we be not angry. To do this we must constantly obtain from God grace and forgiveness, and confess ourselves to be sinners, which belongs to Christian righteousness.
4. It is not pleasing to God, if we be not reconciled to our brother. Here we all can learn, what the good works are that God esteems as great.

As though he would say, You might find persons that do not kill with their hands; but to be without hatred, not to be angry, be of smiling countenance, not to snub persons-of such a nature none is to be found. Now, experience teaches this.

For take a godly man or a godly woman; as long as everybody keeps his distance, peace and harmony prevail, but if one comes along that speaks harshly and possibly intrudes, even to the extent of the smallest word, he cannot keep from becoming angry; and follows this up by irritating and enraging the offender. Our reason can never come to the conclusion that we are to be considerate to the wicked…we cannot refrain from becoming angry, if not against our friends, then against our enemies. Now God is not satisfied with this, nor can my flesh and blood evade the question, for mark the wording closely when he says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Who is “thou”? Your hand? No. your tongue? No; but thou, thou and all that is in thee and with thee; thine hand, heart, and thoughts shall not kill.

So the commandments of God are but a mirror, wherein we behold our filth and wickedness; for they conclude us all under sin, we being unable to work our way out by our own efforts and free will; unless something else comes to our assistance.

For if I am told to be friendly to the person I hate, they can tell it on me that my heart is not in it. For you cannot confine the heart; it will out, and show its presence by signs or words. It does not hide itself, and it cannot be hidden. Hence we conclude that we are found guilty of saying Raca, that is, of not being kind to both friend and foe.

It clearly follows that we all are guilty of the commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill,” and whoever is not born again of God cannot abstain from murder.

Hence much is contained in the words: ‘Thou shalt not kill,” as much as to say: You must be born again and become a new creature.

So the Gospel always reverts to this question, What shall a man do that he may become pious? For, pray as long as you will; fast as long as you will; give alms as long as you will; pay for masses and build churches as many as you will; you are, nevertheless, still a murderer, for you hate your brother; you cannot give him a kind look nor a kind word. It follows that your righteousness is naught; it is of and pertains to perdition.

Here you see the exalted works that no one can attain, neither by work righteousness nor by the law. For works, if alone, will make hypocrites and dissemblers; the law, if alone, brings forth despair.
But what am I to do? Do I hear correctly: am I to be damned? Do as follows: Flee to Christ when thus conscious of iniquity, saying: Oh, my God, thy law is now a mirror to me, whence I see how perverted and lost a being I am! Oh God, now save me for thine only begotten Son’s sake. Thus, by faith God gives you the Spirit, who changes your heart, so that you will be very kind to your neighbor and will argue thus: Behold, if God has acted thus toward me, forgiving me more than I can ever hope to forgive, why should I not be willing to forgive my neighbor a little?

Christ is here a spiritual teacher, solely guiding the consciences, showing them how to get rid of it. That is his office in which he is engaged; with the worldly sword he has nothing to do, he lets those see to it whose duty it is.

This may suffice on this Gospel. Let us pray God for grace.

The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther: The Church Postils
Volume 2.2; pages 167 thru 178
Sermons on Gospel Texts for the 1st-12th Sundays after Trinity
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Translated by John Nicholas Lenker and Others

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Second Sermon. Mat. 5:20-26.

CONTENTS: THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

Jesus is not a lawgiver, but a Saviour, who never takes aught from anyone, but always gives. So he also in this instance proves his kindness in explaining the law and gentle instructing; where there is need and want, he does not sternly insist, as did Moses, who without much ado wished that people were either pious or dead. For this reason Christ’s action on this occasion is to be considered one of great benefit to us, in that he teaches us where we fail and come short. Here he particularly treats of the failings due to wrath, which causes so much havoc among men, as is seen on every side, yea, nearly the whole world is under its sway.

Now let us examine the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” in the sense the Jews took it, and how we should take it. The Jews considered those only murderers who committed the act of murder with their hands; while those who abstained from the outward act were considered by them as pious. In like manner they treated Christ. Having delivered him to Pontius Pilate for trial, they remained without, thus faneying to be innocent of his blood, and to have perfectly kept the law, John 18:28. Again, Saul acted the same way toward David; he believed himself to be godly so long as he only interpreted the law, failing to see that its roots run into the heart. In view of this Christ here says to his Christians:
“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

How have we interpreted this commandment? A little better, that is to say, doubly worse is our interpretation. On this wise: it is indeed a matter of the heart that we are to be free from hatred. But a man, according to our conception, may conduct himself friendly and thus banish hatred from his heart. So we have made it a question of free will, going from bad to worse. The Jews have made it a matter of deceptive appearance; we placed the issue with free will. Thus the hypocrisy of the Jews rests in their works; ours in our thoughts. For we argue thus: Well, I will forgive him, will be good to him, and thus lay hold of the doing in the strength of our free will, then it shall be accomplished.

Well, how then are we to do? We are to take the following position: There is not a man on earth, unless he be born again, who does not become angry, and give forth evil words and evil deeds; nature cannot do otherwise. For there stands the law and says: Thou shalt be a fine, sweet-tempered man in heart, in words and in works; and no evil fiber shall be found in thee. Well, where am I to find such a man? My mother does not give him to me; he must come down from heaven. For there is not a man on earth, so far as he is flesh and blood, that can help becoming angry and giving forth evil words and actions. But if I abstain, it certainly is because I fear the sword or I seek a selfish end. If I do not curse, if I do not calumniate, either the sword or hell deters me, the fear of death or of the devil; these I have in my mind and abstain, otherwise, I could not abstain. Not alone this, but I would actually murder and massacre, wherever and whenever I could. By nature I cannot produce a single kind word or action. If I do, it certainly is hypocrisy, since the heart at least always remains full of poison. This you now hear from Christ, who so explains the law as to cause you to feel ashamed in your inner heart. He would say: Thou art not sweet in heart, thine heart is full of hatred, full of murder and blood, and so thy hands and eyes would also gladly be full of the same; nor canst prevent the fire from burning, for it is its nature to burn.

A person might here say, What then am I to do? I feel all that within me, but I cannot change conditions. I reply, Flee to the Lord, thy God, lay thy complaint before him and say: Behold, Lord, my neighbor has injured me a little, has spoken a few words touching my honor, has caused some damage to my property, this I cannot suffer, therefore, I would cheerfully see him killed. Oh my God, how gladly would I be amiable to him, but, alas, I cannot! See how wholly cold, yea, dead I am! O Lord, I cannot help myself, I must stand back. Make thou me different, then I will be godly; if not, I will remain like I have been. Here you must seek your help and at no other place; if you seek it in yourself, you will never find it. Your heart perpetually bubbles and boils with anger, you cannot prevent it.

Now, this is the sum of the law: You are to be kind, amiable and benignant in heart, word and deed; and even though they take your life, still you are to suffer all in love, and render thanks to your Lord. Behold, thus a great deal is included in the short sentence, “Thou shalt not kill.” Christ lived up to this; do the same, and you are a good Christian. When nailed to the cross, his name, which was above every name, and his honor were profaned by the Jews, while they reviled him by words of the following and similar import: Well, what a nice God he has! If he be God’s son, let him come down! Let his God come now, in whom he banked and boasted so much, and help him! Such words pierced his very heart, hurting him more than all his other sufferings; still, he suffered all this with patience; he wept over his enemies, because they would have no part in the great benefit to be derived from his death; yea, he prayed for their sin. And in the face of this we are ready to snarl and growl over the least trifle, when asked to yield even a little to our neighbor.

What then must we do? You must do as follows: You must acknowledge that you are condemned by the law, and the devil’s own property and that you are unable to rescue yourself by any power of your own. Therefore you must flee to God, pray him to change you, or all is lost and ruined.

In view of this lay hold of his word and promise, that he will change you; this only will help you. Pray thus: Oh my God, thou hast placed Christ, thine only beloved Son, before me as an example, so that I might lead a like life; but I am not able to do this. O my God, change me, grant me thy grace! God then comes and says: Behold, since you know yourself and seek grace from me, I will change you and do as you desire. And though you are not so perfect as Christ, as indeed you should be, I shall nevertheless have my Son’s life and perfection cover your imperfections. So you see we must always have something to keep us in the right humility and fear.

This is true comfort that does not rest on our ability, but on the fact that we have a gracious God, who forgives our sins; on the fact that we believe in Christ and not in our own worthiness, he cleansing us from day to day; on the fact that whenever we fall short, we should always place our hope and trust in Christ.

The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther: The Church Postils
Volume 2.2; pages 179 thru 184
Sermons on Gospel Texts for the 1st-12th Sundays after Trinity
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Translated by John Nicholas Lenker and Others

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-03T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Fourth Commandment

Honour your father and your mother.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honour them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.

Fourth Commandment Heavenly Father, You have commanded us to honor our father and mother. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Third Sermon-1534

Luke 5:1-11

The fourth commandment: Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. This commandment encompasses all vocations: father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, servant, maid, magistrate, subjects, and so on. For the estate of matrimony is the source from which all vocations originate. By virtue of this commandment a child learns to say, I go to school, study, cook, spin, sew, and I know that if I faithfully and diligently do these things, God is pleased with me; for my father and mother have told me so, and God’s Word tells me that I am to obey them. Accordingly, a child who goes through a whole day obeying his parents may know that this is well-pleasing to our Lord God. Similarly, a servant or maid, husband or wife in the home, each in his own vocation, has God’s Word speaking to him and can say, God has commanded me to do this; in his name it is my intention to arise from sleep, go to work, sit down to eat, again lie down to rest, and so on. Therefore, all that we do, even if nothing more than tidying up a room, is pleasing to God and manifests our obedience to him. For the word, Thou shalt honor father and mother, takes in all stations, vocations, and works which belong to, and originate from, the marriage estate.

A person who does not have or know God’s Word cannot have such confidence and must do without this precious comfort. For this reason we should gladly listen to God’s Word, since from it we learn how our life can please God. And by it we can become all the more joyful and have a good conscience. This no Gentile, no Turk, no Jew knows. Christians alone know this and are able to say, What I now do, I wish to do in the name of Jesus and in the obedience into which I have been placed by God, and do it with joy. Even though something befalls me because of it, and the devil presses me hard, what does it matter? I still stand securely in what God’s Word teaches me and in its comfort; what I do or endure is all well and good according to God’s good pleasure, and he will be with me with his grace.

A person who has God’s Word speaks like this: It is true, if we judge by the deed, that it is a very insignificant thing when a young lad goes to school and studies, when a young girl spins and sews, when a servant girl cooks, cleans, dusts the house, takes care of, wipes up, and bathes the children. For these things, also, the Gentiles and non-Christians do. But they do these things apart from God’s Word, that is, they do not do them in faith, do not believe that by such deeds, service and obedience are rendered to God, and they know nothing of his commands. However, a Christian son, daughter, and maid know from the fourth commandment that God commands and desires such deeds.

So, this word and command of the fourth commandment includes and covers all vocations and works, consecrating them as holy professions and deeds pleasing to God, inasmuch as you believe in Christ and render obedience in God’s name. They have a holy station who believe this and so go about their tasks. When they die, they are children of eternal life, for they die in a state of holiness and true faith.

What a holy deed is and what sanctifies is that you believe in Jesus Christ and then deal with the fourth commandment and render your obedience, inasmuch as you have learned that the vocation in which you are is adorned with God’s Word and so is a holy profession.

No Christian should despise his vocation and life, particularly when he enters it in accord with God’s Word, but he should say, I believe in Jesus Christ and am doing what the Ten Commandments teach me, and pray that our Lord God would help me to achieve that. This is a truly holy life and cannot become any holier though one would fast himself to death.

That is why it is very good to get children and young people from youth on accustomed to the catechism, so that they learn to say, I want to obey my father and my mother, for God has so commanded in the fourth commandment. If, therefore, each one in his station and calling would act in conformity with God’s Word, all deeds would then be precious treasures. But the devil does not tolerate our taking it to heart.

So learn now what a holy, spiritual life is. It is not living in a monastery, but believing in Jesus Christ and being faithful to your calling, in faith and in accord with God’s Word. Be sure, first of all, that you believe in Christ and are baptized; then look to your vocation and calling. I have been called to preach. When I now preach God’s Word, pure and undefiled, it is a holy work, with which God is pleased. If you are a father, or a mother, and believe in Jesus Christ, you are a holy father and a holy mother. Examine your children ( in the catechism ) each morning and have them pray; rebuke and punish them when they are disobedient; observe what is going on in the house, how the servants are cooking and doing their work. These works are holy, for you have been called by God to do them. It is a holy life thus to carry on in God’s Word, and in the vocation and calling entrusted to you.

For the Word and faith which he bestows are holy, as are also station and vocation. Whoever has God’s Word and faith and is in a vocation ordained by God is holy. Whoever in faith is obedient to parents, master, mistress, and those in authority, is holy. Therefore, it is only by the Word, faith, and the vocation ordained by God that we become holy, and in no other way. You have heard this many times. May our dear Lord Jesus Christ help us to cherish and hold on to it. Amen.

The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils
Volume 6; pages 304 thru 310
Sermons on Gospel Texts for Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity, and the Fourteen Sundays after Trinity
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Translated by John Nicholas Lenker and Others

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-02T07:14:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Third Commandment

You shall sanctify the holy day.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

Almighty God, You have commanded us to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not despise preaching and your Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-09-01T08:37:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The Second Commandment

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

Lord God, You have commanded us not to misuse Your name. Grant that we may fear and love You so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie or deceive by Your name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther

2006-08-31T11:00:00.000-04:00

The Ten Commandments

The First Commandment

You shall have no other gods.

What does this mean?
We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.

O Holy Trinity, You have commanded us to have no other gods. Grant that we may fear, love, and trust in You above all things; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

LUTHER 1527 The Arian and Semi-Arian Reaction, A.D. 325-361

2006-07-08T07:45:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527
In the first place, we take up the article that Christ sits at the right hand of God, which the fanatics maintain makes it impossible for Christ’s body also to be in the Supper. Now if we ask how they interpret God’s “right hand” where Christ sits, I suppose they will dream up for us, as one does for the children, an imaginary heaven in which a golden throne stands, and Christ sits beside the Father in a cowl and golden crown, the way artists paint it. For if they did not have such childish, fleshly ideas of the right hand of God, they surely would not allow the idea of Christ’s bodily presence in the Supper to vex them so or castigate themselves so with the saying of Augustine (whom in other respects they do not believe at all, nor anyone else), “Christ must be bodily in one place, but his truth is everywhere.”(In Genuine Exposition, C 6, Oecolampadius had quoted from Canon Law (Decretum of Gratian, Part III, de Consecratione, dist. II, c. 44, c. 1. Corpus Iuris Canonici, I, col. 1330) without citing Augustine. The Decretum reads: “The body in which he arose must [oportet] be in one place”; Augustine’s text (Gospel of John, Tractate 30, 1. PNF1 7, 186) reads potest, but the context justifies the PNF translation, “can be only in one place.”)-Martin Luther

The Arian and Semi-Arian Reaction, A.D. 325-361.

Soon after this Arius, having been formally acquitted of the charge of heresy by a council at Jerusalem (A.D. 335), was to have been solemnly received back into the fellowship of the church at Constantinople. But on the evening before the intended procession from the imperial palace to the church of the Apostles, he suddenly died (A.D. 336), at the age of over eighty years, of an attack like cholera, while attending to a call of nature. This death was regarded by many as a divine judgment; by others, it was attributed to poisoning by enemies; by others, to the excessive joy of Arius in his triumph.
On the death of Constantine (337), who had shortly before received baptism from the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia, Athanasius was recalled from his banishment (338) by Constantine II. († 340), and received by the people with great enthusiasm; “more joyously than ever an emperor.” Some months afterwards (339) he held a council of nearly a hundred bishops in Alexandria for the vindication of the Nicene doctrine. But this was a temporary triumph.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 633-634)

LUTHER 1527 The Arian and Semi-Arian Reaction, A.D. 325-361

2006-07-07T05:30:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

He who is unwilling to believe the words of God need not demand anything further from me. So I do enough if I prove that it is not contrary to God’s Word, but consistent with Scripture.-Martin Luther

The Arian and Semi-Arian Reaction, A.D. 325-361

The victory of the council of Nicaea over the views of the majority of the bishops was a victory only in appearance. It had, to be sure, erected a mighty fortress, in which the defenders of the essential deity of Christ might ever take refuge from the assaults of heresy; and in this view it was of the utmost importance, and secured the final triumph of the truth. But some of the bishops had subscribed the homoousion with reluctance, or from regard to the emperor, or at best with the reservation of a broad interpretation; and with a change of circumstances they would readily turn in opposition. The controversy now for the first time fairly broke loose, and Arianism entered the stage of its political development and power. An intermediate period of great excitement ensued, during which council was held against council, creed was set forth against creed, and anathema against anathema was hurled. The pagan Ammianus Marcellinus says of the councils under Constantius: “The highways were covered with galloping bishops;” and even Athanasius rebuked the restless flutter of the clergy, who journeyed the empire over to find the true faith, and provoked the ridicule and contempt of the unbelieving world. In intolerance and violence the Arians exceeded the orthodox, and contested elections of bishops not rarely came to bloody encounters. The interference of imperial politics only poured oil on the flame, and embarrassed the natural course of the theological development.
The personal history of Athanasius was interwoven with the doctrinal controversy; he threw himself wholly into the cause which he advocated. The question whether his deposition was legitimate or not, was almost identical with the question whether the Nicene Creed should prevail.
Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea threw all their influence against the adherents of the homoousion. Constantine himself was turned by Eusebius of Caesarea, who stood between Athanasius and Arius, by his sister Constantia and her father confessor, and by a vague confession of Arius, to think more favorably of Arius, and to recall him from exile. Nevertheless he afterwards, as before, thought himself in accordance with the orthodox view and the Nicene creed. The real gist of the controversy he had never understood. Athanasius, who after the death of Alexander in April, 328, became bishop of Alexandria and head of the Nicene party, refused to reinstate the heretic in his former position, and was condemned and deposed for false accusations by two Arian councils, one at Tyre under the presidency of the historian Eusebius, the other at Constantinople in the year 335 (or 336), and banished by the emperor to Treves in Gaul in 336, as a disturber of the peace of the church.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 632-633)

Huss at Constance July 6th, 1415 He Died Singing

2006-07-06T01:00:00.000-04:00

Thou wast their Rock, their fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their light of light. Alleluia.

The great expectations aroused by the assembling of the Council of Constance included the settlement of the disturbance which was rending the kingdom of Bohemia. It was well understood that measures were to be taken against the heresy which had invaded Western Christendom. In two letters addressed to Conrad, archbishop of Prag, Gerson bore witness that, in learned centres outside of Bohemia, the names of Wyclif and Huss were indissolubly joined. Of all Huss’ errors, wrote the chancellor, "the proposition is the most perilous that a man who is living in deadly sin may not have authority and dominion over Christian men. And this proposition, as is well known, has passed down to Huss from Wyclif."
To Constance Sigismund, king of the Romans and heir of the Bohemian crown, turned for relief from the embarrassment of Hussitism; and from Lombardy he sent a deputation to summon Huss to attend the council at the same time promising him safe conduct. The Reformer expressed his readiness to go, and had handbills posted in Prag announcing his decision. Writing to Wenzel and his queen, he reaffirmed his readiness, and stated he was willing to suffer the penalty appointed for heretics, should he be condemned.
Under date of Sept. 1, 1414, Huss wrote to Sigismund that he was ready to go to Constance "under safe-conduct of your protection, the Lord Most High being my defender." A week later, the king replied, expressing confidence that, by his appearance, all imputation of heresy would be removed from the kingdom of Bohemia.
Huss set out on the journey Oct. 11, 1414, and reached Constance Nov. 3. He was accompanied by the Bohemian nobles, John of Chlum, Wenzel of Duba and Henry Lacembok. With John of Chlum was Mladenowitz, who did an important service by preserving Huss’ letters and afterwards editing them with notes. Huss’ correspondence, from this time on, deserves a place in the choice autobiographical literature of the Christian centuries. For pathos, simplicity of expression and devotion to Christ, the writings of the Middle Ages do not furnish anything superior.
In a letter, written to friends in Bohemia on the eve of his departure, Huss expressed his expectation of being confronted at Constance by bishops, doctors, princes and canons regular, yea, by more foes than the Redeemer himself had to face. He prayed that, if his death would contribute aught to God’s glory, he might be enabled to meet it without sinful fear. A second letter was not to be opened, except in case of his death. It was written to Martin, a disciple whom the writer says he had known from childhood. He binds Martin to fear God, to be careful how he listened to the confessions of women, and not to follow him in any frivolity he had been guilty of in other days, such as chess-playing. Persecution was about to do its worst because he had attacked the greed and incontinence of the clergy. He willed to Martin his gray cloak and bade him, in case of his death, give to the rector his white gown and to his faithful servant, George, a guinea.
The route was through Nürnberg. Along the way Huss was met by throngs of curious people. He sat down in the inns with the local priests, talking over his case with them. At Nürnberg the magistrates and burghers invited him to meet them at an inn. Deeming it unnecessary to go out of its way to meet Sigismund, who was at Spires, the party turned its face directly to the lake of Constance. Arrived on its upper shore, they sent back most of their horses for sale, a wise measure, as it proved, in view of the thousands of animals that had to be cared for at Constance.
Arrived at Constance, Huss took lodgings with a "second widow of Sarepta," who had kept the bakery to the White Pigeon. The house is still shown. His coming was a great sensation, and he entered the town, riding through a large crowd. The day after, John of Chlum and Baron Lacembok called upon pope John XXIII., who promised that no violence should be done their friend, nay, even though he had killed the pope’s own brother. He granted him leave to go about the city, but forbade him to attend high mass. Although he was under sentence of excommunication, Huss celebrated mass daily in his own lodgings. The cardinals were incensed that a man charged openly with heresy should have freedom, and whatever misgivings Huss had had of unfair dealing were to be quickly justified. Individual liberty had no rights before the bar of an ecclesiastical court in the 15th century when a heretic was under accusation. Before the month had passed, Huss’ imprisonment began, a pretext being found in an alleged attempt to escape from the city concealed in a hay-wagon (The charge is reported by Richental, p. 76 sq. His story is invalidated by the false date he gives and also by the testimony of Mladenowitz, who declared it wholly untrue. If there had been any attempt at escape, it would hardly have been allowed to go unnoticed in the trial. ).On November 28, the two bishops of Trent and Augsburg entered his lodgings with a requisition for him to appear before the cardinals. The house was surrounded by soldiers. Huss, after some hesitation, yielded and left, with the hostess standing at the stairs in tears. It was the beginning of the end.
After a short audience with the cardinals, the prisoner was taken away by a guard of soldiers, and within a week he was securely immured in the dungeon of the Dominican convent. Preparations had been going on for several days to provide the place with locks, bolts and other strong furnishings.
In this prison, Huss languished for three months. His cell was hard by the latrines. Fever and vomiting set in, and it seemed likely they would quickly do their dismal work. John XXIII. deserves some credit for having sent his physician, who applied clysters, as Huss himself wrote. To sickness was added the deprivation of books, including the Bible. For two months we have no letters from him. They begin again, with January, 1415, and give us a clear insight into the indignities to which he was exposed and the misery he suffered. These letters were sent by the gaoler.
What was Sigismund doing? He had issued the letter of safe-conduct, Oct. 18. On the day before his arrival in Constance, Dec. 24th, John of Chlum posted up a notice on the cathedral, protesting that the king’s agreement had been treated with defiance by the cardinals. Sigismund professed to be greatly incensed, and blustered, but this was the end of it. He was a time-serving prince who was easily persuaded to yield to the arguments of such ecclesiastical figures as D’Ailly, who insisted that little matters like Huss’ heresy should not impede the reformation of the church, the council’s first concern, and that error unreproved was error countenanced. All good churchmen prayed his Majesty might not give way to the lies and subtleties of the Wycliffists. The king of Aragon wrote that Huss should be killed off at once, without having the formality of a hearing.
During his imprisonment in the Black Friars’ convent, Huss wrote for his gaoler, Robert, tracts on the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, Mortal Sin and Marriage. Of the 13 letters preserved from this time, the larger part were addressed to John of Chlum, his trusty friend. Some of the letters were written at midnight, and some on tattered scraps of paper. In this correspondence four things are prominent: Huss’ reliance upon the king and his word of honor, his consuming desire to be heard in open council, the expectation of possible death and his trust in God. He feared sentence would be passed before opportunity was given him to speak with the king. "If this is his honor, it is his own lookout," he wrote.
In the meantime the council had committed the matter of heresy to a commission, with D’Ailly at its head. It plied Huss with questions, and presented heretical articles taken from his writings. Stephen Paletz, his apostate friend, badgered him more than all the rest. His request for a "proctor and advocate" was denied. The thought of death was continually before him. But, as the Lord had delivered Jonah from the whale’s belly, and Daniel from the lions, so, he believed, God would deliver him, if it were expedient.
Upon John XXIII.’s flight, fears were felt that Huss might be delivered by his friends, and the keys of the prison were put into the hands of Sigismund. On March 24th the bishop of Constance had the prisoner chained and transferred by boat to his castle, Gottlieben. There he had freedom to walk about in his chains by day, but he was handcuffed and bound to the wall at night. The imprisonment at Gottlieben lasted seventy-three days, from March 24th-June 5th. If Huss wrote any letters during that time none have survived. It was a strange freak of history that the runaway pontiff, on being seized and brought back to Constance, was sent to Gottlieben to be fellow-prisoner with Huss, the one, the former head of Christendom, condemned for almost every known misdemeanor; the other, the preacher whose life was, by the testimony of all contemporaries, almost without a blemish. The criminal pope was to be released after a brief confinement and elevated to an exalted dignity; the other was to be contemned as a religious felon and burnt as an expiation to orthodox theology.
At Gottlieben, Huss suffered from hemorrhage, headache and other infirmities, and at times was on the brink of starvation. A new commission, appointed April 6, with D’Ailly at its head, now took up seriously the heresy of Huss and Wyclif, whom the council coupled together. Huss’ friends had not forgotten him, and 250 Moravian and Bohemian nobles signed a remonstrance at Prag, May 13, which they sent to Sigismund, protesting against the treatment "the beloved master and Christian preacher" was receiving, and asked that he might be granted a public hearing and allowed to return home. Upon a public hearing Huss staked everything, and with such a hearing in view he had gone to Constance.
In order to bring the prisoner within more convenient reach of the commission, he was transferred in the beginning of June to a third prison,—the Franciscan friary. From June 5–8 public hearings were had in the refectory, the room being crowded with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, theologians and persons of lesser degree. Cardinal D’Ailly was present and took the leading part as head of the commission. The action taken May 4th condemning 260 errors and heresies extracted from Wyclif’s works was adapted to rob Huss of whatever hope of release he still indulged. Charges were made against him of holding that Christ is in the consecrated bread only as the soul is in the body, that Wyclif was a good Christian, that salvation was not dependent upon the pope and that no one could be excommunicated except by God Himself. He also had expressed the hope his soul might be where Wyclif’s was.
When a copy of his book on the Church was shown, they shouted, "Burn it." Whenever Huss attempted to explain his positions, he was met with shouts, "Away with your sophistries. Say, Yes or No." The Englishman, John Stokes, who was present, declared that it seemed to him as if he saw Wyclif himself in bodily form sitting before him.
On the morning of June 7th, Huss exclaimed that God and his conscience were on his side. But, Said D’Ailly, "we cannot go by your conscience when we have other evidence, and the evidence of Gerson himself against you, the most renowned doctor in Christendom." D’Ailly and an Englishman attempted to show the logical connection of the doctrine of remanence with realism. When Huss replied that such reasoning was the logic of schoolboys, another Englishman had the courage to add, Huss is quite right: what have these quibbles to do with matters of faith? Sigismund advised Huss to submit, saying that he had told the commission he would not defend any heretic who was determined to stick to his heresy. He also declared that, so long as a single heretic remained, he was ready to light the fire himself with his own hand to burn him. He, however, promised that Huss should have a written list of charges the following day.
That night, as Huss wrote, he suffered from toothache, vomiting, headache and the stone. On June 8th, 39 distinct articles were handed to him, 26 of which were drawn from his work on the Church. When he demurred at some of the statements, D’Ailly had the pertinent sections from the original writings read. When they came to the passage that no heretic should be put to death, the audience shouted in mockery. Huss went on to argue from the case of Saul, after his disobedience towards Agag, that kings in mortal sin have no right to authority. Sigismund happened to be at the moment at the window, talking to Frederick of Bavaria. The prelates, taking advantage of the avowal, cried out, "Tell the king Huss is now attacking him." The emperor turned and said, "John Huss, no one lives without sin." D’Ailly suggested that the prisoner, not satisfied with pulling down the spiritual fabric, was attempting to hurl down the monarchy likewise. In an attempt to break the force of his statement, Huss asked why they had deposed pope John. Sigismund replied that Baldassarre was real pope, but was deposed for his notorious crimes.
The 39 articles included the heretical assertions that the Church is the totality of the elect, that a priest must continue preaching, even though he be under sentence of excommunication, and that whoso is in mortal sin cannot exercise authority. Huss expressed himself ready to revoke statements that might be proved untrue by Scripture and good arguments, but that he would not revoke any which were not so proved. When Sigismund remonstrated, Huss appealed to the judgment bar of God. At the close of the proceedings, D’Ailly declared that a compromise was out of the question. Huss must abjure.
As Huss passed out in the charge of the archbishop of Riga, John of Chlum had the courage to reach out his hand to him. The act reminds us of the friendly words Georg of Frundsberg spoke to Luther at Worms. Huss was most thankful, and a day or two afterward wrote how delightful it had been to see Lord John, who was not ashamed to hold out his hand to a poor, abject heretic, a prisoner in irons and the butt of all men’s tongues. In addressing the assembly after Huss’ departure, Sigismund argued against accepting submission from the prisoner who, if released, would go back to Bohemia and sow his errors broadcast. "When I was a boy," he said, "I remember the first sprouting of this sect, and see what it is today. We should make an end of the master one day, and when I return from my journey we will deal with his pupil. What’s his name?" The reply was, Jerome. Yes, said the king, I mean Jerome.
Huss, as he himself states, was pestered in prison by emissaries who sought to entrap him, or to "hold out baskets" for him to escape in. Some of the charges made against him he ascribes to false witnesses. But many of the charges were not false, and it is difficult to understand how he could expect to free himself by a public statement, in view of the solemn condemnation passed upon the doctrines of Wyclif. He was convinced that none of the articles brought against him were contrary to the Gospel of Christ, but canon law ruled at councils, not Scripture. A doctor told him that if the council should affirm he had only one eye, he ought to accept the verdict. Huss replied if the whole world were to tell him so, he would not say so and offend his conscience, and he appealed to the case of Eleazar in the Book of the Maccabees, who would not make a lying confession. But he was setting his house in order. He wrote affecting messages to his people in Bohemia and to John of Chlum. He urged the Bohemians to hear only priests of good report, and especially those who were earnest students of Holy Writ. Martin he adjured to read the Bible diligently, especially the New Testament.
On June 15th, the council took the far-reaching action forbidding the giving of the cup to laymen. This action Huss condemned as wickedness and madness, on the ground that it was a virtual condemnation of Christ’s example and command. To Hawlik, who had charge of the Bethlehem chapel, he wrote, urging him not to withhold the cup from the laity. He saw indisputable proof that the council was fallible. One day it kissed the feet of John, as a paragon of virtue, and called him "most holy," and the next it condemned him as "a shameful homicide, a sodomite, a simoniac and a heretic." He quoted the proverb, common among the Swiss, that a generation would not suffice to cleanse Constance from the sins the body had committed in that city.
The darkness deepened around the prisoner. On June 24th, by the council’s orders, his writings were to be burnt, even those written in Czech which, almost in a tone of irony, as he wrote, the councillors had not seen and could not read. He bade his friends not be terrified, for Jeremiah’s books, which the prophet had written at the Lord’s direction, were burnt.
His affectionate interest in the people of "his glorious country" and in the university on the Moldau, and his feeling of gratitude to the friends who had supported him continued unabated. A dreadful death was awaiting him, but he recalled the sufferings of Apostles and the martyrs, and especially the agonies endured by Christ, and he believed he would be purged of his sins through the flames. D’Ailly had replied to him on one occasion by peremptorily saying he should obey the decision of 50 doctors of the Church and retract without asking any questions. "A wonderful piece of information," he wrote, "As if the virgin, St. Catherine, ought to have renounced the truth and her faith in the Lord because 50 philosophers opposed her." In one of his last letters, written to his alma mater of Prag, he declared he had not recanted a single article.
On the first day of July, he was approached by the archbishops of Riga and Ragusa and 6 other prelates, who still had a hope of drawing from him a recantation. A written declaration made by Huss in reply showed the hope vain. Another effort was made July 5th, Cardinals D’Ailly and Zabarella and bishop Hallum of Salisbury being of the party of visiting prelates. Huss closed the discussion by declaring that he would rather be burnt a thousand times than abjure, for by abjuring he said he would offend those whom he had taught.
Still another deputation approached him, his three friends John of Chlum, Wenzel of Duba and Lacembok, and four bishops. They were sent by Sigismund. As a layman, John of Chlum did not venture to give Huss advice, but bade him, if he felt sure of his cause, rather than to be against God, to stand fast, even to death. One of the bishops asked whether he presumed to be wiser than the whole council. No, was the reply, but to retract he must be persuaded of his errors out of the Scriptures. "An obstinate heretic!" exclaimed the bishops. This was the final interview in private. The much-desired opportunity was at hand for him to stand before the council as a body, and it was his last day on earth.
After seven months of dismal imprisonment and deepening disappointment, on Saturday, July 6th, Huss was conducted to the cathedral. It was 6 A. M., and he was kept waiting outside the doors until the celebration of mass was completed. He was then admitted to the sacred edifice, but not to make a defence, as he had come to Constance hoping to do. He was to listen to sentence pronounced upon him as an ecclesiastical outcast and criminal. He was placed in the middle of the church on a high stool, set there specially for him. The bishop of Lodi preached from Rom. 6:6, "that the body of sin may be destroyed." The extermination of heretics was represented as one of the works most pleasing to God, and the preacher used the time-worn illustrations from the rotten piece of flesh, the little spark which is in danger of turning into a great flame and the creeping cancer. The more virulent the poison the swifter should be the application of the cauterizing iron. In the style of Bossuet in a later age, before Louis XIV., he pronounced upon Sigismund the eulogy that his name would be coupled with song and triumph for all time for his efforts to uproot schism and destroy heresy.
The commission, which included Patrick, bishop of Cork, appointed to pronounce the sentence, then ascended the pulpit. All expressions of feeling with foot or hand, all vociferation or attempt to start disputation were solemnly forbidden on pain of excommunication. 30 articles were then read, which were pronounced as heretical, seditious and offensive to pious ears. The sentence coupled in closest relation Wyclif and Huss. The first of the articles charged the prisoner with holding that the Church is the totality of the predestinate, and the last that no civil lord or prelate may exercise authority who is in mortal sin. Huss begged leave to speak, but was hushed up.
The sentence ran that "the holy council, having God only before its eye, condemns John Huss to have been and to be a true, real and open heretic, the disciple not of Christ but of John Wyclif, one who in the University of Prag and before the clergy and people declared Wyclif to be a Catholic and an evangelical doctor—vir catholicus et doctor evangelicus." It ordered him degraded from the sacerdotal order, and, not wishing to exceed the powers committed unto the Church, it relinquished him to the secular authority.
Not a dissenting voice was lifted against the sentence. Even John Gerson voted for it. One incident has left its impress upon history, although it is not vouched for by a contemporary. It is said that, when Huss began to speak, he looked at Sigismund, reminding him of the safe-conduct. The king who sat in state and crowned, turned red, but did not speak.
The order of degradation was carried out by six bishops, who disrobed the condemned man of his vestments and destroyed his tonsure. They then put on his head a cap covered over with pictures of the devil and inscribed with the word, heresiarch, and committed his soul to the devil. With upturned eyes, Huss exclaimed, "and I commit myself to the most gracious Lord Jesus."
The old motto that the Church does not want blood—ecclesia non sitit sanguinem — was in appearance observed, but the authorities knew perfectly well what was to be the last scene when they turned Huss over to Sigismund. "Go, take him and do to him as a heretic" were the words with which the king remanded the prisoner to the charge of Louis, the Count Palatine. A guard of a thousand armed men was at hand. The streets were thronged with people. As Huss passed on, he saw the flames on the public square which were consuming his books. For fear of the bridge’s breaking down, the greater part of the crowd was not allowed to cross over to the place of execution, called the Devil’s Place. Huss’ step had been firm, but now, with tears in his eyes, he knelt down and prayed. The paper cap falling from his head, the crowd shouted that it should be put on, wrong side front.
It was midday. The prisoner’s hands were fastened behind his back, and big neck bound to the stake by a chain. On the same spot sometime before, so the chronicler notes, a cardinal’s worn-out mule had been buried. The straw and wood were heaped up around Huss’ body to the chin, and rosin sprinkled upon them. The offer of life was renewed if he would recant. He refused and said, "I shall die with joy to-day in the faith of the gospel which I have preached." When Richental, who was standing by, suggested a confessor, he replied, "There is no need of one. I have no mortal sin." At the call of bystanders, they turned his face away from the East, and as the flames arose, he sang twice, Christ, thou Son of the living God, have mercy upon me. The wind blew the fire into the martyr’s face, and his voice was hushed. He died, praying and singing. To remove, if possible, all chance of preserving relics from the scene, Huss’ clothes and shoes were thrown into the merciless flames. The ashes were gathered up and cast into the Rhine.
While this scene was being enacted, the council was going on with the transaction of business as if the burning without the gates were only a common event. Three weeks later, it announced that it had done nothing more pleasing to God than to punish the Bohemian heretic. For this act it has been chiefly remembered by after generations.
Not one of the members of the Council of Constance, after its adjournment, so far as we know, uttered a word of protest against the sentence. No pope or oecumenical synod since has made any apology for it. Nor has any modern Catholic historian gone further than to indicate that in essential theological doctrines Huss was no heretic, though his sentence was strictly in accord with the principles of the canon law. So long as the dogmas of an infallible Church organization and an infallible pope continue to be strictly held, no apology can be expected. It is of the nature of Protestant Christianity to confess wrongs and, as far as is possible, make reparation for them. When the Massachusetts court discovered that it had erred in the case of the Salem witchcraft in 1692, it made full confession, and offered reparation to the surviving descendants; and Judge Sewall, one of the leaders in the prosecution, made a moving public apology for the mistake he had committed. The same court recalled the action against Roger Williams. In 1903, the Protestants of France reared a monument at Geneva in expiation of Calvin’s part in passing sentence upon Servetus. Luther, in his Address to the German Nobility, called upon the Roman Church to confess it had done wrong in burning Huss. That innocent man’s blood still cries from the ground.
Huss died for his advocacy of Wycliffism. The sentence passed by the council coupled the two names together. The 25th of the 30 Articles condemned him for taking offence at the reprobation of the 45 articles, ascribed to Wyclif. How much this article was intended to cover cannot be said. It is certain that Huss did not formally deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, although he was charged with that heresy. Nor was he distinctly condemned for urging the distribution of the cup to the laity, which he advocated after the council had positively forbidden it. His only offence was his definition of the Church and his denial of the infallibility of the papacy and its necessity for the being of the Church. These charges constitute the content of all the 30 articles except the 25th. Luther said brusquely but truly, that Huss committed no more atrocious sin than to declare that a Roman pontiff of impious life is not the head of the Church catholic (John Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, presented it clearly when he said, "By the life, acts and letters of Huss, it is plain that he was condemned not for any error of doctrine, for he neither denied their popish transubstantiation, neither spake against the authority of the church of Rome, if it were well governed, nor yet against the seven sacraments, but said mass himself and in almost all their popish opinions was a papist with them, but only through evil will was he accused because he spoke against the pomp, pride and avarice and other wicked enormities of the pope, cardinals and prelates of the church, etc.
).
John Huss struck at the foundations of the hierarchical system. He interpreted our Lord’s words to Peter in a way that was fatal to the papal theory of Leo, Hildebrand and Innocent III. (Gerson declared that among the causes for which Huss was condemned was that he had affirmed that the Church could be ruled by priests dispersed throughout the world in the absence of one head an well as with one head.) His conception of the Church, which he drew from Wyclif, contains the kernel of an entirely new system of religious authority. He made the Scriptures the final source of appeal, and exalted the authority of the conscience above pope, council and canon law as an interpreter of truth. He carried out these views in practice by continuing to preach in spite of repeated sentences of excommunication, and attacking the pope’s right to call a crusade. If the Church be the company of the elect, as Huss maintained, then God rules in His people and they are sovereign. With such assertions, the teachings of Thomas Aquinas were set aside.
The enlightened group of men who shared the spirit of Gerson and D’Ailly did not comprehend Wycliffism, for Wycliffism was a revolt against an alleged divine institution, the visible Church. Gerson denied that the appeal to conscience was an excuse for refusing to submit to ecclesiastical authority. Faith, with him, was agreement with the Church’s system. The chancellor not only voted for Huss’ condemnation, but declared he had busily worked to bring the sentence about. Nineteen articles he drew from Huss’ work on the Church, he pronounced "notoriously heretical." However, at a later time, in a huff over the leniency shown to Jean Petit, he stated that if Huss had been given an advocate, he would never have been convicted.
In starting out for Constance, Huss knew well the punishment appointed for heretics. The amazing thing is that he should ever have thought it possible to clear himself by a public address before the council. In view of the procedure of the Inquisition, the council showed him unheard-of consideration in allowing him to appear in the cathedral. This was done out of regard for Sigismund, who was on the eve of his journey to Spain to induce Benedict of Luna to abdicate.
As for the safe-conduct—salvo-conductus — issued by Sigismund, all that can be said is that a king did not keep his word. He was more concerned to be regarded as the patron of a great council than to protect a Bohemian preacher, his future subject. Writing with reference to the solemn pledge, Huss said, "Christ deceives no man by a safe-conduct. What he pledges he fulfils. Sigismund has acted deceitfully throughout." The plea, often made, that the king had no intention of giving Huss an unconditional pledge of protection, is in the face of the documentary evidence. In September, 1415, the Council of Constance took formal notice of the criticisms floating about that in Huss’ execution a solemn promise had been broken, and announced that no brief of safe-conduct in the case of a heretic is binding. No pledge is to be observed which is prejudicial to the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
The safe-conduct was in the ordinary form, addressed to all the princes and subjects of the empire, ecclesiastical and secular, and informing them that Huss should be allowed to pass, remain and return without impediment. Jerome, according to the sentence passed upon him by the council, declared that the safe-conduct had been grossly violated, and when, in 1433, the legates of the Council of Basel attempted to throw the responsibility for Huss’ condemnation on false witnesses, so called, Rokyzana asked how the Council of Constance could have been moved by the Holy Ghost if it were controlled by perjurers, and showed that the violation of the safe-conduct had not been forgotten. When the Bohemian deputies a year earlier had come to Basel, they demanded the most carefully prepared briefs of safe-conduct from the Council of Basel, the cities of Eger and Basel and from Sigismund and others. Frederick of Brandenburg and John of Bavaria agreed to furnish troops to protect the Hussites on their way to Basel, at Basel, and on their journey home. A hundred and six years later, Luther profited by Huss’ misfortune when he recalled Sigismund’s perfidy, perfidy which the papal system of the 16th century would have repeated, had Charles V. given his consent. (Luther declared that a safe-conduct promised to the devil must be kept.)
In a real sense, Huss was the precursor of the Reformation. It is true, the prophecy was wrongly ascribed to him, "To-day you roast a goose—Huss—but a hundred years from now a swan will arise out of my ashes which you shall not roast." Unknown to contemporary writers, it probably originated after Luther had fairly entered upon his work. But he struck a hard blow at hierarchical assumption before Luther raised his stronger arm. Luther was moved by Huss’ case, and at Leipzig, forced to the wall by Eck’s thrusts, the Wittenberg monk made the open avowal that oecumenical councils also may err, as was done in putting Huss to death at Constance. Years before, at Erfurt, he had taken up a volume of the Bohemian sermons, and was amazed that a man who preached so evangelically should have been condemned to the stake. But for fear of the taint of heresy, he quickly put it down. The accredited view in Luther’s time was given by Dobneck in answer to Luther’s good opinion, when he said that Huss was worse than a Turk, Jew, Tartar and Sodomite. In his edition of Huss’ letters, printed 1537, Luther praised Huss’ patience and humility under every indignity and his courage before an imposing assembly as a lamb in the midst of wolves and lions. If such a man, he wrote, "is to be regarded as a heretic, then no person under the sun can be looked upon as a true Christian."
A cantionale, dating from 1572, and preserved in the Prag library, contains a hymn to Huss’ memory and three medallions which well set forth the relation in which Wyclif and Huss stand to the Reformation. The first represents Wyclif striking sparks from a stone. Below it is Huss, kindling a fire from the sparks. In the third medallion, Luther is holding aloft the flaming torch. his is the historic succession, although it is true Luther began his career as a Reformer before he was influenced by Huss, and continued his work, knowing little of Wyclif.
To the cause of religious toleration, and without intending it, John Huss made a more effectual contribution by his death than could have been made by many philosophical treatises, even as the deaths of Blandina and other martyrs of the early Church, who were slaves, did more towards the reduction of the evils of slavery than all the sentences of Pagan philosophers. Quite like his English teacher, he affirmed the sovereign rights of the truth. It was his habit, so he stated, to conform his views to the truth, whatever the truth might be. If any one, he said, "can instruct me by the sacred Scriptures or by good reasoning, I am willing to follow him. From the outset of my studies, I have made it a rule to joyfully and humbly recede from a former opinion when in any matter I perceive a more rational opinion."
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 6 THE MIDDLE AGES A.D. 1294-1517 (Pages 371-388)

John Huss of Bohemia

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Across the seas in Bohemia, where the views of Wyclif were transplanted, they took deeper root than in England, and assumed an organized form. There, the English Reformer was called the fifth evangelist and, in its earlier stages, the movement went by the name of Wycliffism. It was only in the later periods that the names Hussites and Hussitism were substituted for Wycliffites and Wycliffism. Its chief spokesmen were John Huss and Jerome of Prag, who died at the stake at Constance for their avowed allegiance to Wyclif.
Through Huss, Prag became identified with a distinct stage in the history of religious progress. Distinguished among its own people as the city of St. John of Nepomuk, d. 1383, and in the history of armies as the residence of Wallenstein, the Catholic leader in the Thirty Years’ War, Prag is known in the Western world pre-eminently as the home of Huss. Through his noble advocacy, the principles enunciated by Wyclif became the subject of discussion in oecumenical councils, called forth armed crusades and furnished an imposing spectacle of steadfast resistance against religious oppression. Wycliffism passed out of view in England; but Hussitism, in spite of the most bitter persecution by the Jesuits, has trickled down in pure though small streamlets into the religious history of modern times, notably through the Moravians of Herrnhut.
During the reign of Charles IV., king of Bohemia and emperor, 1346–1378, the Bohemian kingdom entered upon the
golden era of its literary and religious history. In 1344, the archbishopric of Prag was created, and the year 1347 witnessed an event of far more than local importance in the founding of the University of Prag. The first of the German universities, it was forthwith to enter upon the era of its brightest fame. The Czech and German languages were spoken side by side in the city, which was divided, at the close of the 14th century into five quarters. The Old Town, inhabited chiefly by Germans, included the Teyn church, the Carolinum, the Bethlehem chapel and the ancient churches of St. Michael and St. Gallus. Under the first archbishop of Prag, Arnest of Pardubitz, and his successor Ocko of Wlaschim, a brave effort was made to correct ecclesiastical abuses. In 1355, the demand for popular instruction was recognized by a law requiring parish priests to preach in the Czech. The popular preachers, Konrad of Waldhausen, d. 1369, Militz of Kremsier, d. 1874, and Matthias of Janow, d. 1394, made a deep impression. They quoted at length from the Scriptures, urged the habit of frequent communion, and Janow, as reported by Rokyzana at the Council of Basel, 1433, seems to have administered the cup to the laity. When John Huss entered upon his career in the university, he was breathing the atmosphere generated by these fervent evangelists, although in his writings he nowhere quotes them.
Close communication between England and Bohemia had been established with the marriage of the Bohemian king Wenzel’s sister, Anne of Luxemburg, to Richard II., 1382. She was a princess of cultivated tastes, and had in her possession copies of the Scriptures in Latin, Czech and German. Before this nuptial event, the philosophical faculty of the University of Prag, in 1367, ordered its bachelors to add to the instructions of its own professors the notebooks of Paris and Oxford doctors. Here and there a student sought out the English university, or even went so far as the Scotch St. Andrews. Among those who studied in Oxford was Jerome of Prag. Thus a bridge for the transmission of intellectual products was laid from Wyclif’s lecture hall to the capital on the Moldau. Wyclif’s views and writings were known in Bohemia at an early date. In 1381 a learned Bohemian theologian, Nicolas Biceps, was acquainted with his leading principles and made them a subject of attack. Huss, in his reply to the English Carmelite, John Stokes, 1411, declared that he and the members of the university had had Wyclif’s writings in their hands and been reading them for 20 years and more. Five copies are extant of these writings, made in Huss’ own hand, 1398. They were carried away in the Thirty Years’ War and are preserved in the Royal Library of Stockholm.
John Huss was born of Czech parents, 1369, at Husinec in Southern Bohemia. The word Hus means goose, and its distinguished bearer often applied the literal meaning to himself. For example, he wrote from Constance expressing the hope that the Goose might be delivered from prison, and he bade the Bohemians, "if they loved the Goose," to secure the king’s aid in having him released. Friends also referred to him in the same way (The spelling, Hus, almost universally adopted in recent years by German and English writers, has been exchanged by Loserth in his art. in Herzog for Huss, as a form more congenial to the German mode of spelling. For the same reason this volume has adopted the form Huss as more agreeable to the English reader’s eye and more consonant with our mode of spelling. Karl Müller adopts this spelling in his Kirchengeschichte. The exact date of Huss’ birth is usually given as July 6th, 1369, but with insufficient authority. Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 65 sq.) His parents were poor and, during his studies in the University of Prag, he supported himself by singing and manual services. He took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1393 and of divinity a year later. In 1396 he incepted as master of arts, and in 1398 began delivering lectures in the university. In 1402 he was chosen rector, filling the office for six months.
With his academic duties Huss combined the activity of a preacher, and in 1402 was appointed to the rectorship of the Chapel of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. This church, usually known as the Bethlehem church, was founded in 1391 by two wealthy laymen, with the stipulation that the incumbent should preach every Sunday and on festival days in Czech. It was made famous by its new rector as the little church, Anastasia, in Constantinople, was made famous in the fourth century by Gregory of Nazianzus, and by his discourses against the Arian heresy.
As early as 1402, Huss was regarded as the chief exponent and defender of Wycliffian views at the university. Protests, made by the clergy against their spread, took definite form in 1403, when the university authorities condemned the 24 articles placed under the ban by the London council of 1382. At the same time 21 other articles were condemned, which one of the university masters, John Hübner, a Pole, professed to have extracted from the Englishman’s writings. The decision forbade the preaching and teaching of these 45 articles. Among Wyclif’s warm defenders were Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Paletz. The subject which gave the most offence was his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.
A distinct stage in the religious controversies agitating Bohemia was introduced by the election of Sbinko of Hasenburg to the see of Prag, 1403. In the earlier years of his administration Huss had the prelate’s confidence, held the post of synodal preacher and was encouraged to bring to the archbishop’s notice abuses that might be reformed. He was also appointed one of a commission of three to investigate the alleged miracles performed by the relic of Christ’s blood at Wylsnak and attracting great throngs. The report condemned the miracles as a fraud. The matter, however, became subject of discussion at the university and as far away as Vienna and Erfurt, the question assuming the form whether Christ left any of his blood on the earth. In a tract entitled the Glorification of all Christ’s Blood, Huss took the negative side. In spite of him and of the commission’s report, the miracles at Wylsnak went on, until, in 1552, a zealous Lutheran broke the pyx which held the relic and burnt it.
So extensive was the spread of Wycliffism that Innocent VII., in 1405, called upon Sbinko to employ severe measures to stamp it out and to seize Wyclif’s writings. The same year a Prag synod forbade the propaganda of Wyclif’s views and renewed the condemnation of the 45 articles. Three years later Huss—whose activity in denouncing clerical abuses and advocating Wyclif’s theology knew no abatement—was deposed from the position of synodal preacher. The same year the University authorities, at the archbishop’s instance, ordered that no public lectures should be delivered on Wyclif’s Trialogus and Dialogus and his doctrine of the Supper, and that no public disputation should concern itself with any of the condemned 45 articles.
The year following, 1409, occurred the emigration from the university of the three nations, the Bavarians, Saxons and Poles, the Czechs alone being left. The bitter feeling of the Bohemians had expressed itself in the demand for three votes, while the other nations were to be restricted to one each. When Wenzel consented to this demand, 2000 masters and scholars withdrew, the Germans going to Leipzig and founding the university of that city. The University of Prag was at once reduced to a provincial school of 500 students, and has never since regained its prestige.
Huss, a vigorous advocate of the use of the Czech, was the recognized head of the national movement at the university, and chosen first rector under the new régime. If possible, his advocacy of Wyclif and his views was more bold than before. From this time forth, his Latin writings were filled with excerpts from the English teacher and teem with his ideas. Wyclif’s writings were sown broadcast in Bohemia. Huss himself had translated the Trialogus into Czech. Throngs were attracted by preaching. Wherever, wrote Huss in 1410, in city or town, in village or castle, the preacher of the holy truth made his appearance, the people flocked together in crowds and in spite of the clergy.
Following a bull issued by Alexander V., Sbinko, in 1410, ordered Wyclif’s writings seized and burnt, and forbade all preaching in unauthorized places. The papal document called forth the protest of Huss and others, who appealed to John XXIII. by showing the absurdity of burning books on philosophy, logic and other non-theological subjects, a course that would condemn the writings of Aristotle and Origen to the flames. The protest was in vain and 200 manuscript copies of the Reformer’s writings were cast into the flames in the courtyard of the archiepiscopal palace amidst the tolling of the church bells.
Two days after this grewsome act, the sentence of excommunication was launched against Huss and all who might persist in refusing to deliver up Wyclif’s writings. Defying the archbishop and the papal bull, Huss continued preaching in the Bethlehem chapel. The excitement among all classes was intense and men were cudgelled on the streets for speaking against the Englishman. Satirical ballads were sung, declaring that the archbishop did not know what was in the books he had set fire to. Huss’ sermons, far from allaying the commotion, were adapted to increase it.
Huss had no thought of submission and, through handbills, announced a defence of Wyclif’s treatise on the Trinity before the university, July 27. But his case had now passed from the archbishop’s jurisdiction to the court of the curia, which demanded the offender’s appearance in person, but in vain. In spite of the appeals of Wenzel and many Bohemian nobles who pledged their honor that he was no heretic, John XXIII. put the case into the hands of Cardinal Colonna, afterwards Martin V., who launched the ban against Huss for his refusal to comply with the canonical citation.
Colonna’s sentence was read from all the pulpits of Prag except two. But the offensive preaching continued, and Sbinko laid the city under the interdict, which, however, was withdrawn on the king’s promise to root out heresy from his realm. Wenzel gave orders that "Master Huss, our beloved and faithful chaplain, be allowed to preach the Word of God in peace." According to the agreement, Sbinko was also to write to the pope assuring him that diligent inquisition had been made, and no traces of heresy were to be found in Bohemia. This letter is still extant, but was never sent.
Early in September, 1411, Huss wrote to John XXIII. protesting his full agreement with the Church and asking that the citation to appear before the curia be revoked. In this communication and in a special letter to the cardinals Huss spoke of the punishment for heresy and insubordination. He, however, wrote to John that he was bound to speak the truth, and that he was ready to suffer a dreadful death rather than to declare what would be contrary to the will of Christ and his Church. He had been defamed, and it was false that he had expressed himself in favor of the remanence of the material substance of the bread after the words of institution, and that a priest in mortal sin might not celebrate the eucharist. Sbinko died Sept. 28, 1411. At this juncture the excitement was increased by the arrival in Prag of John Stokes, a Cambridge man, and well known in England as an uncompromising foe of Wycliffism. He had come with a delegation, sent by the English king, to arrange an alliance with Sigismund. Stokes’ presence aroused the expectation of a notable clash, but the Englishman, although he ventilated his views privately, declined Huss’ challenge to a public disputation on the ground that he was a political representative of a friendly nation.
The same year, 1411, John XXIII. called Europe to a crusade against Ladislaus of Naples, the defender of Gregory XII., and promised indulgence to all participating in it, whether by personal enlistment or by gifts. Tiem, dean of Passau, appointed preacher of the holy war, made his way to Prag and opened the sale of indulgences. Chests were placed in the great churches, and the traffic was soon in full sway. As Wyclif, thirty years before, in his Cruciata, had lifted up his voice against the crusade in Flanders, so now Huss denounced the religious war and denied the pope’s right to couple indulgences with it. He filled the Bethlehem chapel with denunciations of the sale and, in a public disputation, took the ground that remission of sins comes through repentance alone and that the pope has no authority to seize the secular sword. Many of his paragraphs were taken bodily from Wyclif’s works on the Church and on the Absolution from guilt and punishment. Huss was supported by Jerome of Prag.
Popular opinion was on the side of these leaders, but from this time Huss’ old friends, Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Paletz, walked no more with him. Under the direction of Wok of Waldstein, John’s two bulls, bearing on the crusade and offering indulgence, were publicly burnt, after being hung at the necks of two students, dressed as harlots, and drawn through the streets in a cart. Huss was still writing that he abhorred the errors ascribed to him, but the king could not countenance the flagrant indignity shown to the papal bulls, and had three men of humble position executed, Martin, John and Stanislaus. They had cried out in open church that the bulls were lies, as Huss had proved. They were treated as martyrs, and their bodies taken to the Bethlehem chapel, where the mass for martyrs was said over them.
To reaffirm its orthodoxy, the theological faculty renewed its condemnation of the 45 articles and added 6 more, taken from Huss’ public utterances. Two of the latter bore upon preaching. The clergy of Prag appealed to be protected "from the ravages of the wolf, the Wycliffist Hus, the despiser of the keys," and the curia pronounced the greater excommunication. The heretic was ordered seized, delivered over to the archbishop, and the Bethlehem chapel razed to the ground. Three stones were to be hurled against Huss’ dwelling, as a sign of perpetual curse. Thus the Reformer had against him the archbishop, the university, the clergy and the curia, but popular feeling remained in his favor and prevented the papal sentence from being carried out. The city was again placed under the interdict. Huss appealed from the pope and, because a general council’s action is always uncertain and at best tardy, looked at once to the tribunal of Christ. He publicly asserted that the pope was exercising prerogatives received from the devil.
To allay the excitement, Wenzel induced Huss to withdraw from the city. This was in 1412. In later years Huss expressed doubts as to whether he had acted wisely in complying. He was moved not only by regard for the authority of his royal protector but by sympathy for the people whom the interdict was depriving of spiritual privileges. Had he defied the sentence and refused compliance with the king’s request, it is probable he would have lost the day and been silenced in prison or in the flames in his native city. In this case, the interest of his career would have been restricted to the annals of his native land, and no place would have been found for him in the general history of Europe. So Huss went into exile, but there was still some division among the ecclesiastical authorities of the kingdom over the merits of Wycliffism, and a national synod, convoked February 13, 1413, to take measures to secure peace, adjourned without coming to a decision.
Removed from Prag, Huss was indefatigable in preaching and writing. Audiences gathered to hear him on the marketplaces and in the fields and woods. Lords in their strong castles protected him. Following Wyclif, he insisted upon preaching as the indefeasible right of the priest, and wrote that to cease from preaching, in obedience to the mandate of pope or archbishop, would be to disobey God and imperil his own salvation. He also kept in communication with the city by visiting it several times and by writing to the Bethlehem chapel, the university and the municipal synod. This correspondence abounds in quotations from the Scriptures, and Huss reminds his friends that Christ himself was excommunicated as a malefactor and crucified. No help was to be derived from the saints. Christ’s example and his salvation are the sufficient sources of consolation and courage. The high priests, scribes, Pharisees, Herod and Pilate condemned the Truth and gave him over to death, but he rose from the tomb and gave in his stead twelve other preachers. So he would do again. What fear, he wrote, "shall part us from God, or what death? What shall we lose if for His sake we forfeit wealth, friends, the world’s honors and our poor life?... It is better to die well than to live badly. We dare not sin to avoid the punishment of death. To end in grace the present life is to be banished from misery. Truth is the last conqueror. He wins who is slain, for no adversity "hurts him if no iniquity has dominion over him." In this strain he wrote again and again. The "bolts of anti-christ," he said, could not terrify him, and should not terrify the "elect of Prag."
Of the extent of Huss’ influence during this period he bore witness at Constance when, in answer to D’Ailly, he said:
I have stated that I came here of my own free will. If I had been unwilling to come, neither that king [referring to Wenzel] nor this king here [referring to Sigismund] would have been able to force me to come, so numerous and so powerful are the Bohemian nobles who love me, and within whose castles I should have been able to lie concealed.
And when D’Ailly rebuked the statement as effrontery, John of Chlum replied that it was even as the prisoner said, "There are numbers of great nobles who love him and have strong castles where they could keep him as long as they wished, even against both those kings."
The chief product of this period of exile was Huss’ work on the Church, De ecclesia, the most noted of all his writings. It was written in view of the national synod held in 1413, and was sent to Prag and read in the Bethlehem chapel, July 8. Of this tractate Cardinal D’Ailly said at the Council of Constance that by an infinite number of arguments, it combated the pope’s plenary authority as much as the Koran, the book of the damned Mohammed, combated the Catholic faith.
In this volume, next to Wyclif’s, the most famous treatment on the Church since Cyprian’s work, De ecclesia, and Augustine’s writings against the Donatists, Huss defined the Church and the power of the keys, and then proceeds to defend himself against the fulminations of Alexander V. and John XXIII. and to answer the Prag theologians, Stephen Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaim, who had deserted him. The following are some of its leading positions.
The Holy Catholic Church is the body or congregation of all the predestinate, the dead, the living and those yet to be. The term ’catholic’ means universal. The unity of the Church is a unity of predestination and of blessedness, a unity of faith, charity and grace. The Roman pontiff and the cardinals are not the Church. The Church can exist without cardinals and a pope, and in fact for hundreds of years there were no cardinals. As for the position Christ assigned to Peter, Huss affirmed that Christ called himself the Rock, and the Church is founded on him by virtue of predestination. In view of Peter’s clear and positive confession, "the Rock—Petra — said to Peter—Petro — ’I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, that is, a confessor of the true Rock which Rock I am.’ And upon the Rock, that is, myself, I will build this Church." Thus Huss placed himself firmly on the ground taken by Augustine in his Retractations. Peter never was the head of the Holy Catholic Church.
He thus set himself clearly against the whole ultramontane theory of the Church and its head. The Roman bishop, he said, was on an equality with other bishops until Constantine made him pope. It was then that he began to usurp authority. Through ignorance and the love of money the pope may err, and has erred, and to rebel against an erring pope is to obey Christ. There have been depraved and heretical popes. Such was Joan, whose case Huss dwelt upon at length and refers to at least three times. Such was also the case of Liberius, who is also treated at length. Joan had a son and Liberius was an Arian (Huss also in his Letters repeatedly refers to Joan and Liberius, e.g. he writes, "I should like to know if pope Liberius the heretic, Leo the heretic and the pope Joan, who was delivered of a boy, were the heads of the Roman Church." Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 125.)
In the second part of the De ecclesia, Huss pronounced the bulls of Alexander and John XXIII. anti-christian, and therefore not to be obeyed. Alexander’s bull, prohibiting preaching in Bohemia except in the cathedral, parish and monastic churches was against the Gospel, for Christ preached in houses, on the seaside, and in synagogues, and bade his disciples to go into all the world and preach. No papal excommunication may be an impediment to doing what Christ did and taught to be done.
Turning to the pope’s right to issue indulgences, the Reformer went over the ground he had already traversed in his replies to John’s two bulls calling for a crusade against Ladislaus. He denied the pope’s right to go to war or to make appeal to the secular sword. If John was minded to follow Christ, he should pray for his enemies and say, "My kingdom is not of this world." Then the promised wisdom would be given which no enemies would be able to gainsay. The power to forgive sins belongs to no mortal man anymore than it belonged to the priest to whom Christ sent the lepers. The lepers were cleansed before they reached the priest. Indeed, many popes who conceded the most ample indulgences were themselves damned. Confession of the heart alone is sufficient for the soul’s salvation where the applicant is truly penitent.
In denying the infallibility of the pope and of the Church visible, and in setting aside the sacerdotal power of the priesthood to open and shut the kingdom of heaven, Huss broke with the accepted theory of Western Christendom; he committed the unpardonable sin of the Middle Ages. These fundamental ideas, however, were not original with the Bohemian Reformer. He took them out of Wyclif’s writings, and he also incorporated whole paragraphs of those writings in his pages. Teacher never had a more devoted pupil than the English Reformer had in Huss. The first three chapters of De ecclesia are little more than a series of extracts from Wyclif’s treatise on the Church. What is true of this work is also true of most of Huss’ other Latin writings (Loserth wrote his Wicliff and Hus to show the dependence of Huss upon his English predecessor, and the latter half of this work gives proof of it by printing in parallel columns portions of the two authors, compositions. He says, p. 111, that the De ecclesia is only "a meagre abridgement of Wyclif’s work on the same subject." This author affirms that in his Latin tractates Huss "has drawn all his arguments from Wyclif," and that "the most weighty parts are taken word for word from his English predecessor," pp. xiv, 139, 141, 156, etc. Neander made a mistake in rating the influence of Matthias of Janow upon Huss higher than the influence of Wyclif. He wrote before the Wyclif Society began its publications. Even Palacky, in his Church History of Bohemia, III. 190-197, pronounced it uncertain how far Huss was influenced by Wyclif’s writings, and questions whether he had attached himself closely to the English Reformer. The publications of the Wyclif Society, which make a comparison possible, show that one writer could scarcely be more dependent upon another than Huss was upon Wyclif.) Huss, however, was not a mere copyist. The ideas he got from Wyclif he made thoroughly his own. When he quoted Augustine, Bernard, Jerome and other writers, he mentioned them by name. If he did not mention Wyclif, when he took from him arguments and entire paragraphs, a good reason can be assigned for his silence. It was well known that it was Wyclif’s cause which he was representing and Wycliffian views that he was defending, and Wyclif’s writings were wide open to the eye of members of the university faculties. He made no secret of following Wyclif, and being willing to die for the views Wyclif taught. As he wrote to Richard Wyche, he was thankful that "under the power of Jesus Christ, Bohemia had received so much good from the blessed land of England."
The Bohemian theologian was fully imbued with Wyclif’s heretical spirit. The great Council of Constance was about to meet. Before that tribunal Huss was now to be judged.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 6 THE MIDDLE AGES A.D. 1294-1517 (Pages 358-371)

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott

2006-07-04T00:35:00.000-04:00

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott

I conclude this volume with Luther’s immortal hymn, which is the best expression of his character, and reveals the secret of his strength as well as the moving power of the Reformation.
A tower of strength our God is still, A good defense and weapon; He helps us free from all the ill That us hath overtaken. Our old, mortal foe Now aims his fell blow, Great might and deep guile His horrid coat-of-mail; On earth is no one like him.

Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott, Ein’ gute Wehr und Waffen. Er hilft uns frei aus aller Noth, Die uns jetzt hat betroffen. Der alt’ boese Feind, Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint; Gross’ Macht und viel List, Sein grausam Ruestung ist, Auf Erd’ ist nicht sein’s Gleichen.

By might of ours can naught be done: Our fate were soon decided. But for us fights the champion, By God himself provided. Who Is this, ask ye? Jesus Christ! ‘Tis he! Lord of Sabaoth, True God and Saviour both, Omnipotent in battle.

Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan, Wir sind gar bald verloren: Es streit’t fuer uns der rechte Mann, Den Gott hat selbst erkoren. Fragst du, wer Der ist? Er heisst Jesus Christ, Der Herr Zebaoth, Und ist kein andrer Gott; Das Feld muss Er behalten.

Did devils fill the earth and air, All eager to devour us, Our steadfast hearts need feel no care, Lest they should overpower us. The grim Prince of hell, With rage though he swell, Hurts us not a whit, Because his doom is writ: A little word can rout him.

Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel waer’ Und wollt uns gar verschlingen, So fuerchten wir uns nicht zu sehr, Es soll uns doch gelingen. Der Fuerst dieser Welt, Wie sau’r er sich stellt, Thut er uns doch nichts; Das macht, er ist gericht’t; Ein Woertlein kann ihn faellen.

The word of God will never yield To any creature living; He stands with us upon the field, His grace and Spirit giving. Take they child and wife, Goods, name, fame, and life, Though all this be done, Yet have they nothing won: The kingdom still remaineth.

Das Wort sie sollen lassen stan Und kein’n Dank dazu haben. Er ist bei uns wohl auf dem Plan Mit seinem Geist und Gaben. Nehmen sie den Leib, Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib; Lass fahren dahin, Sie haben’s kein’n Gewinn; Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 742-744)

Remarkable Judgments On Luther

2006-07-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

Remarkable Judgments On Luther

Luther, like other great men, has been the subject of extravagant praise and equally extravagant censure.
We select a few impartial and weighty testimonies from four distinguished writers of very different character and position, — an Anglican divine, two secular poets, and a Catholic historian.
I. Archdeacon Charles Julius Hare (1795–1855) has written the best work in the English language in vindication of Luther. It appeared first as a note of 222 pages in the second volume of his The Mission of the Comforter, 1846 (3d ed. 1876), and afterwards as a separate book shortly before his death, 2d ed. 1855.
Luther has been assailed by English writers on literary, theological, and moral grounds: 1, for violence and coarseness in polemics (by Henry Hallam, the historian); 2, for unsoundness in the doctrine of justification, and disregard of church authority (by the Oxford Tractarians and Anglo-Catholics); 3, for lax views on monogamy in conniving at the bigamy of Philip of Hesse (by the same, and by Sir William Hamilton).
These charges are discussed, refuted, or reduced to a minimum, by Hare (who had the largest Luther library and the fullest Luther knowledge in England), with ample learning, marked ability, and in the best Christian spirit. He concludes his vindication with these words: -
“To some readers it may seem that I have spoken with exaggerated admiration of Luther. No man ever lived whose whole heart and soul and life have been laid bare as his have been to the eyes of mankind. Open as the sky, bold and fearless as the storm, he gave utterance to all his feelings, all his thoughts. He knew nothing of reserve; and the impression he produced on his hearers and friends was such, that they were anxious to treasure up every word that dropped from his pen or from his lips. No man, therefore, has ever been exposed to so severe a trial; perhaps no man was ever placed in such difficult circumstances, or assailed by such manifold temptations. And how has he come out of the trial? Through the power of faith, under the guardian care of his Heavenly Master, he was enabled to stand through life; and still he stands, and will continue to stand, firmly rooted in the love of all who really know him.”
II. Goethe, the greatest poet and literary genius of Germany, when he was eighty-two years of age, March 11, 1832 (a few days before his death), paid this tribute to Luther and the Reformation, as reported by Eckermann, in the third or supplemental volume of the Conversations of that extraordinary man: —
“We scarcely know what we owe to Luther, and the Reformation In general. We are freed from the fetters of spiritual narrow-mindedness; we have, in consequence of our increasing culture, become capable of turning back to the fountain-head, and of comprehending Christianity in its purity. We have again the courage to stand with firm feet upon God’s earth, and to feel ourselves in our divinely endowed human nature. Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospels.
“But the better we Protestants advance in our noble development, so much the more rapidly will the Catholics follow us. As soon as they feel themselves caught up by the ever-extending enlightenment of the time, they must go on, do what they will, till at last the point is reached where all is but one.”
III. Heinrich Heine, of Jewish descent, poet, critic, and humorist, the Franco-German Voltaire, who, like Voltaire, ridiculed with irreverent audacity the most sacred things, and yet, unlike him, could pass from smiles to tears, and appreciate the grandeur of Moses and the beauty of the Bible, pays this striking tribute to the Reformer: —
Luther was not only the greatest, but also the most German man of our history; and in his character all the virtues and vices of the Germans are united in the grandest manner. He had also attributes which are rarely found together, and are usually regarded as hostile contradictions. He was at once a dreamy mystic, and a practical man of action. His thoughts had not only wings, but also hands; he spoke and he acted. He was not only the tongue, but also the sword of his age. He was both a cold scholastic stickler for words, and an inspired, divinely intoxicated prophet. After working his mind weary with his dogmatic distinctions during the day, he took his flute in the evening, looked up to the stars, and melted into melody and devotion. The same man who would scold like a fishwoman could also be as soft as a tender virgin. He was at times wild as the storm which uproots the oaks, and again as gentle as the zephyr which kisses the violets. He was full of the most awful fear of God, full of consecration to the Holy Spirit; he would be all absorbed in pure spirituality, and yet he knew very well the glories of the earth, and appreciated them, and from his mouth blossomed the famous motto: Who does not love wine, wife, and song, remains a fool his whole life long.” He was a complete man, — I might say, an absolute man, — in whom spirit and matter are not separated ... .
“Honor to Luther! Eternal honor to the dear man, to whom we owe the recovery of our dearest rights, and by whose benefit we live to-day! It becomes us little to complain about the narrowness of his views. The dwarf who stands on the shoulders of the giant can indeed see farther than the giant himself, especially if he puts on spectacles; but for that lofty point of intuition we want the lofty feeling, the giant heart, which we cannot make our own. It becomes us still less to pass a harsh judgment upon his failings: these failings have been of more use to us than the virtues of a thousand others. The polish of Erasmus, the gentleness of Melanchthon, would never have brought us so far as the divine brutality of Brother Martin. From the imperial Diet, where Luther denied the authority of the Pope, and openly declared ‘that his doctrine must be refuted by the authority of the Bible, or by the arguments of reason,’ new age has begun in Germany. The chain wherewith the holy Boniface bound the German church to Rome has been hewn asunder ... . Through Luther we attained the greatest freedom of thought; but this Martin Luther gave us not only liberty to move, but also the means of moving, for to the spirit he gave also a body. He created the word for the thought, — he created the German language. He did this by his translation of the Bible. The Divine author of this book himself chose him his translator, and gave him the marvellous power to translate from a dead language which was already buried into another language which did not yet live. How Luther came to the language into which he translated the Bible I cannot conceive to this day ... . This old book is a perennial fountain for the renewal of the German language.” — Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, 2nd ed. 1852, in Heine’s Saemmtl. Werke, vol. III. 29 sqq.
IV. J. Doellinger, the most learned Catholic historian of the nineteenth century, in his Lectures on the Reunion of Christendom (Ueber die Wiedervereinigung der christlichen Kirchen, Noerdlingen, 1888, p. 53), makes the following incidental remark on Luther and the Reformation: —
The force and strength of the Reformation was only in part due to the personality of the man who was its author and spokesman in Germany. It was indeed Luther’s overpowering mental greatness and wonderful manysidedness (ueberwaeltigende Geistesgroesse und wunderbare Vielseitigkeit) that made him the man of his age and his people. Nor was there ever a German who had such an intuitive knowledge of his countrymen, and was again so completely possessed, not to say absorbed, by the national sentiment, as the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The mind and spirit of the Germans was in his hand as the lyre is in the hand of a skillful musician. He had given them more than any man in Christian days ever gave his people, — language, Bible, church hymn. All his opponents could offer in place of it, and all the reply they could make to him, was insipid, colorless, and feeble, by the side of his transporting eloquence. They stammered, he spoke. He alone has impressed the indelible stamp of his mind on the German language and the German intellect; and even those among us who hold him in religious detestation, as the great heresiarch and seducer of the nation, are constrained, in spite of themselves, to speak with his words and think with his thoughts.
“And yet still more powerful than this Titan of the world of mind was the yearning of the German people for deliverance from the bonds of a corrupted church system. Had no Luther arisen, a reformation would still have come, and Germany would not have remained Catholic.”
Dr. Doellinger delivered the lectures from which this extract is taken, after his quarrel with Vatican Romanism, in the museum at Munich, February, 1872. They were stenographically reported in the “Koellner-Zeitung,” translated into English by Oxenham (London, 1872), and from English into French by Madame Hyacinthe-Loyson (La réunion des églises, Paris, 1880), and at last published by the author (1888).
This testimony is of special importance, owing to the acknowledged learning and ability of Doellinger as a Roman Catholic historian, and author of an elaborate work against the Reformation (1848, 3 vols.), consisting mostly of contemporaneous testimonies. He is thoroughly at home in the writings of the Reformers, and prepared a biographical sketch of Luther, in which he severely criticises him for his opinions and conduct towards the Catholic Church, but does full justice to his intellectual greatness. He says, p. 51, “If we justly call him a great man, who, endowed with mighty powers and gifts, accomplishes great things, who, as a bold legislator in the realm of mind, makes millions subservient to his system, then the peasant’s son of Moehra must be counted among the great, yea, the greatest men. This also is true, that he was a sympathizing friend, free of avarice and love of money, and ready to help others.”
Doellinger was excommunicated for his opposition to the Vatican decree of infallibility (1870), but still remains a Catholic, and could not become a Protestant without retracting his work on the Reformation. He would, however, write a very different work now, and present the Reformation as a blessing rather than a calamity to Germany, in the light of the events which have passed since 1870. In one of his Akademische Vortraege, the first volume of which has just reached me (Noerdlingen, 1888, p. 76), he makes the significant confession, that for many years the events In Germany from 1517 to 1552 were to him an unsolved riddle, and an object of sorrow and grief, seeing then only the result of division of the church and the nation into hostile camps; but that a closer study of the mediaeval history of Rome and Germany, and the events of the last years, have given him a better understanding and more hopeful view of the renewed and reunited German nation as a noble instrument in the hands of Providence. This is as far as he can go from his standpoint.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 739-742)

Augustin, Luther, Calvin

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The men who, next to the Apostles, have exerted and still exert through their writings the greatest influence in the Christian Church, as leaders of theological thought, are St. Augustin, Martin Luther, and John Calvin: all pupils of Paul, inspired by his doctrines of sin and grace, filled with the idea that God alone is great, equally eminent for purity of character, abundance in labors, and whole-souled consecration to the service of Christ, their common Lord and Saviour; and yet as different from each other as an African, a German, and a Frenchman can be. Next to them I would place an Englishman, John Wesley, who, as to abundance of useful labor in winning souls to Christ, is the most apostolic man that Great Britain has produced.
Augustin commands the respect and gratitude of the Catholic as well as the Protestant world. He is, among the three the profoundest in thought, and the sweetest in spirit; free from bitterness and coarseness, even in his severest polemics; yet advocating a system of exclusiveness which justifies coercion and persecution of heretics and schismatics. He identified the visible catholic church of his day with the kingdom of God on earth, and furnished the program of mediaeval Catholicism, though he has little to say about the papacy, and protested, in the Pelagian controversy, against the position of one Pope, while he accepted the decision of another. All three were fighters, but against different foes and with different weapons. Augustin contended for the catholic church against heretical sects, and for authority against false freedom; Luther and Calvin fought for evangelical dissent from the overwhelming power of Rome, and for rational freedom against tyrannical authority. Luther was the fiercest and roughest fighter of the three; but he alone had the Teutonic gift of humor which is always associated with a kindly nature, and extracts the sting out of his irony and sarcasm. His bark was far worse than his bite. He advised to drown the Pope and his cardinals in the Tiber; and yet he would have helped to save their lives after the destruction of their office. He wrote a letter of comfort to Tetzel on his death-bed, and protested against the burning of heretics.
Luther and Calvin learned much from Augustin, and esteemed him higher than any human teacher since the Apostles; but they had a different mission, and assumed a polemic attitude towards the traditional church. Augustin struggled from the Manichaean heresy into catholic orthodoxy, from the freedom of error into the authority of truth; the Reformers came out of the corruptions and tyranny of the papacy into the freedom of the gospel. Augustin put the church above the Word, and established the principle of catholic tradition; the Reformers put the Word above the church, and secured a progressive understanding of the Scriptures by the right of free investigation.
Luther and Calvin are confined in their influence to Protestantism, and can never be appreciated by the Roman Church; yet, by the law of re-action, they forced the papacy into a moral reform, which enabled it to recover its strength, and to enter upon a new career of conquest. Romanism has far more vitality and strength in Protestant than in papal countries, and owes a great debt of gratitude to the Reformation.
Of the two Reformers, Luther is the more original, forcible, genial, and popular; Calvin, the more theological, logical, and systematic, besides being an organizer and disciplinarian. Luther controls the Protestant churches of Germany and Scandinavia; Calvin’s genius shaped the confessions and constitutions of the Reformed churches in Switzerland, France, Holland, and Great Britain; he had a marked influence upon the development of civil liberty, and is still the chief molder of theological opinion in the Presbyterian and Congregational churches of Scotland and North America. Luther inspires by his genius, and attracts by his personality; Calvin commands admiration by his intellect and the force of moral self-government, which is the secret of true freedom in church and state.
Great and enduring are the merits of the three; but neither Augustin, nor Luther, nor Calvin has spoken the last word in Christendom. The best is yet to come.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 736-738)

Luther’s Public Character, and Position in History

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In 1883 the four hundredth anniversary of Luther’s birth was celebrated with enthusiasm throughout Protestant Christendom by innumerable addresses and sermons setting forth his various merits as a man and a German, as a husband and father, as a preacher, catechist, and hymnist, as a Bible translator and expositor, as a reformer and founder of a church, as a champion of the sacred rights of conscience, and originator of a mighty movement of religious and civil liberty which spread over Europe and across the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific. The story of his life was repeated in learned and popular biographies, in different tongues, and enacted on the stage in the principal cities of Germany. Not only Lutherans, but Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, united in these tributes to the Reformer. The Academy of Music in New York could not hold the thousands who crowded the building to attend the Luther-celebration arranged by the Evangelical Alliance in behalf of the leading Protestant denominations of America.
Such testimony has never been borne to a mortal man. The Zwingli-celebration of the year 1884 had a similar character, and extended over many countries in both hemispheres, but would probably not have been thought of without the preceding Luther-celebration.
And indeed Luther has exerted, and still exerts, a spiritual power inferior only to that of the sacred writers. St. Angustin’s influence extends wider, embracing the Roman Catholic church as well as the Protestant; but he never reached the heart of the common people. Luther is the only one among the Reformers whose name was adopted, though against his protest, as the designation and watchword by the church which he founded. He gave to his people, in their own vernacular, what no man did before or since, three fundamental books of religion, — the Bible, a hymn-book, and a catechism. He forced even his German enemies to imitate his language in poetry and prose. So strong is the hold which his Bible version has upon the church of his name, that it is next to impossible to change and adapt it to modern learning and taste, although he himself kept revising and improving it as long as he lived.
Luther was the German of the Germans, and the most vigorous type of the faults as well as the virtues of his nation. He is the apostle of Protestant Germany, fully as much as Boniface is the apostle of Roman Catholic Germany, and surpasses him vastly in genius and learning. Boniface, though an Anglo-Saxon by birth, was more a Roman than a German; while in Luther the Christian and the German were one, and joined in opposition to papal Rome. All schools of Lutheran divines appeal to his authority: the extreme orthodox, who out-Luther Luther in devotion to the letter; the moderate or middle party, who adhere only to the substance of his teaching; and the rationalists, who reject his creed, but regard him as the standard-bearer of the freedom of private judgment and dissent from all authority (Professor Ad. Harnack well says: “The Germans, if we may say so, worship Luther, Frederick the Great, Goethe, and Bismarck. Of these, Luther is most worthy, and was least desirous, of praise”).
His real strength lies in his German writings, which created the modern High-German book-language, and went right to the heart of the people. His greatest production is a translation, — the German Bible. Italians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, who knew him only from his Latin books, received a very feeble idea of his power, and could not understand the secret of his influence. The contemptuous judgments of Pope Leo, Cardinal Cajetan, Aleander, and Emperor Charles, echo the sentiments of their nations, and re-appear again and again among modern writers of the Latin races and the Romish faith.
Nevertheless, Martin Luther’s influence extends far beyond the limits of his native land. He belongs to the church and the world.
Luther has written his own biography, as well as the early history of the German Reformation, in his numerous letters, without a thought of their publication. He lays himself open before the world without reservation. He was the frankest and most outspoken of men, and swayed by the impulse of the moment, without regard to logical consistency or fear of consequences. His faults as well as his virtues lay on the surface of his German works. He infused into them his intense personality to a degree which hardly finds a parallel except in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.
He knew himself very well. A high sense of his calling and a deep sense of personal unworthiness are inseparably combined in his self-estimate. He was conscious of his prophetic and apostolic mission in republishing the primitive gospel for the German people; and yet he wrote to his wife not to be concerned about him, for God could make a dozen Luthers at any time. In his last will and testament (Jan. 6, 1542) he calls himself “a man well known in heaven, on earth, and in hell,” but also “a poor, miserable, unworthy sinner,” to whom “God, the Father of all mercies, has intrusted the gospel of His dear Son, and made him a teacher of His truth in spite of the Pope, the Emperor, and the Devil.” He signs himself, in that characteristic document, “God’s notary and witness in His gospel.” One of his last words was, “We are beggars.” And in the preface of the first collected edition of his works, he expresses a wish that they might all perish, and God’s Word alone be read.
Luther was a genuine man of the people, rooted and grounded in rustic soil, but looking boldly and trustingly to heaven with the everlasting gospel in his hand. He was a plebeian, without a drop of patrician blood, and never ashamed of his lowly origin. But what king or emperor or pope of his age could compare with him in intellectual and moral force? He was endowed with an overwhelming genius and indomitable energy, with fiery temper and strong passions, with irresistible eloquence, native wit, and harmless humor, absolutely honest and disinterested, strong in faith, fervent in prayer, and wholly devoted to Christ and His gospel. Many of his wise, quaint, and witty sayings have passed into popular proverbs; and no German writer is more frequently named and quoted than Luther.
Like all great men, he harbored in his mind colossal contrasts, and burst through the trammels of logic. He was a giant in public, and a child in his family; the boldest reformer, yet a conservative churchman; the eulogist of reason as the handmaid of religion, and the abuser of reason as the mistress of the Devil; the champion of the freedom of the spirit, and yet a slave of the letter; an intense hater of popery to the last, and yet an admirer of the Catholic Church, and himself a pope within his own church. ( …Harnack calls him “a sage without prudence; a statesman without politics; an artist without art; a man free from the world, in the midst of the world; of vigorous sensuality, yet pure; obstinately unjust, yet concerned for the cause; defying authority, yet bound by authority; at once blaspheming and emancipating reason.”)
Yet there was a unity in this apparent contradiction. He was a seeker of the righteousness of works and peace of conscience as a Catholic monk, and he was a finder of the righteousness of faith as an evangelical reformer; just as the idea and pursuit of righteousness is the connecting link between the Jewish Saul and the Christian Paul. It was the same engine, but reversed. In separating from papal catholicism, Luther remained attached to Christian catholicism; and his churchly instincts were never suppressed, but only suspended to re-assert themselves with new and greater force after the revolutionary excesses of the Reformation.
His history naturally divides itself into three periods: the Roman-Catholic and monastic period, till 1517; the Protestant and progressive period, till 1525; the churchly, conservative, and reactionary period, till 1546. But he never gave up his devotion to the free gospel, and his hatred of the Pope as the veritable Antichrist.
Luther’s greatness is not that of a polished work of art, but of an Alpine mountain with towering peaks, rough granite blocks, bracing air, fresh fountains, and green meadows. His polemical books rush along like thunderstorms or turbid mountain torrents. He knew his violent temper, but never took the trouble to restrain it; and his last books against the Papists, the Zwinglians, and the Jews, are his worst, and exceed any thing that is known in the history of theological polemics. In his little tract against the Romish Duke Henry of Brunswick, the word Devil occurs no less than a hundred and forty-six times (So says Dollinger, who counted the number. He adds, that in Luther’s book on the Councils, the devils are mentioned fifteen times in four lines). At last he could not pray without cursing, as he confessed himself. He calls his mastery of the vocabulary of abuse his rhetoric. “Do not think,” he wrote to Spalatin, “that the gospel can be advanced without tumult, trouble, and uproar. You cannot make a pen of a sword. The Word of God is a sword; it is war, overthrow, trouble, destruction, poison; it meets the children of Ephraim, as Amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in the wood.” We may admit that the club and sledge-hammer of this Protestant Hercules were necessary for the semi-barbarous Germans of his day. Providence used his violent temper as an instrument for the destruction of the greatest spiritual tyranny which the world ever saw. Yet his best friends were shocked and grieved at his rude personalities, and condemnatory judgments of such men as Erasmus, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius, not to speak of his Romish adversaries. Nothing shows more clearly the great distance which separates him from the apostles and evangelists.
But, with all his faults, he is the greatest man that Germany produced, and one of the very greatest in history. Melanchthon, who knew him best, and suffered most from his imperious temper, called him the Elijah of Protestantism, and compared him to the Apostle Paul. And indeed, in his religious experience and theological standpoint, he strongly resembles the Apostle of the Gentiles, — though at a considerable distance, — more strongly than any schoolman or father. He roused by his trumpet voice the church from her slumber; he broke the yoke of papal tyranny; he reconquered Christian freedom; he re-opened the fountain of God’s holy Word to all the people, and directed the Christians to Christ, their only Master.
This is his crowning merit and his enduring monument.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 730-736)

Luther at the Coburg

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Luther at the Coburg Castle
Luther’s Letters from Coburg, April 18 to Oct. 4, 1530, in De Wette, IV. 1–182. Melanchthon’s Letters to Luther from Augsburg, in the second volume of the “Corpus Reform.”
Zitzlaff (Archidiaconus in Wittenberg): Luther auf der Koburg, Wittenberg, 1882 (175 pages). Koestlin, M. L., II. 198 sqq.
During the Diet of Augsburg, from April till October, 1530, Luther was an honorable prisoner in the electoral castle of Coburg. From that watch-tower on the frontier of Saxony and Bavaria, he exerted a powerful influence, by his letters, upon Melanchthon and the Lutheran confessors at the Diet. His sojourn there is a striking parallel to his ten months’ sojourn at the Wartburg, and forms the last romantic chapter in his eventful life. He was still under the anathema of the Pope and the ban of the empire, and could not safely appear at Augsburg. Moreover, his prince had reason to fear that by his uncompromising attitude he might hinder rather than promote the work of reconciliation and peace. But he wished to keep him near enough for consultation and advice. A message from Augsburg reached Coburg in about four days.
Luther arrived at Coburg, with the Elector and the Wittenberg divines, on April 15, 1530. In the night of the 22d he was conveyed to the fortified castle on the hill, and ordered to remain there for an indefinite time. No reason was given, but he could easily suspect it. He spent the first day in enjoying the prospect of the country, and examining the prince’s building (Fuerstenbau) which was assigned him. His sitting-room is still shown. “I have the largest apartment, which overlooks the whole fortress, and I have the keys to all the rooms.” He had with him his amanuensis Veit Dietrich, a favorite student, and his nephew Cyriac Kaufmann, a young student from Mansfeld. He let his beard grow again, as he had done on the Wartburg. He was well taken care of at the expense of the Elector, and enjoyed the vacation as well as he could with a heavy load of work and care on his mind. He received more visitors than he liked. About thirty persons were stationed in the castle.
“Dearest Philip,” he wrote to Melanchthon, April 23, “we have at last reached our Sinai; but we shall make a Sion of this Sinai, and here I shall build three tabernacles, one to the Psalms, one to the Prophets, and one to Aesop ... . It is a very attractive place, and just made for study; only your absence grieves me. My whole heart and soul are stirred and incensed against the Turks and Mohammed, when I see this intolerable raging of the Devil. Therefore I shall pray and cry to God, nor rest until I know that my cry is heard in heaven. The sad condition of our German empire distresses you more.” Then he describes to him his residence in the “empire of birds.” In other letters he humorously speaks of the cries of the ravens and jackdaws in the forest, and compares them to a troop of kings and grandees, schoolmen and sophists, holding Diet, sending their mandates through the air, and arranging a crusade against the fields of wheat and barley, hoping for heroic deeds and grand victories. He could hear all the sophists and papists chattering around him from early morning, and was delighted to see how valiantly these knights of the Diet strutted about and wiped their bills, but he hoped that before long they would be spitted on a hedge-stake. He was glad to hear the first nightingale, even as early as April. With such innocent sports of his fancy he tried to chase away the anxious cares which weighed upon him. It is from this retreat that he wrote that charming letter to his boy Hans, describing a beautiful garden full of goodly apples, pears, and plums, and merry children on little horses with golden bridles and silver saddles, and promising him and his playmates a fine fairing if he prayed, and learned his lessons.
Joy and grief, life and death, are closely joined in this changing world. On the 5th of June, Luther received the sad news of the pious death of his father, which occurred at Mansfeld, May 29. When he first heard of his sickness, he wrote to him from Wittenberg, Feb. 15, 1530: “It would be a great joy to me if only you and my mother could come to us. My Kate, and all, pray for it with tears. We would do our best to make you comfortable.” At the report of his end he said to Dietrich, “So my father, too, is dead,” took his Psalter, and retired to his room. On the same day he wrote to Melanchthon that all he was, or possessed, he had received from God through his beloved father.
He suffered much from “buzzing and dizziness” in his head, and a tendency to fainting, so as to be prevented for several weeks from reading and writing. He did not know whether to attribute the illness to the Coburg hospitality, or to his old enemy. He had the same experience at the Wartburg. Dietrich traced it to Satan, since Luther was very careful of his diet.
Nevertheless, he accomplished a great deal of work. As soon as his box of books arrived, he resumed his translation of the Bible, begun on the Wartburg, hoping to finish the Prophets, and dictated to Dietrich a commentary on the first twenty-five Psalms. He also explained his favorite 118th Psalm, and wrote 118:17 on the wall of his room, with the tune for chanting, —
“Non moriar, sed vivam, et narrabo opera Domini.”
By way of mental recreation he translated thirteen of Aesop’s fables, to adapt them for youth and common people, since “they set forth in pleasing colors of fiction excellent lessons of wise and peaceful living among bad people in this wicked world.” He rendered them in the simplest language, and expressed the morals in apt German proverbs.
The Diet at Augsburg occupied his constant attention. He was the power behind the throne. He wrote in May a public “Admonition to the Clergy assembled at the Diet,” reminding them of the chief scandals, warning them against severe measures, lest they provoke a new rebellion, and promising the quiet possession of all their worldly possessions and dignities, if they would only leave the gospel free. He published a series of tracts, as so many rounds of musketry, against Romish errors and abuses.
He kept up a lively correspondence with Melanchthon, Jonas, Spalatin, Link, Hausmann, Brenz, Agricola, Weller, Chancellor Brueck, Cardinal Albrecht, the Elector John, the Landgrave Philip, and others, not forgetting his “liebe Kethe, Herr Frau Katherin Lutherin zu Wittenberg.” He dated his letters “from the region of the birds” (ex volucrum regno), “from the Diet of the jackdaws” (ex comitiis Monedu, larum seu Monedulanensibus), or “from the desert” (ex eremo, aus der Einoede). Melanchthon and the Elector kept him informed of the proceedings at Augsburg, asked his advice about every important step, and submitted to him the draught of the Confession. He approved of it, though he would have liked it much stronger. He opposed every compromise in doctrine, and exhorted the confessors to stand by the gospel, without fear of consequences.
His heroic faith, the moving power and crowning glory of his life, shines with wonderful luster in these letters. The greater the danger, the stronger his courage. He devoted his best hours to prayer. His “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” was written before this time, but fitly expresses his fearless trust in God at this important crisis, when Melanchthon trembled. “Let the matter be ever so great,” he wrote to him (June 27), “great also is He who has begun and who conducts it; for it is not our work ... . ‘Cast thy burthen upon the Lord; the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him.’ Does He say that to the wind, or does He throw his words before beasts? ... It is your worldly wisdom that torments you, and not theology. As if you, with your useless cares, could accomplish any thing! What more can the Devil do than strangle us? I conjure you, who in all other matters are so ready to fight, to fight against yourself as your greatest enemy.” In another letter he well describes the difference between himself and his friend in regard to cares and temptations. “In private affairs I am the weaker, you the stronger combatant; but in public affairs it is just the reverse (if, indeed, any contest can be called private which is waged between me and Satan): for you take but small account of your life, while you tremble for the public cause; whereas I am easy and hopeful about the latter, knowing as I do for certain that it is just and true, and the cause of Christ and God Himself. Hence I am as a careless spectator, and unmindful of these threatening and furious papists. If we fall, Christ falls with us, the Ruler of the world. I would rather fall with Christ than stand with the Emperor. Therefore I exhort you, in the name of Christ, not to despise the promises and the comfort of God, who says, ‘Cast all your cares upon the Lord. Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ I know the weakness of our faith; but all the more let us pray, ‘Lord, increase our faith.’ “
In a remarkable letter to Chancellor Brueck (Aug. 5), he expresses his confidence that God can not and will not forsake the cause of the evangelicals, since it is His own cause. “It is His doctrine, it is His Word. Therefore it is certain that He will hear our prayers, yea, He has already prepared His help, for he says, ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee” (Isa. 49:15). In the same letter he says, “I have lately seen two wonders: the first, when looking out of the window, I saw the stars of heaven and the whole beautiful vault of God, but no pillars, and yet the heavens did not collapse, and the vault still stands fast. The second wonder: I saw great thick clouds hanging over us, so heavy as to be like unto a great lake, but no ground on which they rested; yet they did not fall on us, but, after greeting us with a gloomy countenance, they passed away, and over them appeared the luminous rainbow ... . Comfort Master Philip and all the rest. May Christ comfort and sustain our gracious Elector. To Christ be all the praise and thanks forever. Amen.”
Urbanus Rhegius, the Reformer of Braunschweig-Lueneburg, on his way from Augsburg to Celle, called on Luther, for the first and last time, and spent a day with him at Coburg. It was “the happiest day” of his life, and made a lasting impression on him, which he thus expressed in a letter: “I judge, no one can hate Luther who knows him. His books reveal his genius; but if you would see him face to face, and hear him speak on divine things with apostolic spirit, you would say, the living reality surpasses the fame. Luther is too great to be judged by every wiseacre. I, too, have written books, but compared with him I am a mere pupil. He is an elect instrument of the Holy Ghost. He is a theologus for the whole world.”
Bucer also paid him a visit at Coburg (Sept. 25), and sought to induce him, if possible, to a more friendly attitude towards the Zwinglians and Strassburgers. He succeeded at least so far as to make him hopeful of a future reconciliation. It was the beginning of those union efforts which resulted in the Wittenburg Concordia, but failed at last. Bucer received the impression from this visit, that Luther was a man “who truly feared God, and sought sincerely the glory of God.”
There can be no doubt about this. Luther feared God, and nothing else. He sought the glory of Christ, and cared nothing for the riches and pleasures of the world. At Coburg, Luther was in the full vigor of manhood, — forty-six years of age, — and at the height of his fame and power. With the Augsburg Confession his work was substantially completed. His followers were now an organized church with a confession of faith, a form of worship and government, and no longer dependent upon his personal efforts. He lived and labored fifteen years longer, completing the translation of the Bible, — the greatest work of his life, preaching, teaching, and writing; but his physical strength began to decline, his infirmities increased, he often complained of lassitude and uselessness, and longed for rest after his herculean labors. Some of his later acts, as the unfortunate complicity with the bigamy affair of Philip of Hesse, and his furious attacks upon Papists and Sacramentarians, obscured his fame, and only remind us of the imperfections which adhere to the greatest and best of men.
Here, therefore, is the proper place to attempt an estimate of his public character, and services to the church and the world.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 723-729)

Zwingli’s Confession to the Emperor Charles

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Zwingli took advantage of the meeting of the Diet of Augsburg, to send a confession of his faith, addressed to the German Emperor, Charles V., shortly after the Lutheran princes had presented theirs. It is dated Zuerich, July 3, 1530, and was delivered by his messenger at Augsburg on the 8th of the same month; but it shared the same fate as the “Tetrapolitan Confession.” It was treated with contempt, and never laid before the Diet. Dr. Eck wrote in three days a refutation, charging Zwingli that for ten years he had labored to root out from the people of Switzerland all faith and all religion, and to stir them up against the magistrate; that he had caused greater devastation among them than the Turks, Tartars, and Huns; that he had turned the churches and convents founded by the Habsburgers (the Emperor’s ancestors) into temples of Venus and Bacchus; and that he now completed his criminal career by daring to appear before the Emperor with such an impudent piece of writing.
The Lutherans (with the exception of Philip of Hesse) were scarcely less indignant, and much more anxious to conciliate the Catholics than to appear in league with Zwinglians and Anabaptists. They felt especially offended that the Swiss Reformer took strong ground against the corporal presence, and incidentally alluded to them as persons who “were looking back to the flesh-pots of Egypt.” Melanchthon judged him insane.
Zwingli, having had no time to consult with his confederates, offered the Confession in his own name, and submitted it to the judgment of the whole church of Christ, under the guidance of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
In the first sections he declares, as clearly as and even more explicitly than the Lutheran Confession, his faith in the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, as laid down in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds (which are expressly named). He teaches the election by free grace, the sole and sufficient satisfaction by Christ, and justification by faith, in opposition to all human mediators and meritorious works. He distinguishes between the internal or invisible, and the external or visible, church. The former is the company of the elect believers and their children, and is the bride of Christ; the latter embraces all nominal Christians and their children, and is beautifully described in the parable of the ten virgins, of whom five were foolish. The word “church” may also designate a single congregation, as the church in Rome, in Augsburg, in Leyden. The true church can never err in the foundation of faith. Purgatory he rejects as an injurious fiction, which sets Christ’s merits at naught. On original sin, the salvation of unbaptized infants, and the sacraments, he departs much farther from the traditional theology than the Lutherans. He goes into a lengthy argument against the corporal presence in the eucharist. On the other hand, however, he protests against being confounded with the Anabaptists, and rejects their views on infant baptism, civil offices, the sleep of the soul, and universal salvation.
The document is frank and bold, yet dignified and courteous, and concludes thus: “Hinder not, ye children of men, the spread and growth of the Word of God. Ye can not forbid the grass to grow. Ye must see that this plant is richly blessed from heaven. Consider not your own wishes, but the demands of the age concerning the free course of the gospel. Take these words kindly, and show by your deeds that you are children of God.”
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 721-723)

The Tetrapolitan Confession

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The Tetrapolitan Confession, also called the Strassburg and the Swabian Confession, is the oldest confession of the Reformed Church in Germany, and represented the faith of four imperial cities, Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, which at that time sympathized with Zwingli and the Swiss, rather than Luther, on the doctrine of the sacraments.
It was prepared in great haste, during the sessions of the Diet of Augsburg, by Bucer, with the aid of Capito and Hedio, in the name of those four cities (hence the name) which were excluded by the Lutherans from their political and theological conferences, and from the Protestant League. They would greatly have preferred to unite with them, and to sign the Augsburg Confession, with the exception of the tenth article on the eucharist, but were forbidden. The Landgrave Philip of Hesse was the only one who, from a broad, statesmanlike view of the critical situation, favored a solid union of the Protestants against the common foe, but in vain.
Hence, after the Lutherans had presented their Confession June 25, and Zwingli his own July 8, the four cities handed theirs, July 11, to the Emperor in German and Latin. It was received very ungraciously, and not allowed to be read before the Diet; but a confutation full of misrepresentations was prepared by Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus, and read Oct. 24 (or 17). The Strassburg divines were not even favored with a copy of this confutation, but procured one secretly, and answered it by a “Vindication and Defense” in the autumn of 1531.
The Tetrapolitan Confession consists of twenty-three chapters, besides preface and conclusion. It is in doctrine and arrangement closely conformed to the Lutheran Confession, and breathes the same spirit of moderation, but is more distinctly Protestant. This appears at once in the first chapter (On the Matter of Preaching), in the declaration that nothing should be taught in the pulpit but what was either expressly contained in the Holy Scriptures, or fairly deduced therefrom. (The Lutheran Confession is silent on the supreme authority of the Scriptures.) The evangelical doctrine of justification is stated in the third and fourth chapters more clearly than by Melanchthon; namely, that we are justified not by works of our own, but solely by the grace of God and the merits of Christ, through a living faith, which is active in love, and productive of good works. Images are rejected in Chap. XXII.
The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (Chap. XVIII.) is couched in dubious language, which was intended to comprehend in substance the Lutheran and the Zwinglian theories, and accords with the union tendency of Bucer. But it contains the germ of the Calvinistic view. In this ordinance, it is said, Christ offers to his followers, as truly now as at the institution, his very body and blood as spiritual food and drink, whereby their souls are nourished to everlasting life. Nothing is said of the oral manducation and the participation of unbelievers, which are the distinctive features of the Lutheran view. Bucer, who had attended the Conference at Marburg in 1529, labored with great zeal afterwards to bring about a doctrinal compromise between the contending theories, but without effect.
The Tetrapolitan Confession was soon superseded by the clearer and more logical confessions of the Calvinistic type. The four cities afterwards signed the Lutheran Confession to join the Smalcald League. But Bucer himself remained true to his union creed, and reconfessed it in his last will and testament (1548) and on his death-bed.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 719-721)

The Roman Confutation and the Protestant Apology

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The Roman Confutation and the Protestant Apology

The Roman “Catholic Confutation,” so called, of the Augsburg Confession, was prepared in Augsburg by order of the Emperor Charles, by the most eminent Roman divines of Germany, and bitterest opponents of Luther, especially Drs. Eck, Faber, Cochlaeus, in Latin and German. The final revision, as translated into German, was publicly read before the Emperor and the Diet, in the chapel of the episcopal palace, Aug. 3, and adopted as the expression of the views of the majority.
The document follows the order of the Augsburg Confession. It approves eighteen doctrinal articles of the first part, either in full or with some restrictions and qualifications. Even the fourth article, on justification, escapes censure, and Pelagianism is strongly condemned. The tenth article, on the Lord’s Supper, is likewise approved as far as it goes, provided only that the presence of the whole Christ in either of the substances be admitted. But Article VII., on the Church, is rejected; also Art. XX., on faith and good works, and Art. XXI., on the worship of saints.
The second part of the Confession, on abuses, is wholly rejected; but at the close, the existence of various abuses, especially among the clergy, is acknowledged, and a reformation of discipline is promised and expected from a general council.
The tone of the Confutation is moderate, owing to the express direction of the Emperor; but it makes no concession on the points under dispute. It abounds in biblical and patristic quotations crudely selected. As to talent and style, it is far inferior to the work of Melanchthon. The Roman Church was not yet prepared to cope with the Protestant divines.
The publication of the Confutation as well as the Confession was prohibited, and it did not appear in print till many years afterwards; but its chief contents became known from notes taken by hearers and from manuscript copies.
The Lutheran members of the Diet urged Melanchthon to prepare at once a Protestant refutation of the Roman refutation, and offered the first draught of it to the Diet, Sept. 22, through Chancellor Brueck; but it was refused.
On the following day Melanchthon left Augsburg in company with the Elector of Saxony, re-wrote the Apology on the journey, and completed it leisurely at Wittenberg, with the help of a manuscript copy of the Confutation, in April, 1531.
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession is a scholarly vindication of the Confession. It far excels the Confutation in theological and literary merit. It differs from the apologetic Confession by its polemic and protestant tone. It is written with equal learning and ability, but with less moderation and more boldness. It even uses some harsh terms against the papal opponents, and calls them liars and hypocrites (especially in the German edition). It is the most learned of the Lutheran symbols, and seven times larger than the Confession, but for this very reason not adapted to be a symbolical book. It contains many antiquated arguments, and errors in exegesis and patristic quotations. But in its day it greatly strengthened the confidence of scholars in the cause of Protestantism. Its chief and permanent value is historical, and consists in its being the oldest and most authentic interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, by the author himself.
The Apology, though not signed by the Lutheran princes at Augsburg, was recognized first in 1532, at a convent in Schweinfurt, as a public confession; it was signed by Lutheran divines at Smalcald, 1537; it was used at the religious conference at Worms, 1540, and embodied in the various editions of the Confession, and at last in the Book of Concord, 1580.
The text of the Apology has, like that of the Confession, gone through various transformations, which are used by Bossuet and other Romanists as proofs of the changeableness of Protestantism. The original draught made at Augsburg has no authority, as it was based on fragmentary notes of Camerarius and others who heard the Confutation read on the 3d of August. The first Latin edition was much enlarged and improved; the German translation was prepared by Justus Jonas, assisted by Melanchthon, but differs widely from the Latin. Both were published together with the Augsburg Confession in October, 1531. Changes were made in subsequent editions, both of the Latin original and the German translation, especially in the edition of 1540. Hence there is an Apologia invariata and an Apologia variata, as well as a Confessio invariata and a Confessio variata. The Book of Concord took both texts from the first edition.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 715-718)

The Negotiations, the Recess, the Peace of Nuernberg

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The Negotiations, the Recess, the Peace of Nuernberg

The remaining transactions during this Diet were discouraging and unfruitful, and the result was a complete, but short-lived, victory of the Roman Catholic party.
Melanchthon during all this time was in a state of nervous trepidation and despondency. Before the delivery of the Confession he thought it too mild and pacific; after the delivery, he thought it too severe and polemic. So far was he carried away by his desire for reunion, and fears of the disastrous results of a split, that he made a most humiliating approach to the papal legate, Campeggi, who had advised the Emperor to crush the Protestant heresy by fire and sword, to put Wittenberg under the ban, and to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into Germany. Two weeks after the delivery of the Confession, he assured him that the Lutherans did not differ in any doctrine from the Roman Church, and were willing to obey her if she only would charitably overlook a few minor changes of discipline and ceremonies, which they could not undo. And, to conciliate such a power, Melanchthon kept aloof as far as possible from the Zwinglians and Strassburgers. On the 8th of July he had a personal interview with Campeggi, and Aug. 4 he submitted to him a few mild conditions of peace. The cardinal expressed his great satisfaction at these concessions, but prudently reserved his answer till he should hear from Rome.
All these approaches failed. Rome would listen to nothing but absolute submission.
Melanchthon soon found out that the papal divines, especially Eck, were full of pharisaical pride and malice. He was severely censured by the Nuernbergers and by Philip of Hesse for his weakness, and even charged by some with treason to the evangelical cause. His conduct must be judged in the light of the fact that the Roman Church allowed a certain freedom on the controverted points of anthropology and soteriology, and did not formally condemn the evangelical doctrines till several years afterwards, in the Council of Trent. The Augsburg Confession itself takes this view of the matter, by declaring at the close of the doctrinal articles: “This is the sum of doctrine among us, in which can be seen nothing which is discrepant with Scripture, nor with the Catholic or even with the Roman Church, so far as that Church is known from the writings of the Fathers.” Melanchthon may be charged with moral weakness and mistake of judgment, but not with unfaithfulness. Luther remained true to his invaluable friend, who was indispensable to the evangelical cause, and did it the greatest service at Augsburg. He comforted him in his letters from Coburg.
The Lutheran Confession was referred for answer, i.e., for refutation, to a commission of twenty Roman theologians, who were present at the Diet, including Eck, Faber, Cochlaeus, Wimpina, and Dittenberger. Their answer was ready July 13, but declined by the Emperor on account of its length and bitter tone. After undergoing five revisions, it was approved and publicly read on the 3d of August before the Diet, in the same chapel in which the Protestant Confession had been read. The Emperor pronounced the answer “Christian and well-considered.” He was willing to hand a copy to the Protestants, on condition to keep it private; but Melanchthon prepared a refutation, at the request of the Lutheran princes.
The Emperor, in his desire for a peaceful result, arranged a conference between the theological leaders of the two parties. Eck, Wimpina, and Cochlaeus represented the Roman Catholics; Melanchthon, Brenz, and Schnepf, the Lutherans. The discussion began Aug. 16, but proved a failure. A smaller committee conferred from the 24th to the 29th of August, but with no better result. Melanchthon hoped against hope, and made concession after concession, to conciliate the bishops and the Emperor. But the Roman divines insisted on a recognition of an infallible church, a perpetual sacrifice, and a true priesthood. They would not even give up clerical celibacy, and the withdrawal of the cup from the laity; and demanded a restoration of the episcopal jurisdiction, of church property, and of the convents.
Luther, writing from Coburg, urged the hesitating theologians and princes to stand by their colors. He, too, was willing to restore innocent ceremonies, and even to consent to the restoration of episcopacy, but only on condition of the free preaching of the gospel. He deemed a reconciliation in doctrine impossible, unless the Pope gave up popery.
On the 22d of September the Emperor announced the Recess of the Diet; that, after having heard and refuted the Confession of the Protestants, and vainly conferred with them, another term for consideration till April 15, 1531, be granted to them, as a special favor, and that in the mean time they should make no new innovations, nor disturb the
Catholics in their faith and worship, and assist the Emperor in the suppression of the Anabaptists and those who despised the holy sacrament. The Emperor promised to bring about a general council within a year for the removal of ecclesiastical grievances.
The signers of the Augsburg Confession, the cities of Frankfurt, Ulm, Schwaebisch Hall, Strassburg, Memmingen, Constance, Lindau, refused the recess. The Lutherans protested that their Confession had never been refuted, and offered Melanchthon’s Apology of the same, which was rejected. They accepted the proposed term for consideration.
The day after the announcement of the Recess, the Elector of Saxony returned home with his theologians. The Emperor took leave of him with these words: “Uncle, uncle, I did not look for this from you.” The Elector with tears in his eyes went away in silence. He stopped on the journey at Nuernberg and Coburg, and reached Torgau the 9th of October. The Landgrave of Hesse had left Augsburg in disgust several weeks earlier (Aug. 6), without permission, and created fears of an open revolt.
Luther was very indignant at the Recess, which was in fact a re-affirmation of the Edict of Worms. To stop the progress of the gospel, he declared, is to crucify the Lord afresh; the Augsburg Confession must remain as the pure word of God to the judgment day; the mass cannot be tolerated, as it is the greatest abomination; nor can it be left optional to commune in one or both kinds. Let peace be condemned to the lowest hell, if it hinder and injure the gospel and faith. They say, if popery falls, Germany will go to ruin. It is terrible, but I cannot help it. It is the fault of the papists. He published early in 1531 a book against the Edict of Augsburg, which he ascribes to Pope Clement “the arch-villain,” and Campeggi, rather than to the Emperor, and closes with the wish that “blasphemous popery may perish in hell as John prophesies in Revelation (14:8; 18:2; 22:20); let every Christian say, Amen.” In the same year he warned the Germans to be ready for defense, although it did not become him as a minister to stir up war.
The Recess of the Diet was finally published Nov. 19; but its execution threatened to bring on civil war, and to give victory to the Turks. The Emperor shrank from such consequences and was seriously embarrassed. Only two of the secular princes, Elector Joachim of Brandenburg and Duke George of Saxony, were ready to assist him in severe measures. The Duke of Bavaria was dissatisfied with the Emperor’s efforts to have, his brother Ferdinand elected Roman king. The archbishops of Mayence and Cologne, and the bishop of Augsburg, half sympathized with the Protestants. But the Emperor had promised the Pope to use all his power for the suppression of heresy, and was bound to execute as best he could the edict of the Diet after the expiration of the term of grace, April 15, 1531.
The Lutheran princes therefore formed in December, 1530, at Smalcald, a defensive alliance under the name of the Smalcaldian League. The immediate object was to protect themselves against the lawsuits of the imperial chamber of justice for the recovery of church property and the restoration of the episcopal jurisdiction. Opinions were divided on the question whether the allies in case of necessity should take up arms against the Emperor; the theologians were opposed to it, but the lawyers triumphed over the theological scruples, and the Elector of Saxony pledged the members for defensive measures against any and every aggressor, even the Emperor. At a new convent at Smalcald in March, 1531, the League was concluded in due form for six years. It embraced Electoral Saxony, Hesse, Lueneburg, Anhalt, Mansfeld, and eleven cities. Out of this League ultimately arose the Smalcaldian war, which ended so disastrously for the Protestant princes, especially the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse (1547).
But for the present, war was prevented by the peace at Nuernberg, 1532. A renewed invasion of Sultan Suleiman with an army of three hundred thousand, in April, 1532, made conciliation a political and patriotic duty. The Emperor convened a Diet at Regensburg, April 17, which was transferred to Nuernberg; and there, on July 23, 1532, a temporary truce was concluded, and vigorous measures taken against the Turks, who were defeated by land and sea, and forced to retreat. The victorious Emperor went to Italy, and urged the Pope to convene the council; but the Pope was not yet ready, and found excuses for indefinite postponement.(Luther chastised the Pope with all his power of irony and sarcasm for his conduct in regard to a council, in his book Von den Conciliis und Kirchen, 1539).
John the Constant died in the same year, of a stroke of apoplexy (Aug. 16, 1532), and was followed by his son John Frederick the Magnanimous, who in the Smalcaldian war lost his electoral dignity, but saved his evangelical faith.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 701-706)

THE MOST MEMORABLE DAY IN THE HISTORY OF LUTHERANISM

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THE MOST MEMORABLE DAY IN THE HISTORY OF LUTHERANISM

Protestantism in Augsburg and South Germany

Augsburg, first known twelve years before Christ as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum), and during the middle ages an imperial city (since 1276), the seat of a bishop, the chief emporium for the trade of Northern Europe with the Mediterranean and the East, and the home of princely merchants and bankers (the Fuggers and Welsers), figures prominently in the early history of the Reformation, and gave the name to the standard confession of the Lutheran Church in 1530, and to the treaty of peace in 1555. Luther was there in 1518 at a conference with Cardinal Cajetan, and lodged with the Carmelite friar Frosch, who remained faithful to him. Peutinger, the bishop (Christoph von Stadium), and two canons (Adelmann) were friendly to reform, at least for a time. Urbanus Rhegius preached there from 1523 to 1530, and exerted great influence. He distributed, with Frosch, the communion with the cup at Christmas, 1524. Both married in 1526.
But the Zwinglians, under the lead of Michael Keller, gradually gained the upper hand among influential men. Zwingli took advantage of the situation in his famous letter to Alber, Nov. 16, 1524, in which he first fully developed his theory. Even Rhegius, who had written before against Carstadt (sic) and Zwingli, became a Zwinglian, though only for a short period.
The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg, and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They baptized by immersion. Rhegius stirred up the magistrate against them: the leaders were imprisoned, and some executed.
The confusion and strife among the Protestants strengthened the Roman party. The people did not know what to believe, and the magistrate hesitated. The moral condition of the city, as described by Rhegius, Musculus, and other preachers, was deplorable, and worse than under the papal rule. During the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, the Emperor prohibited all Protestant preaching in public: the magistrate made no objection, and dismissed the preachers. But the Augsburg Confession left a permanent impression on the place.
The South-German cities of Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau were, like Augsburg, influenced by Zwingli as well as Luther, and united with Strassburg in the Tetrapolitan Confession, which Bucer and Capito prepared in great haste during the Diet of Augsburg as a document of union between the two wings of Protestantism. It failed to meet the approval of the Diet, and was, like Zwingli’s Confession, not even allowed to be read; but Bucer adhered to it to the end.
The most important and permanent conquest which the Reformation made in South Germany was that of the duchy (now kingdom) of Wuerttemberg under Duke Ulrich, through the labors of Brenz, Blaurer, and Schnepf, after 1534. The University of Tuebingen (founded 1477) became one of the most fruitful nurseries of Protestant theology, in all its phases, from the strictest orthodoxy to the most radical criticism.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 577-579)

The Diet And Confession Of Augsburg. A.D. 1530

The situation of Protestantism in 1530 was critical. The Diet of Speier had forbidden the further progress of the Reformation: the Edict of Worms was in full legal force; the Emperor had made peace with the Pope, and received from him the imperial crown at Bologna; the Protestants were divided among themselves, and the Conference at Marburg had failed to unite them against the common foe. At the same time the whole empire was menaced by a foreign power. The Turks under Suleiman “the Magnificent,” who called himself, Lord of all rulers, Dispenser of crowns to the monarchs of the earth, the Shadow of God over the world,” had reached the summit of their military power, and approached the gates of Vienna in September, 1529. They swore by the beard of Mohammed not to rest till the prayers of the prophet of Mecca should be heard from the tower of St. Stephen. They were indeed forced to retire with a loss of eighty thousand men, but threatened a second attempt, and in the mean time laid waste a great part of Hungary.
Under these circumstances the Diet of Augsburg convened, April 8, 1530. Its object was to settle the religious question, and to prepare for war against the Turks. The invitation dated Jan. 21, 1530, from Bologna, carefully avoids, all irritating allusions, sets forth in strong language the danger of foreign invasion, and expresses the hope that all would co-operate for the restoration of the unity of the holy empire of the German nation in the one true Christian religion and church.
But there was little prospect for such co-operation. The Roman majority meant war against the Protestants and the Turks as enemies of church and state; the Protestant minority meant defense against the Papists and the Turks as the enemies of the gospel. In the eyes of the former, Luther was worse than Mohammed; in the eyes of the Lutherans, the Pope was at least as bad as Mohammed. Their motto was, —
Erhalt uns Herr bei Deinem Wort
Und steur’ des Papsts und Tuerken Mord.”
The Emperor stood by the Pope and the Edict of Worms, but was more moderate than his fanatical surroundings, and treated the Lutherans during the Diet with courteous consideration, while he refused to give the Zwinglians even a hearing. The Lutherans on their part praised him beyond his merits, and were deceived into false hopes; while they would have nothing to do with the Swiss and Strassburgers, although they agreed with them in fourteen out of fifteen articles of faith.
The Saxon Elector, as soon as he received the summons to the Diet, ordered the Wittenberg theologians, at the advice of Chancellor Brueck, to draw up a confession of faith for possible use at Augsburg, and to meet him at Torgau. He started on the 3d of April with his son, several noblemen, Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas, Spalatin, and Agricola, stopped a few days at Coburg on the Saxon frontier, where Luther was left behind, and entered Augsburg on the 2d of May.
The Emperor was delayed on the journey through the Tyrol, and did not arrive till the 15th of June. On the following day he took a devout part in the celebration of the Corpus Christi festival. He walked in solemn procession under the most scorching heat, with uncovered head, heavy purple cloak, and a burning wax-candle. The Protestant princes absented themselves from what they regarded an idolatrous ceremony. They also declined to obey the Emperor’s prohibition of evangelical preaching during the Diet. Margrave George of Brandenburg declared that he would rather lose his head than deny God. The Emperor replied: “Dear prince, not head off, not head off.” He imposed silence upon the preachers of both parties, except those whom he should select. The Protestant princes held service in private houses.
The Diet was opened on Monday, June 20, with high mass by the Cardinal Archbishop of Mainz, and a long sermon by Archbishop Pimpinelli of Rossano, the papal nuncio at the court of Ferdinand. He described, in elegant Latin, the tyranny of the Turks, reproved the Germans for their sleepiness and divisions, and commended the heathen Romans and Mohammedans for their religious unity, obedience, and devotion to the past. A few days afterwards (June 24) the papal nuncio at the Diet, Laurentius Campegius (Campeggi) warned the Estates not to separate from the holy Catholic church, but to follow the example of other Christian kings and powers.
The Emperor desired first to secure help against the Turks, but the Protestants insisted on the priority of the church question. He accordingly commanded them to have their confession ready within four days, and to hand it to him in writing. He did not wish it to be read before the Diet, but the Protestants insisted upon this. He then granted the reading in Latin, but the Elector of Saxony pressed the rights of the German vernacular. “We are on German soil,” said he, “and therefore I hope your Majesty will allow the German language.” The Emperor yielded this point, but refused the request to have the Confession read in the city hall where the Diet met.
On the twenty-fifth day of June — THE MOST MEMORABLE DAY IN THE HISTORY OF LUTHERANISM, next to the 31st of October -the Augsburg Confession was read, with a loud and firm voice, by Dr. Baier, vice-chancellor of Electoral Saxony, in the German language, before the Diet in the private chapel of the episcopal palace. The reading occupied nearly two hours. The Emperor, who knew little German and less theology, soon fell asleep (The Emperor was equally sleepy on the 3d of August during the reading of the papal confutation). But the majority listened attentively. The Papists were surprised at the moderation of the Confession, and would have wished it more polemical and anti-catholic. The bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, is reported to have remarked privately that it contained the pure truth. Duke William of Bavaria censured Eck for misrepresenting to him the Lutheran opinions; and when the doctor said he could refute them, not with the Scriptures, but with the fathers, he replied: “I am to understand, then, that the Lutherans are within the Scriptures, and we Catholics on the outside?” Dr. Brueck, the Saxon chancellor who composed the preface and epilogue, handed to the Emperor a German and a Latin copy of the Confession. The Emperor kept the former, and gave the latter to the Elector of Mainz for safe-keeping. The Latin copy (in Melanchthon’s own handwriting) was deposited in the archives of Brussels, and disappeared under the reign of Duke Alba. The German original, as read before the Diet, was sent, with the acts of the Diet, to the Council of Trent, and never returned. But unauthorized editions soon appeared in different places (six German, one Latin) during the Diet; and Melanchthon himself issued the Confession in both languages at Wittenberg, 1531.
Both documents were signed by seven princes; namely, the Elector John of Saxony, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Margrave George of Brandenburg, Duke Ernest of Lueneburg, Duke John Frederick of Saxony, Duke Francis of Lueneburg, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt; and by two representatives of free cities, Nuernberg and Reutlingen.
The signing required considerable courage, for it involved the risk of the crown. When warned by Melanchthon of the possible consequences, the Saxon Elector nobly replied: “I will do what is right, unconcerned about my Electoral dignity. I will confess my Lord, whose cross I esteem more highly than all the power on earth.”
This act and testimony gave great significance to the Diet of Augsburg, and immortal glory to the confessors. Luther gave eloquent expression to his joy, when he wrote to Melanchthon, Sept. 15, 1530: You have confessed Christ, you have offered peace, you have obeyed the Emperor, you have endured injuries, you have been drenched in their revilings, you have not returned evil for evil. In brief, you have worthily done God’s holy work as becometh saints. Be glad, then, in the Lord, and exult, ye righteous. Long enough have ye been mourning in the world; look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. I will canonize you as a faithful member of Christ. And what greater glory can you desire? Is it a small thing to have yielded Christ faithful service, and shown yourself a member worthy of Him?”
The only blot on the fame of the Lutheran confessors of Augsburg is their intolerant conduct towards the Reformed, which weakened their own cause. The four German cities which sympathized with the Zwinglian view on the Lord’s Supper wished to sign the Confession, with the exception of the tenth article, which rejects their view; but they were excluded, and forced to hand in a separate confession of faith.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 7 MODERN CHRISTIANITY THE GERMAN REFORMATION (Pages 696-700)

The Augsburg Confession

The Augsburg Confession is the first and the most famous of evangelical confessions. It gave clear, full, systematic expression to the chief articles of faith for which Luther and his friends had been contending for thirteen years, since he raised his protest against the traffic in indulgences. By its intrinsic merits and historic connections, it has become the chief doctrinal standard of the Lutheran Church, which also bears the name of the “Church of the Augsburg Confession.” It retains this position to this day, notwithstanding the theological and ecclesiastical dissensions in that communion. It furnished the keynote to similar public testimonies of faith, and strengthened the cause of the Reformation everywhere. It had a marked influence upon the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. In the final revision by the author, and with the necessary change in the tenth article, it has also been frequently adopted by Reformed divines and congregations. But it was never intended, least of all by Melanchthon, who mended it to the last moment and even after its adoption, as an infallible and ultimate standard, even of the Lutheran Church. It was at first modestly called an, “Apology,” after the manner of the Christian Apologies in the ante-Nicene age, and meant to be simply a dispassionate statement in vindication of the Lutheran faith before the Roman Catholic world.
It is purely apologetic, and much more irenic than polemic. It aims to be, if possible, a Formula of Concord, instead of Discord. It is animated by a desire for reconciliation with Rome. Hence it is remarkably mild in tone, adheres closely to the historic faith, and avoids all that could justly offend the Catholics. It passes by, in silence, the supremacy of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith and practice, and some of the most objectionable features in the Roman system, — as indulgences, purgatory, and the papal primacy (which Melanchthon was willing to tolerate on an impossible condition). In short, it is the most churchly, the most catholic, the most conservative creed of Protestantism. It failed to conciliate Rome, but became the strongest bond of union among Lutherans.
The Confession is the ripe fruit of a gradual growth. It is based chiefly upon three previous confessional documents — the fifteen Articles of Marburg, Oct. 4, 1529, the seventeen Articles of Schwabach (a modification and expansion of the former by Luther, with the insertion of his view of the real presence), adopted by the Lutheran princes in a convent at Schwabach, near Nuernberg, Oct. 16, 1529, and several Articles of Torgau against certain abuses of the Roman Church, drawn up by Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas, and Bugenhagen, by order of the Elector, at his residence in Torgau, March 20, 1530. The first two documents furnished the material for the first or positive part of the Augsburg Confession; the last, for its second or polemical part.
Melanchthon used this material in a free way, and made a new and far better work, which bears the stamp of his scholarship and moderation, his power of condensation, and felicity of expression. He began the preparation at Coburg, with the aid of Luther, in April, and finished it at Augsburg, June 24. He labored on it day and night, so that Luther had to warn him against over-exertion. “I command you,” he wrote to him May 12, “and all your company that they compel you, under pain of excommunication, to take care of your poor body, and not to kill yourself from imaginary obedience to God. We serve God also by taking holiday and rest.”
If we look at the contents, Luther is the primary, Melanchthon the secondary, author; but the form, the method, style, and temper are altogether Melanchthon’s. Nobody else could produce such a work. Luther would have made it more aggressive and polemic, but less effective for the occasion. He himself was conscious of the superior qualification of his friend for the task, and expressed his entire satisfaction with the execution. “It pleases me very well,” he wrote of the Confession, “and I could not change or improve it; nor would it be becoming to do so, since I cannot tread so softly and gently.” He would have made the tenth article on the real presence still stronger than it is; would have inserted his sola in the doctrine of justification by faith, as he did in his German Bible; and rejected purgatory, and the tyranny of popery, among the abuses in the second part. He would have changed the whole tone, and made the document a trumpet of war.
The Augsburg Confession proper (exclusive of preface and epilogue) consists of two parts, — one positive and dogmatic, the other negative and mildly polemic or rather apologetic. The first refers chiefly to doctrines, the second to ceremonies and institutions. The order of subjects is not strictly systematic, though considerably improved upon the arrangement of the Schwabach and Torgau Articles. In the manuscript copies and oldest editions, the articles are only numbered; the titles were subsequently added.
I. The first part presents in twenty-one articles — beginning with the Triune God, and ending with the worship of saints — a clear, calm, and condensed statement of the doctrines held by the evangelical Lutherans: (1) in common with the Roman Church; (2) in common with the Augustinian school in that church; (3) in opposition to Rome; and (4) in distinction from Zwinglians and Anabaptists.
(1) In theology and Christology, i.e., the doctrines of God’s unity and trinity (Art. I.), and of Christ’s divine-human personality (III.), the Confession strongly re-affirms the ancient catholic faith as laid down in the oecumenical creeds, and condemns (damnamus) the old and new forms of Unitarianism and Arianism as heresies.
(2) In anthropology, i.e., in the articles on the fall and original sin (II.), the slavery of the natural will and necessity of divine grace (XVIII.), the cause and nature of sin (XIX.), the Confession is substantially Augustinian, in opposition to the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian heresies. The Donatists are also condemned (damnant, VIII.) for denying the objective virtue of the ministry and the sacraments, which Augustin defended against them.
(3) The general evangelical views more or less distinct from those of Rome appear in the articles on justification by faith (IV.), the Gospel ministry (V.), new obedience (VI.), the Church (VII., VIII.), repentance (XII.), ordination (XIV.), ecclesiastical rites (XV.), civil government (XVI.), good works (XIX.), the worship of saints, and the exclusive mediatorship of Christ (XX.).
These articles are so guardedly and skillfully worded as to disarm the papal opponents. Even the doctrine of justification by faith (Art. IV.), which Luther declared to be the article of the standing or falling church, is briefly and mildly stated, without the sola so strongly insisted on by Luther, and so objectionable to the Catholics, who charged him with willful perversion of the Scriptures, for inserting it in the Epistle to the Romans (3:28).
(4) The distinctively Lutheran views — mostly retained from prevailing catholic tradition, and differing in part from those of other Protestant churches — are contained in the articles on the sacraments (IX., X., XIII.), on confession and absolution (XI.), and the millennium (XVII.). The tenth article plainly asserts the doctrine of a real bodily presence and distribution of Christ in the eucharist to all communicants, and disapproves (improbant) of those who teach differently (the Zwinglians). The Anabaptists are not only disapproved, but condemned (damnamus) as heretics three times: for their views on infant baptism and infant salvation (IX.), Civil offices (XVI.), the millennium and final restoration (XVII.).
These anti-Zwinglian and anti-Baptist articles, however, have long since lost their force in the Lutheran Church. Melanchthon himself changed the wording of the tenth Article in the edition of 1540, and omitted the clause of disapproval. The damnation of unbaptized infants dying in infancy, which is indirectly indorsed by condemning the opposite, is a fossil relic of a barbarous orthodoxy, and was justly denied by the Baptists, as also by Zwingli and Bullinger, who on this point were ahead of their age. The first official deliverance against this dogma was raised by the Reformed Church of Scotland, in the Second Scotch Confession (1581), which condemns among the errors of “the Roman Antichrist” “his Cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament, and his absolute necessity of baptism.”
The doctrine of the second advent and millennium (rejected in Art. XVII.), if we except the dreams of the radical wing of the Anabaptists, has found advocates among sound and orthodox Lutherans, especially of the school of Bengel, and must be regarded as an open question.
The last Article of the doctrinal part expresses the assurance that the Lutherans hold no doctrine which is contrary to the Scriptures, or to the Catholic or even the Roman Church, as far as known from the fathers, and differ from her only on certain traditions and ceremonies. Luther knew better, and so did the Romanists. Only Melanchthon, in his desire for union and peace, could have thus deceived himself; but he was undeceived before he left Augsburg, and in the Apology of the Confession be assumed a very different tone.
II. The second part of the Confession rejects, in seven articles, those abuses of Rome which were deemed most objectionable, and had been actually corrected in the Lutheran churches; namely, the withdrawal of the communion cup from the laity (I.), the celibacy of the clergy (II.), the sacrifice of the mass (III.), obligatory auricular confession (IV.), ceremonial feasts and fasts (V.), monastic vows (VI.), and the secular power of the bishops as far as it interferes with the purity and spirituality of the church (VII.). This last Article is virtually a protest against the principle of Erastianism or Caesaro-papacy, and would favor in its legitimate consequences a separation of church and state. “The ecclesiastical and civil powers,” says the Confession, “are not to be confounded. The ecclesiastical power has its own commandment to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. Let it not by force enter into the office of another, let it not transfer worldly kingdoms,” etc. And as to the civil power, it is occupied only with worldly matters, not with the gospel, and “defends not the minds, but the bodies and bodily things, against manifest injuries.” This protest has been utterly disregarded by the Protestant rulers in Germany. The same Article favors the restoration of the episcopal jurisdiction with purely spiritual and ecclesiastical authority. This also was wholly disregarded by the signers, who were unwilling to give up their summepiscopate which they had claimed and exercised since 1526 with the consent of the Reformers.
The Confession concludes with these words: “Peter forbids bishops to be lords, and to be imperious over the churches (1 Pet. 5:3). Now, our meaning is not to take the rule from the bishops, but this one thing only is requested at their hands, that they would suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and that they would relax a few observances which cannot be held without sin. But if they will remit none, let them look how they will give account to God for this, that by their obstinacy they afford cause of division and schism.” Thus the responsibility of schism in the Latin Church was thrown upon Rome. But even if Rome and the Diet had accepted the Augsburg Confession, the schism would still have occurred by the further progress of the Protestant spirit, which no power on earth, not even Luther and Melanchthon, could arrest.
The style of the Latin edition is such as may be expected from the rare classic culture and good taste of Melanchthon; while the order and arrangement might be considerably improved.
The diplomatic preface to the Emperor, from the pen of a lawyer, Chancellor Brueck, is clumsy, tortuous, dragging, extremely obsequious, and has no other merit than to introduce the reader into the historical situation. The brief conclusion (Epilogus) is from the same source, and is followed by the signatures of seven princes and two magistrates. Several manuscript copies omit both preface and epilogue, as not properly belonging to the Confession.
Space forbids us to discuss the questions of the text, and the important variations of the Unaltered Confession of 1530, and the Altered Confession of 1540, which embodies the last improvements of its author, but has only a semi-official character and weight within the Lutheran Church.
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That I should show visibly with eyes and finger that Christ’s body is at the same time in heaven and at table, as the fanatics ask of us, (Oecolampadius: “The nature of a body is to be in one place. A body which can be at the same time in many places will not be regarded as a true body. A body has location, unless it can be shown otherwise from Scripture.” Reasonable Answer. St. L. 20, 603.) of course I cannot do. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325

Thus ended the council of Nicaea.
It is the first and most venerable of the ecumenical synods, and next to the apostolic council at Jerusalem the most important and the most illustrious of all the councils of Christendom.
Athanasius calls it “a true monument and token of victory against every heresy;”
Leo the Great, like Constantine, attributes its decrees to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and ascribes even to its canons perpetual validity;
the Greek church annually observes (on the Sunday before Pentecost) a special feast in memory of it.
There afterwards arose a multitude of apocryphal orations and legends in glorification of it, of which Gelasius of Cyzicus in the fifth century collected a whole volume.
The council of Nicaea is the most important event of the fourth century,
and its bloodless intellectual victory over a dangerous error is of far greater consequence to the progress of true civilization, than all the bloody victories of Constantine and his successors.
It forms an epoch in the history of doctrine,
summing up the results of all previous discussions on the deity of Christ and the incarnation,
and at the same time regulating the further development of the Catholic orthodoxy for centuries.
The Nicene creed, in the enlarged form which it received after the second ecumenical council,
is the only one of all,
the symbols of doctrine which,
with the exception of the subsequently added filioque,
is acknowledged alike by the Greek,
the Latin,
and the Evangelical churches,
and to this, day, after a course of fifteen centuries,
is prayed and sung from Sunday to Sunday in all countries of the civilized world.
The Apostles’ Creed indeed,
is much more generally used in the West,
and by its greater simplicity and more popular form is much better adapted to catechetical and liturgical purposes;
but it has taken no root in the Eastern church;
still less the Athanasian Creed,
which exceeds the Nicene in logical precision and completeness.
Upon the bed of lava grows the sweet fruit of the vine.
The wild passions and the weaknesses of men,
which encompassed the Nicene council,
are extinguished,
but the faith in the eternal deity of Christ has remained,
and so long as this faith lives,
the council of Nicaea will be named with reverence and with gratitude.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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However, in order to strengthen our people, I shall go on and show that the fanatics’ reasons and arguments are worthless, and shall prove to the point of superfluity that it is contrary neither to Scripture nor to the articles of faith for Christ’s body to be at the same time in heaven and in the Supper. I shall do this even though I do not owe it to the fanatics; rather, they are under obligation to prove that it is contrary to Scripture, and they cannot do it, as we have said. If I have proved this, however, then the words, “This is my body,” should be allowed to stand and remain just as they read. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325

The two other points on which the council of Nicaea decided,
the Easter question and
the Meletian schism, have been already spoken of in their place.
The council issued twenty canons in reference to discipline.
The creed and the canons were written in a book,
and again signed by the bishops.
The council issued a letter to the Egyptian and Libyan bishops as to the decision of the three main points;
the emperor also sent several edicts to the churches,
in which he ascribed the decrees to divine inspiration,
and set them forth as laws of the realm.
On the twenty-ninth of July,
the twentieth anniversary of his accession,
he gave the members of the council a splendid banquet in his palace,
which Eusebius (quite too susceptible to worldly splendor) describes as a figure of the reign of Christ on earth;
he remunerated the bishops lavishly,
and dismissed them with a suitable valedictory,
and with letters of commendation to the authorities of all the provinces on their homeward way.
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This should be quite enough to answer the fanatics. For since we prove and establish that the saying of Christ, “This is my body,” still stands firm, and that their best arguments are worthless, and bare and devoid of all proof, then surely all the other texts concerning Christ’s Supper also stand firm. For I have taken up the least and simplest of them, just to challenge the impotent, unsound, feeble prattle of the fanatics. So I treated this subject not without care also in my book against the heavenly prophets, and up to now no fanatic has refuted that book for me. I maintain, however, that they scorn it and do not read it, or if they do read it, they curl their lips and pass it by, on account of their great humility and fullness of all wisdom and holiness. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

Almost all the bishops subscribed the creed, Hosius at the head, and next him the two Roman presbyters in the name of their bishop. This is the first instance of such signing of a document in the Christian church. Eusebius of Caesarea also signed his name after a day’s deliberation, and vindicated this act in a letter to his diocese. Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea subscribed the creed without the condemnatory formula, and for this they were deposed and for a time banished, but finally consented to all the decrees of the council. The Arian historian Philostorgius, who however deserves little credit, accuses them of insincerity in having substituted, by the advice of the emperor, for (of the same essence) the semi-Arian word (of like essence). Only two Egyptian bishops, Theonas and Secundus, persistently refused to sign, and were banished with Arius to Illyria. The books of Arius were burned and his followers branded as enemies of Christianity.
This is the first example of the civil punishment of heresy; and it is the beginning of a long succession of civil persecutions for all departures from the Catholic faith. Before the union of church and state ecclesiastical excommunication was the extreme penalty. Now banishment and afterwards even death were added, because all offences against the church were regarded as at the same time crimes against the state and civil society.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative argument should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side. Our fanatics however can speak of virtually nothing but the negative. In short: Oecolampadius has derived his view neither from the Scriptures nor from the fathers, but he sweats and toils to import it into both. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

But this last circumstance itself was very suspicious to the extreme right. They wished a creed which no Arian could honestly subscribe, and especially insisted on inserting the expression homo-ousios, which the Arians hated and declared to be unscriptural, Sabellian, and materialistic. The emperor saw clearly that the Eusebian formula would not pass; and, as he had at heart, for the sake of peace, the most nearly unanimous decision which was possible, he gave his voice for the disputed word.
Then Hosius of Cordova appeared and announced that a confession was prepared which would now be read by the deacon (afterwards bishop) Hermogenes of Caesarea, the secretary of the synod. It is in substance the well-known Nicene creed with some additions and omissions of which we are to speak below. It is somewhat abrupt; the council not caring to do more than meet the immediate exigency. The direct concern was only to establish the doctrine of the true deity of the Son. The deity of the Holy Spirit, though inevitably involved, did not then come up as a subject of special discussion, and therefore the synod contented itself on this point with the sentence: “And (we believe) in the Holy Ghost.” The council of Constantinople enlarged the last article concerning the Holy Ghost. To the positive part of the Nicene confession is added a condemnation of the Arian heresy, which dropped out of the formula afterwards received.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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The amazing thing, meanwhile, is that of all the fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expression as, “It is simply bread and wine,” or, “Christ’s body and blood are not present.”

Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as, “It is simply bread,” or, “Not that the body of Christ is physically present,” or the like, since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blood are present. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

The Arians first proposed a creed, which however was rejected with tumultuous disapproval, and torn to pieces; whereupon all the eighteen signers of it, excepting Theonas and Secundus, both of Egypt, abandoned the cause of Arius.
Then the church historian Eusebius, in the name of the middle party, proposed an ancient Palestinian Confession, which was very similar to the Nicene, and acknowledged the divine nature of Christ in general biblical terms, but avoided the term in question, consubstantialis, of the same essence. The emperor had already seen and approved this confession, and even the Arian minority were ready to accept it.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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Again, when Oecolampadius in his first book plays nasty tricks and defames the sayings of the fathers, he has to admit that he has not derived his notion from the fathers’ writings, for they speak so mightily that they very frequently extort the admission from him, “This appears to be against us.” (A half dozen citations are given in WA 23, 299, from Genuine Exposition, where Oecolampadius acknowledged difficulties in quotations from Hilary, Cyprian, and Irenaeus.) My friend, what else is this than to say, “The fathers strongly imply something else; I cannot derive my argument from their writings, but must work hard to twist their nose around to my sense”? But anyone who must work so hard to twist and force these sayings around to his position admits forthwith that they yield not his position but rather the very opposite, and he is importing and reading his own thoughts into them. What advantage his nose twisting of the fathers brings him, however, we shall see later. . -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

The Arians or Eusebians numbered perhaps twenty bishops, under the lead of the influential bishop Eusebius of Nicemedia (afterwards of Constantinople), who was allied with the imperial family, and of the presbyter Arius, who attended at the command of the emperor, and was often called upon to set forth his views. To these also belonged Theognis of Nicaea, Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus of Ephesus; embracing in this remarkable way the bishops of the several seats of the orthodox ecumenical councils.
The majority, whose organ was the renowned historian Eusebius of Caesarea, took middle ground between the right and the left, but bore nearer the right, and finally went over to that side. Many of them had an orthodox instinct, but little discernment; others were disciples of Origen, or preferred simple biblical expression to a scholastic terminology; others had no firm convictions, but only uncertain opinions, and were therefore easily swayed by the arguments of the stronger party or by mere external considerations.
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LUTHER 1527

With this rancor, however, my dear fanatics prepare the way for the virtual denial of Christ, God, and everything. In part, already, they have made a start at believing nothing at all. (Perhaps Luther was thinking of such a statement as that of Zwingli: “Almost everything the Hebrews, Christ, Paul, and the apostles said, I call a trope.” Reply to Bugenhagen. C. R. 91, 575; St. L. 20, 519. Cf. p. 16, n. 7.) They follow the fancy of reason, which they expect to lead them aright. But this scoffing only serves the purpose of stirring up the foolish masses, who do not trouble themselves with Scriptures. They themselves know perfectly well that all their heathenish vomiting proves nothing against this article, or if it disproves this one, it also disproves all articles. For God’s Word is always folly to reason, I Corinthians 1[:18]. Therefore they would keep silent about all this if they were really in earnest about the Scriptures and did not have hearts full of sheer rancor and unbelief which had to spill out of their mouths. More on this subject later.-Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

In reference to the theological question the council was divided in the beginning into three parties.
The orthodox party, which held firmly to the deity of Christ, was at first in the minority, but in talent and influence the more weighty. At the head of it stood the bishop (or “pope”) Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem, Marcellus of Ancyra, Rosins of Cordova (the court bishop), and above all the Alexandrian archdeacon, Athanasius, who, though small and young, and, according to later practice not admissible to a voice or a seat in a council, evinced more zeal and insight than all, and gave promise already of being the future head of the orthodox party.
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This is the rancor and hatred of natural reason, which wants nothing to do with this article and therefore spits and vomits against it, and then tries to wrap itself in Scripture so that it may avoid being recognized. Not a single article of faith would remain if I followed the rancor of reason. I too could use this spitting and vomiting against it, to show the blasphemers that spitting is not simply an art of the Holy Spirit. I can say of God:
Of what use is it that he is man?
Why must one believe such a difficult thing?

(To Zwingli, Luther’s view thrusts upon people assertions which are not only difficult but impossible to believe, and force the senses to rebellion. Commentary. LWZ 3, 212 ff. “Why, pray, do we burden pious hearts with words of this kind, which no intellect can comprehend?” Ibid., 250. Cf. his dictum at the Marburg Colloquy, 1529: “It is not true that God puts before us many incomprehensible things.” Sasse, This Is My Body, p. 241.)

Why don’t the apostles worship him in the Supper?
What sense does it make that this Divine Majesty permits himself to be crucified by wicked fellows?
Oh, what a meat-God!
Oh, what a bloody God!
Oh, what a dead God!
And so forth.

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

After this address he gave way to the (ecclesiastical) presidents of the council and the business began. The emperor, however, constantly, took an active part, and exercised a considerable influence.
Among the fathers of the council, besides a great number of obscure mediocrities, there were several distinguished and venerable men. Eusebius of Caesarea was most eminent for learning; the young archdeacon Athanasius, who accompanied the bishop Alexander of Alexandria, for zeal, intellect, and eloquence. Some, as confessors, still bore in their body the marks of Christ from the times of persecution: Paphnutius of the Upper Thebaid, Potamon of Heraklea, whose right eye had been put out, and Paul of Neo-Caesarea, who had been tortured with red hot iron under Licinius, and crippled in both his hands. Others were distinguished for extraordinary ascetic holiness, and even for miraculous works; like Jacob of Nisibis, who had spent years as a hermit in forests and eaves, and lived like a wild beast on roots and leaves, and Spyridion (or St. Spiro) of Cyprus, the patron of the Ionian isles, who even after his ordination remained a simple shepherd. Of the Eastern bishops, Eusebius of Caesarea, and of the Western, Hosius, or Osius, of Cordova, had the greatest influence with the emperor. These two probably sat by his side, and presided in the deliberations alternately with the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch.
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In the same way when Oecolampadius skips over the Scriptures confronting him, God help us, how gaily he leaps and dances with his notion, asking:
What purpose does it serve?
Why didn’t the disciples worship the bread?
Why does Scripture indicate no miracle here?
How does it help if Christ is invisibly present?
Why must Christians believe such a difficult thing?
What sense does it make that the King of glory permits such wicked fellows to trifle with him?
In particular, however, it is his blasphemous words that portray his heart best, when he calls our God a baked God, a bread-God, a meat-God, and many, many other names. Who can possibly fail to understand now what they think in their hearts? If the Scriptures moved them, they would surely have done with such obscenities and deal with Scriptures.

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

How great the contrast between this position of the church and the time of her persecution but scarcely passed! What a revolution of opinion in bishops who had once feared the Roman emperor as the worst enemy of the church, and who now greeted the same emperor in his half barbarous attire as an angel of God from heaven, and gave him, though not yet even baptized, the honorary presidency of the highest assembly of the church!
After a brief salutatory address from the bishop on the right of the emperor, by which we are most probably to understand Eusebius of Caesarea, the emperor himself delivered with a gentle voice in the official Latin tongue the opening address, which was immediately after translated into Greek, and runs thus:
“It was my highest wish, my friends, that I might be permitted to enjoy your assembly. I must thank God that, in addition to all other blessings, he has shown me this highest one of all: to see you all gathered here in harmony and with one mind. May no malicious enemy rob us of this happiness, and after the tyranny of the enemy of Christ [Licinius and his
army] is conquered by the help of the Redeemer, the wicked demon shall not persecute the divine law with new blasphemies. Discord in the church I consider more fearful and painful than any other war. As soon as I by the help of God had overcome my enemies, I believed that nothing more was now necessary than to give thanks to God in common joy with those whom I had liberated. But when I heard of your division, I was convinced that this matter should by no means be neglected, and in the desire to assist by my service, I have summoned you without delay. I shall, however, feel my desire fulfilled only when I see the minds of all united in that peaceful harmony which you, as the anointed of God, must preach to others. Delay not therefore, my friends, delay not, servants of God; put away all causes of strife, and loose all knots of discord by the laws of peace. Thus shall you accomplish the work most pleasing to God, and confer upon me, your fellow servant, an exceeding great joy.”
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Although they conceal all this with great diligence, still the old rogue peeks out and exposes himself to view clearly enough. Zwingli as much as confesses that he has never believed it his whole life long, and I have no doubt that he believes nothing at all. Indeed, what is more, he places himself upon the judgment seat and judges the heart and spirit of all men, declaring that no man has ever believed this. (“Nor do I believe there ever was a person who believed that he ate Christ bodily and essentially in the sacrament.…” Letter to Alber. C. R. 90, 350; St. L. 17, 1526. Cf. Rearguard. C. R. 91, 493; Clear Instruction. LCC 24, 199.) If this is not too rash, it certainly is rash enough, and besides, it is not true, as I know only too well. Now from this confession it is to be observed that he does not draw this notion from the Scriptures, which he discovered only long afterward, as his book, Rearguard, in particular, and others prove. Long before he ever found these Scriptures he had these beliefs, and only now does he run and hunt up Scripture and force it to suit his notion. (Perhaps Luther had in mind the fact that Zwingli wrote his treatise, Rearguard, 1525, as an afterthought to reinforce his Commentary on True and False Religion. Even more, he must have been thinking of Zwingli’s claim in Rearguard that while his view on the Lord’s Supper had been fixed for years, he had only recently acquired new biblical support besides the metaphorica! arguments, viz. the insight through a dream that the passover, Exod. 12:11, provided a proof of his position. C. R. 91, 483 f. “Others” doubtless means Zwingli’s Reply to Bugenbagen, 1525 (C. R. 91, 558 f.; St. L. 20, 507 f.), where the concept of trope and the interpretation of “is” as “represent” appear.Incidentally, Walther Köhler has shown that Zwingli did not fix his view of the sacrament until 1523–1524. Zwingli und Luther (1924), I, chap. 1; cf. Hermann Sasse, This Is My Body (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959), pp. 120–130.)Before Dr. Karlstadt started writing, he too said a long time ago to a certain person, “My friend, you will not persuade me that God is in the bread and wine.” So, by the power of God, they are caught off guard.

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

The formal sessions began, after preliminary disputations between Catholics, Arians, and philosophers, probably about Pentecost, or at farthest after the arrival of the emperor on the 14th of June. They closed on the 25th of July, the anniversary of the accession of Constantine; though the members did not disperse till the 25th of August. They were held, it appears, part of the time in a church or some public building, part of the time in the emperor’s house.
The formal opening of the council was made by the stately entrance of the emperor, which Eusebius in his panegyrical flattery thus describes: “After all the bishops had entered the central building of the royal palace, on the sides of which very many seats were prepared, each took his place with becoming modesty, and silently awaited the arrival of the emperor. The court officers entered one after another, though only such as professed faith in Christ. The moment the approach of the emperor was announced by a given signal, they all rose from their seats, and the emperor appeared like a heavenly messenger of God, covered with gold and gems, a glorious presence, very tall and slender, full of beauty, strength, and majesty. With this external adornment he united the spiritual ornament of the fear of God, modesty, and humility, which could be seen in his downcast eyes, his blushing face, the motion of his body, and his walk. When he reached the golden throne prepared for him, he stopped, and sat not down till the bishops gave him the sign. And after him they all resumed their seats.”
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It is shameful, however, that they have not enough decency and honesty to admit openly what they really wish in their hearts and what they would like to have and see and hear but allege instead that the Scriptures constrain them—which they know is not true, for they seize the Scriptures with guile and malice in order to use them as a cloak before the people, and under the guise of Scripture they spread their poison among the people.

The Council of Nicaea, 325.
The whole number of bishops assembled was at most three hundred and eighteen; that is, about one sixth of all the bishops of the empire, who are estimated as at least eighteen hundred (one thousand for the Greek provinces, eight hundred for the Latin), and only half as many as were at the council of Chalcedon. Including the presbyters and deacons and other attendants the number may, have amounted to between fifteen hundred and two thousand. Most of the Eastern provinces were strongly represented; the Latin church, on the contrary, had only seven delegates: from Spain Hosius of Cordova, from France Nicasius of Dijon, from North Africa Caecilian of Carthage, from Pannonia Domnus of Strido, from Italy Eustorgius of Milan and Marcus of Calabria, from Rome the two presbyters Victor or Vitus and Vincentius as delegates of the aged pope Sylvester I. A Persian bishop John, also, and a Gothic bishop, Theophilus, the forerunner and teacher of the Gothic Bible translator Ulfilas, were present.
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But I shall put my finger still more accurately upon their real argument which leads them to such an error, and I shall stake my body and soul, which I would not gladly lose, that I shall not fail in my purpose. Poor sinner that I am, I too know a little about the Spirit, and a great deal about the old rogue who rages in us—I mean, the flesh. This one factor moves them above all others: that according to reason it is altogether absurd to believe that we should eat and drink Christ’s body and blood physically in the Supper. And I know for certain that if they should win, their ultimate exultation would be, “Yes, I was perfectly sure that it could not be right: it just never made sense to me that Christ’s body and blood should be treated in this way!” as they are now whispering secretly among themselves, and as the foolish masses are prattling openly. But they would like to conceal this, for they are ashamed to admit it. They know very well that it is worthless talk, but they are pleased to see the foolish masses blurt it out, and they say and write nothing against it.

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

Nicaea, the very name of which speaks victory, was the second city of Bithynia, only twenty English miles from the imperial residence of Nicomedia, and easily accessible by sea and land from all parts of the empire. It is now a miserable Turkish village, Is-nik, where nothing but a rude picture in the solitary church of St. Mary remains to the memory of the event which has given the place a name in the history of the world.
Hither, in the year 325, the twentieth of his reign (therefore the festive vicennalia), the emperor summoned the bishops of the empire by a letter of invitation, putting at their service the public conveyances, and liberally defraying from the public treasury the expenses of their residence in Nicaea and of their return. Each bishop was to bring with him two presbyters and three servants. They travelled partly in the public post carriages, partly on horses, mules, or asses, partly on foot. Many came to bring their private disputes before the emperor, who caused all their papers, without reading them, to be burned, and exhorted the parties to reconciliation and harmony.
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If they would stop and think, however, and take care to speak nothing but God’s words, as St. Peter teaches [I Pet. 4:11], and if they would leave their own assertions and assumptions at home, they would not create so much misfortune. This saying, “The Scriptures are not self-contradictory,” would not have misled Oecolampadius, for it is grounded in God’s Word that God does not lie nor does his Word deceive. But this addition to his word, “I, Oecolampadius, say that the Scriptures here are contradictory,” brings him into such toil and sweat that he denies, twists, reinterprets, and tortures the Word of God any way he pleases. Lord God, how easily such a horrible downfall takes place, and still we are sure and fearless on this slippery path!

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

Constantine, the first emperor who mingled in the religious affairs of Christendom, and who did this from a political, monarchical interest for the unity of the empire and of religion, was at first inclined to consider the contest a futile logomachy, and endeavored to reconcile the parties in diplomatic style by letters and by the personal mission of the aged bishop Hosius of Spain; but without effect. Questions of theological and religious principle are not to be adjusted, like political measures, by compromise, but must be fought through to their last results, and the truth must either conquer or (for the time) succumb. Then, in pursuance, as he thought, of a “divine inspiration,” and probably also with the advice of bishops who were in friendship with him, he summoned the first universal council, to represent the whole church of the empire, and to give a final decision upon the relation of Christ to God, and upon some minor questions of discipline, the time of Easter, and the Meletian schism in Egypt.
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What deceived the good Oecolampadius is the fact that scriptural texts which are contradictory must be reconciled, and one passage must receive an interpretation which will accord with another; for it is certain that the Scriptures cannot be at variance with themselves. But he did not notice and consider that he would be the one who alleged this variance in the Scriptures and who ought to prove it. He simply asserted it and proclaimed it as if it were already sealed and delivered. This is where he stumbled and fell.

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

The contest between these two views broke out about the year 318 or 320. Arius and his followers, for their denial of the true deity of Christ, were deposed and excommunicated by a council of a hundred Egyptian and Libyan bishops at Alexandria in 321. In spite of this he continued to hold religious assemblies of his numerous adherents, and when driven from Alexandria, agitated his doctrine in Palestine and Nicomedia, and diffused it in an entertaining work, half poetry, half prose: The Banquet, of which a few fragments are preserved in Athanasius. Several bishops, especially Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, who either shared his view or at least considered it innocent, defended him. Alexander issued a number of circular letters to all the bishops against the apostates and Exukontians. Bishop rose against bishop, and province against province. The controversy soon involved, through the importance of the subject and the zeal of the parties, the entire church, and transformed the whole Christian East into a theological battle-field.
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Now do you demand Scripture from us, dear fanatics? Here it is: “Take, eat, this is my body.” Torment yourselves for now with this text; later you shall have more. Oh, how sure you were, not thinking that you could ever be challenged or confronted with this saying! For you had not only crucified it but also buried it and set guards around the grave so that it was utterly impotent. But now it has risen from the dead and will die no more, and casts you, its enemies, under its feet and makes you its footstool.(Allusions to Matt. 27:66, Rom. 6:9, Ps. 110:1, all of which also figured exegetically in the controversy.)
The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

Arius, a presbyter of the same city after 313, who is represented as a tall, thin, learned, adroit, austere, and fascinating man, but proud, artful, restless, and disputatious, pressed and overstated the Origenistic view of the subordination, accused Alexander of Sabellianism, and taught that Christ, while he was indeed the creator of the world, was himself a creature of God, therefore not truly divine.
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Compare them now, these fanatics and corrupters of the Scriptures. Karlstadt produced his touto, which turned out to be untenable. Then Zwingli came and tried to improve the matter with his metaphor, which was even less tenable. Next comes Oecolampadius with his “sign of the body,” as the best idea of all, and it proves least tenable of all. So his argument runs: “I, Oecolampadius, say that the Scriptures in this case are contradictory.” Now isn’t this a fine, delicate basis of faith, when a man can say, “Although God’s Word stands there and says, ’This is my body,’ nevertheless because I cannot comprehend or believe it, and it appears to me to contradict Scripture, it is therefore not true and must have another meaning, regardless of how clearly God’s Word stands there.” This is Oecolampadius’ “spirit” and his celebrated “truth,” that human fancy and unbelief shall prevail over God’s Word and form the basis of our faith. Who could not do the same thing in all other articles of faith as well? How profoundly can Satan mislead such people? Hence this argument of Oecolampadius is overthrown with a single word: No! These texts are not contradictor; a man may say so and imagine so, but not prove it. Thus all his elaborate system lies in the slop.

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

The roots of the Arian controversy are to be found partly in the contradictory elements of the christology of the great Origen, which reflect the crude condition of the Christian mind in the third century; partly in the antagonism between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian theology. Origen, on the one hand, attributed to Christ eternity and other divine attributes which logically lead to the orthodox doctrine of the identity of substance; so that he was vindicated even by Athanasius, the two Cappadocian Gregories, and Basil. But, on the other hand, in his zeal for the personal distinctions in the Godhead, he taught with equal clearness a separateness of essence between the Father and the Son and the subordination of the Son, as a second or secondary God beneath the Father, and thus furnished a starting point for the Arian heresy. The eternal generation of the Son from the will of the Father was, with Origen, the communication of a divine but secondary substance, and this idea, in the hands of the less devout and profound Arius, who with his more rigid logic could admit no intermediate being between God and the creature, deteriorated to the notion of the primal creature.
But in general Arianism was much more akin to the spirit of the Antiochian school than to that of the Alexandrian.
Arius himself traced his doctrine to Lucian of Antioch, who advocated the heretical views of Paul of Samosata on the Trinity, and was for a time excommunicated, but afterwards rose to great consideration, and died a martyr under Maximinus.
Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, made earnest of the Origenistic doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son (which was afterwards taught by Athanasius and the Nicene creed, but in a deeper sense, as denoting the generation of a person of the same substance from the substance of the Father, and not of a person of different substance from the will of the Father), and deduced from it the homo-ousia or consubstantiality of the Son with the Father.
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So too, that Christ’s body is both in heaven and in the Supper is a contradiction, says Oecolampadius, and so it is in his eyes. Yes, but no one asked him to teach us his say-so, and what appears to him to be thus and so, but what God says and how it is in God’s eyes. There he lies helpless, yet he must do as we have said if he wishes to make his teaching certain and sure. Here let them answer, here let us see how they will crack their heads. But they do not do it. They will grumble something foolish and pipe a different tune, in order to keep men from noticing how they are being forced into a tight spot.

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

Arianism proceeded from the bosom of the Catholic church, was condemned as heresy at the council of Nicaea, but afterwards under various forms attained even ascendency for a time in the church, until at the second ecumenical council it was cast out forever. From that time it lost its importance as a politico-theological power, but continued as an uncatholic sect more than two hundred years among the Germanic nations, which were converted to Christianity under the Arian domination.
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However, if we should judge the articles of our faith and the Scriptures according to our reason and our eyes, as Oecolampadius does here, then indeed every point in the Scriptures is in opposition to the other. For the text that Mary is a virgin and mother [Luke 1:27, 31] is opposed to the texts, “Be fruitful and multiply,” and “I will make for man a helper fit for him” [Gen. 1:28, 2:18]. If I should deny for that reason that she was a virgin, and exclaim, “The Scriptures are contradictory,” someone would fairly answer me, “Yes, for you and your reason they are contradictory; but how are they contradictory before God? Tell me that!” So I would be in the same position as Oecolampadius is here.
Again, that Christ is God is contrary to the text, “God created man” [Gen. 1:27]. Go on now and say, “He is not God, because divinity and humanity are more opposed to each other than heaven and earth; and the person, Christ, cannot be at the same time in the Godhead and in humanity.” Let your reason be that these texts are contradictory. Then someone will answer you, “Yes, you say so, and in your eyes they are contradictory, but show me that they are also contradictory in God’s sight!”

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

The controversies on this fundamental question agitated the Roman empire and the church of East and West for more than half a century, and gave occasion to the first two ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. At last the orthodox doctrine triumphed, and in 381 was brought into the form in which it is to this day substantially held in all orthodox churches.
The external history of the Arian controversy, of which we first sketch the main features, falls into three stages:
1. From the outbreak of the controversy to the temporary victory of orthodoxy at the council of Nicaea; a.d. 318–325.
2. The Arian and semi-Arian reaction, and its prevalence to the death of Constantius; a.d. 325–361.
3. The final victory, and the completion of the Nicene creed; to the council of Constantinople, a.d. 381.
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If we establish that Oecolampadius can neither prove this assertion of his nor indicate how the Scriptures are contradictory in the sight of God—which, to be sure, he can never do—then the whole argument has been won and we. have established everything. For if it turns out that we retain the words, “This is my body,” i.e. that Christ’s body is present in the Supper, then the saying in John 6[:63], “The flesh is of no avail,” will harmonize perfectly well. Miracles aplenty will then take place, the sacraments will not be mere symbols, and their whole swarm which is so big will scatter and fly away like dust before the wind. For it will not be necessary to relegate Christ’s body and blood to the status of a useless or insignificant thing. Of this I am sure.

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

The church always believed in this Trinity of revelation, and confessed its faith by baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This carried with it from the first the conviction, that this revelation of God must be grounded in a distinction immanent in the divine essence. But to bring this faith into clear and fixed knowledge, and to form the baptismal confession into doctrine, was the hard and earnest intellectual work of three centuries. In the Nicene age minds crashed against each other, and fought the decisive battles for and against the doctrines of the true deity of Christ, with which the divinity of Christianity stands or falls.
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There lies the celebrated argument, now, that they slobber about the most, above all others, and on which they rely and insist most stubbornly, when they say that the two Scripture passages are contradictory: Christ is seated in heaven, and his body is in the Supper, though they do not prove it. But they do prove clearly that these two passages and their reason are contradictory. This, however, it would not have been necessary to prove; I could have told them just as well. What you say, that Scripture is contradictory, matters not at all. Who asks what you say? I would laud and honor them, however, if they would prove their assertion with Scripture or in some other way. But they must leave this undone, in order that this text may remain firm, “This is my body.”

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

The Arian controversy relates primarily to the deity of Christ, but in its course it touches also the deity of the Holy Ghost, and embraces therefore the whole mystery of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of God, which is the very centre of the Christian revelation. The dogma of the Trinity came up not by itself in abstract form, but in inseparable connection with the doctrine of the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. If this latter doctrine is true, the Trinity follows by logical necessity, the biblical monotheism being presumed; in other words: If God is one, and if Christ and the Holy Ghost are distinct from the Father and yet participate in the divine substance, God must be triune. Though there are in the Holy Scriptures themselves few texts which directly prove the Trinity, and the name Trinity is wholly wanting in them, this doctrine is taught with all the greater force in a living form from Genesis to Revelation by the main facts of the revelation of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, besides being indirectly involved in the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost.
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Here perhaps they may say: We can prove it very well. Once we climbed up to heaven secretly, just at midnight, when God was most soundly asleep. We had a lantern and a master key with us, broke into his most secret chamber, and unlocked all his chests and strongboxes in which his power lay. We took gold scales so that we could weigh our loot accurately and be sure to hit it just right. But we found no power that can enable a body to be at the same time in heaven and in the Supper. Therefore it is certain that “body” must mean “sign of the body.” May God repay you, Satan, you damnable wretch, for the shameful and cocksure way you ridicule us! But my ridicule in turn will tickle you, too, what do you bet?

The Nicene Doctrine Is Edifying

When we attentively peruse the warm, vigorous, eloquent, and discriminating controversial writings of Athanasius and his co-laborers, and compare with them the vague, barren, almost entirely negative assertions and superficial arguments of their opponents, we cannot escape the impression that, with all their exegetical and dialectical defects in particulars, they have on their side an overwhelming preponderance of positive truth, the authority of holy Scripture, the profounder speculations of reason, and the prevailing traditional faith of the early church.
The spirit and tendency of the Nicene doctrine is edifying; it magnifies Christ and Christianity. The Arian error is cold and heartless, degrades Christ to the sphere of the creature, and endeavors to substitute a heathen deification of the creature for the true worship of God. For this reason also the faith in the true and essential deity of Christ has to this day an inexhaustible vitality, while the irrational Arian fiction of a half-deity, creating the world and yet himself created, long ago entirely outlived itself.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 662-663)

LUTHER 1527 To Worship A Creature Is Idolatry

2006-06-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Friend, don’t confuse us with the Scriptures; it is not the fanatics’ practice to rely upon the Scriptures. But you ought to produce Scripture that God does and can do such things. All right, here is my Scripture: What God says, he can do, Romans 4[: 21], and with God no word is impossible, Luke 1[: 37]. Since he says here, then, “This is my body,” he certainly can and does make it so. Now you in turn are obliged to prove that he does not and cannot do it. For that is your sovereign argument with which you would dislodge these words. This is the right place for blows, and we stand on the right field of combat. If you do not prove that it is impossible, then we unhorse you and run you through with the words, “This is my body”; God says it, God does it. En garde, you precious horsemen! Now is the time!

To Worship A Creature Is Idolatry.
Finally Christ cannot be a proper object of worship, as he is represented in Scripture and has always been regarded in the Church, without being strictly divine.
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LUTHER 1527 Athanasius Argues

2006-06-02T07:27:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

How do we become certain, good gentlemen, that a body may not through the power of God be at the same time in heaven and in the Supper, since the power of God has neither measure nor number, and does things which no mind can comprehend but must simply be believed? When he says, “This is my body,” how shall I calm my heart and convince it that God has no means or power to do what his Word says? And perhaps, even if a body is not now visibly present at several places, he may well know of other ways by which he might render a body invisibly present, indeed, even visibly, in many places at the same time. If he could do this, would you not have deceived us woefully by saying No before you knew for sure? Have you also proof from the Scriptures that they do not concede this possibility to the omnipotence of God?

Athanasius Argues

Starting from the idea of God, Athanasius argues: The relation of Father is not accidental, arising in time; else God would be changeable; it belongs as necessarily to the essence and character of God as the attributes of eternity, wisdom, goodness, and holiness; consequently he must have been Father from eternity, and this gives the eternal generation of the Son. The divine fatherhood and sonship is the prototype of all analagous relations on earth. As there is no Son without Father, no more is there Father without Son. An unfruitful Father were like a dark light, or a dry fountain, a self-contradiction. The non-existence of creatures, on the contrary, detracts nothing from the perfection of the Creator, since he always has the power to create when he will. The Son is of the Father’s own interior essence, while the creature is exterior to God and dependent on the act of his will. God, furthermore, cannot be conceived without reason,wisdom, power, and according to the Scriptures (as the Arians themselves concede) the Son is the Logos, the wisdom, the power, the Word of God, by which all things were made. As light rises from fire, and is inseparable from it, so the Word from God, the Wisdom from the Wise, and the Son from the Father. The Son, therefore, was in the beginning, that is, in the beginning of the eternal divine being, in the original beginning, or from eternity. He himself calls himself one with the Father, and Paul praises him as God blessed forever.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 661-662)

LUTHER 1527 Consubstantiality

2006-06-01T08:02:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Thank you, good gentlemen! I did not know that in articles of faith it was entirely unnecessary to inquire into God’s Word, but only to open our physical eyes and judge according to them, by the standards of reason, what is to be believed. Now I understand what is meant by “faith is the conviction of things not seen” [Heb. 11:1]. In the new interpretation of these spirits it means: “Faith must believe no more and no farther than one’s eyes and fingers point out to him and the reason can measure. Now anyone who asks too many questions becomes unwelcome, but I must ask some more, that I may become still more clever.

Consubstantiality
In his argument for the consubstantiality of the Son, Athanasius, in his four orations against the Arians, besides adducing the proof from Scripture, which presides over and permeates all other arguments, sets out now in a practical method from the idea of redemption, now in a speculative, from the idea of God.
Christ has delivered us from the curse and power of sin, reconciled us with God, and made us partakers of the eternal, divine life; therefore he must himself be God. Or, negatively: If Christ were a creature, he could not redeem other creatures from sin and death. It is assumed that redemption is as much and as strictly a divine work, as creation.
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(Page 660)

LUTHER 1527 Generation

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LUTHER 1527

Who would have expected such lofty wisdom from the fanatics? Here you see the best single argument that they have. Suppose now that I ask them whether they have learned this from the Scriptures, and can prove that these two scriptural passages, viz. that Christ is seated in heaven and that his body is in the Supper, are contradictory; or again, that the flesh is of no avail and that Christ’s body is eaten in the Supper; and, where all this is supposed to be written. They will answer me, “You must love us along with the Scriptures; you must believe us. We are certain of it without Scripture, and more certain than if the Scriptures said it.”
I reply: How is this? Oh, you fool, open your eyes! Don’t you see that heaven, where Christ is seated in his glory, is high above, and the earth where his Supper is observed is here, far below? How can a body be seated so high in glory and at the same time be here below, allowing itself to be profaned and taken by hands, mouth, and belly, as if it were a fried sausage? Would this be consistent with the majesty of God and the glory of heaven? Ah, this is more than certain!

Generation

The necessity thus asserted of the eternal generation does not, however, impair its freedom, but is intended only to deny its being arbitrary and accidental, and to secure its foundation in the essence of God himself. God, to be Father, must from eternity beget the Son, and so reproduce himself; yet he does this in obedience not to a foreign law, but to his own law and the impulse of his will. Athanasius, it is true, asserts on the one hand that God begets the Son not of his will, but by his nature, yet on the other hand he does not admit that God begets the Son without will, or of force or unconscious necessity. The generation, therefore, rightly understood, is an act at once of essence and of will. Augustine calls the Son “will of will.” In God freedom and necessity coincide.
The mode of the divine generation is and must be a mystery. Of course all human representations of it must be avoided, and the matter be conceived in a purely moral and spiritual way. The eternal generation, conceived as an intellectual process, is the eternal self-knowledge of God; reduced to ethical terms, it is his eternal and absolute love in its motion and working within himself.
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(Page 660)

LUTHER 1527 Generation

2006-05-30T05:28:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Perhaps they will reproach me, however, for consigning Oecolampadius’ sign-concept so utterly to the devil, and will profess that even if he cannot prove the word “sign of the body” from Scripture, yet there are plenty of Scripture passages which force the conclusion that only bread and wine must be present. Answer: Where then, my fair love? Suppose they say: The Scriptures contradict themselves, and no one can reconcile them unless he believes that mere bread and wine are present in the Supper. Answer: What Scripture? Suppose they say: Oh, where the article of faith is established that Christ ascended to heaven and sits on the right hand of God in his glory. Again, eating flesh is of no avail, John 6[: 63], “The flesh is of no avail.” So, if flesh and blood are in the Supper, Christ could not be sitting at the right hand of God in his glory, and he would be giving us something to eat which is of no use for salvation. Therefore name any Scripture you will, it must make of Christ’s body a “sign of the body,” and this must be the text in the Supper! (Oecolampadius had emphasized the Ascension in Reasonable Answer. St. L. 20, 591, 594; Zwingli had emphasized John 6:63 in his Letter to Alber. C. R. 90, 340 f.; St. L. 17, 1518 f.; and Commentary. LWZ 3, 212 ff. Zwingli put the two arguments together in Clear Instruction. LCC 24, 199 ff.)

Generation

Generation and creation are therefore entirely different ideas. Generation is an immanent, necessary, and perpetual process in the essence of God himself, the Father’s eternal communication of essence or self to the Son; creation, on the contrary, is an outwardly directed, free, single act of the will of God, bringing forth a different and temporal substance out of nothing. The eternal fatherhood and sonship in God is the perfect prototype of all similar relations on earth. But the divine generation differs from all human generation, not only in its absolute spirituality, but also in the fact that it does not produce a new essence of the same kind, but that the begotten is identical in essence with the begetter; for the divine essence is by reason of its simplicity, incapable of division, and by reason of its infinity, incapable of increase. The generation, properly speaking, has no reference at all to the essence, but only to the hypostatical distinction. The Son is begotten not as God, but as Son, not as to his natura, but as to his ...", his peculiar property and his relation to the Father. The divine essence neither begets, nor is begotten. The same is true of the processio of the Holy Ghost, which has reference not to the essence, but only to the person, of the Spirit. In human generation, moreover, the father is older than the son; but in the divine generation, which takes place not in time, but is eternal, there can be no such thing as priority or posteriority of one or the other hypostasis. To the question whether the Son existed before his generation, Cyril of Alexandria answered: “The generation of the Son did not precede his existence, but he existed eternally, and eternally existed by generation.” The Son is as necessary to the being of the Father, as the Father to the being of the Son.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 658-660)

LUTHER 1527 Only-begotten

2006-05-29T00:24:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527
O how my Oecolampadius would exult if he could produce a Scripture passage in which “body” might mean “sign of the body,” as I have demonstrated like a fool that bread and wine may be called Christ’s body and blood. How gladly would he let the matter rest if “body” might be called “sign of the body,” although he could not prove that it should and must be so called, as he is under obligation to do. But he cannot; God has stepped in and prevented him. It must stand as his own dream, and be labeled Oecolampadius’ silly sign-concept. A faithful Christian, however who listens in on our fanaticism and sees how we play dice with the sacred words of Christ, each according to his own fancy, would surely say, “Oh, you are rascals, the whole lot of you, treating God’s Word as stuff and nonsense; I shall hold to the simple text.”

Only-begotten

The Son, as man, is produced; as God, he is unproduced or uncreated; he is begotten from eternity of the unbegotten Father. To this Athanasius refers the passage concerning the Only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father.
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LUTHER 1527 The Son Is Of The Essence Of The Father

2006-05-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Have I played the fanatic just about enough? Aren’t the words of Christ now just about tortured to death? Actually, I have done the job a little too well, better than befits a fanatic. Dear Christians, at least give me credit for mocking the damnable devil so, for he mocks us. My wretched fanatics are still too inexperienced to be able to despise good insights and thoughts. Therefore they think, when they dream something up, it is forthwith the Holy Spirit.Oh, how many fine insights I have had into the Scriptures which I have had to let go, whereas, if a fanatic had had them, all the printeries in the world would have been too few for him. And I can well believe that if these fanatical thoughts of mine had occurred to one of them, probably neither Karlstadt, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, nor the others would now be of any account. Nevertheless, all this is fanaticism, and Christ’s words remain firm: “This is my body, which is given for you.”-Martin Luther.

The Son Is Of The Essence Of The Father

The Son is of the essence of the Father, not by division or diminution, but by simple and perfect self-communication. This divine self-communication of eternal love is represented by the figure of generation, suggested by the biblical terms Father and Son, the only-begotten Son, the firstborn. The eternal generation is an internal process in the essence of God, and the Son is an immanent offspring of this essence; whereas creation is an act of the will of God, and the creature is exterior to the Creator, and of different substance.
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LUTHER 1527 Athanasius Insists

2006-05-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Bread and wine are eaten and drunk for the forgiveness of sins; that is, because Christ ordained them to be eaten and drunk in order to keep his remembrance, it is proper to call this an eating and drinking of the forgiveness of sins, since in connection with it we should remember that forgiveness and do as he says afterward, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Just as one drinks wine to seal a sale, to show that it was a fair and just transaction which should be kept in remembrance and honored.- Martin Luther

Athanasius Insists

The Nicene doctrine refuses to swerve from the monotheistic basis, and stands between Sabellianism and tritheism; though it must be admitted that the usage of oujsiva and uJpovstasi"; still wavered for a time, and the relation of the consubstantiality to the numerical unity of the divine essence did not come clearly out till a later day. Athanasius insists that the unity of the divine essence is indivisible, and that there is only one principle of Godhead. He frequently illustrates the relation) as Tertullian had done before him, by the relation between fire and brightness, or between fountain and stream; though in these illustrations the proverbial insufficiency of all similitudes must never be forgotten. “We must not,” says he, “take the words in John 14:10: ‘I am in the Father and the Father in Me’ as if the Father and the Son were two different interpenetrating and mutually complemental substances, like two bodies which fill one vessel. The Father is full and perfect, and the Son is the fulness of the Godhead.” “We must not imagine,” says he in another place, “three divided substances in God, as among men, lest we, like the heathen, invent a multiplicity of gods; but as the stream which is born of the fountain, and not separated from it, though there are two forms and names. Neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father; for the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son is the Son of the Father. As the fountain is not the stream, nor the stream the fountain, but the two are one and the same water which flows from the fountain into the stream; so the Godhead pours itself, without division, from the Father into the Son. Hence the Lord says: I went forth from the Father, and come from the Father. Yet He is ever with the Father, He is in the bosom of the Father, and the bosom of the Father is never emptied of the Godhead of the Son.”
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 656-658)

LUTHER 1527 Consubstantial

2006-05-26T08:36:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Yes, Sir Martin (you say), you play the fanatic pretty well, but what will you do with the other words that Christ (Luther’s rendering of the words of institution represents a harmony of Luke 22; 19 f. and Matt. 26:28. Cf. p. 28, n. 36.) adds: “Which is given for you and poured out for the forgiveness of sins”?—though bread and wine are of no use for the forgiveness of sins, even if they are broken and distributed at table. Answer: Ah, my friend, do you expect to catch a fanatic with the Scriptures? I would be ashamed to be called a fanatic if I could not answer that! I would at least open my snout and bluster, “You offer only conjectures, notions, and illustrations!” If that didn’t help, I would lace up my pants and leap over the subject till my ribs cracked and I became limp, and then say, “Aha, he has not shown me any Scripture.” Whoever cannot do this should be thrown out of the fanatics’ brotherhood and guild, for this is our fanatics’ supreme method and last resource. Now don’t watch me too closely, either, to see which way I shall hop and flop like a fanatic.- Martin Luther

Consubstantial
Hence the Lord says: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; I and My Father are one.” This is the sense of the expression: “God of God,” “very God of very God.” Christ, in His divine nature, is as fully consubstantial with the Father, as, in His human nature, He is with man; flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone; and yet, with all this, He is an independent person with respect to the Father, as He is with respect to other men. In this view Basil turns the term... against the Sabellian denial of the personal distinctions in the Trinity, since it is not the same thing that is consubstantial with itself, but one thing that is consubstantial with another. Consubstantiality among men, indeed, is predicated of different individuals who partake of the same nature, and the term in this view might denote also unity of species in a tritheistic sense.
But in the case before us the personal distinction of the Son from the Father must not be pressed to a duality of substances of the same kind; the homoousion, on the contrary, must be understood as identity or numerical unity of substance, in distinction from mere generic unity. Otherwise it leads manifestly into dualism or tritheism.
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LUTHER 1527 Consubstantial

2006-05-25T07:44:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

If you say, however, that in the words concerning the cup it is written, “a cup in my blood” [Luke 22:20], but that the wine may not be called Christ’s blood, I answer: Yes indeed, there is no need of touto or metaphor or sign here. But I wish to cite Scripture to show that red wine is called blood in the Scriptures, Genesis 49[:11], “He washes his vesture in the blood of grapes,” i.e. in red wine. And Deuteronomy 32[:14], “That they might drink the good blood of the grape.” Now if red wine is blood, but Christ has used the wine of this same land, which is red; and if all wine is his wine, since he made it and now uses it here for his Supper, then he must be understood thus: Moses sacrificed much animal blood, and much red wine for drink offerings, but why are all these objects needed by the poor in the New Testament? This red wine, which in another sense is my blood of the grape, shall now be also my blood among you, in place of all the blood and wine which Moses used for his sacrifices. Indeed, in German also one may call a red wine “blood,” as for example, “How well the blood looks in the glass!” So the philosophers speak also, calling wine “the blood of the earth.” Now as Christ says, in John 4[:34], that his food is to do his Father’s will, although this only resembles food, so also he may call his red wine and file blood of the earth “his blood,” because the wine resembles blood, especially because the Scriptures call red wine the “blood of the grape.” I challenge Oecolampadius to derive his “sign of the body” out of Scripture in this way! - Martin Luther

Consubstantial

The term consubstantial, is of course no more a biblical term, than trinity; but it had already been used, though in a different sense, both by heathen writers and by heretics, as well as by orthodox fathers. It formed a bulwark against Arians and Semi-Arians, and an anchor which moored the church during the stormy time between the first and the second ecumenical councils. At first it had a negative meaning against heresy; denying, as Athanasius repeatedly says, that the Son is in any sense created or produced and changeable. But afterwards the homoousion became a positive testword of orthodoxy, designating, in the sense of the Nicene council, clearly and unequivocally, the veritable and essential deity of Christ, in opposition to all sorts of apparent or half divinity, or mere similarity to God. The same divine, eternal, unchangeable essence, which is in an original way in the Father, is, from eternity, in a derived way, through generation, in the Son; just as the water of the fountain is in the stream, or the light of the sun is in the ray, and cannot be separated from it.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 654-656)

LUTHER 1527 The Nicene Doctrine of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father

2006-05-24T07:43:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527
It helps my cause that St. Paul says, “Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you” [I Cor. 11:24], which according to the Greek language can be understood thus: which is broken or divided or given among you, as the Scriptures call breaking bread “sharing bread.” (Cf. I Cor. 10:16, Mark 8:19, lsa. 38:7. While Luther is correct in saying that in special constructions “breaking” means sharing, he is not correct in saying that huper in I Cor. 11:24 can mean “among you.”) Similarly the words about the cup may well read in Greek and Hebrew, “This is the cup, a new testament, which is poured out among you” [Luke 22:20], as one pours wine out of a tankard for the guests. - Martin Luther

The Nicene Doctrine of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father.

The Nicene, Homo-ousian, or Athanasian doctrine was most clearly and powerfully represented in the East by Athanasius, in whom it became flesh and blood; and next to him, by Alexander of Alexandria, Marcellus of Ancyra (who however strayed into Sabellianism), Basil, and the two Gregories of Cappadocia; and in the West by Ambrose and Hilary.
The central point of the Nicene doctrine in the contest with Arianism is the identity of essence or the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and is expressed in this article of the (original) Nicene Creed: “[We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; who is begotten the only-begotten of the Father; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, and Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.”
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LUTHER 1527 Arianism

2006-05-23T05:35:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

From this I can easily and elegantly rave that Christ’s meaning is as follows: This bread in the Supper is his body, which he made as God who makes all bodies and calls them his bodies; moreover, he ordains this to be his body with the intention that it should be his body in a new manner, viz. to be eaten in remembrance of him. Thus the bread should be called his body for two reasons, first on account of the creation, secondly on account of the ordinance, in opposition to Moses and the body of the paschal lamb in the Old Testament, in which he calls the same bread his body, i.e. a body for his use. Just as I call a knife “my iron,” or a coat “my cloth,” on account of their use, although not I but God alone made them in respect to their substance, and not I but the smith or tailor made them in respect to their form. So too, Christ can easily call the bread his body, since he has made and now uses this body for his own purpose. -Martin Luther

Arianism

Athanasius met the theological objections of the Arians with overwhelming dialectical skill, and exposed the internal contradictions and philosophical absurdities of their positions. Arianism teaches two gods, an uncreated and a created, a supreme and a secondary god, and thus far relapses into heathen polytheism. It holds Christ to be a mere creature, and yet the creator of the world; as if a creature could be the source of life, the origin and the end of all creatures! It ascribes to Christ a pre-mundane existence, but denies him eternity, while yet time belongs to the idea of the world, and is created only therewith, so that before the world there was nothing but eternity. It supposes a time before the creation of the pre-existent Christ; thus involving God himself in the notion of time; which contradicts the absolute being of God. It asserts the unchangeableness of God, but denies, with the eternal generation of the Son, also the eternal Fatherhood; thus assuming after all a very essential change in God. Athanasius charges the Arians with dualism and heathenism, and he accuses them of destroying the whole doctrine of salvation. For if the Son is a creature, man remains still separated, as before, from God; no creature can redeem other creatures, and unite them with God. If Christ is not divine, much less can we be partakers of the divine nature and children of God.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 648-649)

LUTHER 1527 Athanasius Accuses The Arians

2006-05-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

Besides all these there is the seventh group, who say, “This is no article of faith, therefore we should not quarrel over it; let whoever will believe what he will”… only one reading of the text can be correct. See how clumsily the devil makes fools of us! Well, since there is nothing left in the text to torture but the word “my,” I shall draw this through the fanatics’ flax comb, in order not to leave a single bone of the text whole and untortured, for I wish to leave nothing more for anyone to rave about. But I want to be the best fanatic, and neither disarrange nor corrupt the text, nor interpret a single word in the Scriptures other than the way it reads but let each one stand just as it is written, so Oecolampadius may see that “body” does not of necessity mean “sign of the body.”
Expressed most simply, my fanaticism is this: since Christ said, “Take, eat; this is my body, which is given for you,” let this be his meaning: “In the Old Testament Moses commanded the people to sacrifice the body of an irrational beast, viz. the paschal lamb, but I shall give you another body for the passover feast, viz. the bread, in order to make it easy for everyone to have it, since you Christians must be poor, and in order that my remembrance alone be set forth.” That the bread may be Christ’s body both in name and in reality, however, I shall prove from Scripture better than Oecolampadius proves his “sign of the body.” For the Scriptures say that all things are God’s in name and in reality as for example in Moses (Cf. Lev. 25:23; Exod. 34:10 (cf. Isa. 26:12); Num. 23:5; Deut. 18:18 ff.) he calls the land of the Jews his land, and our good works his works, our word his word. Again, in Hosea [2:8] he says of the Jews, “They took my gold, my silver, my grain, my oil, my wine, and gave it to their Baal.” And Paul in I Corinthians 15[:38, 40] assures me that every material thing is called corpus or body, since he says, “God gives to each kind of seed its own body, and the celestial bodies are of another kind.” Martin Luther

Athanasius Accuses The Arians

Athanasius accuses the Arians of the Jewish conceit, that divine and human are incompatible. The Jews say How could Christ, if he were God, become man, and die on the cross? The Arians say: How can Christ, who was man, be at the same time God? We, says Athanasius, are Christians; we do not stone Christ when he asserts his eternal Godhead, nor are we offended in him when he speaks to us in the language of human poverty. But it is the peculiar doctrine of Holy Scripture to declare everywhere a double thing of Christ: that he, as Logos and image of the Father, was ever truly divine, and that he afterwards became man for our salvation.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 647-648)

LUTHER 1527 Arianism

2006-05-21T07:18:00.000-04:00

LUTHER 1527

In this sacred text, “This is my body,” Dr. Karlstadt tortures the word “this,” “Zwingli tortures the word "is," Oecolampadius tortures the word “body.” The others torture the whole text and transpose the word “this,” setting it at the end and saying, “Take, eat; my body, which is given for you, is this.” Some torture the text halfway and set the word “this” in the middle, saying, “Take, eat; what is given for you, this is my body.” Others torture the text thus: “This is my body in remembrance of me,” i.e. here my body must be not the natural one, but only a memorial of my body, so that the text may read, “Take, eat; this is a memorial of my body, which is given for you.” Martin Luther

Arianism
Arianism agrees with those systems in lowering the Son to the sphere of the created, which of course includes the idea of temporalness and finiteness. It at first ascribed to him the predicate of unchangeableness also, but afterwards subjected him to the vicissitudes of created being. This contradiction, however, is solved, if need be, by the distinction between moral and physical unchangeableness; the Son is in his nature changeable, but remains good by a free act of his will. Arius, after having once robbed the Son of divine essence, could not consistently allow him any divine attribute in the strict sense of the word; he limited his duration, his power, and his knowledge, and expressly asserted that the Son does not perfectly know the Father, and therefore cannot perfectly reveal him. The Son is essentially distinct from the Father…. The dogma of the essential deity of Christ seemed to Arius to lead of necessity to Sabellianism or to the Gnostic dreams of emanation. As to the humanity of Christ, Arius ascribed to him only a human body, but not a rational soul, and on this point Apollinarius came to the same conclusion, though from orthodox premises, and with the intention of saving the unity of the divine personality of Christ.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 645-646)

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Karlstadt lets “body” remain body, and bases his position on the touto. Others torture the text thus: “Take and eat; my body, given for you, is this,” viz. a spiritual food. (The view of the Silesians Caspar Schwenkfeld and Valentine Krautwald. The former, a nobleman, had veered away from Luther in 1525 and had won the support of Krautwald, a learned canon at Liegnitz. He sent a letter of Krautwald to Luther in October, 1525 (WA, Br 3, 631 ff.; Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, 2, 194–209), and brought several other treatises when he visited Wittenberg in December, 1525 (cf. S-J 2, 361, 367, 371; Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum. 2, 235–282). While Luther was writing “This Is My Body, ” he received a lengthy unpublished treatise by Schwenkfeld, Ground and Cause of the Error and Controversy Concerning the Lord’s Supper, February (?), 1527 (Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, 2, 445–580); Luther attacked it in Confession, pp. 288 ff., below.) These also let “body” be body, and yet are one in faith with him. Others crucify the sacred words thus: “Take and eat; that which is given for you is my body.” (The view of “Konrad Ryss,” apparently a pseudonym for John Landtsperger, a former Carmelite of Augsburg, who in 1527 came to Switzerland, took part in the Bern Disputation, 1528, and settled there, dying apparently in 1529. Cf. WA 19, 459, n. 1 and WA, Br 4, 43, 44, n. 14.) So many factions and heads does this single sect have already, though they agree on the main point! (In a passage especially instructive for Zwingli’s conception of church unity (Reply to Billican. C. R. 91, 901 ff., cf. 918), Zwingli accused the Lutherans of disunity despite their claim to stand simply upon the plain words of Scripture, for some said the bread “is Christ’s body,” others “under the bread is Christ’s body,” and still others “in the bread”—which Zwingli claimed to be sheer contradiction. Meanwhile he boasted, “What discord will anyone truly find among us?” There are verbal differences, he conceded, but “the same opinion on the main point.”) Yet the Holy Spirit must be in all of them, as they are always boasting everywhere; and in order to point out proofs and arguments, he must not only speak diversely, but even be self-contradictory and at variance with himself. But he clearly confesses thereby that one errs as much as the other, since none of them holds the Scripture as it reads, and no one can prove that it is to be understood in any other way than as it reads. . -Martin Luther

Arianism
The Father alone is God; therefore he alone is unbegotten, eternal, wise, good, and unchangeable, and he is separated by an infinite chasm from the world. He cannot create the world directly, but only through an agent, the Logos. The Son of God is pre-existent, before all creatures, and above all creatures, a middle being between God and the world, the creator of the world, the perfect image of the Father, and the executor of his thoughts, and thus capable of being called in a metaphorical sense God, and Logos, and Wisdom. But on the other hand, he himself is a creature, that is to say, the first creation of God, through whom the Father called other creatures into existence; he was created out of nothing (not out of the essence of God) by the will of the Father before all conceivable time; he is therefore not eternal, but had a beginning, and there was a time when he was not.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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Even if Oecolampadius holds the opinion that nothing but bread and wine are present, still he cannot on that account conclude with certainty that “body” necessarily means “sign of the body.” That is, his argument is not convincing, since one may well interpret the word “body” in other ways than as “sign of the body,” and his interpretation can be neither certain nor unambiguous as it should in order to be convincing. There are many other people who share his opinion yet accept neither the concept of representation nor the concept of sign. -Martin Luther

Athanasius “father of orthodoxy.”
While Arianism bent to the changing politics of the court party, and fell into diverse schools and sects the moment it lost the imperial support, the Nicene faith, like its great champion Athanasius, remained under all outward changes of fortune true to itself, and made its mighty advance only by legitimate growth outward from within. Athanasius makes no distinction at all between the various shades of Arians and Semi-Arians, but throws them all into the same category of enemies of the catholic faith.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
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Now Dr. Oecolampadius also ought to prove his “sign of the body” from Scripture. Our Scripture states, “Take, eat; this is my body,” not, “This is a sign of my body.” It is also impossible for him to produce one passage of Scripture where “body” is the same as “sign of the body,” not to mention his obligation to prove it in the case of the Supper. Indeed, as far as proof is concerned, he lies as deep in the ash heap as Karlstadt and Zwingli. Yet they refuse to do God even the honor of admitting that this is true, but boast that no Scripture is brought up against them. However, if they were not such frivolous despisers of the Scriptures, one clear saying from the Scriptures would move them as profoundly as if the whole world were full of Scripture—which it actually is. For as I see it, every single passage makes the world too narrow. They flutter past, however, and think, “This is only a man’s word.” Small wonder that no Scripture constrains them! -Martin Luther

ARIANISM
Arianism associated itself with the secular political power and the court party; it represented the imperio-papal principle, and the time of its prevalence under Constantius was an uninterrupted season of the most arbitrary and violent encroachments of the state upon the rights of the church. Athanasius, on the contrary, who was so often deposed by the emperor, and who uttered himself so boldly respecting Constantius, is the personal representative not only of orthodoxy, but also of the independence of the church with reference to the secular power, and in this respect a precursor of Gregory VII. in his contest with the German imperialism.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 643-644)

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Dr. Oecolampadius also would like to lend a helping hand to that concept of metaphor. When the preachers in Swabia demolished it with an irrefutable treatise, so that he himself could not deny that Paul speaks of the spiritual rock, and no metaphor was there, he still did not honor the truth but grumbled a little against it and said that Paul in this expression was visualizing and thinking of the material rock (Leiblich is translated variously in this volume: “bodily,” “corporeal,” “physical,” “material.”) which represented Christ. As if we were asking here what Paul was visualizing or thinking of, rather than whether there is a metaphor in Paul’s words! We know very well that the material rock represented Christ, and hence Christ is in name and reality a spiritual rock. -Martin Luther

Arianism
Arianism was a religious political war against the spirit of the Christian revelation by the spirit of the world, which, after having persecuted the church three hundred years from without, sought under the Christian name to reduce her by degrading Christ to the category of the temporal and the created, and Christianity to the level of natural religion. It substituted for a truly divine Redeemer, a created demigod, an elevated Hercules. Arianism proceeded from human reason, Athanasianism from divine revelation; and each used the other source of knowledge as a subordinate and tributary factor. The former was deistic and rationalistic, the latter theistic and supernaturalistic, in spirit and effect. The one made reasonableness, the other agreement with Scripture, the criterion of truth. In the one the intellectual interest, in the other the moral and religious, was the motive principle.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 642-643)

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Moreover, as I have said, even if they discovered certain metaphors, still they cannot prove thereby that it is so in the Supper, and all the toil and care they have expended is merely lost effort. They give me this much credit, however, that in the case of Karlstadt I demolished his touto, and that his was not a sound argument. But if I were to judge between Karlstadt and Zwingli, I would say that Dr. Karlstadt’s touto served this error better than Zwingli’s metaphor which, however, has absolutely nothing in it that can disguise the error, because it tries to prove its case purely by unknown, uncertain, and particular propositions—which to every rational mind is ridiculous and ludicrous. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.
Athanasius the Great.
Athanasius is the theological and ecclesiastical centre, as his senior contemporary Constantine is the political and secular, about which the Nicene age revolves. Both bear the title of the Great; the former with the better right, that his greatness was intellectual and moral, and proved itself in suffering, and through years of warfare against mighty, errors and against the imperial court. Athanasius contra mundum, et mundus contra Athanasium, is a well-known sentiment which strikingly expresses his fearless independence and immovable fidelity to his convictions. He seems to stand an unanswerable contradiction to the catholic maxim of authority: Quod sem per, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, and proves that truth is by no means always on the side of the majority, but may often be very unpopular. The solitary Athanasius even in exile, and under the ban of council and emperor, was the bearer of the truth, and, as he was afterwards named, the “father of orthodoxy.”
(Legend) On a martyrs’ day in 313 the bishop Alexander of Alexandria saw a troop of boys imitating the church services in innocent sport, Athanasius playing the part of bishop, and performing baptism by immersion. He caught in this a glimpse of future greatness; took the youth into his care; and appointed him his secretary, and afterwards his archdeacon. Athanasius studied the classics, the Holy Scriptures, and the church fathers, and meantime lived as an ascetic. He already sometimes visited St. Anthony in his solitude.
In the year 325 he accompanied his bishop to the council of Nicaea, and at once distinguished himself there by his zeal and ability in refuting Arianism and vindicating the eternal deity of Christ, and incurred the hatred of this heretical party, which raised so many storms about his life.
In the year 328 he was nominated to the episcopal succession of Alexandria, on the recommendation of the dying Alexander, and by the voice of the people, though not yet of canonical age, and at first disposed to avoid the election by flight; and thus he was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignity of the East. For the bishop of Alexandria was at the same time metropolitan of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis.
But now immediately began the long series of contests with the Arian party, which had obtained influence at the court of Constantine, and had induced the emperor to recall Arius and his adherents from exile. Henceforth the personal fortunes of Athanasius are so inseparably interwoven with the history of the Arian controversy that Nicene and Athanasian are equivalent terms, and the different depositions and restorations of Athanasius denote so many depressions and victories of the Nicene orthodoxy. Five times did the craft and power of his opponents, upon the pretext of all sorts of personal and political offences, but in reality on account of his inexorable opposition to the Arian and Semi-Arian heresy, succeed in deposing and banishing him. The first exile he spent in Treves, the second chiefly in Rome, the third with the monks in the Egyptian desert; and he employed them in the written defence of his righteous cause. Then the Arian party, was distracted, first by internal division, and further by the death of the emperor Constantius (361), who was their chief support. The pagan Julian recalled the banished bishops of both parties, in the hope that they might destroy one another. Thus, Athanasius among them, who was the most downright opposite of the Christian-hating emperor, again received his bishopric. But when, by his energetic and wise administration, he rather restored harmony in his diocese, and sorely injured paganism, which he feared far less than Arianism, and thus frustrated the cunning plan of Julian, the emperor resorted to violence, and banished him as a dangerous disturber of the peace. For the fourth time Athanasius left Alexandria, but calmed his weeping friends with the prophetic words: “Be of good cheer; it is only a cloud, which will soon pass over.” By presence of mind he escaped from an imperial ship on the Nile, which had two hired assassins on board. After Julian’s death in 362 he was again recalled by Jovian. But the next emperor Valens, an Arian, issued in 367 an edict which again banished all the bishops who had been deposed under Constantius and restored by Julian. The aged Athanasius was obliged for the fifth time to leave his beloved flock, and kept himself concealed more than four months in the tomb of his father. Then Valens, boding ill from the enthusiastic adherence of the Alexandrians to their orthodox bishop, repealed the edict.
From this time Athanasius had peace, and still wrote, at a great age, with the vigor of youth, against Apollinarianism. In the year 373 he died, after an administration of nearly forty-six years, but before the conclusion of the Arian war. He had secured by his testimony the final victory of orthodoxy, but, like Moses, was called away from the earthly scene before the goal was reached.
Athanasius, like many great men was very small of stature, somewhat stooping and emaciated by fasting and many troubles, but fair of countenance, with a piercing eye and a personal appearance of great power even over his enemies. His omnipresent activity, his rapid and his mysterious movements, his fearlessness, and his prophetic insight into the future, were attributed by his friends to divine assistance, by his enemies to a league with evil powers. Hence the belief in his magic art. His congregation in Alexandria and the people and monks of Egypt were attached to him through all the vicissitudes of his tempestuous life with equal fidelity and veneration. Gregory Nazianzen begins his enthusiastic panegyric with the words: “When I praise Athanasius, I praise virtue itself, because he combines all virtues in himself.” Constantine the Younger called him “the man of God;” Theodoret, “the great enlightener;” and John of Damascus, the corner-stone of the church of God.”
All this is, indeed, very hyperbolical, after the fashion of degenerate Grecian rhetoric. Athanasius was not free from the faults of his age. But he is, on the whole, one of the purest, most imposing, and most venerable personages in the history of the church; and this judgment will now be almost universally accepted.
He was (and there are few such) a theological and churchly character in magnificent, antique style. He was a man of one mould and one idea, and in this respect one-sided; yet in the best sense, as the same is true of most great men who are borne along with a mighty and comprehensive thought, and subordinate all others to it. So Paul lived and labored for Christ crucified, Gregory VII. for the Roman hierarchy, Luther for the doctrine of justification by faith, Calvin for the idea of the sovereign grace of God. It was the passion and the life-work of Athanasius to vindicate the deity of Christ, which he rightly regarded as the corner-stone of the edifice of the Christian faith, and without which he could conceive no redemption. For this truth he spent all his time and strength; for this he suffered deposition and twenty years of exile; for this he would have been at any moment glad to pour out his blood. For his vindication of this truth he was much hated, much loved, always respected or feared. In the unwavering conviction that he had the right and the protection of God on his side, he constantly disdained to call in the secular power for his ecclesiastical ends, and to degrade himself to an imperial courtier, as his antagonists often did.
Against the Arians he was inflexible, because he believed they hazarded the essence of Christianity itself, and he allowed himself the most invidious and the most contemptuous terms. He calls them polytheists, atheists, Jews, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, spies, worse persecutors than the heathen, liars, dogs, wolves, antichrists, and devils. But he confined himself to spiritual weapons, and never, like his successor Cyril a century later, used nor counselled measures of force. He suffered persecution, but did not practise it; he followed the maxim: Orthodoxy should persuade faith, not force it.
Towards the unessential errors of good men, like those of Marcellus of Ancyra, he was indulgent. Of Origen he spoke with esteem, and with gratitude for his services, while Epiphanius, and even Jerome, delighted to blacken his memory and burn his bones. To the suspicions of the orthodoxy of Basil, whom, by the way, be never personally knew, he gave no ear, but pronounced his liberality a justifiable condescension to the weak. When he found himself compelled to write against Apollinaris, whom he esteemed and loved, he confined himself to the refutation of his error, without the mention of his name. He was more concerned for theological ideas than for words and formulas; even upon the shibboleth homoousios he would not obstinately insist, provided only the great truth of the essential and eternal Godhead of Christ were not sacrificed. At his last appearance in public, as president of the council of Alexandria in 362, he acted as mediator and reconciler of the contending parties, who, notwithstanding all their discord in the use of the terms ousia and hypostasis, were one in the ground-work of their faith.
No one of all the Oriental fathers enjoyed so high consideration in the Western church as Athanasius. His personal sojourn in Rome and Treves, and his knowledge of the Latin tongue, contributed to this effect. He transplanted monasticism to the West. But it was his advocacy of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity that, more than all, gave him his Western reputation. Under his name the Symbolum Quicunque, of much later, and probably of French, origin, has found universal acceptance in the Latin church, and has maintained itself to this day in living use. His name is inseparable from the conflicts and the triumph of the doctrine of the holy Trinity.
As an author, Athanasius is distinguished for theological depth and discrimination, for dialectical skill, and sometimes for fulminating eloquence. He everywhere evinces a triumphant intellectual superiority over his antagonists, and shows himself a veritable malleus haereticorum. He pursues them into all their hiding-places, and refutes all their arguments and their sophisms, but never loses sight of the main point of the controversy, to which he ever returns with renewed force. His views are governed by a strict logical connection; but his stormy fortunes prevented him from composing a large systematic work. Almost all his writings are occasional, wrung from him by circumstances; not a few of them were hastily written in exile.
They may be divided as follows:
1. Apologetic works in defence of Christianity. Among these are the two able and enthusiastic kindred productions of his youth (composed before 325): “A Discourse against the Greeks,” and “On the Incarnation of the Divine Word,)” which he already looked upon as the central idea of the Christian religion.
2. Dogmatic and Controversial works in defence of the Nicene faith; which are at the same time very important to the history of the Arian controversies. Of these the following are directed against Arianism: An Encyclical Letter to all Bishops (written in 341); On the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea (352); On the Opinion of Dionysius of Alexandria (352); An Epistle to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya (356); four Orations against the Arians (358); A Letter to Serapion on the Death of Arius (358 or 359); A History of the Arians to the Monks (between 358 and 360). To these are to be added four Epistles to Serapion on the Deity of the Holy Spirit (358), and two books Against Apollinaris, in defence of the full humanity of Christ (379).
3. Works in his own Personal Defence: An Apology against the Arians (350); an Apology to Constantius (356); an Apology concerning his Flight (De fuga, 357 or 358); and several letters.
4. Exegetical works; especially a Commentary on the Psalms, in which he everywhere finds types and prophecies of Christ and the church, according to the extravagant allegorizing method of the Alexandrian school; and a synopsis or compendium of the Bible. But the genuineness of these unimportant works is by many doubted.
5. Ascetic and Practical works. Chief among these are his “Life of St. Anthony,” composed about 365, or at all events after the death of Anthony, and his “Festal Letters,” which have but recently become known. The Festal Letters give us a glimpse of his pastoral fidelity as bishop, and throw new light also on many of his doctrines, and on the condition of the church in his time. In these letters Athanasius, according to Alexandrian custom, announced annually, at Epiphany, to the clergy and congregations of Egypt, the time of the next Easter, and added edifying observations on passages of Scripture, and timely exhortations. These were read in the churches, during the Easter season, especially on Palm-Sunday. As Athanasius was bishop forty-five years, he would have written that number of Festal Letters, if he had not been several times prevented by flight or sickness. The letters were written in Greek, but soon translated into Syriac, and lay buried for centuries in the dust of a Nitrian cloister, till the research of Protestant Scholarship brought them again to the light. (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume 3NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANITY A.D. 311-600 Pages 884-893)

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There is no proof of representation, either, in all the other passages which they quote. For example, where Christ says, “I am the true vine” [John 15:1], he speaks of the true spiritual vine, which he also was, not which represents him. How should it read: “I represent the true vine,” or, “I am represented by the true vine”? Who then is the true vine, apart from any representation? Again, “I am the shepherd” [John 10:11], “I am the door” [John 10:7], “I am the resurrection and the life” [John 11:25], and all the others. All these sayings are expressed and understood in terms of being, not of representing. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.

Athanasius defends the use of homousios at Nicaea, notwithstanding that it had been previously rejected by the council which condemned Paul of Samosata, and he contends that both councils were orthodox, since they used homousios in a different sense…
NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS (Second Series) VOLUME 14 The Seven Ecumenical Councils (p.5).

LUTHER 1527 The Council of Nicaea, 325.

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…when Moses says, “Eat in haste, it is the Lord’s passover” [Exod. 12:11], Zwingli cannot prove that “passover” represents the paschal lamb. The rejoinder is quickly made, “Eat in haste, it is the Lord’s passover” means, as we say in German, “Eat meat, it’s Sunday; drink water, it’s Friday.” (Sunday a feast day, Friday a fast day.) In this instance no man will force me to admit that meat represents Sunday or water represents Friday. So also here, “Eat in haste, for it is the Lord’s passover,” i.e. this is the day when the Lord walked in Egypt. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.
EXCURSUS ON THE WORD HOMOUSIOS.
The Fathers of the Council at Nice were at one time ready to accede to the request of some of the bishops and use only scriptural expressions in their definitions. But, after several attempts, they found that all these were capable of being explained away. Athanasius describes with much wit and penetration how he saw them nodding and winking to each other when the orthodox proposed expressions which they had thought of a way of escaping from the force of. After a series of attempts of this sort it was found that something clearer and more unequivocal must be adopted if real unity of faith was to be attained; and accordingly the word homousios was adopted. Just what the Council intended this expression to mean is set forth by St. Athanasius as follows: “That the Son is not only like to the Father, but that, as his image, he is the same as the Father; that he is of the Father; and that the resemblance of the Son to the Father, and his immutability, are different from ours: for in us they are something acquired, and arise from our fulfilling the divine commands. Moreover, they wished to indicate by this that his generation is different from that of human nature; that the Son is not only like to the Father, but inseparable from the substance of the Father, that he and the Father are one and the same, as the Son himself said: ‘The Logos is always in the Father, and, the Father always in the Logos,’ as the sun and its splendor are inseparable.”
The word homousios had not had, although frequently used before the Council of Nice, a very happy history. It was probably rejected by the Council of Antioch, and was suspected of being open to a Sabellian meaning. It was accepted by the heretic Paul of Samosata and this rendered it very offensive to many in the Asiatic Churches.
On the other hand the word is used four times by St. Irenaeus, and Pamphilus the Martyr is quoted as asserting that Origen used the very word in the Nicene sense. Tertullian also uses the expression “of one substance” (unius substanticoe) in two places, and it would seem that more than half a century before the meeting of the Council of Nice, it was a common one among the Orthodox.
Vasquez treats this matter at some length in his Disputations (“Rightly doth the Church use the expression Homousios-that is Consubstantial-to express that the Father and the Son are of the same nature.”), and points out how well the distinction is drawn by Epiphanius between Synousios and Homousios, “for synousios signifies such an unity of substance as allows of no distinction: wherefore the Sabellians would admit this word: but on the contrary homousios signifies the same nature and substance but with a distinction between persons one from the other. Rightly, therefore, has the Church adopted this word as the one best calculated to confute the Arian heresy.”
NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS (Second Series) VOLUME 14 The Seven Ecumenical Councils (p.3, 4).

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The metaphor is quickly taken away from him in Paul and Moses, because Paul says, “They drank from the spiritual rock, and the Rock was Christ” [I Cor. 10:4]. Here St. Paul himself shows that he speaks of a spiritual rock. Now the spiritual rock does not represent Christ, but the rock was Christ himself among the Jews, just as our rock now does not represent but is nothing else but Christ. -Martin Luther

The Council of Nicaea, 325.
….in this, as in every other of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the question the Fathers considered was not what they supposed Holy Scripture might mean, nor what they, from a priori arguments, thought would be consistent with the mind of God, but something entirely different, to wit, what they had received. They understood their position to be that of witnesses, not that of exegetes. They recognized but one duty resting upon them in this respect - to hand down to other faithful men that good thing the Church had received according to the command of God. The first requirement was not learning, but honesty. The question they were called upon to answer was not, What do I think probable, or even certain, from Holy Scripture? but, What have I been taught, what has been intrusted to me to hand down to others? When the time came, in the Fourth Council, to examine the Tome of Pope St. Leo, the question was not whether it could be proved to the satisfaction of the assembled fathers from Holy Scripture, but whether it was the traditional faith of the Church. It was not the doctrine of Leo in the fifth century, but the doctrine of Peter in the first, and of the Church since then, that they desired to believe and to teach, and so, when they studied the Tome, they cried out:
“This is the faith of the Fathers! This is the faith of the Apostles!...Peter hath thus spoken by Leo! The Apostles thus taught! Cyril thus taught!” etc.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS (Second Series) VOLUME 14 The Seven Ecumenical Councils

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION (page 2)

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

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Zwingli with his metaphor lies in the ash heap, just as Dr. Karlstadt before him fell with his touto. (On Karlstadt, cf. Against the Heavenly Prophets. LW 40, 159 ff.) For Zwingli can prove neither point, viz. that there is a metaphor in any single passage of Scripture, much less that it is necessarily in the Supper. He does not prove either, though he is under obligation to prove both. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-11T06:51:00.000-04:00

Now, let me make this assumption: even if it were true that there is a metaphor in Paul and Moses, and we obligingly believed him, what does he accomplish? But let us see what a marvelous, masterful conclusion he draws. Paul says, “The rock was Christ,” i.e. the rock represents Christ; here too, therefore, when Christ says, “This is my body,” it must be the same as, “This represents my body.” My friend, let us draw some conclusions, too, according to this wonderful method. All right, I shall prove, using the Zwinglian method, that Sarah, the holy mother of the Jews, remained a virgin, as follows: Luke writes (Cf. Luke 1:34 f. Luther and Zwingli both retained the age-old tradition that Mary remained “ever virgin.”) that Mary remained a virgin, therefore Sarah also must have remained a virgin. Isn’t this fine syllogizing and good deduction? Again, I shall prove that Pilate is an apostle of Christ, as follows: The evangelist Matthew [10:2] writes that Peter is Christ’s apostle, therefore this man Pilate must also be Christ’s apostle. And so on; whatever I please shall and must be deduced as an article of faith by such a method. “Yes,” you say, “but this is not right; you must prove in each particular instance, that Sarah is a virgin and Pilate an apostle.” Why? If Zwingli does not need to prove that there is a metaphor in the Supper, as long as there is one in a single passage in Paul or Moses, it is enough. Schoolboys know that “of Christ, as follows: The evangelist Matthew [10:2] writes that no deduction can be drawn from pure particulars and even less from negatives.” Nevertheless it is the supreme art of our spirits in these sacred articles of faith to concoct these arguments out of particulars, without Scripture. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-10T07:38:00.000-04:00

I ask Zwingli now: Since St. Paul doesn’t say, “The rock represents Christ,” but, “The rock was Christ,” how can you prove thereby that there is a representation or metaphor in the Supper, which is not even in Paul? Through him you try to prove your metaphor, but just as you dreamed it up in the Supper, so you imagine it in Paul also. Similarly, Moses says not, “Eat in haste, it represents the Lord’s passover,” but, “Eat in haste, it is the Lord’s passover.” Thus Zwingli is obliged to prove the propriety of his metaphor in Paul and Moses just as much as in the Supper. for the metaphor is apparent at no point. Such an argument, boys are taught in school, is called “begging the question,” or “proving the uncertain by the uncertain,” but these exalted spirits have not learned this yet. What will Zwingli say on these threadbare subjects? His error, of course, he cannot admit, for that would be disgraceful. He would much prefer to say that he is full of Spirit and must suffer many things, and keep up his boasting until we believe, to oblige him, that there is a metaphor in Paul and Moses even if no one sees it there. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-09T05:40:00.000-04:00

This is the way he proves his silly “representation” concept:
(Deuteley is rendered in this volume sometimes by “metaphor” but more often by this derisive expression. Zwingli complained of Luther’s mockery: “He makes out of my düten düteley …; if one conquers by turning good words into sarcastic ones, then Luther has won hands down, for he knows this trick so well that undoubtedly no one will outdo him.” “… No düteley here, as he graciously says.” Luther similarly ridicules Oecolampadius’ concept that “body” means “sign of the body”.) St. Paul says in I Corinthians 10[:4], “The rock was Christ,” i.e. the rock represents Christ; therefore, the same should apply here also: “This is my body” means, “This represents my body.” Again, Moses, in Exodus 12[:11], “Eat the lamb in haste, for it is the Lord’s passover,” i.e. it represents the Lord’s passover; therefore, here too, “This is my body” equally must mean, “This represents my body.” -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-08T07:52:00.000-04:00

Our pastor John Bugenhagen once challenged Zwingli in writing to prove that in the Supper “is” meant the same as “represent.” Would you believe it, when he ought to have answered him, Zwingli sang him instead a ditty about his great sufferings, and meanwhile inquired whether it meant this in other passages of Scripture, but found none! That it necessarily meant this in the Supper, however, he did not dare to suggest without exposing himself as a hopeless fool. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-07T17:12:00.000-04:00

Oh, how the devil’s pants stink here! How keenly he senses that he is under this obligation, and how reluctant he is to carry it out! For we demand both of these things, (Luther demands corroboration from the Scriptures in general and specifically with reference to the Lord’s Supper.) and we challenge him in both. For this reason, too, the fanatics shrink from this obligation more than any devil has ever shrunk from the cross. (It was an age-old idea that devils could be put to flight by the sign of the cross; cf. Large Catechism, Second Commandment, 74. T. G. Tappert et al. (eds.), Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), p. 374.) Moreover, it is too much to hope that they will stand still and look you in the eye or hear what they are asked. All they do is take to their heels and rush past. No one will attack this subject. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

Consciences want to be certain and sure on this point. Therefore, even if you proved that, for example, from Moses “body” is the same as “sign of the body,” consciences are not satisfied. They just mumble and say, “Yes, my friend, who knows whether it therefore may mean the same in the Supper, too?” We must be assured of this also through God’s Word, otherwise the words remain firm for us and hold us captive with the clear, distinct text, “This is my body.” -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

Our present quarrel is not primarily whether somewhere in the Scriptures “body” means “sign of the body,” but whether in this text of the Supper it has this meaning. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-04T08:41:00.000-04:00

Indeed, to show how far they miss the truth: not only are they under obligation to prove from Scripture that “body” is the same as “sign of the body,” and that “is” is the same as “represent or signify,” but one thing more: even though they should produce such an example in one passage of Scripture (which, however, is impossible), they are still under obligation to prove that it is necessarily so here in the Supper as well, that “body” is “sign of the body.” It would not help them at all, even if the entire Scriptures showed nothing but signs of the body in other passages, if they did not show it also at this passage on the Supper. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-03T08:40:00.000-04:00

In the first place, it is certain that Zwingli and Oecolampadius agree in their understanding of the text, even though their words differ. For Zwingli’s expression, “This represents my body,” is exactly the same as Oecolampadius’ “This is a sign of my body.” The German language and all other languages concede that it is the same to say “laughing represents or signifies joy,” and “laughing is a sign of joy”; there is no question or doubt that “to represent or signify” and “to be a sign” are the same thing. But since the point at issue here is whether the word “is” necessarily means the same in Scripture as the word “represents,” Zwingli is obliged to prove this from Scripture. If he does not do this, his argument is mere dung. Similarly, Oecolampadius is under obligation to prove from Scripture that the word “body” necessarily means the same as the word “sign of the body.” If he doesn’t, he too is dung, and our text remains firm as a rock—“This is my body.” -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

Here someone sneers at me with sovereign contempt, “Ah, my dear Luther, how easily will they furnish reasons for you and prove their cuckoo!” Honestly, I am just as eager to hear them, believe me, as they are ready to do this. Well, start piping and don’t spoil the dance; but let us know whether we are supposed to step or skip. It is against the sneering devil that I am saying these things, not against flesh and blood [Eph. 6:12]. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-05-01T06:38:00.000-04:00

Therefore we beg the fanatics not to demand from us a proof of this text, “This is my body.” This is something they might ask seven-year-old boys who are learning to spell these words in school, where they have the Bible in Greek, Latin, and German. But what they ought to have done was to show us a Bible in which was written, “This is a sign of my body.” If they could not do this, they should bridle their mouths and lower their plumes for a while, until they succeeded in producing such a Bible or at least proving with good reasons that this text should be made to read this way. Else they should keep still and not boast, “Where is your Scripture? Where is your Scripture?” unless they scream these words to themselves—as they ought—and not to us. For they are acting against their own conscience. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-30T07:28:00.000-04:00

We are unwilling this time to pay the devil the compliment of citing more Scripture than this verse, “This is my body.” For even if we put on all the glasses in the world, we would find none of the evangelists writing, “Take, eat; this is a sign of my body,” or, “This represents my body.” But what we clearly find without the aid of any glasses, so that even young children can read it, is, “Take, eat; this is my body.” -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-29T05:23:00.000-04:00

The sum and substance of all this is that we have on our side the clear, distinct Scripture which reads, “Take, eat; this is my body,” and we are not under obligation nor will we be pressed to cite Scripture beyond this text—though we could do so abundantly. On the contrary, they should produce Scripture which reads, “This represents my body,” or, “This is a sign of my body.” -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-28T13:04:00.000-04:00

For I write these things in order that our people may have answers for the fanatics when they ask so sarcastically where it is written in Scripture that “bread” is Christ’s body, and stupidly pretend that they have never read it. Should one ask them in return where it is written in Scripture that “body” means “sign of the body”? Up the flue, that’s where! That is where their Bible is! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-27T00:58:00.000-04:00

God knows, with these crude illustrations I do not wish to offend Zwingli, nor especially Oecolampadius, to whom God has given many gifts, above many other men. Indeed, I am heartily sorry for the man. By such words I look not upon them but only upon the insolent, sarcastic devil who has so deceived and misled them that in return I now find satisfaction to the glory of God, by mocking him again for these clumsy follies of his. For he shall and must be subject to God’s Word. This year, please God, I shall see to it that the fanatics’ devil, who now hinders me from getting other important work done, comes out into the open. God grant that he may lay a rod to his own backside and wake up a sleeping dog. Amen! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-26T09:57:00.000-04:00

Should it be the Luther who asserts that Moses says, “In the beginning the cuckoo ate the hedge sparrow,” or the person who asserts that Moses says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”? I hope the decision would be that Luther ought to prove his text, since in no language does “God” mean the same as “cuckoo.” Well, away creeps Luther to the cross, grieved that he cannot prove that “God” means “cuckoo.” For anyone who ventures to interpret words in the Scriptures any other way than what they say, is under obligation to prove this contention out of the text of the very same passage or by an article of faith. But who will enable the fanatics to prove that “body” is the equivalent of “sign of the body,” and “is” the equivalent of “represents”? No one has brought them to this point up to now. They rant and rave, “Where is your Scripture? Where is your Scripture?” and press us to prove that the gospel says, “This is my body,” though the whole world reads it and must read it. That it also says, however, “This represents my body,” or, “This is a sign of my body”—O that is so certain that they defy God’s judgment over it, even though no man has ever read this in the gospel, nor ever will! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-25T00:09:00.000-04:00

They wish first of all to change the natural words and meanings of the Scriptures into their own words and meanings; then they boast that we do not have Scripture, in order that the devil may make a laughingstock of us, or rather, may safely strangle us as defenseless enemies. Against all this, however, just one word serves exceedingly well: No! So they stand like butter in the sun. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-24T10:11:00.000-04:00

Whoever read in the Scriptures that “body” means the same as “sign of the body,” and “is” means the same as “represents”? Indeed, what language in all the world has ever expressed itself so? It is only the arrogance and frivolous wickedness of the very devil, who, mocking us through these fanatics in these important matters, pretends he is willing to be shown with Scripture—provided that he first eliminates the Scripture or twists it to his own fancy. Just as if I were to rob a man of his weapons with crafty words and give him in exchange sham weapons made of paper, exactly like his own, and then proceeded to defy him to strike me with them or defend himself against me. Now this would be a valiant hero! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-23T00:30:00.000-04:00

Or, if I denied that the Son of God had become man, and someone confronted me with John 1[:14], “The Word became flesh,” suppose I were to say: Let “Word” mean “a gambrel” and “flesh” “a mallet,” and thus the text must now read, “The gambrel became a mallet.” And if my conscience tried to reproach me, saying, “You take a good deal of liberty with your interpretation, Sir Martin, but—but—” etc., I would press until I became red in the face, and say, “Keep quiet, you traitor with your ‘but,’ I don’t want the people to notice that I have such a bad conscience!” Then I would boast and clap my hands, saying, “The Christians have no Scripture which proves that God’s Word became flesh.” But I would also turn around and, bowing low in humility, offer gladly to be instructed, if they would show me with the Scripture that I have just finished twisting around. Ah, what a rumpus I would stir up among Jews and Christians, in the New and the Old Testaments, if such brazenness were allowed me! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-22T00:40:00.000-04:00

They say, “The word ‘is’ must mean the same as the word ‘represents,’ ” as Zwingli writes; (This view was first expressed in Zwingli’s Letter to Matthew Alber, November, 1524, published 1525. C. R. 90, 345; St. L. 17, 1522.) and the expression “my body” must mean the same as the expression “sign of my body,” as Oecolampadius writes.(This view was first expressed in Oecolampadius’ Genuine Exposition, 1525, 8.)So Christ’s word and meaning according to Zwingli’s text would read, “Take, eat; this represents my body,” or according to Oecolampadius’ text, “Take and eat; this is a sign of my body.” Ah, they are so certain about this meaning and they stand so firm in their hearts—like a reed that the wind blows to and fro, as has been pointed out. Then at once they boast that we have no passage from Scripture which says that Christ’s body is in the Supper. Next they humble themselves again, would like to be instructed, and offer to follow if we can prove with Scripture that Christ’s body is present.
This certainly is an extraordinary situation! It is just as if I denied that God had created the heavens and the earth, and asserted with Aristotle and Pliny and other heathen that the world existed from eternity, but someone came and held Moses under my nose, Genesis 1[:1], “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”; I would try to make the text read: “God” now should mean the same as “cuckoo,” “created” the same as “ate,” and “the heavens and the earth” the same as “the hedge sparrow, feathers and all.” The word of Moses thus would read according to Luther’s text, “In the beginning the cuckoo ate the hedge sparrow, feathers and all,” and could not possibly mean, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What a marvelous art this would be—one with which rascals are quite familiar! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-21T00:11:00.000-04:00

I too dare take an oath that this saying of Christ, “This is my body,” sticks in their hearts like an everlasting splinter from which they can never be free, except by being so completely callous as to feel nothing any longer, …and there follows so great a teaching and praise of the spiritual eating of the body of Christ and of his remembrance—over which no one contends with them; we knew about these things just as well as they, and before them! —that it is clear they do not know what they are saying, or how they should go about bamboozling the people. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-20T08:01:00.000-04:00

Against this saying they have up to now brought forth nothing in their many writings that has even plausibility behind it, not to mention a reasoned argument. I let them boast and show off and even boldly swear by God’s judgment and wrath how sure of the matter they are and how they have grasped the truth. (Zwingli: “Either the Creed must be shattered or our teaching is true.” Clear Instruction. LCC 24, 238. Zwingli’s oaths in Commentary: “by thunder,” LWZ 3, 239; “by Almighty God,” “by heaven,” 250; “I call God to witness,” 248. Another favorite was “by Hercules.”) But these are just words, with which they would dearly love to conceal and cover over their uncertain conscience so that no one may notice how their heart shakes and quakes within like a reed swayed by the wind [Matt. 11:7], because of the great uncertainty of then fancies and delusions. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-19T05:36:00.000-04:00

Now, to come to grips with the subject, let us take up the saying of Christ, which Matthew and Mark record (Matt. 26:26, Mark 14:22. “Which is given for you,” however, appears in Luke 22:19 (in some texts, including the one Luther used), and in a related form in I Cor. 11:24. There are other minor variations also, which Luther examines when he analyzes the four texts individually in Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, pp. 307 ff. The conflated text above, however, was the one used in public worship and instruction: Formula Missae, 1523, and Deutsche Messe, 1526 (LW 53, 27 f., 80 f.); Small Catechism, VI, 4, and Large Catechism, V, 3. Cf. also LW 36, 37, n. 84, 319.) “He took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you.’ ” As I have said, I wish at this time to take up this saying alone, in defiance of the devil and all his spirits, in order to prove that this single text is strong and mighty enough to stand against all their rotten, empty prattle. The other texts will come to their right in their own good time. Now, here stands the text, stating clearly and lucidly that Christ gives his body to eat when he distributes the bread. On this we take our stand, and we also believe and teach that in the Supper we eat and take to ourselves Christ’s body truly and physically. But how this takes place or how he is in the bread, we do not know and are not meant to know. God’s Word we should believe without setting bounds or measure to it. The bread we see with our eyes, but we hear with our ears that Christ’s body is present. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

2006-04-18T08:11:00.000-04:00

God warns us against these spirits by allowing them to come into the open and betray themselves and reveal how they traffic in lies and falsehoods. And if this stratagem does not shock or warn men, let them go; they want to be lost! The Holy Spirit offers no such stratagems through his poor sinners as the devil does here through his great saints. -Martin Luther