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Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

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Title: Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

Author: F. Bente


        
Release date: October 13, 2008 [eBook #26909]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26909

Credits: Produced by Kurt A. T. Bodling, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Class of 1980


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SYMBOLICAL BOOKS OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH ***




Produced by Kurt A. T. Bodling, Concordia Seminary, St.
Louis, Class of 1980






Historical Introductions
to the
Symbolical Books
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
by F. Bente


I. The Book of Concord, or The Concordia.

1. General and Particular Symbols.

Book of Concord, or Concordia, is the title of the Lutheran _corpus
doctrinae, i.e._, of the symbols recognized and published under that
name by the Lutheran Church. The word symbol, _sumbolon,_ is derived
from the verb _sumballein,_ to compare two things for the purpose of
perceiving their relation and association. _Sumbolon_ thus developed the
meaning of _tessara,_ or sign, token, badge, banner, watchword, parole,
countersign, confession, creed. A Christian symbol, therefore, is a mark
by which Christians are known. And since Christianity is essentially the
belief in the truths of the Gospel, its symbol is of necessity a
confession of Christian doctrine. The Church, accordingly, has from the
beginning defined and regarded its symbols as a rule of faith or a rule
of truth. Says Augustine: "Symbolum est regula fidei brevis et grandis:
brevis numero verborum, grandis pondere sententiarum. A symbol is a rule
of faith, both brief and grand: brief, as to the number of words, grand,
as to the weight of its thoughts."

Cyprian was the first who applied the term symbol to the baptismal
confession, because, he said, it distinguished the Christians from
non-Christians. Already at the beginning of the fourth century the
Apostles' Creed was universally called symbol, and in the Middle Ages
this name was applied also to the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds. In
the Introduction to the Book of Concord the Lutheran confessors
designate the Augsburg Confession as the "symbol of our faith," and in
the Epitome of the Formula of Concord, as "our symbol of this time."

Symbols may be divided into the following classes: 1. Ecumenical
symbols, which, at least in the past, have been accepted by all
Christendom, and are still formally acknowledged by most of the
evangelical Churches; 2. particular symbols, adopted by the various
denominations of divided Christendom; 3. private symbols, such as have
been formulated and published by individuals, for example, Luther's
Confession of the Lord's Supper of 1528. The publication of private
confessions does not necessarily involve an impropriety; for according
to Matt. 10, 32 33 and 1 Pet. 3, 15 not only the Church as a whole, but
individual Christians as well are privileged and in duty bound to
confess the Christian truth over against its public assailants.
Self-evidently, only such are symbols of particular churches as have
been approved and adopted by them. The symbols of the Church, says the
Formula of Concord, "should not be based on private writings, but on
such books as have been composed, approved, and received in the name of
the churches which pledge themselves to one doctrine and religion."
(CONC. TRIGL., 851, 2.)

Not being formally and explicitly adopted by all Christians, the
specifically Lutheran confessions also are generally regarded as
particular symbols. Inasmuch, however, as they are in complete agreement
with Holy Scripture, and in this respect differ from all other
particular symbols, the Lutheran confessions are truly ecumenical and
catholic in character. They contain the truths believed universally by
true Christians everywhere, explicitly by all consistent Christians,
implicitly even by inconsistent and erring Christians. Christian truth,
being one and the same the world over is none other than that which is
found in the Lutheran confessions.

2. The German Book of Concord.

The printing of the official German edition of the Book of Concord was
begun in 1578 under the editorship of Jacob Andreae. The 25th of June,
1580, however, the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of the
Augsburg Confession to Emperor Charles V, was chosen as the date for its
official publication at Dresden and its promulgation to the general
public. Following are the contents of one of the five Dresden folio
copies which we have compared: 1. The title-page, concluding with the
words, "Mit Churf. G. zu Sachsen Befreiung. Dresden MDLXXX." 2. The
preface, as adopted and signed by the estates at Jueterbock in 1579,
which supplanted the explanation, originally planned, of the theologians
against the various attacks made upon the Formula of Concord. 3. The
three Ecumenical Symbols. 4. The Augsburg Confession of 1530. 5. The
Apology of 1530. 6. The Smalcald Articles of 1537, with the appendix,
"Concerning the Power and Supremacy of the Pope." 7. Luther's Small
Catechism, omitting the "Booklets of Marriage and Baptism," found in
some copies. 8. Luther's Large Catechism. 9. The Formula of Concord,
with separate title-pages for the Epitome and the Solida Declaratio,
both dated 1580. 10. The signatures of the theologians, etc., amounting
to about 8,000. 11. The Catalogus Testimoniorum, with the superscription
"Appendix" (found in some copies only). The Preface is followed by a
_Privilegium_ signed by Elector August and guaranteeing to Matthes
Stoeckel and Gimel Bergen the sole right of publication, a document not
found in the other copies we compared. The Formula of Concord is
followed by a twelve-page index of the doctrines treated in the Book of
Concord, and the list of signatures, by a page containing the trade-mark
of the printer. The center of this page features a cut inscribed,
"Matthes Stoeckel Gimel Bergen 1579." The cut is headed by Ps. 9, 1. 2:
"Ich danke dem Herrn von ganzem Herzen und erzaehle all deine Wunder.
Ich freue mich und bin froehlich in dir und lobe deinen Namen, du
Allerhoechster. I thank the Lord with all my heart and proclaim all Thy
wonders. I am glad and rejoice in Thee, and praise Thy name, Thou Most
High." Under the cut are the words: "Gedruckt zu Dresden durch Matthes
Stoeckel. Anno 1580. Printed by Matthes Stoeckel, Dresden, 1580."

In a letter dated November 7, 1580, Martin Chemnitz speaks of two
Dresden folio editions of the German Book of Concord, while Feuerlinus,
in 1752, counts seven Dresden editions. As a matter of fact, the Dresden
folio copies differ from one another, both as to typography and
contents. Following are the chief differences of the latter kind: 1.
Only some copies have the liturgical Forms of Baptism and of Marriage
appended to the Small Catechism. 2. The Catalogus is not entitled
"Appendix" in all copies, because it was not regarded as a part of the
confession proper. 3. In some copies the passage from the Augsburg
Confession, quoted in Art. 2, 29 of the Solida Declaratio, is taken, not
from the Mainz Manuscript, but from the quarto edition of 1531, which
already contained some alterations. 4. Some copies are dated 1580, while
others bear the date 1579 or 1581. Dr. Kolde gives it as his opinion
that in spite of all these and other (chiefly typographical) differences
they are nevertheless all copies of one and the same edition, with
changes only in individual sheets. (_Historische Einleitung in die
Symbolischen Buecher der ev.-luth. Kirche,_ p. 70.) Dr. Tschackert
inclines to the same view, saying: "Such copies of this edition as have
been preserved exhibit, in places, typographical differences. This,
according to Polycarp Leyser's _Kurzer und gegruendeter Bericht,_
Dresden, 1597 (Kolde, 70), is due to the fact that the manuscript was
rushed through the press and sent in separate sheets to the interested
estates, and that, while the forms were in press, changes were made on
the basis of the criticisms sent in from time to time, yet not equally,
so that some copies differ in certain sheets and insertions." (_Die
Entstehung der luth. und der ref. Kirchenlehre,_ 1910, p. 621.)

However, while this hypothesis explains a number of the variations in
the Dresden folio copies, it does not account for all of them especially
not for those of a typographical nature. In one of the five copies which
we compared, the title-page, radically differing from the others, reads
as follows: "Formula Concordiae. Das ist: Christliche, Heilsame Reine
Vergleichunge, in welcher die Goettliche Leer von den vornembsten
Artikeln vnserer wahrhafftigen Religion, aus heiliger Schrift in kurtze
bekanntnues oder Symbola vnd Leerhafte Schrifften,: welche allbereit vor
dieser zeit von den Kirchen Gottes Augspurgischer Confession, angenommen
vnd approbiert:, verfasset. Sampt bestendiger, in Gottes wort
wolgegruendeter, richtiger, endlicher widerholung, erklerung und
entscheidung deren Streit, welche vnter etlichen Theologen, so sich zu
ermelter Confession bekant, fuergefallen. Alles nach inhalt der heiligen
Schrifft, als der einigen Richtschnur der Goettlichen wahrheit, vnd nach
anleitung obgemeldter in der Kirchen Gottes, approbierten Schrifften.
Auff gnedigsten, gnedigen, auch guetigsten beuehl, verordnung und
einwilligung nach beschriebener Christlichen Churfuersten, Fuersten vnd
Stende des heiligen Roemischen Reichs Deutscher Nation, Augspurgischer
Confession, derselben Landen, Kirchen, Schulen vnd Nachkommen zum trost
vnd besten in Druck vorfertiget. M. D. LXXIX." ("Formula of Concord,
that is, Christian, wholesome, pure agreement, in which the divine
doctrine of the chief articles of our true religion have been drawn up
from the Holy Scripture in short confessions or symbols and doctrinal
writings, which have already before this time been accepted and approved
by the Churches of God of the Augsburg Confession, together with a firm,
Scripturally well-founded, correct, final repetition, explanation and
decision of those controversies which have arisen among some theologians
who have subscribed to said Confession, all of which has been drawn up
according to the contents of Holy Scripture, the sole norm of divine
Truth, and according to the analogy of the above-named writings which
have the approval of the Churches of God. Published by the most
gracious, kind, and benevolent command, order, and assent of the
subscribed Christian Electors, princes, and estates of the Holy Roman
Empire, of the German nation, of the Augsburg Confession, for the
comfort and benefit of said lands churches, schools, and posterity.
1579.")

Apart from the above title this copy differs from the others we examined
in various ways Everywhere (at four different places) it bears the date
1579, which, on the chief title-page, however, seems to have been
entered in ink at a later date. Also the place of publication, evidently
Dresden, is not indicated. Two variations are found in the Preface to
the Book of Concord, one an omission, the other an addition. The
signatures of the princes and estates to the Preface are omitted.
Material and formal differences are found also on the pages containing
the subscriptions of the theologians to the Formula of Concord; and the
Catalogus is lacking entirely. The typography everywhere, especially in
the portions printed in Roman type, exhibits many variations and
divergences from our other four copies, which, in turn, are also
characterized by numerous typographical and other variations. The copy
of which, above, we have given the contents is dated throughout 1580.
Our third copy bears the same date 1580, excepting on the title-page of
the Solida Declaratio, which has 1579. In both of these copies the
typography of the signatures to the Book of Concord is practically
alike. In our fourth copy the date 1580 is found on the title-page of
the Concordia, the Catalogus, and the appended Saxon Church Order, which
covers 433 pages, while the title-pages of the Epitome and the
Declaratio and the page carrying the printer's imprint are all dated
1579. In this copy the typography of the signatures closely resembles
that of the copy dated everywhere 1579. In our fifth Dresden folio copy,
the title-page of the Book of Concord and the Catalogus are dated 1580,
while the title-pages of the Epitome and Solida Declaratio are dated
1579. This is also the only copy in which the Catalogus is printed under
the special heading "Appendix."

In view of these facts, especially the variation of the Roman type in
all copies, Kolde's hypothesis will hardly be regarded as firmly
established. Even if we eliminate the copy which is everywhere dated
1579, the variations in our four remaining Dresden folio copies cannot
be explained satisfactorily without assuming either several editions or
at least several different compositions for the same edition, or perhaps
for the two editions mentioned by Chemnitz. Feuerlinus distinguishes
seven Dresden editions of the Book of Concord--one, printed for the
greater part in 1578, the second, third, and fourth in 1580, the fifth
in 1581, the sixth also in 1581, but in quarto, and the seventh in 1598,
in folio. (_Bibliotheca Symbolica,_ 1752, p. 9.) A copy like the one
referred to above, which is everywhere dated 1579, does not seem to have
come to the notice of Feuerlinus.

In the copy of the Tuebingen folio edition which is before us, the Index
follows the Preface. The appendices of the Small Catechism are omitted,
likewise the superscription Appendix of the Catalogus. Our copy of the
Heidelberg folio edition of 1582 omits the Catalogus and adds the
Apology of the Book of Concord of 1583, as also the Refutation of the
Bremen Pastors of the same year. A copy of the Magdeburg quarto edition
lying before us has the year 1580 on the title-pages of the Book of
Concord, the Epitome, the Declaratio, and the Catalogus. The Preface is
followed by three pages, on which Joachim Frederick guarantees to
"Thomas Frantzen Buchvorlegern" (Thomas Frantzen, publishers) the sole
right of publication for a period of five years, and prohibits the
introduction of other copies, excepting only those of the Dresden folio
edition of 1580. Luther's Booklets of Marriage and of Baptism are
appended to the Small Catechism, and to the Large Catechism is added
"Eine kurze Vermahnung zu der Beicht, A Brief Exhortation to
Confession." (None of the Dresden folio copies we compared contain these
appendices, nor are they found in the Latin editions of 1580 and 1584.)
The index is followed by a page of corrected misprints. The last page
has the following imprint: "Gedruckt zu Magdeburg durch Johann Meiszner
und Joachim Walden Erben, Anno 1580, Printed at Magdeburg by John
Meissner's and Joachim Walden's heirs. In the year 1580."

3. The Latin Concordia.

Even before the close of 1580, Selneccer published a Latin Concordia
containing a translation of the Formula of Concord begun by Lucas
Osiander in 1578 and completed by Jacob Heerbrand. It was a private
undertaking and, owing to its numerous and partly offensive mistakes,
found no recognition. Thus, for instance, the passage of the Tractatus
"De Potestate et Primatu Papae" in sec. 24: "Christ gives the highest
and final judgment to the church," was rendered as follows: "Et Christus
summum et ultimum ferculum apponit ecclesiae." (p. 317.) Besides,
Selneccer had embodied in his Concordia the objectionable text of the
Augsburg Confession found in the octavo edition of 1531, which
Melanchthon had altered extensively.

The necessary revision of the Latin text was made at the convention in
Quedlinburg during December, 1582, and January, 1583, Chemnitz giving
material assistance. The revised edition, which constitutes the Latin
_textus receptus_ of the Formula of Concord, was published at Leipzig in
1584. Aside from many corrections, this edition contains the translation
of the Formula of Concord as already corrected by Selneccer in 1582 for
his special Latin-German edition, and afterwards thoroughly revised by
Chemnitz. The texts of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology follow
the _editio princeps_ of 1531. The 8,000 signatures, embodied also in
the Latin edition of 1580, were omitted, lest any one might complain
that his name was appended to a book which he had neither seen nor
approved. In keeping herewith, the words in the title of the Book of
Concord: "_et nomina sua huic libro subscripserunt_--and have subscribed
their names to this book," which Mueller retained in his edition, were
eliminated. The title-page concludes as in the edition of 1580, the word
"denuo" only being added and the date correspondingly changed. On the
last two pages of this edition of 1584 Selneccer refers to the edition
of 1580 as follows: "Antea publicatus est liber Christianae Concordiae,
Latine, sed privato et festinato instituto, Before this the Book of
Concord has been published in Latin, but as a private and hasty
undertaking." In the edition of 1584, the text of the Small Catechism is
adorned with 23 Biblical illustrations.

Among the later noteworthy editions of the Book of Concord are the
following: Tuebingen 1599; Leipzig, 1603, 1622; Stuttgart 1660, 1681.
Editions furnished with introductions or annotations or both: H.
Pipping, 1703; S.J. Baumgarten, 1747; J.W. Schoepff, Part I, 1826, Part
II, 1827; F.A. Koethe, 1830; J.A. Detzer, 1830; F.W. Bodemann, 1843. In
America the entire Book of Concord was printed in German by H. Ludwig,
of New York, in 1848, and by the Concordia Publishing House of St.
Louis, Mo., in 1880. In Leipzig, Latin editions appeared in the years
1602, 1606, 1612, 1618, 1626, 1654, 1669, 1677. Adam Rechenberg's
edition "with an appendix in three parts and new indices" (_cum
appendice tripartita et novis indicibus_) saw five editions--1678, 1698,
1712, 1725, 1742. We mention also the edition of Pfaffius, 1730;
Tittmann, 1817; H.A.G. Meyer, 1830, containing a good preface; Karl
Hase, in his editions of 1827, 1837, and 1845, was the first to number
the paragraphs. Reineccius prepared a German-Latin edition in 1708. This
was followed in 1750 by the German-Latin edition of Johann Georg Walch.
Mueller's well-known German-Latin Concordia saw eleven editions between
1847 and 1912. Since 1907 it appears with historical introductions by
Th. Kolde.

4. English Translations.

All of the Lutheran symbols have been translated into the English
language repeatedly. In 1536 Richard Tavener prepared the first
translation of the Augsburg Confession. Cranmer published, in 1548, "A
Short Instruction into the Christian Religion," essentially a
translation of the Ansbach-Nuernberg Sermons on the Catechism. In 1834 a
translation of the German text of the Augsburg Confession with
"Preliminary Observations" was published at Newmarket, Va., by Charles
Henkel, Prof. Schmidt of the Seminary at Columbus O., assisting in this
work. The Introduction to the Newmarket Book of Concord assigns Henkel's
translation of the Augsburg Confession to the year 1831. Our copy,
however, which does not claim to be a second edition, is dated 1834. In
his _Popular Theology_ of 1834, S.S. Schmucker offered a translation of
the Latin text, mutilated in the interest of his _American Lutheranism._
Hazelius followed him with a translation in 1841. In 1848, Ludwig, of
New York, issued a translation of the German text of the Unaltered
Augsburg Confession, as well as of the Introduction, prepared by C.H.
Schott, together with the Ecumenical Symbols, also with introductions.
The title-page of our copy lists the price of the book at 12 1/2 cents.
C.P. Krauth's translation of the Augsburg Confession appeared in 1868.
The first complete translation of the German text of the entire Book of
Concord was published in 1851 by the publishing house of Solomon D.
Henkel & Bros., at Newmarket, Va. In this translation, however, greater
stress was laid on literary style than upon an exact reproduction of the
original. Ambrose and Socrates Henkel prepared the translation of the
Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Appendix,
and the Articles of Visitation. The Small Catechism was offered in the
translation prepared by David Henkel in 1827. The Large Catechism was
translated by J. Stirewalt; the Epitome, by H. Wetzel; the Declaratio,
by J.R. Moser. The second, improved edition of 1854 contained a
translation of the Augsburg Confession by C. Philip Krauth, the Apology
was translated by W.F. Lehmann, the Smalcald Articles by W.M. Reynolds,
the two Catechisms by J.G. Morris, and the Formula of Concord together
with the Catalogus by C.F. Schaeffer. In both editions the historical
introductions present a reproduction of the material in J.T. Mueller's
_Book of Concord._

In 1882 a new English translation of the entire Book of Concord,
together with introductions and other confessional material, appeared in
two volumes, edited by Dr. H.E. Jacobs. The first volume of this edition
embraces the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church. It contains
C.P. Krauth's translation of the Augsburg Confession as revised for
Schaff's _Creeds of Christendom._ Jacobs translated the Apology (from
the Latin, with insertions, in brackets, of translations from the German
text), the Smalcald Articles (from the German), the Tractatus (from the
Latin), and the Formula of Concord. The translation of the Small
Catechism was prepared by a committee of the Ministerium of
Pennsylvania. The Large Catechism was done into English by A. Martin. A
reprint of this edition appeared in 1911, entitled "People's Edition,"
in which the Augsburg Confession is presented in a translation prepared
by a committee of the General Council, the General Synod, the United
Synod in the South, and the Ohio Synod. The second volume of Jacobs's
edition of the Book of Concord embodies historical introductions to the
Lutheran symbols, translations of the Marburg Articles, the Schwabach
Articles, the Torgau Articles, the Altered Augsburg Confession of 1540
and 1542, Zwingli's Ratio Fidei, the Tetrapolitana, the Romish
Confutatio, Melanchthon's Opinion of 1530, Luther's Sermon on the
Descent into Hell of 1533, the Wittenberg Concordia, the Leipzig Interim
the Catalogus Testimoniorum, the Articles of Visitation, and the
Decretum Upsaliense of 1593. The Principles of Faith and Church Polity
of the General Council and an index complete this volume. A Norwegian
and a Swedish translation of the Book of Concord have also been
published in America.

5. Corpora Doctrinae Supplanted by Book of Concord.

More than twenty different Lutheran collections of symbols or _corpora
doctrinae_ (a term first employed by Melanchthon), most of them bulky,
had appeared after the death of Luther and before the adoption of the
Formula of Concord, by which quite a number of them were supplanted.
From the signatures to its Preface it appears that the entire Book of
Concord was adopted by 3 electors, 20 princes, 24 counts, 4 barons, and
35 imperial cities. And the list of signatures appended to the Formula
of Concord contains about 8,000 names of theologians, preachers, and
schoolteachers. About two-thirds of the German territories which
professed adherence to the Augsburg Confession adopted and introduced
the Book of Concord as their _corpus doctrinae._ (Compare Historical
Introduction to the Formula of Concord.)

Among the _corpora doctrinae_ which were gradually superseded by the
Book of Concord are the following: 1. Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum, or
Misnicum, or Wittenbergense of 1560, containing besides the Three
Ecumenical Symbols, the following works of Melanchthon: Variata,
Apologia, Repetitio Augustanae Confessionis, Loci, Examen Ordinandorum
of 1552, Responsio ad Articulos Bavaricae Inquisitionis, Refutatio
Serveti. Melanchthon, shortly before his death, wrote the preface for
the Latin as well as the German edition of this Corpus. 2. Corpus
Doctrinae Pomeranicum of 1564 which adds Luther's Catechisms, the
Smalcald Articles, and three other works of Luther to the Corpus
Doctrinae Philippicum, which had been adopted 1561. 3. Corpus Doctrinae
Prutenicum, or Borussicum, of Prussia, 1567, containing the Augsburg
Confession, the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and Repetition of the
Sum and Content of the True, Universal Christian Doctrine of the Church,
written by Moerlin and Chemnitz. 4. Corpus Doctrinae Thuringicum in
Ducal Saxony, of 1570, containing the Three Ecumenical Symbols, Luther's
Catechisms, the Smalcald Articles, the Confession of the Landed Estates
in Thuringia (drawn up by Justus Menius in 1549), and the Prince of
Saxony's Book of Confutation (_Konfutationsbuch_) of 1558. 5. Corpus
Doctrinae Brandenburgicum of 1572, containing the Augsburg Confession
according to the Mainz Manuscript, Luther's Small Catechism, Explanation
of the Augsburg Confession drawn from the postils and doctrinal writings
"of the faithful man of God Dr. Luther" by Andreas Musculus, and a
Church Agenda. 6. Corpus Doctrinae Wilhelminum of Lueneburg, 1576,
containing the Three Ecumenical Symbols, the Augsburg Confession, the
Apology, the Smalcald Articles, Luther's Catechisms, Formulae Caute
Loquendi (Forms of Speaking Cautiously) by Dr. Urbanus Regius, and
Formulae Recte Sentiendi de Praecipuis Horum Temporum Controversiis
(Forms of Thinking Correctly concerning the Chief Controversies of These
Times) by Martin Chemnitz. 7. Corpus Doctrinae Iulium of Duke Julius of
Braunschweig-Wolfenbuettel, 1576, containing the documents of the
Wilhelminum, with the sole addition of the Short Report of Some
Prominent Articles of Doctrine, from the Church Order of Duke Julius, of
1569. 8. The Hamburg Book of Confession of 1560, which was also adopted
by Luebeck and Lueneburg, and contained a confession against the Interim
drawn up by Aepinus in 1548, and also four declarations concerning
Adiaphorism, Osiandrism, Majorism, and the doctrine of the Lord's
Supper, drawn up since 1549. 9. The Confessional Book of Braunschweig,
adopted in 1563 and reaffirmed in 1570, containing, The Braunschweig
Church Order of 1528, the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology
thereof, the Smalcald Articles, Explanation, etc., drawn up at Lueneburg
in 1561 against the Crypto-Calvinists. 10. The Church Order of the city
of Goettingen 1568, containing the Church Order of Goettingen of 1531,
Luther's Small Catechism, the Smalcald Articles, the Augsburg
Confession, and the Apology. (Tschackert, _l.c._, 613f.; Feuerlinus,
_l.c._, 1f.)

6. Subscription to Confessions.

The position accorded the symbols in the Lutheran Church is clearly
defined by the Book of Concord itself. According to it Holy Scripture
alone is to be regarded as the sole rule and norm by which absolutely
all doctrines and teachers are to be judged. The object of the
Augustana, as stated in its Preface, was to show "what manner of
doctrine has been set forth, in our lands and churches from the Holy
Scripture and the pure Word of God." And in its Conclusion the Lutheran
confessors declare: "Nothing has been received on our part against
Scripture or the Church Catholic," and "we are ready, God willing, to
present ampler information according to the Scriptures." "Iuxta
Scripturam"--such are the closing words of the Augsburg Confession. The
Lutheran Church knows of no other principle.

In the Formula of Concord we read: "Other writings, however, of ancient
or modern teachers, whatever name they bear, must not be regarded as
equal to the Holy Scriptures, but all of them together be subjected to
them, and should not be received otherwise or further than as witnesses,
[which are to show] in what manner after the time of the apostles, and
at what places, this doctrine of the prophets and apostles was
preserved." (777, 2.) In the Conclusion of the Catalog of Testimonies we
read: "The true saving faith is to be founded upon no church-teachers,
old or new, but only and alone upon God's Word, which is comprised in
the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles, as unquestionable
witnesses of divine truth." (1149.)

The Lutheran symbols, therefore, are not intended to supplant the
Scriptures, nor do they do so. They do, however, set forth what has been
at all times the unanimous understanding of the pure Christian doctrine
adhered to by sincere and loyal Lutherans everywhere; and, at the same
time, they show convincingly from the Scriptures that our forefathers
did indeed manfully confess nothing but God's eternal truth, which every
Christian is in duty bound to, and consistently always will, believe,
teach, and confess.

The manner also in which Lutherans pledge themselves confessionally
appears from these symbols. The Augsburg Confession was endorsed by the
princes and estates as follows: "The above articles we desire to present
in accordance with the edict of Your Imperial Majesty, in order to
exhibit our Confession and let men see a summary of the doctrine of our
teachers." (95, 6.) In the preamble to the signatures of 1537 the
Lutheran preachers unanimously confess: "We have reread the articles of
the Confession presented to the Emperor in the Assembly at Augsburg, and
by the favor of God all the preachers who have been present in this
Assembly at Smalcald harmoniously declare that they believe and teach in
their churches according to the articles of the Confession and Apology."
(529.) John Brenz declares that he had read and reread, time and again,
the Confession, the Apology, etc., and judged "that all these agree with
Holy Scripture, and with the belief of the true and genuine catholic
Church (_haec omnia convenire cum Sacra Scriptura et cum sententia verae
kai gnesies catholicae ecclesiae_)." (529.) Another subscription--to the
Smalcald Articles--reads: "I, Conrad Figenbotz, for the glory of God
subscribe that I have thus believed and am still preaching and firmly
believing as above." (503, 13.) Brixius writes in a similar vein: "I ...
subscribe to the Articles of the reverend Father Martin Luther, and
confess that hitherto I have thus believed and taught, and by the Spirit
of Christ I shall continue thus to believe and teach." (503, 27.)

In the Preface to the Thorough Declaration of the Formula of Concord the
Lutheran confessors declare: "To this Christian Augsburg Confession, so
thoroughly grounded in God's Word, we herewith pledge ourselves again
from our inmost hearts. We abide by its simple, clear, and unadulterated
meaning as the words convey it, and regard the said Confession as a pure
Christian symbol, with which at the present time true Christians ought
to be found next to God's Word.... We intend also, by the grace of the
Almighty, faithfully to abide until our end by this Christian
Confession, mentioned several times, as it was delivered in the year
1530 to the Emperor Charles V; and it is our purpose, neither in this
nor in any other writing, to recede in the least from that oft-cited
Confession, nor to propose another or new confession." (847, 4. 5.)
Again: "We confess also the First, Unaltered Augsburg Confession as our
symbol for this time (not because it was composed by our theologians,
but because it has been taken from God's Word and is founded firmly and
well therein), precisely in the form in which it was committed to
writing in the year 1530, and presented to the Emperor Charles V at
Augsburg." (851, 5.)

In like manner the remaining Lutheran symbols were adopted. (852. 777.)
Other books, the Formula of Concord declares, are accounted useful, "as
far as (_wofern, quatenus_) they are consistent with" the Scriptures and
the symbols. (855, 10.) The symbols, however, are accepted "that we may
have a unanimously received, definite, common form of doctrine, which
all our Evangelical churches together and in common confess, from and
according to which, because (_cum, weil_) it has been derived from God's
Word, all other writings should be judged and adjusted, as to how far
(_wiefern, quatenus_) they are to be approved and accepted." (855, 10.)

After its adoption by the Lutheran electors, princes, and estates, the
Formula of Concord, and with it the entire Book of Concord, was, as
stated, solemnly subscribed by about 8,000 theologians, pastors, and
teachers, the pledge reading as follows: "Since now, in the sight of God
and of all Christendom, we wish to testify to those now living and those
who shall come after us that this declaration herewith presented
concerning all the controverted articles aforementioned and explained,
and no other, is our faith, doctrine, and confession in which we are
also willing, by God's grace to appear with intrepid hearts before the
judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, and give an account of it; and that we
will neither privately nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to
it, but, by the help of God's grace, intend to abide thereby: therefore,
after mature deliberation, we have, in God's fear and with the
invocation of His name, attached our signatures with our own hands."
(1103, 40.)

Furthermore, in the Preface to the Book of Concord the princes and
estates declare that many churches and schools had received the Augsburg
Confession "as a symbol of the present time in regard to the chief
articles of faith, especially those involved in controversy with the
Romanists and various corruptions of the heavenly doctrine." (7.) They
solemnly protest that it never entered their minds "either to introduce,
furnish a cover for, and establish any false doctrine, or in the least
even to recede from the Confession presented in the year 1530 at
Augsburg." (15.) They declare: "This Confession also, by the help of
God, we will retain to our last breath when we shall go forth from this
life to the heavenly fatherland, to appear with joyful and undaunted
mind and with a pure conscience before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus
Christ." (15.) "Therefore we also have determined not to depart even a
finger's breadth either from the subjects themselves or from the phrases
which are found in them (_vel a rebus ipsis vel a phrasibus, quae in
illa habentur, discedere_), but, the Spirit of the Lord aiding us, to
persevere constantly, with the greatest harmony, in this godly
agreement, and we intend to examine all controversies according to this
true norm and declaration of the pure doctrine." (23.)

7. Pledging of Ministers to the Confessions.

Such being the attitude of the Lutherans towards their symbols, and such
their evaluation of pure doctrine, it was self-evident that the public
teachers of their churches should be pledged to the confessions. In
December 1529, H. Winckel, of Goettingen, drew up a form in which the
candidate for ordination declares: "I believe and hold also of the most
sacred Sacrament ... as one ought to believe concerning it according to
the contents of the Bible, and as Doctor Martin Luther writes and
confesses concerning it especially in his Confession" (of the Lord's
Supper, 1528). The Goettingen Church Order of 1530, however, did not as
yet embody a vow of ordination. The first pledges to the symbols were
demanded by the University of Wittenberg in 1533 from candidates for the
degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1535 this pledge was required also of
the candidates for ordination. The oath provided that the candidate must
faithfully teach the Gospel without corruption, steadfastly defend the
Ecumenical Symbols, remain in agreement with the Augsburg Confession,
and before deciding difficult controversies consult older teachers of
the Church of the Augsburg Confession. Even before 1549 the candidates
for philosophical degrees were also pledged by oath to the Augsburg
Confession.

In 1535, at the Diet of Smalcald, it was agreed that new members
entering the Smalcald League should promise "to provide for such
teaching and preaching as was in harmony with the Word of God and the
pure teaching of our [Augsburg] Confession." According to the Pomeranian
Church Order which Bugenhagen drew up in 1535, pastors were pledged to
the Augsburg Confession and the Apology thereof. Capito, Bucer, and all
others who took part in the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, promised, over
their signatures, "to believe and to teach in all articles according to
the Confession and the Apology." (_Corpus Reformatorum,_ opp.
Melanthonis, 3, 76.) In 1540, at Goettingen, John Wigand promised to
accept the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, and to abide by them all
his life. "And," he continued, "if I should be found to do otherwise or
be convicted of teaching and confessing contrary to such Confession and
Apology, then let me, by this signature, be condemned and deposed from
this divine ministry. This do I swear, so help me God." Also at
Goettingen, Veit Pflugmacher vowed, in 1541, that he would preach the
Gospel in its truth and purity according to the Augsburg Confession and
the contents of the postils of Anton Corvinus. He added: "Should I be
found to do otherwise and not living up to what has been set forth
above, then shall I by such act have deposed myself from office. This do
I swear; so help me God."

In 1550 and 1552, Andrew Osiander attacked the oath of confession which
was in vogue at Wittenberg, claiming it to be "an entanglement in
oath-bound duties after the manner of the Papists." "What else," said
he, "does this oath accomplish than to sever those who swear it from the
Holy Scriptures and bind them to Philip's doctrine? Parents may
therefore well consider what they do by sending their sons to Wittenberg
to become Masters and Doctors. Money is there taken from them, and they
are made Masters and Doctors. But while the parents think that their son
is an excellent man, well versed in the Scriptures and able to silence
enthusiasts and heretics, he is, in reality, a poor captive, entangled
and embarrassed by oath-bound duties. For he has abjured the Word of God
and has taken an oath on Philip's doctrine." Replying to this fanatical
charge in 1553, Melanchthon emphasized the fact that the doctrinal
pledges demanded at Wittenberg had been introduced chiefly by Luther,
for the purpose of "maintaining the true doctrine." "For," said
Melanchthon, "many enthusiasts were roaming about at that time, each, in
turn, spreading new silly nonsense, _e.g._, the Anabaptists, Servetus,
Campanus, Schwenckfeld, and others. And such tormenting spirits are not
lacking at any time (_Et non desunt tales furiae ullo tempore_)." A
doctrinal pledge, Melanchthon furthermore explained, was necessary "in
order correctly to acknowledge God and call upon Him to preserve harmony
in the Church, and to bridle the audacity of such as invent new
doctrines." (_C.R._ 12, 5.)


II. The Three Ecumenical or Universal Symbols.

8. Ecumenical Symbols.

The Ecumenical (general, universal) Symbols were embodied in the Book of
Concord primarily for apologetic reasons. Carpzov writes: "The sole
reason why our Church appealed to these symbols was to declare her
agreement with the ancient Church in so far as the faith of the latter
was laid down in these symbols, to refute also the calumniations and the
accusations of the opponents, and to evince the fact that she preaches
no new doctrine and in no wise deviates from the Church Catholic."
(_Isagoge,_ 37.) For like reasons Article I of the Augsburg Confession
declares its adherence to the Nicene Creed, and the first part of the
Smalcald Articles, to the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds. The oath
introduced by Luther in 1535, and required of the candidates for the
degree of Doctor of Divinity, also contained a pledge on the Ecumenical
Symbols. In 1538 Luther published a tract entitled, "The Three Symbols
or Confessions of the Faith of Christ Unanimously Used in the Church,"
containing the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the Te Deum of
Ambrose and Augustine. To these was appended the Nicene Creed.

In the opening sentences of this tract, Luther remarks: "Whereas I have
previously taught and written quite a bit concerning faith, showing both
what faith is and what faith does, and have also published my Confession
[1528], setting forth both what I believe and what position I intend to
maintain; and whereas the devil continues to seek new intrigues against
me, I have decided, by way of supererogation, to publish conjointly, in
the German tongue, the three so-called Symbols, or Confessions, which
have hitherto been received, read, and chanted throughout the Church. I
would thereby reaffirm the fact that I side with the true Christian
Church, which has adhered to these Symbols, or Confessions, to the
present day, and not with the false, vainglorious church, which in
reality is the worst enemy of the true Church, having introduced much
idolatry beside these beautiful confessions." (St. L. 10, 993; Erl. 23,
252.) Luther's translation of the Ecumenical Symbols, together with the
captions which appeared in his tract, were embodied in the Book of
Concord. The superscription, "Tria Symbola Catholica seu Oecumenica,"
occurs for the first time in Selneccer's edition of the Book of Concord
of 1580. Before this, 1575, he had written: "Quot sunt Symbola fidei
Christianae in Ecclesia? Tria sunt praecipua quae nominantur oecumenica,
sive universalia et authentica, id est, habentia auctoritatem et non
indigentia demonstratione aut probatione, videlicet Symbolum
Apostolicum, Nicaenum et Athanasianum." (Schmauk, _Confessional
Principle,_ 834.)

9. The Apostles' Creed.

The foundation of the Apostles' Creed was, in a way, laid by Christ
Himself when He commissioned His disciples, saying, Matt. 28, 19. 20:
"Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you." The formula of Baptism here
prescribed, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost," briefly indicates what Christ wants Christians to be taught, to
believe, and to confess. And the Apostles' Creed, both as to its form
and contents, is evidently but an amplification of the trinitarian
formula of Baptism. Theo. Zahn remarks: "It has been said, and not
without a good basis either, that Christ Himself has ordained the
baptismal confession. For the profession of the Triune God made by the
candidates for Baptism is indeed the echo of His missionary and
baptismal command reechoing through all lands and times in many thousand
voices." (_Skizzen aus dem Leben der Kirche,_ 252.)

But when and by whom was the formula of Baptism thus amplified?--During
the Medieval Ages the Apostles' Creed was commonly known as "The Twelve
Articles," because it was generally believed that the twelve apostles,
assembled in joint session before they were separated, soon after
Pentecost drafted this Creed, each contributing a clause. But, though
retained in the Catechismus Romanus, this is a legend which originated
in Italy or Gaul in the sixth or seventh (according to Zahn, toward the
end of the fourth) century and was unknown before this date. Yet, though
it may seem more probable that the Apostles' Creed was the result of a
silent growth and very gradual formation corresponding to the
ever-changing environments and needs of the Christian congregations,
especially over against the heretics, there is no sufficient reason why
the apostles themselves should not have been instrumental in its
formulation, nor why, with the exception of a number of minor later
additions its original form should not have been essentially what it is
to-day.

Nathanael confessed: "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King
of Israel," John 1, 49, the apostles confessed: "Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God," Matt. 16, 16; Peter confessed: "We believe
and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God," John
6, 69; Thomas confessed: "My Lord and my God," John 20, 28. These and
similar confessions of the truth concerning Himself were not merely
approved of, but solicited and demanded by, Christ. For He declares most
solemnly: "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I
confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall
deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in
heaven," Matt. 10, 32. 33. The same duty of confessing their faith,
_i.e._, the truths concerning Christ, is enjoined upon all Christians by
the Apostle Paul when he writes: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved," Rom. 10, 9.

In the light of these and similar passages, the trinitarian baptismal
formula prescribed by Christ evidently required from the candidate for
Baptism a definite statement of what he believed concerning the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost, especially concerning Jesus Christ the Savior. And
that such a confession of faith was in vogue even in the days of the
apostles appears from the Bible itself. Of Timothy it is said that he
had "professed a good profession before many witnesses," 1 Tim. 6, 12.
Heb. 4, 14 we read: "Let us hold fast our profession." Heb. 10, 23: "Let
us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering." Jude urges
the Christians that they "should earnestly contend for the faith which
was once delivered unto the saints," and build up themselves on their
"most holy faith," Jude 3. 20. Compare also 1 Cor. 15, 3. 4; 1 Tim. 3,
16; Titus 1, 13; 3, 4-7.

10. Apostles' Creed and Early Christian Writers.

The Christian writers of the first three centuries, furthermore, furnish
ample proof for the following facts: that from the very beginning of the
Christian Church the candidates for Baptism everywhere were required to
make a confession of their faith; that from the beginning there was
existing in all the Christian congregations a formulated confession
which they called the rule of faith, the rule of truth, etc.; that this
rule was identical with the confession required of the candidates for
Baptism; that it was declared to be of apostolic origin; that the
summaries and explanations of this rule of truth, given by these
writers, tally with the contents and in part, also with the phraseology
of the Apostles' Creed; that the scattered Christian congregations, then
still autonomous, regarded the adoption of this rule, of faith as the
only necessary condition of Christian unity and fellowship.

The manner in which Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Aristides, and
other early Christian writers present the Christian truth frequently
reminds us of the Apostles' Creed and suggests its existence. Thus
Justin Martyr, who died 165, says in his first Apology, which was
written about 140: "Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who
also was born for this purpose and was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judea, that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that
He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second
place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third." "Eternal praise to the
Father of all, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
Similar strains, sounding like echoes of the Second Article, may be
found in the Epistles to the Trallians and to the Christians at Smyrna
written by Ignatius, the famous martyr and bishop of Antioch, who died
107.

Irenaeus, who died 189, remarks: Every Christian "who retains immovable
in himself the rule of the truth which he received through Baptism (_ho
ton kanona tes altheias akline en eauto katechon, hon dia tou
baptismatos eilephe_)" is able to see through the deceit of all
heresies. Irenaeus here identifies the baptismal confession with what he
calls the "rule of truth, _kanon tes eiltheias_" _i.e._, the truth which
is the rule for everything claiming to be Christian. Apparently, this
"rule of truth" was the sum of doctrines which every Christian received
and confessed at his baptism. The very phrase "rule of truth" implies
that it was a concise and definite formulation of the chief Christian
truths. For "canon, rule," was the term employed by the ancient Church
to designate such brief sentences as were adopted by synods for the
practise of the Church. And this "rule of truth" is declared by Irenaeus
to be "the old tradition," "the old tradition of the apostles": he te
apo ton apostolon en te ekklesia paradosis. (Zahn, _l.c._, 379f.)
Irenaeus was the pupil of Polycarp the Martyr; and what he had learned
from him, Polycarp had received from the Apostle John. Polycarp, says
Irenaeus, "taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and
which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true." According
to Irenaeus, then, the "rule of truth" received and confessed by every
Christian at his baptism was transmitted by the apostles. The contents
of this rule of truth received from the apostles are repeatedly set
forth by Irenaeus. In his _Contra Haereses_ (I, 10, 1) one of these
summaries reads as follows: "The Church dispersed through the whole
world, to the ends of the earth has received from the apostles and their
disciples the faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who has made heaven
and earth and the sea and all things that are in them, and in one Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in
the Holy Spirit, who has proclaimed through the prophets the
dispensations, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the
passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily assumption
into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and His manifestation
from heaven in the glory of the Father." It thus appears that the "rule
of truth" as Irenaeus knew it, the formulated sum of doctrines mediated
by Baptism, which he, in accordance with the testimony of his teacher
Polycarp, believed to have been received from the apostles, at least
approaches our present Apostolic Creed.

11. Tertullian and Cyprian on Apostles' Creed.

A similar result is obtained from the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian,
Novatian, Origen and others. "When we step into the water of Baptism,"
says Tertullian, who died about 220, "we confess the Christian faith
according to the words of its law," _i.e._, according to the law of
faith or the rule of faith. Tertullian, therefore, identifies the
confession to which the candidates for Baptism were pledged with the
brief formulation of the chief Christian doctrines which he variously
designates as "the law of faith," "the rule of faith," frequently also
as _tessara,_ watchword and _sacramentum,_ a term then signifying the
military oath of allegiance. This Law or Rule of Faith was, according to
Tertullian, the confession adopted by Christians everywhere, which
distinguished them from unbelievers and heretics. The unity of the
congregations, the granting of the greeting of peace, of the name
brother, and of mutual hospitality,--these and similar Christian rights
and privileges, says Tertullian, "depend on no other condition than the
similar tradition of the same oath of allegiance," _i.e._, the adoption
of the same baptismal rule of faith. (Zahn, 250.)

At the same time Tertullian most emphatically claims, "that this rule of
faith was established by the apostles, aye, by Christ Himself," inasmuch
as He had commanded to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Zahn, 252.) In his book _Adversus
Praxeam,_ Tertullian concludes an epitome which he gives of "the rule of
faith" as follows: "That this rule has come down from the beginning of
the Gospel, even before the earlier heretics, and so, of course before
the Praxeas of yesterday, is proved both by the lateness of all heretics
and by the novelty of this Praxeas of yesterday." (Schaff, _Creeds of
Christendom,_ 2, 18.) The following form is taken from Tertullian's _De
Virginibus Velandis:_ "For the rule of faith is altogether one, alone
(_sola_), immovable, and irreformable, namely, believing in one God
omnipotent the Maker of the world, and in His Son Jesus Christ, born of
the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead
the third day, received into the heavens, sitting now at the right hand
of the Father who shall come to judge the living and the dead, also
through the resurrection of the flesh." Cyprian the Martyr, bishop of
Carthage, who died 257, and who was the first one to apply the term
_symbolum_ to the baptismal creed, in his Epistle to Magnus and to
Januarius, as well as to other Numidian bishops, gives the following as
the answer of the candidate for Baptism to the question, "Do you
believe?": "I believe in God the Father, in His Son Christ, in the Holy
Spirit. I believe the remission of sins, and the life eternal through
the holy Church."

12. Variations of the Apostles' Creed.

While there can be no reasonable doubt either that the Christian
churches from the very beginning were in possession of a definite and
formulated symbol, or that this symbol was an amplification of the
trinitarian formula of Baptism, yet we are unable to ascertain with any
degree of certainty what its exact original wording was. There has not
been found in the early Christian writers a single passage recording the
precise form of the baptismal confession or the rule of truth and faith
as used in the earliest churches. This lack of contemporal written
records is accounted for by the fact that the early Christians and
Christian churches refused on principle to impart and transmit their
confession in any other manner than by word of mouth. Such was their
attitude, not because they believed in keeping their creed secret, but
because they viewed the exclusively oral method of impartation as the
most appropriate in a matter which they regarded as an affair of deepest
concern of their hearts.

It is universally admitted, even by those who believe that the apostles
were instrumental in formulating the early Christian Creed, that the
wording of it was not absolutely identical in all Christian
congregations, and that in the course of time various changes and
additions were made. "Tradition," says Tertullian with respect to the
baptismal confession, received from the apostles, "has enlarged it,
custom has confirmed it, faith observes and preserves it." (Zahn, 252.
381.) When, therefore, Tertullian and other ancient writers declare that
the rule of faith received from the apostles is "altogether one,
immovable, and irreformable," they do not at all mean to say that the
phraseology of this symbol was alike everywhere, and that in this
respect no changes whatever had been made, nor that any clauses had been
added. Such variations, additions, and alterations, however, involved a
doctrinal change of the confession no more than the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession implies a doctrinal departure from this symbol. It
remained the same Apostolic Creed, the changes and additions merely
bringing out more fully and clearly its true, original meaning. And this
is the sense in which Tertullian and others emphasize that the rule of
faith is "one, immovable, and irreformable."

The oldest known form of the Apostles' Creed, according to A. Harnack,
is the one used in the church at Rome, even prior to 150 A.D. It was,
however, as late as 337 or 338, when this Creed, which, as the church at
Rome claimed, was brought thither by Peter himself, was for the first
time quoted as a whole by Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra in a letter to
Bishop Julius of Rome, for the purpose of vindicating his orthodoxy.
During the long period intervening, some changes, however, may have
been, and probably were, made also in this Old Roman Symbol, which reads
as follows:--

_Pisteuo eis theon patera pantokratora; kai eis Christon Iesoun [ton]
huion autou ton monogene, ton kupion hemon, ton gennethenta ek
pneumatos hagiou kai Marias tes parthenou, ton epi Pontiou Pilatou
staurothenta kai taphenta, te trite hemera anastanta ek [ton] nekron,
anabanta eis tous ouranous, kathemenon en dexia tou patros, hothen
erchetai krinai zontas kai nekrous; kai eis pneuma hagion, hagian
ekklesian aphesin hamartion, sapkos anastasin._ (Herzog, _R. E._ 1,
744.)

13. Present Form of Creed and Its Contents.

The complete form of the present _textus receptus_ of the Apostles'
Creed, evidently the result of a comparison and combination of the
various preexisting forms of this symbol, may be traced to the end of
the fifth century and is first found in a sermon by Caesarius of Arles
in France, about 500.--In his translation, Luther substituted
"Christian" for "catholic" in the Third Article. He regarded the two
expressions as equivalent in substance, as appears from the Smalcald
Articles, where he identifies these terms, saying: "Sic enim orant
pueri: Credo sanctam ecclesiam catholicam sive Christianam." (472, 5;
498, 3.) The form, "I believe a holy Christian Church," however, is met
with even before Luther's time. (Carpzov, _Isagoge,_ 46.)--In the Greek
version the received form of the Apostles' Creed reads as follows:--

_Pisteuo eis theon patera, pantokratora, poieten ouranou kai ges. Kai
eis Iesoun Christon, huion autou ton monogene, ton kurion hemon, ton
sullephthenta ek pneumatos hagiou, gennethenta ek Marias tes parthenou,
pathonta epi Pontiou Pilatou, staurothenta, thanonta, kai taphenta,
anastanta apo ton nekron, anelthonta eis tous ouranous, kathezomenon en
dexia theou patros pantodunamou, ekeithen erchomenon krinai zontas kai
nekrous. Pisteuo eis to pneuma to hagion, hagian ekklesian, hagion
koinonian, aphesin hamartion sarkos anastasin, zoen aionion, Amen._

As to its contents, the Apostles' Creed is a positive statement of the
essential facts of Christianity. The Second Article, says Zahn, is "a
compend of the Evangelical history, including even external details."
(264.) Yet some of the clauses of this Creed were probably inserted in
opposition to prevailing, notably Gnostic, heresies of the first
centuries. It was the first Christian symbol and, as Tertullian and
others declare, the bond of unity and fellowship of the early Christian
congregations everywhere. It must not, however, be regarded as inspired,
much less as superior even to the Holy Scriptures; for, as stated above,
it cannot even, in any of its existing forms, be traced to the apostles.
Hence it must be subjected to, and tested and judged by, the Holy
Scriptures, the inspired Word of God and the only infallible rule and
norm of all doctrines, teachers, and symbols. In accordance herewith the
Lutheran Church receives the Apostles' Creed, as also the two other
ecumenical confessions, not as _per se_ divine and authoritative, but
because its doctrine is taken from, and well grounded in, the prophetic
and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments. (CONC. TRIGL. 851,
4.)

14. The Nicene Creed.

In the year 325 Emperor Constantine the Great convened the First
Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, in Bithynia, for the purpose of settling
the controversy precipitated by the teaching of Arius, who denied the
true divinity of Christ. The council was attended by 318 bishops and
their assistants, among whom the young deacon Athanasius of Alexandria
gained special prominence as a theologian of great eloquence, acumen,
and learning. "The most valiant champion against the Arians," as he was
called, Athanasius turned the tide of victory in favor of the
Homoousians, who believed that the essence of the Father and of the Son
is identical. The discussions were based upon the symbol of Eusebius of
Caesarea, which by changes and the insertion of Homoousian phrases (such
as _ek tes ousias tou patrous; gennetheis, ou poietheis; homoousios to
patri_) was amended into an unequivocal clean-cut, anti-Arian
confession. Two Egyptian bishops who refused to sign the symbol were
banished, together with Arius, to Illyria. The text of the original
Nicene Creed reads as follows:--

_Pisteuomen eis hena theon, patera pantokratora, panton oraton te kai
aoraton poieten. Kai eis hena kurion Iesoun Christon, ton huion tou
theou, gennethenta ek tou patros monogene, toutestin ek tes ousias tou
patros, theon ek theou, phos ek photos, theon alethinon ek theou
alethinou, gennethenta, ou poiethenta, homoousion to patri, di' ou ta
panta egeneto, ta te en to ourano kaita epi tes ges; ton di' hemas tous
anthropous kai dia ten hemeteran soterian katelthonta kai sarkothenta
kai enanthropesanta, pathonta, kai anastanta te trite hemera, kai
anelthonta eis tous ouranous, kai erchomenon palin krinai zontas kai
nekrous. Kai eis to pneuma to hagion. Tous de legontas, hoti pote hote
ouk en, kai hoti ex ouk onton egeneto, en ex heteras hupostaseos e
ousias phaskontas einai, e ktiston, e alloioton, e trepton ton huion
tou theou, toutous anathematizei he katholike kai apostolike ekklesia._
(Mansi, _Amplissima Collectio,_ 2, 665 sq.)

15. Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

In order to suppress Arianism, which still continued to flourish,
Emperor Theodosius convened the Second Ecumenical Council, in 381 at
Constantinople. The bishops here assembled, 150 in number, resolved that
the faith of the Nicene Fathers must ever remain firm and unchanged, and
that its opponents, the Eunomians, Anomoeans, Arians, Eudoxians,
Semi-Arians, Sabellians, Marcellians, Photinians, and Apollinarians,
must be rejected. At this council also Macedonius was condemned, who
taught that the Holy Spirit is not God: _elege gar auto me einai theon,
alla tes theontos tou patros allotrion._ (Mansi, 3, 568. 566. 573. 577.
600.) By omissions, alterations, and additions (in particular concerning
the Holy Spirit) this council gave to the Nicene Creed its present form.
Hence it is also known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The Third
Ecumenical Council, which assembled at Toledo, Spain, in 589, inserted
the word "Filioque," an addition which the Greek Church has never
sanctioned, and which later contributed towards bringing about the great
Eastern Schism. A. Harnack considers the Constantinopolitanum (CPanum),
the creed adopted at Constantinople, to be the baptismal confession of
the Church of Jerusalem, which, he says, was revised between 362 and 373
and amplified by the Nicene formulas and a rule of faith concerning the
Holy Ghost. (Herzog, _R. E._, 11, 19f.) Following is the text of the
CPanum according to Mansi:

_Pisteuomen eis hena theon patera, pantokratora, poieten ouranou kai ges,
oratwn te pantwn kai aoratwn. Kai eis hena kurion Iesoun Christon ton
huion tou theou ton monogene, ton ek tou patros gennethenta pro panton
ton aionon, phos ek photos, theon alethinon ek theou alethinou,
gennethevta, ou poiethenta, homoousion to patri, di' ou ta panta
egeneto, ton di' hemas tous anthropous kai dia ten hemeteran soterian
katelthovnta ek tov ouranon, kai sarkothenta ek pneumatos hagiou kai
Marias tes parthenou, kai enanthropesanta, staurothenta te huper hemon
epi Pontiou Pilatou, kai pathonta, kai taphenta, kai anastanta te trite
hemera kata tas gpaphas, kai anelthonta eis tous ouranous, kai
kathezomenon ek dexion tou patros, kai palin erchomenon meta doxes
krinai zontas kai nekrous; ou tes basileias ouk estai telos. Kai eis
pneuma to hagion, to kurion, to zoopoion, to ek tou patros
ekporeuomenon, to sun patri kai huio sumproskunoumenon kai
sundoxazovmenon, to lalesan dia ton propheton, eis mian hagian
katholiken kai apostoliken ekklesian. Homologoumen hen baptisma eis
aphesin hamartion; prosdokomen anastasin nekron, kai zwen tou mellontos
aionos. Amen._ (3, 565.)

16. The Athanasian Creed.

From its opening word this Creed is also called Symbolum Quicunque.
Roman tradition has it that Athanasius, who died 373, made this
confession before Pope Julius when the latter summoned him "to submit
himself to him [the Pope], as to the ecumenical bishop and Supreme
arbiter of matters ecclesiastical (_ut ei, seu episcopo oecumica et
supremo rerum ecclesiasticarum arbitro, sese submitteret_)." However,
Athanasius is not even the author of this confession, as appears from
the following facts: 1. The Creed was originally written in Latin. 2.
It is mentioned neither by Athanasius himself nor by his Greek
eulogists. 3. It was unknown to the Greek Church till about 1200, and
has never been accorded official recognition by this Church nor its
"orthodox" sister churches. 4. It presupposes the post-Athanasian
Trinitarian and Christological controversies.--Up to the present day it
has been impossible to reach a final verdict concerning the author of
the Quicunque and the time and place of its origin. Koellner's
_Symbolik_ allocates it to Gaul. Loofs inclines to the same opinion and
ventures the conjecture that the source of this symbol must be sought in
Southern Gaul between 450 and 600. (Herzog, _R. E._, 2, 177.) Gieseler
and others look to Spain for its origin.

Paragraphs 1, 2, and 40 of the Athanasian Creed have given offense not
only to theologians who advocate an undogmatic Christianity, but to many
thoughtless Christians as well. Loofs declares: The Quicunque is
unevangelical and cannot be received because its very first sentence
confounds _fides_ with _expositio fidei._ (H., _R. E._, 2, 194.)
However, the charge is gratuitous, since the Athanasian Creed deals with
the most fundamental Christian truths: concerning the Trinity, the
divinity of Christ, and His work of redemption, without the knowledge of
which saving faith is impossible. The paragraphs in question merely
express the clear doctrine of such passages of the Scriptures as Acts 4,
12: "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved;" John 8, 21:
"If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins"; John 14, 6:
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man
cometh unto the Father but by Me." In complete agreement with the
impugned statements of the Athanasian Creed, the Apology of the Augsburg
Confession closes its article "Of God" as follows: "Therefore we do
freely conclude that they are all idolatrous, blasphemers, and outside
of the Church of Christ who hold or teach otherwise." (103)

In the early part of the Middle Ages the Quicunque had already received
a place in the order of public worship. The Council of Vavre resolved,
1368: "Proinde Symbolum Apostolorum silenter et secrete dicitur quotidie
in Completorio et in Prima, quia fuit editum tempore, quo nondum erat
fides catholica propalata. Alia autem duo publice in diebus Dominicis et
festivis, quando maior ad ecclesiam congregatur populus, decantantur,
quia fuere edita tempore fidei propalatae. Symbolum quidem Nicaenum post
evangelium cantatur in Missa quasi evangelicae fidei expositio. Symbolum
Athanasii de mane solum cantatur in Prima, quia fuit editum tempore quo
maxime fuerunt depulsa et detecta nox atra et tenebrae haeresium et
errorum." (Mansi, 26, 487.) Luther says: "The first symbol, that of the
apostles, is indeed the best of all, because it contains a concise,
correct and splendid presentation of the articles of faith and is easily
learned by children and the common people. The second, the Athanasian
Creed, is longer ... and practically amounts to an apology of the first
symbol." "I do not know of any more important document of the New
Testament Church since the days of the apostles" [than the Athanasian
Creed]. (St. L. 10, 994; 6, 1576; E. 23, 253.)

17. Luther on Ecumenical Creeds.

The central theme of the Three Ecumenical Symbols is Christ's person and
work, the paramount importance of which Luther extols as follows in his
tract of 1538: "In all the histories of the entire Christendom I have
found and experienced that all who had and held the chief article
concerning Jesus Christ correctly remained safe and sound in the true
Christian faith. And even though they erred and sinned in other points,
they nevertheless were finally preserved." "For it has been decreed,
says Paul, Col. 2, 9, that in Christ should dwell all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily, or personally, so that he who does not find or receive
God in Christ shall never have nor find Him anywhere outside of Christ,
even though he ascend above heaven, descend below hell, or go beyond the
world." "On the other hand, I have also observed that all errors,
heresies, idolatries, offenses, abuses, and ungodliness within the
Church originally resulted from the fact that this article of faith
concerning Jesus Christ was despised or lost. And viewed clearly and
rightly, all heresies militate against the precious article of Jesus
Christ, as Simeon says concerning Him, Luke 2, 34, that He is set for
the falling and the rising of many in Israel and for a sign which is
spoken against; and long before this, Isaiah, chapter 8, 14, spoke of
Him as 'a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.'" "And we in the
Papacy, the last and greatest of saints, what have we done? We have
confessed that He [Christ] is God and man; but that He is our Savior,
who died and rose for us, etc., this we have denied and persecuted with
might and main" (those who taught this). "And even now those who claim
to be the best Christians and boast that they are the Holy Church, who
burn the others and wade in innocent blood, regard as the best doctrine
[that which teaches] that we obtain grace and salvation through our own
works. Christ is to be accorded no other honor with regard to our
salvation than that He made the beginning, while we are the heroes who
complete it with our merit."

Luther continues: "This is the way the devil goes to work. He attacks
Christ with three storm-columns. One will not suffer Him to be God; the
other will not suffer Him to be man, the third denies that He has
merited salvation for us. Each of the three endeavors to destroy Christ.
For what does it avail that you confess Him to be God if you do not also
believe that He is man? For then you have not the entire and the true
Christ, but a phantom of the devil. What does it avail you to confess
that He is true man if you do not also believe that He is true God? What
does it avail you to confess that He is God and man if you do not also
believe that whatever He became and whatever He did was done for you?"
"Surely, all three parts must be believed, namely, that He is God, also,
that He is man, and that He became such a man for us, that is, as the
first symbol says: conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered, was crucified, died, and rose again, etc. If one small part is
lacking, then all parts are lacking. For faith shall and must be
complete in every particular. While it may indeed be weak and subject to
afflictions, yet it must be entire and not false. Weakness [of faith]
does not work the harm but false faith--that is eternal death." (St. L.
10, 998; E. 23, 258.)

Concerning the mystery involved in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the
chief topic of the Ecumenical Creeds, Luther remarks in the same tract:
"Now, to be sure, we Christians are not so utterly devoid of all reason
and sense as the Jews consider us, who take us to be nothing but crazy
geese and ducks, unable to perceive or notice what folly it is to
believe that God is man, and that in one Godhead there are three
distinct persons. No, praise God, we perceive indeed that this doctrine
cannot and will not be received by reason. Nor are we in need of any
sublime Jewish reasoning to demonstrate this to us. We believe it
knowingly and willingly. We confess and also experience that, where the
Holy Spirit does not, surpassing reason, shine into the heart, it is
impossible to grasp, or to believe, and abide by, such article;
moreover, there must remain in it [the heart] a Jewish, proud, and
supercilious reason deriding and ridiculing such article, and thus
setting up itself as judge and master of the Divine Being whom it has
never seen nor is able to see and hence does not know what it is passing
judgment on, nor whereof it thinks or speaks. For God dwells in a 'light
which no man can approach unto,' 1 Tim. 6, 16. He must come to us, yet
hidden in the lantern, and as it is written, John 1, 18: 'No man hath
seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him,' and as Moses said before this, Ex.
33: 'There shall no man see Me [God] and live.'" (St. L. 10, 1007; E.
23, 568.)


III. The Augsburg Confession.

18. Diet Proclaimed by Emperor.

January 21, 1530, Emperor Charles V proclaimed a diet to convene at
Augsburg on the 8th of April. The manifesto proceeded from Bologna,
where, three days later, the Emperor was crowned by Pope Clement VII.
The proclamation, after referring to the Turkish invasion and the action
to be taken with reference to this great peril, continues as follows:
"The diet is to consider furthermore what might and ought to be done and
resolved upon regarding the division and separation in the holy faith
and the Christian religion; and that this may proceed the better and
more salubriously, [the Emperor urged] to allay divisions, to cease
hostility, to surrender past errors to our Savior, and to display
diligence in hearing, understanding, and considering with love and
kindness the opinions and views of everybody, in order to reduce them to
one single Christian truth and agreement, to put aside whatever has not
been properly explained or done by either party, so that we all may
adopt and hold one single and true religion; and may all live in one
communion, church, and unity, even as we all live and do battle under
one Christ."

In his invitation to attend the diet, the Emperor at the same time
urged the Elector of Saxony by all means to appear early enough (the
Elector reached Augsburg on May 2 while the Emperor did not arrive
before June 16), "lest the others who arrived in time be compelled to
wait with disgust, heavy expenses and detrimental delay such as had
frequently occurred in the past." The Emperor added the warning: In case
the Elector should not appear, the diet would proceed as if he had been
present and assented to its resolutions. (Foerstemann, _Urkundenbuch,_ 1,
7 f.)

March 11 the proclamation reached Elector John at Torgau. On the 14th
Chancellor Brueck advised the Elector to have "the opinion on which our
party has hitherto stood and to which they have adhered," in the
controverted points, "properly drawn up in writing, with a thorough
confirmation thereof from the divine Scriptures." On the same day the
Elector commissioned Luther, Jonas, Bugenhagen, and Melanchthon to
prepare a document treating especially of "those articles on account of
which said division, both in faith and in other outward church customs
and ceremonies, continues." (43.) At Wittenberg the theologians at once
set to work, and the result was presented at Torgau March 27 by
Melanchthon. On April 4 the Elector and his theologians set out from
Torgau, arriving at Coburg on the 15th, where they rested for eight
days. On the 23d of April the Elector left for Augsburg, while Luther,
who was still under the ban of both the Pope and the Emperor, remained
at the fortress Ebernburg. Nevertheless he continued in close touch with
the confessors, as appears from his numerous letters written to
Augsburg, seventy all told about twenty of which were addressed to
Melanchthon.

19. Apology Original Plan of Lutherans.

The documents which the Wittenberg theologians delivered at Torgau
treated the following subjects: Human Doctrines and Ordinances, Marriage
of Priests, Both Kinds, Mass, Confession, Power of Bishops, Ordination,
Monastic Vows, Invocation of the Saints, German Singing, Faith and
Works, Office of the Keys (Papacy), Ban, Marriage, and Private Mass.
Accordingly, the original intention of the Lutherans was not to enter
upon, and present for discussion at Augsburg, such doctrines as were not
in controversy (Of God, etc.), but merely to treat of the abuses and
immediately related doctrines, especially of Faith and Good Works. (66
ff.) They evidently regarded it as their chief object and duty to
justify before the Emperor and the estates both Luther and his
protectors, the electors of Saxony. This is borne out also by the
original Introduction to the contemplated Apology, concerning which we
read in the prefatory remarks to the so-called Torgau Articles mentioned
above: "To this end [of justifying the Elector's peaceable frame of
mind] it will be advantageous to begin [the projected Apology] with a
lengthy rhetorical introduction." (68; _C. R._, 26, 171.) This
introduction, later on replaced by another, was composed by Melanchthon
at Coburg and polished by him during the first days at Augsburg. May 4
he remarks in a letter to Luther: "I have shaped the Exordium of our
Apology somewhat more rhetorical (_hretorikoteron_) than I had written
it at Coburg." (_C. R._, 2, 40; Luther, St. L. 16, 652.) In this
introduction Melanchthon explains: Next to God the Elector builds his
hope on the Emperor, who had always striven for peace, and was even now
prepared to adjust the religious controversy in mildness. As to the
Elector and his brother Frederick, they had ever been attached to the
Christian religion, had proved faithful to the Emperor, and had
constantly cultivated peace. Their present position was due to the fact
that commandments of men had been preached instead of faith in Christ.
Not Luther, but Luther's opponents, had begun the strife. It was for
conscience' sake that the Elector had not proceeded against Luther.
Besides, such action would only have made matters worse, since Luther
had resisted the Sacramentarians and the Anabaptists. Equally unfounded
were also the accusations that the Evangelicals had abolished all order
as well as all ceremonies, and had undermined the authority of the
bishops. If only the bishops would tolerate the Gospel and do away with
the gross abuses, they would suffer no loss of power, honor, and
prestige. In concluding Melanchthon emphatically protests: "Never has a
reformation been undertaken so utterly without any violence as this [in
Saxony]; for it is a public fact that our men have prevailed with such
as were already in arms to make peace." (Kolde, _l.c._, 13.) The
document, accordingly, as originally planned for presentation at
Augsburg, was to be a defense of Luther and his Elector. In keeping
herewith it was in the beginning consistently designated "Apology."

20. Transformation of Apology into Confession Due to Eck's Slanders.

This plan, however, was modified when the Lutherans, after reaching
Augsburg, heard of and read the 404 Propositions published by Dr. John
Eck, in which Luther was classified with Zwingli, Oecolampadius,
Carlstadt, Pirkheimer, Hubmaier, and Denk, and was charged with every
conceivable heresy. In a letter of March 14, accompanying the copy of
his Propositions which Eck sent to the Emperor, he refers to Luther as
the domestic enemy of the Church (_hostis ecclesiae domesticus_), who
has fallen into every Scylla and Charybdis of iniquity; who speaks of
the Pope as the Antichrist and of the Church as the harlot; who has
praise for none but heretics and schismatics; whom the Church has to
thank for the Iconoclasts, Sacramentarians, New Hussites, Anabaptists,
New Epicureans, who teach that the soul is mortal, and the Cerinthians;
who rehashes all the old heresies condemned more than a thousand years
ago, etc. (Plitt, _Einleitung in die Augustana,_ 1, 527 ff.) Such and
similar slanders had been disseminated by the Papists before this, and
they continued to do so even after the Lutherans, at Augsburg, had made
a public confession of their faith and had most emphatically disavowed
all ancient and modern heresies. Thus Cochlaeus asserted in his attack
on the Apology, published 1534, that Lutheranism was a concoction of all
the old condemned heresies, that Luther taught fifteen errors against
the article of God, and Melanchthon nine against the Nicene Creed, etc.
Luther, he declared, had attacked the doctrine of the Trinity in a
coarser fashion than Arius. (Salig, _Historie d. Augsb. Konf.,_ 1, 377.)

These calumniations caused the Lutherans to remodel and expand the
defense originally planned into a document which should not merely
justify the changes made by them with regard to customs and ceremonies,
but also present as fully as possible the doctrinal articles which they
held over against ancient and modern heresies, falsely imputed to them.
Thus to some extent it is due to the scurrility of Eck that the
contemplated Apology was transformed into an all-embracing Confession, a
term employed by Melanchthon himself. In a letter to Luther, dated May
11, 1530, he wrote: "Our Apology is being sent to you--though it is
rather a Confession. _Mittitur tibi apologia nostra, quamquam verius
confessio est._ I included [in the Confession] almost all articles of
faith, because Eck published most diabolical lies against us, _quia
Eckius edidit diabolikontatas diabolas contra nos._ Against these it was
my purpose to provide an antidote." (_C. R._ 2, 45; Luther, St. L. 16,
654.)

This is in accord also with Melanchthon's account in his Preface of
September 29, 1559 to the German _Corpus Doctrinae_ (Philippicum),
stating: "Some papal scribblers had disseminated pasquinades at the diet
[at Augsburg, 1530], which reviled our churches with horrible lies,
charging that they taught many condemned errors, and were like the
Anabaptists, erring and rebellious. Answer had to be made to His
Imperial Majesty, and in order to refute the pasquinades, it was decided
to include all articles of Christian doctrine in proper succession, that
every one might see how unjustly our churches were slandered in the
lying papal writings. ... Finally, this Confession was, as God directed
and guided, drawn up by me in the manner indicated, and the venerable
Doctor Martin Luther was pleased with it." (_C. R._ 9, 929.)

The original plan, however, was not entirely abandoned, but merely
extended by adding a defense also against the various heresies with
which the Lutherans were publicly charged. This was done in an objective
presentation of the principal doctrines held by the Lutherans, for which
the Marburg and Schwabach Articles served as models and guides.

21. Marburg, Schwabach, and Torgau Articles.

The material from which Melanchthon constructed the Augsburg Confession
is, in the last analysis, none other than the Reformation truths which
Luther had proclaimed since 1517 with ever-increasing clarity and force.
In particular, he was guided by, and based his labor on, the Marburg
Articles, the Schwabach Articles, and the so-called Torgau Articles. The
Marburg Articles, fifteen in number, had been drawn up by Luther, in
1529, at the Colloquy of Marburg, whence he departed October 6, about
six months before the Diet at Augsburg. (Luther, St. L., 17, 1138 f.)
The seventeen Schwabach Articles were composed by Luther, Melanchthon,
Jonas, Brenz and Agricola, and presented to the Convention at Smalcald
about the middle of October, 1529. According to recent researches the
Schwabach Articles antedated the Marburg Articles and formed the basis
for them. (Luther, Weimar Ed., 30, 3, 97, 107.) In 1530 Luther published
these Articles, remarking: "It is true that I helped to draw up such
articles; for they were not composed by me alone." This public statement
discredits the opinion of v. Schubert published in 1908 according to
which Melanchthon is the sole author of the Schwabach Articles, Luther's
contribution and participation being negligible. The Schwabach Articles
constitute the seventeen basic articles of the first part of the
Augsburg Confession. (St. L. 16, 638. 648. 564; _C. R._ 26, 146 f.)

The so-called Torgau Articles are the documents referred to above,
touching chiefly upon the abuses. Pursuant to the order of the Elector,
they were prepared by Luther and his assistants, Melanchthon,
Bugenhagen, and possibly also Jonas. They are called Torgau Articles
because the order for drafting them came from Torgau (March 14), and
because they were presented to the Elector at Torgau. (Foerstemann, 1,
66; _C. R._ 26, 171; St. L. 16, 638.) With reference to these articles
Luther wrote (March 14) to Jonas, who was then still conducting the
visitation: "The Prince has written to us, that is, to you, Pomeranus,
Philip, and myself, in a letter addressed to us in common, that we
should come together set aside all other business, and finish before
next Sunday whatever is necessary for the next diet on April 8. For
Emperor Charles himself will be present at Augsburg to settle all things
in a friendly way, as he writes in his bull. Therefore, although you are
absent, we three shall do what we can today and tomorrow; still, in
order to comply with the will of the Prince, it will be incumbent upon
you to turn your work over to your companions and be present with us
here on the morrow. For things are in a hurry. _Festinata enim sunt
omnia._" (St. L. 16, 638.)

Melanchthon also wrote to Jonas on the 15th of March: "Luther is
summoning you by order of the Prince; you will therefore come as soon as
it is at all possible. The Diet, according to the proclamation, will
convene at Augsburg. And the Emperor graciously promises that he will
investigate the matter, and correct the errors on both sides. May Christ
stand by us!" (_C. R._ 2, 28; Foerstemann, 1, 45.) It was to these
articles (Torgau Articles) that the Elector referred when he wrote to
Luther from Augsburg on the 11th of May: "After you and others of our
learned men at Wittenberg, at our gracious desire and demand, have
drafted the articles which are in religious controversy, we do not wish
to conceal from you that Master Philip Melanchthon has now at this place
perused them further and drawn them up in one form." (_C. R._ 2, 47.)

22. Luther's Spokesman at Augsburg.

The material, therefore, out of which Melanchthon, who in 1530 was still
in full accord with Luther doctrinally, framed the fundamental symbol of
the Lutheran Church were the thoughts and, in a large measure, the very
words of Luther. Melanchthon gave to the Augsburg Confession its form
and its irenic note, its entire doctrinal content, however must be
conceded to be "_iuxta sententiam Lutheri,_ according to the teaching of
Luther," as Melanchthon himself declared particularly with respect to
the article of the Lord's Supper. (_C. R._ 2, 142.) On the 27th of June,
two days after the presentation of the Confession, Melanchthon wrote to
Luther: "We have hitherto followed your authority, _tuam secuti hactenus
auctoritatem,_" and now, says Melanchthon, Luther should also let him
know how much could be yielded to the opponents. (2, 146.) Accordingly,
in the opinion of Melanchthon, Luther, though absent, was the head of
the Evangelicals also at Augsburg.

In his answer Luther does not deny this, but only demands of Melanchthon
to consider the cause of the Gospel as his own. "For," says he, "it is
indeed my affair, and, to tell the truth, my affair more so than that of
all of you." Yet they should not speak of "authority." "In this matter,"
he continues, "I will not be or be called your author [authority]; and
though this might be correctly explained, I do not want this word. If it
is not your affair at the same time and in the same measure, I do not
desire that it be called mine and be imposed upon you. If it is mine
alone, I shall direct it myself." (St. L. 16, 906. 903. Enders, _Luthers
Briefwechsel,_ 8, 43.)

Luther, then, was the prime mover also at Augsburg. Without him there
would have been no Evangelical cause, no Diet of Augsburg, no
Evangelical confessors, no Augsburg Confession. And this is what Luther
really meant when he said: "_Confessio Augustana mea;_ the Augsburg
Confession is mine." (Walch 22, 1532.) He did not in the least thereby
intend to deprive Melanchthon of any credit properly due him with
reference to the Confession. Moreover, in a letter written to Nicolaus
Hausmann on July 6, 1530, Luther refers to the Augustana as "our
confession, which our Philip prepared; _quam Philippus noster paravit._"
(St. L. 16, 882; Enders 8, 80.) As a matter of fact, however, the day of
Augsburg, even as the day of Worms, was the day of Luther and of the
Evangelical truth once more restored to light by Luther. At Augsburg,
too, Melanchthon was not the real author and moving spirit, but the
instrument and mouthpiece of Luther, out of whose spirit the doctrine
there confessed had proceeded. (See Formula of Concord 983, 32--34.)

Only blindness born of false religious interests (indifferentism,
unionism, etc.) can speak of Melanchthon's theological independence at
Augsburg or of any doctrinal disagreement between the Augsburg
Confession and the teaching of Luther. That, at the Diet, he was led,
and wished to be led, by Luther is admitted by Melanchthon himself. In
the letter of June 27, referred to above, he said: "The matters, as you
[Luther] know, have been considered before, though in the combat it
always turns out otherwise than expected." (St. L. 16, 899; _C. R._ 2,
146.) On the 31st of August he wrote to his friend Camerarius: "Hitherto
we have yielded nothing to our opponents, except what Luther judged
should be done, since the matter was considered well and carefully
before the Diet; _re bene ac diligenter deliberata ante conventum_." (2,
334.)

Very pertinently E. T. Nitzsch said of Melanchthon (1855): "With the son
of the miner, who was destined to bring good ore out of the deep shaft,
there was associated the son of an armorer, who was well qualified to
follow his leader and to forge shields, helmets, armor, and swords for
this great work." This applies also to the Augsburg Confession, in which
Melanchthon merely shaped the material long before produced by Luther
from the divine shafts of God's Word. Replying to Koeller, Rueckert, and
Heppe, who contend that the authorship of the Augsburg Confession must
in every way be ascribed to Melanchthon, Philip Schaff writes as
follows: "This is true as far as the spirit [which Luther called
'pussyfooting,' _Leisetreten_] and the literary composition are
concerned; but as to the doctrines Luther had a right to say, 'The
Catechism, the Exposition of the Ten Commandments, and the Augsburg
Confession are _mine._'" (_Creeds_ 1, 229.)

23. Drafting the Confession.

May 11 the Confession was so far completed that the Elector was able to
submit it to Luther for the purpose of getting his opinion on it.
According to Melanchthon's letter of the same date, the document
contained "almost all articles of faith, _omnes fere articulos fedei._"
(_C. R._ 2, 45.) This agrees with the account written by Melanchthon
shortly before his death, in which he states that in the Augsburg
Confession he had presented "the sum of our Church's doctrine," and that
in so doing he had arrogated nothing to himself; for in the presence of
the princes, etc., each individual sentence had been discussed.
"Thereupon," says Melanchthon, "the entire Confession was sent also to
Luther, who informed the princes that he had read it and approved it.
The princes and other honest and learned men still living will remember
that such was the case. _Missa est denique et Luthero tota forma
Confessionis, qui Principibus scripsit, se hanc Confessionem et legisse
et probare. Haec ita acta esse, Principes et alii honesti et docti viri
adhuc superstites meminerint._" (9, 1052.) As early as May 15 Luther
returned the Confession with the remark: "I have read Master Philip's
Apology. I am well pleased with it, and know nothing to improve or to
change in it; neither would this be proper, since I cannot step so
gently and softly. Christ, our Lord, grant that it may produce much and
great fruit which, indeed, we hope and pray for. Amen." (St. L. 16,
657.) Luther is said to have added these words to the Tenth Article:
"And they condemn those who teach otherwise, _et improbant secus
docentes._" (Enders, 7, 336.)

Up to the time of its presentation the Augsburg Confession was
diligently improved, polished, perfected, and partly recast. Additions
were inserted and several articles added. Nor was this done secretly and
without Luther's knowledge. May 22 Melanchthon wrote to Luther: "Daily
we change much in the Apology. I have eliminated the article On Vows,
since it was too brief, and substituted a fuller explanation. Now I am
also treating of the Power of the Keys. I would like to have you read
the articles of faith. If you find no shortcoming in them, we shall
manage to treat the remainder. For one must always make some changes in
them and adapt oneself to conditions. _Subinde enim mutandi sunt atque
ad occasiones accommodandi._" (_C. R._ 2, 60; Luther, 16, 689.)
Improvements suggested by Regius and Brenz were also adopted. (Zoeckler,
_Die A. K._, 18.)

Even Brueck is said to have made some improvements. May 24 the Nuernberg
delegates wrote to their Council: "The Saxon Plan [Apology] has been
returned by Doctor Luther. But Doctor Brueck, the old chancellor, still
has some changes to make at the beginning and the end." (_C. R._ 2, 62.)
The expression "beginning and end (_hinten und vorne_)," according to
Tschackert, is tantamount to "all over (_ueberall_)." However, even
before 1867 Plitt wrote it had long ago been recognized that this
expression refers to the Introduction and the Conclusion of the
Confession, which were written by Brueck. (Aug. 2, 11.) Bretschneider is
of the same opinion. (_C. R._ 2, 62.) June 3 the Nuernberg delegates
wrote: "Herewith we transmit to Your Excellencies a copy of the Saxon
Plan [Confession] in Latin, together with the Introduction or Preamble.
At the end, however, there are lacking one or two articles [20 and 21]
and the Conclusion, in which the Saxon theologians are still engaged.
When that is completed, it shall be sent to Your Excellencies. Meanwhile
Your Excellencies may cause your learned men and preachers to study it
and deliberate upon it. When this Plan [Confession] is drawn up in
German, it shall not be withheld from Your Excellencies. The Saxons,
however, distinctly desire that, for the present, Your Excellencies keep
this Plan or document secret, and that you permit no copy to be given to
any one until it has been delivered to His Imperial Majesty. They have
reasons of their own for making this request. ... And if Your
Excellencies' pastors and learned men should decide to make changes or
improvements in this Plan or in the one previously submitted, these,
too, Your Excellencies are asked to transmit to us." (2, 83.) June 26
Melanchthon wrote to Camerarius: "Daily I changed and recast much; and I
would have changed still more if our advisers (_sumphradmones_) had
permitted us to do so." (2, 140.)

24. Public Reading of the Confession.

June 15, after long negotiations, a number of other estates were
permitted to join the adherents of the Saxon Confession. (_C. R._ 2,
105.) As a result, Melanchthon's Introduction, containing a defense of
the Saxon Electors, without mentioning the other Lutheran estates, no
longer fitted in with the changed conditions. Accordingly, it was
supplanted by the Preface composed by Brueck, and translated into Latin
by Justus Jonas, whose acknowledged elegant Latin and German style
qualified him for such services. At the last deliberation, on June 23,
the Confession was signed. And on June 25, at 3 P.M., the ever-memorable
meeting of the Diet took place at which the Augustana was read by
Chancellor Beyer in German, and both manuscripts were handed over. The
Emperor kept the Latin copy for himself, and gave the German copy to the
Imperial Chancellor, the Elector and Archbishop Albrecht, to be
preserved in the Imperial Archives at Mainz. Both texts, therefore, the
Latin as well as the German, have equal authority, although the German
text has the additional distinction and prestige of having been publicly
read at the Diet.

As to where and how the Lutheran heroes confessed their faith, Kolde
writes as follows: "The place where they assembled on Saturday, June 25,
at 3 P.M., was not the courtroom, where the meetings of the Diet were
ordinarily conducted, but, as the Imperial Herald, Caspar Sturm,
reports, the 'Pfalz,' the large front room, _i.e._, the Chapter-room of
the bishop's palace, where the Emperor lived. The two Saxon chancellors,
Dr. Greg. Brueck and Dr. Chr. Beyer, the one with the Latin and the
other with the German copy of the Confession, stepped into the middle of
the hall, while as many of the Evangelically minded estates as had the
courage publicly to espouse the Evangelical cause arose from their seats.
Caspar Sturm reports: 'Als aber die gemeldeten Commissarii und
Botschaften der oesterreichischen Lande ihre Werbung und Botschaft
vollendet und abgetreten, sind darauf von Stund' an Kurfuerst von Sachsen
naemlich Herzog Johannes, Markgraf Joerg von Brandenburg, Herzog Ernst
samt seinem Bruder Franzisko, beide Herzoege zu Braunschweig und
Lueneburg, Landgraf Philipp von Hessen, Graf Wolf von Anhalt usw. von
ihrer Session auf; und gegen Kaiserliche Majestaet gestanden.' The
Emperor desired to hear the Latin text. But when Elector John had called
attention to the fact that the meeting was held on German soil, and
expressed the hope that the Emperor would permit the reading to proceed
in German, it was granted. Hereupon Dr. Beyer read the Confession. The
reading lasted about two hours; but he read with a voice so clear and
plain that the multitude, which could not gain access to the hall,
understood every word in the courtyard." (19 f.)

The public reading of the Confession exercised a tremendous influence in
every direction. Even before the Diet adjourned, Heilbronn, Kempten,
Windsheim, Weissenburg and Frankfurt on the Main professed their
adherence to it. Others had received the first impulse which
subsequently induced them to side with the Evangelicals. Brenz has it
that the Emperor fell asleep during the reading. However, this can have
been only temporarily or apparently, since Spalatin and Jonas assure us
that the Emperor, like the other princes and King Ferdinand, listened
attentively. Their report reads: "_Satis attentus erat Caesar,_ The
Emperor was attentive enough." Duke William of Bavaria declared: "Never
before has this matter and doctrine been presented to me in this
manner." And when Eck assured him that he would undertake to refute the
Lutheran doctrine with the Fathers, but not with the Scriptures, the
Duke responded, "Then the Lutherans, I understand, sit in the Scriptures
and we of the Pope's Church beside the Scriptures! _So hoer' ich wohl,
die Lutherischen sitzen in der Schrift und wir Pontificii daneben!_" The
Archbishop of Salzburg declared that he, too desired a reformation, but
the unbearable thing about it was that one lone monk wanted to reform
them all. In private conversation, Bishop Stadion of Augsburg exclaimed,
"What has been read to us is the truth, the pure truth, and we cannot
deny it." (St. L. 16, 882; Plitt, _Apologie,_ 18.) Father Aegidius, the
Emperor's confessor, said to Melanchthon, "You have a theology which a
person can understand only if he prays much." Campegius is reported to
have said that for his part he might well permit such teaching; but it
would be a precedent of no little consequence, as the same permission
would then have to be given other nations and kingdoms, which could not
be tolerated. (Zoeckler, _A. K._, 24.)

25. Luther's Mild Criticism.

June 26 Melanchthon sent a copy of the Confession, as publicly read, to
Luther, who adhering to his opinion of May 15, praised it yet not
without adding a grain of gentle criticism. June 29 he wrote to
Melanchthon: "I have received your Apology and can not understand what
you may mean when you ask what and how much should be yielded to the
Papists. ... As far as I am concerned too much has already been yielded
(_plus satis cessum est_) in this Apology; and if they reject it, I see
nothing that might be yielded beyond what has been done, unless I see
the proofs they proffer, and clearer Bible-passages than I have hitherto
seen. ... As I have always written--I am prepared to yield everything to
them if we are but given the liberty to teach the Gospel. I cannot yield
anything that militates against the Gospel." (St. L. 16, 902; Enders, 8,
42. 45.) The clearest expression of Luther's criticism is found in a
letter to Jonas, dated July 21, 1530. Here we read: "Now I see the
purpose of those questions [on the part of the Papists] whether you had
any further articles to present. The devil still lives, and he has
noticed very well that your Apology steps softly, and that it has veiled
the articles of Purgatory, the Adoration of the Saints, and especially
that of the Antichrist, the Pope." Another reading of this passage of
Luther: "_Apologiam vestram, die Leisetreterin, dissimulasse,_" is
severer even than the one quoted: "_Apologiam vestram leise treten et
dissimulasse._" (St. L. 16, 2323, Enders, 8, 133.)

Brenz regarded the Confession as written "very courteously and modestly,
_valde de civiliter et modeste._" (_C. R._ 2, 125.) The Nuernberg
delegates had also received the impression that the Confession, while
saying what was necessary, was very reserved and discreet. They reported
to their Council: "Said instruction [Confession], as far as the articles
of faith are concerned, is substantially like that which we have
previously sent to Your Excellencies, only that it has been improved in
some parts, and throughout made as mild as possible (_allenthalben aufs
glimpflichste gemacht_), yet, according to our view, without omitting
anything necessary." (2, 129.) At Smalcald, in 1537, the theologians
were ordered by the Princes and Estates "to look over the Confession, to
make no changes pertaining to its contents or substance, nor those of
the Concord [of 1536], but merely to enlarge upon matters regarding the
Papacy, which, for certain reasons, was previously omitted at the Diet
of Augsburg in submissive deference to His Imperial Majesty." (Kolde,
_Analecta,_ 297.)

Indirectly Melanchthon himself admits the correctness of Luther's
criticism. True, when after the presentation of the Confession he
thought of the angry Papists, he trembled fearing that he had written
too severely. June 26 he wrote to his most intimate friend, Camerarius:
"Far from thinking that I have written milder than was proper, I rather
strongly fear (_mirum in modum_) that some have taken offense at our
freedom. For Valdes, the Emperor's secretary, saw it before its
presentation and gave it as his opinion that from beginning to end it
was sharper than the opponents would be able to endure." (_C. R._ 2,
140.) On the same day he wrote to Luther: "According to my judgment, the
Confession is severe enough. For you will see that I have depicted the
monks sufficiently." (141.)

In two letters to Camerarius, however, written on May 21 and June 19,
respectively, hence before the efforts at toning down the Confession
were completed, Melanchthon expressed the opinion that the Confession
could not have been written "in terms more gentle and mild, _mitior et
lenior._" (2, 57.) No doubt, Melanchthon also had in mind his
far-reaching irenics at Augsburg, when he wrote in the Preface to the
Apology of the Augsburg Confession: "It has always been my custom in
these controversies to retain, so far as I was at all able, the form of
the customarily received doctrine, in order that at some time concord
might the more readily be effected. Nor, indeed, am I now departing far
from this custom, although I could justly lead away the men of this age
still farther from the opinions of the adversaries." (101, 11.)
Evidently, Melanchthon means to emphasize that in the Augustana he had
been conservative criticizing only when compelled to do so for
conscience' sake.

26. Luther Praising Confession and Confessors.

Luther's criticism did not in the least dampen his joy over the glorious
victory at Augsburg nor lessen his praise of the splendid confession
there made. In the above-mentioned letter of June 27 he identifies
himself fully and entirely with the Augustana and demands that
Melanchthon, too, consider it an expression of his own faith, and not
merely of Luther's faith. July 3 he wrote to Melanchthon: "Yesterday I
reread carefully your entire Apology, and it pleases me extremely
(_vehementer_)." (St. L. 16, 913; Enders, 8, 79.) July 6 he wrote a
letter to Cordatus in which he speaks of the Augustana as "altogether a
most beautiful confession, _plane pulcherrima confessio._" At the same
time he expresses his great delight over the victory won at Augsburg,
applying to the Confession Ps. 119, 46: "I will speak of Thy testimonies
also before kings, and will not be ashamed,"--a text which ever since
has remained the motto, appearing on all of its subsequent manuscripts
and printed copies.

Luther said: "I rejoice beyond measure that I lived to see the hour in
which Christ was publicly glorified by such great confessors of His, in
so great an assembly, through this in every respect most beautiful
Confession. And the word has been fulfilled [Ps. 119, 46]: 'I will speak
of Thy testimonies also before kings;' and the other word will also be
fulfilled: 'I was not confounded.' For, 'Whosoever confesses Me before
men' (so speaks He who lies not), 'him will I also confess before My
Father which is in heaven.'" (16, 915; E. 8, 83.) July 9 Luther wrote to
Jonas "Christ was loudly proclaimed by means of the public and glorious
Confession (_publica et gloriosa confessione_) and confessed in the open
(_am Lichte_) and in their [the Papists'] faces, so that they cannot
boast that we fled, had been afraid, or had concealed our faith. I only
regret that I was not able to be present when this splendid Confession
was made (_in hac pulchra confessione_)." (St. L. 16, 928; E. 8, 94.)

On the same day, July 9, Luther wrote to the Elector: "I know and
consider well that our Lord Christ Himself comforts the heart of Your
Electoral Grace better than I or any one else is able to do. This is
shown, too, and proved before our eyes by the facts, for the opponents
think that they made a shrewd move by having His Imperial Majesty
prohibit preaching. But the poor deluded people do not see that, through
the written Confession presented to them, more has been preached than
otherwise perhaps ten preachers could have done. Is it not keen wisdom
and great wit that Magister Eisleben and others must keep silence? But
in lieu thereof the Elector of Saxony, together with other princes and
lords, arises with the written Confession and preaches freely before His
Imperial Majesty and the entire realm, under their noses so that they
must hear and cannot gainsay. I think that thus the order prohibiting
preaching was a success indeed. They will not permit their servants to
hear the ministers, but must themselves hear something far worse (as
they regard it) from such great lords, and keep their peace. Indeed,
Christ is not silent at the Diet; and though they be furious, still they
must hear more by listening to the Confession than they would have heard
in a year from the preachers. Thus is fulfilled what Paul says: God's
Word will nevertheless have free course. If it is prohibited in the
pulpit, it must be heard in the palaces. If poor preachers dare not
speak it, then mighty princes and lords proclaim it. In brief, if
everything keeps silence, the very stones will cry out, says Christ
Himself." (16, 815.) September 15, at the close of the Diet, Luther
wrote to Melanchthon: "You have confessed Christ, offered peace, obeyed
the Emperor, endured reproach, been sated with slander, and have not
recompensed evil for evil; in sum you have performed the holy work of
God, as becomes saints, in a worthy manner. ... I shall canonize you
(_canonizabo vos_) as faithful members of Christ." (16, 2319; E. 8,
259.)

27. Manuscripts and Editions of Augustana.

As far as the text of the Augsburg Confession is concerned, both of the
original manuscripts are lost to us. Evidently they have become a prey
to Romish rage and enmity. Eck was given permission to examine the
German copy in 1540, and possibly at that time already it was not
returned to Mainz. It may have been taken to Trent for the discussions
at the Council, and thence carried to Rome. The Latin original was
deposited in the Imperial Archives at Brussels, where it was seen and
perused by Lindanus in 1562. February 18, 1569, however, Philip II
instructed Duke Alva to bring the manuscript to Spain, lest the
Protestants "regard it as a Koran," and in order that "such a damned
work might forever be destroyed; _porque se hunda para siempre tan
malvada obra._" The keeper of the Brussels archives himself testifies
that the manuscript was delivered to Alva. There is, however, no lack of
other manuscripts of the Augsburg Confession. Up to the present time no
less than 39 have been found. Of these, five German and four Latin
copies contain also the signatures. The five German copies are in verbal
agreement almost throughout, and therefore probably offer the text as
read and presented at Augsburg.

The printing of the Confession had been expressly prohibited by the
Emperor. June 26 Melanchthon wrote to Veit Dietrich: "Our Confession has
been presented to the Emperor. He ordered that it be not printed. You
will therefore see that it is not made public." (_C. R._ 2, 142.)
However, even during the sessions of the Diet a number of printed
editions six in German and one in Latin, were issued by irresponsible
parties. But since these were full of errors, and since, furthermore,
the Romanists asserted with increasing boldness and challenge that the
Confession of the Lutherans had been refuted, by the Roman Confutation,
from the Scriptures and the Fathers, Melanchthon, in 1530, had a correct
edition printed, which was issued, together with the Apology, in May,
1531. This quarto edition ("Beide, Deutsch Und Lateinisch Ps. 119") is
regarded as the _editio princeps._

For years this edition was also considered the authentic edition of the
Augsburg Confession. Its Latin text was embodied 1584 in the Book of
Concord as the _textus receptus._ But when attention was drawn to the
changes in the German text of this edition (also the Latin text had been
subjected to minor alterations), the Mainz Manuscript was substituted in
the German Book of Concord, as its Preface explains. (14.) This
manuscript, however contains no original signatures and was erroneously
considered the identical document presented to the Emperor, of which it
was probably but a copy. In his Introduction to the Symbolical Books, J.
T. Mueller expresses the following opinion concerning the Mainz
Manuscript: "To say the least, one cannot deny that its text, as a rule,
agrees with that of the best manuscripts, and that its mistakes can
easily be corrected according to them and the _editio princeps,_ so that
we have no reason to surrender the text received by the Church and to
accept another in place thereof, of which we cannot prove either that it
is any closer to the original." (78.) Tschackert, who devoted much study
to the manuscripts of the Augsburg Confession, writes: "The Saxon
theologians acted in good faith, and the Mainz copy is still certainly
better than Melanchthon's original imprint [the _editio princeps_] yet,
when compared with the complete and--because synchronous with the
originally presented copy--reliable manuscripts of the signers of the
Confession, the Mainz Manuscript proves to be defective in quite a
number of places." (_L.c._ 621 f.)

However, even Tschackert's minute comparison shows that the Mainz
Manuscript deviates from the original presented to the Emperor only in
unimportant and purely formal points. For example, in sec. 20 of the
Preface the words: "Papst das Generalkonzilium zu halten nicht
geweigert, so waere E. K. M. gnaediges Erbieten, zu fordern und zu
handeln, dass der" are omitted. Art. 27 sec. 48 we are to read: "dass
die erdichteten geistlichen Orden Staende sind christlicher
Vollkommenheit" instead of: "dass die erdichteten geistlichen
Ordensstaende sind christliche Vollkommenheit." Art. 27, sec. 61 reads,
"die Uebermass der Werke," instead of, "die Uebermasswerke," by the way,
an excellent expression, which should again be given currency in the
German. The conclusion of sec. 2 has "Leichpredigten" instead of
"Beipredigten." According to the manuscripts, also the Mainz Manuscript,
the correct reading of sec. 12 of the Preface is as follows: "Wo aber
bei unsern Herrn, Freunden und besonders den Kurfuersten, Fuersten und
Staenden des andern Teils die Handlung dermassen, wie E. K. M.
Ausschreiben vermag (bequeme Handlung unter uns selbst in Lieb und
Guetigkeit) nicht verfangen noch erspriesslich sein wollte" etc. The
words, "bequeme Handlung unter uns selbst in Lieb' und Guetigkeit," are
quoted from the imperial proclamation. (Foerstemann, 7, 378; Plitt, 2,
12.)

Originally only the last seven articles concerning the abuses had
separate titles, the doctrinal articles being merely numbered, as in the
Marburg and Schwabach Articles, which Melanchthon had before him at
Augsburg. (Luther, Weimar 30, 3, 86. 160.) Nor are the present captions
of the doctrinal articles found in the original German and Latin
editions of the Book of Concord, Article XX forming a solitary
exception; for in the German (in the Latin Concordia, too, it bears no
title) it is superscribed: "Vom Glauben und guten Werken, Of Faith and
Good Works." This is probably due to the fact that Article XX was taken
from the so-called Torgau Articles and, with its superscription there,
placed among the doctrinal articles. In the German edition of 1580 the
word "Schluss" is omitted where the Latin has "Epilogus."

As to the translations, even before the Confession was presented to the
Emperor, it had been rendered into French. (This translation was
published by Foerstemann, 1, 357.) The Emperor had it translated for his
own use into both Italian and French. (_C. R._ 2, 155; Luther, St. L.,
16, 884.) Since then the Augustana has been done into Hebrew, Greek,
Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Slavic, Danish, Swedish, English, and many
other languages. As to the English translations, see page 6. [tr. note:
numbered section 4, above]

28. Signatures of Augsburg Confession.

Concerning the signatures of the Augustana, Tschackert writes as
follows: The names of the signers are most reliably determined from the
best manuscript copies of the original of the Confession, which have
been preserved to us. There we find the signatures of eight princes and
two free cities, to wit, Elector John of Saxony, Margrave George of
Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke Ernest of Braunschweig-Lueneburg, Landgrave
Philip of Hesse, then John Frederick, the Electoral Prince of Saxony,
Ernest's brother Francis of Braunschweig-Lueneburg, Prince Wolfgang of
Anhalt, Count Albrecht of Mansfeld, and the cities Nuernberg and
Reutlingen. (_L.c._ 285; see also Luther's letter of July 6, 1530, St.
L. 16, 882.) Camerarius, in his Life of Melanchthon, relates that
Melanchthon desired to have the Confession drawn up in the name of the
theologians only, but that his plan did not prevail because it was
believed that the signatures of the princes would lend prestige and
splendor to the act of presenting this confession of faith. Besides,
this plan of Melanchthon's was excluded by the Emperor's proclamation.

Although Philip of Hesse, in the interest of a union with the Swiss, had
zealously, but in vain, endeavored to secure for the article concerning
the Lord's Supper a milder form still, in the end, he did not refuse to
sign. Regius wrote to Luther, May 21, that he had discussed the entire
cause of the Gospel with the Landgrave, who had invited him to dinner,
and talked with him for two hours on the Lord's Supper. The Prince had
presented all the arguments of the Sacramentarians and desired to hear
Regius refute them. But while the Landgrave did not side with Zwingli
(_non sentit cum Zwinglio_), yet he desired with all his heart an
agreement of the theologians, as far as piety would permit (_exoptat
doctorum hominum concordiam, quantum sinit pietas_). He was far less
inclined to dissension than rumor had it before his arrival. He would
hardly despise the wise counsel of Melanchthon and others. (Kolde,
_Analecta,_ 125; see also _C. R._ 2, 59, where the text reads, "_nam
sentit cum Zwinglio_" instead of, "_non sentit cum Zwinglio._")
Accordingly, the mind of the Landgrave was not outright Zwinglian, but
unionistic. He regarded the followers of Zwingli as weak brethren who
must be borne with, and to whom Christian fellowship should not be
refused. This also explains how the Landgrave could sign the Augustana,
and yet continue his endeavors to bring about a union.

May 22 Melanchthon wrote to Luther: "The Macedonian [Philip of Hesse]
now contemplates signing our formula of speech, and it appears as if he
can be drawn back to our side; still, a letter from you will be
necessary. Therefore I beg you most urgently that you write him,
admonishing him not to burden his conscience with a godless doctrine."
Still the Landgrave did not change his position in the next few weeks.
June 25, however, Melanchthon reported to Luther: "The Landgrave
approves our Confession and has signed it. You will, I hope accomplish
much if you seek to strengthen him by writing him a letter." (_C. R._ 2,
60. 92. 96. 101. 103. 126; Luther St. L., 16, 689; 21a, 1499.)

At Augsburg, whither also Zwingli had sent his _Fidei Ratio,_ the
South-German imperial cities (Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen, Lindau)
presented the so-called _Confessio Tetrapolitana,_ prepared by Bucer and
Capito, which declares that the Sacraments are "holy types," and that in
the Lord's Supper the "true body" and the "true blood" of Christ "are
truly eaten and drunk as meat and drink for the souls which are thereby
nourished unto eternal life." However, in 1532 these cities, too, signed
the Augsburg Confession.

Thus the seed which Luther sowed had grown wonderfully. June 25, 1530,
is properly regarded as the real birthday of the Lutheran Church. From
this day on she stands before all the world as a body united by a public
confession and separate from the Roman Church. The lone, but courageous
confessor of Worms saw himself surrounded with a stately host of true
Christian heroes, who were not afraid to place their names under his
Confession, although they knew that it might cost them goods and blood,
life and limb. When the Emperor, after entering Augsburg, stubbornly
demanded that the Lutherans cease preaching, Margrave George of
Brandenburg finally declared: "Rather than deny my God and suffer the
Word of God to be taken from me, I will kneel down and have my head
struck off." (_C. R._ 2, 115.) That characterizes the pious and heroic
frame of mind of all who signed the Augustana in 1530 In a letter, of
June 18, to Luther, Jonas relates how the Catholic princes and estates
knelt down to receive the blessing of Campegius when the latter entered
the city, but that the Elector remained standing and declared: "To God
alone shall knees be bowed; _In Deo flectenda sunt genua._" (Kolde,
_Analecta,_ 135.) When Melanchthon called the Elector's attention to the
possible consequences of his signing the Augsburg Confession, the latter
answered that he would do what was right, without concerning himself
about his electoral dignity; he would confess his Lord, whose cross he
prized higher than all the power of the world.

Brenz wrote: "Our princes are most steadfast in confessing the Gospel,
and surely, when I consider their great steadfastness, there comes over
me no small feeling of shame because we poor beggars [theologians] are
filled with fear of the Imperial Majesty." (_C. R._ 2, 125.) Luther
praises Elector John for having suffered a bitter death at the Diet of
Augsburg. There, says Luther, he had to swallow all kinds of nasty soups
and poison with which the devil served him; at Augsburg he publicly,
before all the world, confessed Christ's death and resurrection, and
hazarded property and people, yea, his own body and life; and because of
the confession which he made we shall honor him as a Christian. (St. L.
12, 2078 f.) And not only the Lutheran Church, but all Protestant
Christendom, aye, the entire world has every reason to revere and hold
sacred the memory of the heroes who boldly affixed their names to the
Confession of 1530.

29. Tributes to Confession of Augsburg.

From the moment of its presentation to the present day, men have not
tired of praising the Augsburg Confession, which has been called
_Confessio augusta, Confessio augustissima,_ the "_Evangelischer
Augapfel,_" etc. They have admired its systematic plan, its
completeness, comprehensiveness, and arrangement; its balance of
mildness and firmness; its racy vigor, freshness, and directness; its
beauty of composition, "the like of which can not be found in the entire
literature of the Reformation period." Spalatin exclaims: "A Confession,
the like of which was never made, not only in a thousand years, but as
long as the world has been standing!" Sartorius: "A confession of the
eternal truth, of true ecumenical Christianity, and of all fundamental
articles of the Christian faith!" "From the Diet of Augsburg, which is
the birthday of the Evangelical Church Federation, down to the great
Peace Congress of Muenster and Osnabrueck, this Confession stands as the
towering standard in the entire history of those profoundly troublous
times, gathering the Protestants about itself in ever closer ranks, and,
when assaulted by the enemies of Evangelical truth with increasing fury,
is defended by its friends in severe fighting, with loss of goods and
blood, and always finally victoriously holds the field. Under the
protection of this banner the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany has
been built up on firm and unassailable foundations: under the same
protection the Reformed Church in Germany has found shelter. But the
banner was carried still farther; for all Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and
Prussians have sworn allegiance to it, and the Esthonians, Latts, Finns,
as well as all Lutherans of Russia, France, and other lands recognize
therein the palladium of their faith and rights. No other Protestant
confession has ever been so honored." (Guericke, _Kg._, 3, 116 f.)

Vilmar says in praise of the Confession: "Whoever has once felt a gentle
breath of the bracing mountain air which is wafted from this mighty
mountain of faith [the Augsburg Confession] no longer seeks to pit
against its firm and quiet dignity his own uncertain, immature, and
wavering thoughts nor to direct the vain and childish puff of his mouth
against that breath of God in order to give it a different direction."
(_Theol. d. Tatsachen,_ 76.) In his Introduction to the Symbolical
Books, J. T. Mueller says: "Luther called the Diet of Augsburg 'the last
trumpet before Judgment Day;' hence we may well call the confession
there made the _blast_ of that trumpet, which, indeed, has gone forth
into all lands, even as the Gospel of God which it proclaims in its
purity." (78.) The highest praise, however, is given the Augsburg
Confession by the Church which was born with it, when, _e.g._, in the
Formula of Concord, the Lutherans designate it as "the symbol of our
time," and glory in it as the Confession, which, though frowned upon and
assailed by its opponents, "down to this day has remained unrefuted and
unoverthrown (bis auf diesen Tag unwiderlegt und unumgestossen
geblieben)." (777, 4; 847, 3.)


IV. Melanchthon's Alterations of the Augsburg Confession.

30. Changes Unwarranted.

Melanchthon continued uninterruptedly to polish and correct the Augsburg
Confession till immediately before its presentation on June 25, 1530.
While, indeed he cannot be censured for doing this, it was though
originally not so intended by Melanchthon, an act of presumption to
continue to alter the document after it had been adopted, signed, and
publicly presented. Even the _editio princeps_ of 1531 is no longer in
literal agreement with the original manuscripts. For this reason the
German text embodied in the Book of Concord is not the one contained in
the _editio princeps,_ but that of the Mainz Manuscript, which, as
stated, was erroneously believed to be the identical German copy
presented to the Emperor. The Latin text of the _editio princeps,_
embodied in the Book of Concord, had likewise undergone some, though
unessential, changes. These alterations became much more extensive in
the Latin octavo edition of 1531 and in the German revision of 1533. The
Variata of 1540 and 1542, however, capped the climax as far as changes
are concerned, some of them being very questionable also doctrinally. In
their "Approbation" of the Concordia Germanico-Latina, edited by
Reineccius, 1708, the Leipzig theologians remark pertinently:
Melanchthon found it "impossible to leave a book as it once was."
Witness his _Loci_ of 1521, which he remodeled three times--1535, 1542,
and 1548. However, the _Loci_ were his own private work while the
Augustana was the property and confession of the Church.

Tschackert is right when he comments as follows: "To-day it is regarded
as an almost incomprehensible trait of Melanchthon's character that
immediately after the Diet and all his lifetime he regarded the
Confession as a private production of his pen, and made changes in it as
often as he had it printed, while he, more so than others, could but
evaluate it as a state-paper of the Evangelical estates, which, having
been read and delivered in solemn session, represented an important
document of German history, both secular and ecclesiastical. In
extenuation it is said that Melanchthon made these changes in
pedagogical interests, namely, in order to clarify terms or to explain
them more definitely; furthermore, that for decades the Evangelical
estates and theologians did not take offense at Melanchthon's changes.
Both may be true. But this does not change the fact that the chief
editor of the Confession did not appreciate the world-historical
significance of this state-paper of the Evangelical estates." (_L.c._
288.) Nor can it be denied that Melanchthon made these changes, not
merely in pedagogical interests, but, at least a number of them, also
in the interest of his deviating dogmatic views and in deference to
Philip of Hesse, who favored a union with the Swiss. Nor can Melanchthon
be fully cleared of dissimulation in this matter. The revised Apology of
1540, for example, he openly designated on the titlepage as "diligently
revised, _diligenter recognita";_ but in the case of the Augsburg
Confession of 1540 and 1542 he in no way indicated that it was a changed
and augmented edition.

As yet it has not been definitely ascertained when and where the terms
"Variata" and "Invariata" originated. At the princes' diet of Naumburg,
in 1561, the Variata was designated as the "amended" edition. The Reuss
Confession of 1567 contains the term "unaltered Augsburg Confession." In
its Epitome as well as in its Thorough Declaration the Formula of
Concord speaks of "the First Unaltered Augsburg Confession--_Augustana
illa prima et non mutata Confessio._" (777, 4; 851, 5.) The Preface to
the Formula of Concord repeatedly speaks of the Variata of 1540 as "the
other edition of the Augsburg Confession--_altera Augustanae
Confessionis editio._" (13 f.)

31. Detrimental Consequences of Alterations.

The changes made in the Augsburg Confession brought great distress,
heavy cares, and bitter struggles upon the Lutheran Church both from
within and without. Church history records the manifold and sinister
ways in which they were exploited by the Reformed as well as the
Papists; especially by the latter (the Jesuits) at the religious
colloquies beginning 1540, until far into the time of the Thirty Years'
War, in order to deprive the Lutherans of the blessings guaranteed by
the religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555. (Salig, _Gesch. d. A. K._, 1, 770
ff.; _Lehre und Wehre_ 1919, 218 ff.)

On Melanchthon's alterations of the Augsburg Confession the Romanists,
as the Preface to the Book of Concord explains, based the reproach and
slander that the Lutherans themselves did not know "which is the true
and genuine Augsburg Confession." (15.) Decrying the Lutherans, they
boldly declared "that not two preachers are found who agree in each and
every article of the Augsburg Confession, but that they are rent asunder
and separated from one another to such an extent that they themselves no
longer know what is the Augsburg Confession and its proper sense."
(1095.) In spite of the express declaration of the Lutherans at
Naumburg, 1561, that they were minded to abide by the original Augsburg
Confession as presented to Emperor Charles V at Augsburg, 1530, the
Papists and the Reformed did not cease their calumniations, but
continued to interpret their declarations to mean, "as though we [the
Lutherans] were so uncertain concerning our religion, and so often had
transfused it from one formula to another, that it was no longer clear
to us or our theologians what is the Confession once offered to the
Emperor at Augsburg." (11.)

As a result of the numerous and, in part radical changes made by
Melanchthon in the Augsburg Confession, the Reformed also, in the course
of time more and more, laid claim to the Variata and appealed to it over
against the loyal Lutherans. In particular, they regarded and
interpreted the alteration which Melanchthon had made in Article X, Of
the Lord's Supper, as a correction of the original Augustana in
deference to the views of Calvinism. Calvin declared that he (1539 at
Strassburg) had signed the Augustana "in the sense in which its author
[Melanchthon] explains it (_sicut eam auctor ipse interpretatur_)." And
whenever the Reformed, who were regarded as confessionally related to
the Augsburg Confession (_Confessioni Augustanae addicti_), and as such
shared in the blessings of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of
Westphalia (1648), adopted, and appealed to, the Augustana, they
interpreted it according to the Variata.

Referring to this abuse on the part of the Reformed and
Crypto-Calvinists, the Preface to the Book of Concord remarks: "To these
disadvantages [the slanders of the Romanists] there is also added that,
under the pretext of the Augsburg Confession [Variata of 1540], the
teaching conflicting with the institution of the Holy Supper of the body
and blood of Christ and also other corruptions were introduced here and
there into the churches and schools." (11. 17.)--Thus the changes made
in the Augsburg Confession did much harm to the Lutheran cause.
Melanchthon belongs to the class of men that have greatly benefited our
Church, but have also seriously harmed it. "These fictions" of the
adversaries, says the Preface to the Book of Concord concerning the
slanders based on Melanchthon's changes "have deterred and alienated
many good men from our churches, schools, doctrine, faith, and
confession." (11.)

32. Attitude toward Variata.

John Eck was the first who, in 1541, at the religious colloquy of Worms,
publicly protested against the Variata. But since it was apparent that
most of the changes were intended merely as reenforcements of the
Lutheran position against the Papists, and Melanchthon also declared
that he had made no changes in "the matter and substance or in the
sense," _i.e._, in the doctrine itself, the Lutherans at that time, as
the Preface to the Book of Concord shows, attached no further importance
to the matter. The freedom with which in those days formal alterations
were made even in public documents, and the guilelessness with which
such changes were received, appears, for example, from the translation
of the Apology by Justus Jonas. However, not all Lutherans even at that
time were able to view Melanchthon's changes without apprehension and
indifference. Among these was Elector John Frederick, who declared that
he considered the Augustana to be the confession of those who had signed
it, and not the private property of Melanchthon.

In his admonition to Brueck of May 5, 1537, he says: "Thus Master Philip
also is said to have arrogated to himself the privilege of changing in
some points the Confession of Your Electoral Grace and the other princes
and estates, made before His Imperial Majesty at Augsburg, to soften it
and to print it elsewhere [a reprint of the changed Latin octavo edition
of 1531 had been published 1535 at Augsburg and another at Hagenau]
without the previous knowledge and approval of Your Electoral Grace and
of the other estates which, in the opinion of Your Electoral Grace, he
should justly have refrained from, since the Confession belongs
primarily to Your Electoral Grace and the other estates; and from it
[the alterations made] Your Electoral Grace and the other related
estates might be charged that they are not certain of their doctrine and
are also unstable. Besides, it is giving an offense to the people." (_C.
R._ 3, 365.) Luther, too, is said to have remonstrated with Melanchthon
for having altered the Confession. In his Introduction to the Augsburg
Confession (Koenigsberg, 1577) Wigand reports: "I heard from Mr. George
Rorarius that Dr. Luther said to Philip, 'Philip, Philip, you are not
doing right in changing Augustanam Confessionem so often for it is not
your, but the Church's book.'" Yet it is improbable that this should
have occurred between 1537 and 1542, for in 1540 the Variata followed,
which was changed still more in 1542, without arousing any public
protest whatever.

After Luther's death, however, when Melanchthon's doctrinal deviations
became apparent, and the Melanchthonians and the loyal Lutherans became
more and more opposed to one another, the Variata was rejected with
increasing determination by the latter as the party-symbol of the
Philippists. In 1560 Flacius asserted at Weimar that the Variata
differed essentially from the Augustana. In the Reuss-Schoenburg
Confession of 1567 the Variata was unqualifiedly condemned; for here we
read: We confess "the old, true, unaltered Augsburg Confession, which
later was changed, mutilated, misinterpreted, and falsified ... by the
Adiaphorists in many places both as regards the words and the substance
(_nach den Worten und sonst in den Haendeln_), which thus became a
buskin, _Bundschuh,_ pantoffle, and a Polish boot, fitting both legs
equally well [suiting Lutherans as well as Reformed] or a cloak and a
changeling (_Wechselbalg_), by means of which Adiaphorists,
Sacramentarians, Antinomians, new teachers of works, and the like hide,
adorn, defend, and establish their errors and falsifications under the
cover and name of the Augsburg Confession, pretending to be likewise
confessors of the Augsburg Confession, for the sole purpose of enjoying
with us under its shadow, against rain and hail, the common peace of the
Empire, and selling, furthering, and spreading their errors under the
semblance of friends so much the more easily and safely." (Kolde,
_Einleitung,_ 30.) In a sermon delivered at Wittenberg, Jacob Andreae
also opposed the Variata very zealously.

Thus the conditions without as well as within the Lutheran Church were
such that a public declaration on the part of the genuine Lutherans as
to their attitude toward the alterations of Melanchthon, notably in the
Variata of 1540, became increasingly imperative. Especially the
continued slanders, intrigues, and threats of the Papists necessitated
such a declaration. As early as 1555, when the Peace of Augsburg was
concluded, the Romanists attempted to limit its provisions to the
adherents of the Augustana of 1530. At the religious colloquy of Worms,
in 1557, the Jesuit Canisius, distinguishing between a pure and a
falsified Augustana, demanded that the adherents of the latter be
condemned, and excluded from the discussions.

33. Alterations in Editions of 1531, 1533, 1540.

As to the alterations themselves, the Latin text of the _editio
princeps_ of the Augsburg Confession of 1531 received the following
additions: sec. 3 in Article 13, sec. 8 in Article 18, and sec. 26 in
Article 26. Accordingly, these passages do not occur in the German text
of the Book of Concord. Originally sec. 2 in the conclusion of Article
21 read: "_Tota_ dissensio est de paucis quibusdam abusibus," and sec. 3
in Article 24: "Nam ad hoc _praecipue_ opus est ceremoniis, ut doceant
imperitos." The additions made to Articles 13 and 18 are also found in
the German text of the _editio princeps_. (_C. R._ 26, 279. 564.)

In the "Approbation" of the Leipzig theologians mentioned above we read:
The octavo edition of the Augustana and the Apology printed 1531 by
George Rauh, according to the unanimous testimony of our theologians,
cannot be tolerated, "owing to the many additions and other changes
originating from Philip Melanchthon. For if one compares the 20th
Article of the Augsburg Confession as well as the last articles on the
Abuses: 'Of Monastic Vows' and 'Of Ecclesiastical Authority,' it will
readily be seen what great additions (_laciniae_) have been patched onto
this Wittenberg octavo edition of 1531. The same thing has also been
done with the Apology, especially in the article 'Of Justification and
Good Works,' where often entire successive pages may be found which do
not occur in the genuine copies. Furthermore, in the declaration
regarding the article 'Of the Lord's Supper,' where Paul's words, that
the bread is a communion of the body of Christ, etc., as well as the
testimony of Theophylact concerning the presence of the body of Christ
in the Supper have been omitted. Likewise in the defense of the articles
'Of Repentance,' 'Of Confession and Satisfaction,' 'Of Human
Traditions,' 'Of the Marriage of Priests,' and 'Of Ecclesiastical
Power,' where, again, entire pages have been added." (_L.c._ 8, 13; _C.
R._ 27, 437.) In the German edition of the Augsburg Confession of 1533
it was especially Articles 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 15, and 20 that were
remodeled. These alterations, however, involve no doctrinal changes,
with the possible exception of Article 5, where the words "where and
when He will" are expunged. (_C. R._ 26, 728.)

As to the Variata of 1540, however, the extent of the 21 doctrinal
articles was here almost doubled, and quite a number of material
alterations were made. Chief among the latter are the following: In
Article 5 the words, "ubi et quando visum est Deo," are omitted. In the
10th Article the rejection of the Reformed doctrine is deleted, and the
following is substituted for the article proper: "De coena Domini
docent, quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi
vescentibus in Coena Domini." (_C. R._ 26, 357.) The following sentences
have also given offense: "Et cum hoc modo consolamur nos promissione seu
Evangelio et erigimus nos fide, certo consequimur remissionem
peccatorum, et _simul_ datur nobis Spiritus Sanctus." "Cum Evangelium
audimus aut cogitamus aut sacramenta tractamus et fide nos consolamur
_simul_ est efficax Spiritus Sanctus." (354.) For the words of the 18th
Article: "sed haec fit in cordibus, cum per Verbum Spiritus Sanctus
concipitur," the Variata substitutes: "Et Christus dicit: Sine me nihil
potestis facere. Efficitur autem spiritualis iustitia in nobis, cum
_audiuvamur_ a Spiritu Sancto. Porro Spiritum Sanctum concipimus, cum
Verbo Dei assentimur, ut nos fide in terroribus consolemur." (362.)
Toward the end of the same article we read: "Quamquam enim externa opera
aliquo modo potest efficere humana natura per sese, ... verum timorem,
veram fiduciam, patientiam, castitatem non potest efficere, nisi
Spiritus Sanctus gubernet et _adiuvet_ corda nostra." (363.) In the 19th
Article the phrase "non adiuvante Deo" is erased, which, by the way,
indicates that Melanchthon regarded these words as equivalent to those
of the German text: "so Gott die Hand abgetan," for else he would have
weakened the text against his own interests. (363.) To the 20th Article
Melanchthon added the sentence: "Debet autem ad haec dona [Dei] accedere
exercitatio nostra, quae et _conservat_ ea et meretur incrementum, iuxta
illud: Habenti dabitur. Et Augustinus praeclare dixit: Dilectio meretur
incrementum dilectionis, cum videlicet exercetur." (311.)

34. Alterations Render Confession Ambiguous.

True in making all these changes, Melanchthon did not introduce any
direct heresy into the Variata. He did, however, in the interest of his
irenic and unionistic policy and dogmatic vacillations, render ambiguous
and weaken the clear sense of the Augustana. By his changes he opened
the door and cleared the way, as it were, for his deviations in the
direction of Synergism, Calvinism (Lord's Supper), and Romanism (good
works are necessary to salvation). Nor was Melanchthon a man who did
not know what he was doing when he made alterations. Whenever he
weakened and trimmed the doctrines he had once confessed, whether in his
_Loci_ or in the Augustana, he did so in order to satisfy definite
interests of his own, interests self-evidently not subservient to, but
conflicting with, the clear expression and bold confession of the old
Lutheran truth.

Kolde, referring in particular to the changes made in the 10th Article,
says: "It should never have been denied that these alterations involved
real changes. The motives which actuated Melanchthon cannot be
definitely ascertained, neither from his own expressions nor from
contemporary remarks of his circle of acquaintances" [As late as 1575
Selneccer reports that Philip of Hesse had asked Melanchthon to erase
the _improbatio_ of the 10th Article, because then also the Swiss would
accept the Augustana as their confession]. "A comparison with the
Wittenberg Concord of May, 1536 (_cum pane et vino vere et
substantialiter adesse_--that the body and blood [of Christ] are really
and substantially present with the bread and wine, _C. R._ 3, 75)
justifies the assumption that by using the form: _cum pane et vino vere
exhibeantur,_ he endeavored to take into account the existing agreement
with the South Germans (_Oberlaender_). However, when, at the same time,
he omits the words: _vere et substantialiter adesse,_ and the
_improbatio,_ it cannot, in view of his gradually changed conception of
the Lord's Supper, be doubted that he sought to leave open for himself
and others the possibility of associating also with the Swiss." (25.)

An adequate answer to the question what prompted Melanchthon to make his
alterations will embrace also the following points: 1. Melanchthon's
mania for changing and remodeling in general. 2. His desire, especially
after the breach between the Lutherans and the Papists seemed incurable,
to meet and satisfy the criticism that the Augustana was too mild, and
to reenforce the Lutheran position over against the Papists. 3.
Melanchthon's doctrinal deviations, especially in Reformed and
synergistic directions.

35. Variata Disowned by Lutheran Church.

It cannot be denied that during Luther's life and for quite a time after
his death the Variata was used by Lutherans without any public
opposition and recognized as the Augsburg Confession. Martin Chemnitz,
in his "Iudicum de Controversiis quibusdam circa quosdam Augustanae
Confessionis Articulos--Decision concerning Certain Controversies about
Some Articles of the Augsburg Confession," printed 1597, says that the
edition of 1540 was employed at the religious colloquies with the
previous knowledge and approval of Luther; in fact, that it was drawn up
especially for the Colloquy at Hagenau, which the opponents (Cochlaeus
at Worms, Pighius at Regensburg) had taken amiss. "Graviter tulerant,"
says Chemnitz, "multis articulis pleniori declaratione plusculum lucis
accessisse, unde videbant veras sententias magis illustrari et Thaidis
Babyloniae turpitudinem manifestius denudare--They took it amiss that
more light had been shed on many articles by a fuller explanation,
whence they perceived the true statements to be more fully illustrated
and the shame of the Babylonian Thais to be more fully disclosed."
(Mueller, _Einleitung,_ 72.)

Furthermore, it is equally certain that on the part of the Lutheran
princes, the Variata was employed without any sinister intentions
whatever, and without the slightest thought of deviating even in the
least from the doctrine of the original Augustana, as has been falsely
asserted by Heppe, Weber, and others. Wherever the Variata was adopted
by Lutheran princes and theologians, it was never for the purpose of
weakening the doctrine of the Augsburg Confession in any point.
Moreover, the sole reason always was to accentuate and present more
clearly the contrast between themselves and the Papists; and, generally
speaking, the Variata did serve this purpose. True, Melanchthon at the
same time, no doubt planned to prepare the way for his doctrinal
innovations; but wherever such was the case he kept it strictly to
himself.

The complete guilelessness and good faith in which the Lutheran princes
and theologians employed the Variata, and permitted its use appears
from the Preface to the Book of Concord. For here they state: "Therefore
we have decided in this writing to testify publicly, and to inform all,
that we wished neither then nor now in any way to defend, or excuse or
to approve, as agreeing with the Gospel-doctrine, false and godless
doctrines and opinions which may be concealed under certain coverings of
words [in the Variata]. We, indeed, never received the latter edition
[of 1540] in a sense differing in any part from the former which was
presented [at Augsburg]. Neither do we judge that other useful writings
of Dr. Philip Melanchthon, or of Brenz, Urban Regius, Pomeranus, etc.,
should be rejected and condemned, as far as in all things, they agree
with the norm which has been set forth in the Book of Concord." (17.)

Accordingly, when the Variata was boldly exploited by the Romanists to
circulate all manner of slanders about the Lutherans; when it also
became increasingly evident that the Reformed and Crypto-Calvinists
employed the Variata as a cover for their false doctrine of the Lord's
Supper; when, furthermore within the Lutheran Church the suspicion
gradually grew into conviction that Melanchthon, by his alterations had
indeed intended to foist doctrinal deviations upon the Lutheran Church;
and when, finally, a close scrutiny of the Variata had unmistakably
revealed the fact that it actually did deviate from the original
document not only in extent, but also with regard to intent, not merely
formally, but materially as well,--all loyal Lutheran princes and
theologians regarded it as self-evident that they unanimously and
solemnly declare their exclusive adherence to the Augsburg Confession
as presented to Emperor Charles at Augsburg, and abandon the Variata
without delay. At Naumburg, in 1561, the Lutheran princes therefore,
after some vacillation, declared that they would adhere to the original
Augsburg Confession and its "genuine Christian declaration and norm,"
the Smalcald Articles. Frederick III of the Palatinate alone withdrew,
and before long joined the Calvinists by introducing the Heidelberg
Catechism, thus revealing the spuriousness of his own Lutheranism.

It was due especially to the Crypto-Calvinists in Electoral Saxony and
to the _Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum_ that the Variata retained a
temporary and local authority, until it was finally and generally
disowned by the Lutheran Church and excluded from its symbols by the
adoption of the Formula of Concord. For here our Church pledges
adherence to "the First, Unaltered Augsburg Confession, delivered to the
Emperor Charles V at Augsburg in the year 1530, in the great Diet."
(777, 4; 847, 5; 851, 5.) And in the Preface to the Book of Concord the
princes and estates declare: "Accordingly, in order that no persons may
permit themselves to be disturbed by the charges of our adversaries spun
out of their own minds, by which they boast that not even we are certain
which is the true and genuine Augsburg Confession, but that both those
who are now among the living and posterity may be clearly and firmly
taught and informed what that godly Confession is which we and the
churches and schools of our realms at all times professed and embraced,
we emphatically testify that next to the pure and immutable truth of
God's Word we wish to embrace the first Augsburg Confession alone which
was presented to the Emperor Charles V, in the year 1530, at the famous
Diet of Augsburg, this alone (we say), and no other." (15.) At the same
time the princes furthermore protest that also the adoption of the
Formula of Concord did not make any change in this respect. For
doctrinally the Formula of Concord was not, nor was it intended to be, a
"new or different confession," _i.e._, different from the one presented
to Emperor Charles V. (20.)


V. The Pontifical Confutation of the Augsburg Confession.

36. Papal Party Refusing Conciliation.

At the Diet of Augsburg, convened in order to restore the disturbed
religious peace, the Lutherans were the first to take a step towards
reconciliation by delivering their Confession, June 25, 1530. In
accordance with the manifesto of Emperor Charles, they now expected that
the papal party would also present its view and opinion, in order that
the discussions might thereupon proceed in love and kindness, as the
Emperor put it. In the Preface to their Confession the Lutherans
declared: "In obedience to Your Imperial Majesty's wishes, we offer, in
this matter of religion the Confession of our preachers and of
ourselves, showing what manner of doctrine from the Holy Scriptures and
the pure Word of God has been up to this time set forth in our lands,
dukedoms, dominions and cities, and taught in our churches. And if the
other Electors, Princes, and Estates of the Empire will, according to
the said imperial proposition, present similar writings, to wit, in
Latin and German, giving their opinions in this matter of religion, we,
with the Princes and friends aforesaid, here before Your Imperial
Majesty, our most clement Lord, are prepared to confer amicably
concerning all possible ways and means, in order that we may come
together, as far as this may be honorably done, and, the matter between
us on both sides being peacefully discussed without offensive strife,
the dissension, by God's help, may be done away and brought back to one
true accordant religion; for as we all are under one Christ and do
battle under Him, we ought to confess the one Christ, after the tenor of
Your Imperial Majesty's edict, and everything ought to be conducted
according to the truth of God; and this is what, with most fervent
prayers, we entreat of God." (39, 8.)

The Lutherans did not believe that the manifesto of the Emperor could be
construed in any other way than that both parties would be treated as
equals at the Diet. Not merely as a matter of good policy, but _bona
fide,_ as honest Germans and true Christians, they clung tenaciously to
the words of the Emperor, according to which the Romanists, too, were to
be regarded as a party summoned for the trial, the Emperor being the
judge. The Lutherans simply refused to take the word of the Emperor at
anything less than par, or to doubt his good will and the sincerity of
his promise. The fact that from the very beginning his actions were in
apparent contravention of the manifesto was attributed by the Lutherans
to the sinister influence of such bitter, baiting, and unscrupulous
theologians as Eck, Cochlaeus, and Faber, who, they claimed, endeavored
to poison and incite the guileless heart of the Emperor. Thus the
Lutherans would not and could not believe that Charles had deceived
them,--a simple trust, which, however, stubborn facts finally compelled
them to abandon.

The Romanists, on the other hand, boasting before the Emperor that they
had remained with the true Christian faith, the holy Gospel, the
Catholic Church, the bull of the Pope, and the Edict of Worms, refused
with equal tenacity to be treated as a party summoned for trial. June
25, 1530, Elector John wrote to Luther: "Thus we and the other princes
and estates who are related to us in this matter had to consent to
submit our opinion and confession of faith. Our opponents, however, as
we are told, declined to present theirs and decided to show to the
Emperor that they adhered to the Edict [of Worms] and to the faith which
their fathers had bequeathed to and bestowed upon them, and which they
intended to adhere to even now; if, however the Pope or, in his place,
the Legate, together with His Imperial Majesty, would point out, and
expect them to adopt, a different and new faith, they would humbly hear
the Emperor's opinion." (Luther, St. L. 16, 758.)

Thus presupposing what they were summoned to prove at Augsburg, namely,
that the doctrine of the Pope was identical with the old Christian
faith, the Romanists declared a presentation of their views unnecessary.
The Lutherans, they maintained, were convicted apostates and rebels
against Pope and Church, against Emperor and realm; sentence was not
first to be pronounced upon them, but had been pronounced long ago, the
Diet's duty merely being to confirm and execute it; hence, there was
nothing else to be done by the Emperor than to attend to his office as
warden and protector of the Church, and, together with the princes and
estates, to proceed against the heretics with drastic measures. Also in
the later discussions, conducted with a view of effecting a
reconciliation, the Romanists refused to relinquish this position. From
beginning to end they acted as the accusers, judges, and henchmen of the
Lutherans. Nor was anything else to be expected, since, unlike the
Lutherans, they considered not God's Word, but the Pope the supreme
arbiter in religious matters. Thus from the very outset, the gulf
between the two parties was such that it could not be bridged. Common
ground was lacking. On the one side conscience, bound by the Word of
God! On the other, blind subjection to human, papal authority! Also
Romanists realized that this fundamental and irreconcilable difference
was bound to render futile all discussions. It was not merely his own
disgust which the papal historian expressed when he concluded his report
on the prolonged discussions at Augsburg: "Thus the time was wasted with
vain discussions." (Plitt, _Apologie,_ 43.)

37. Further Success Not Hoped for by Luther.

Luther regarded the public reading of the Confession as an unparalleled
triumph of his cause. Further results, such as a union with the
Romanists, he did not expect. On July 9, 1530, he wrote to Jonas: _"Quid
sperem de Caesare, quantumvis optimo, sed obsesso?_ What can I hope of
the Emperor, even the best, when he is obsessed" [by the papal
theologians]? The most Luther hoped for was mutual political toleration.
In the letter quoted he continues: "But they [the Papists] must expect a
sad, and we a happy issue. Not indeed, that there ever will be unity of
doctrine; for who can hope that Belial will be united with Christ?
Excepting that perhaps marriage [of priests] and the two kinds [of the
Sacrament] be permitted (here too however, this adverb 'perhaps' is
required, and perhaps too much 'perhaps'). But this I wish and earnestly
hope for, that, the difference in doctrine being set aside, a political
union may be made. If by the blessing of Christ this takes place, enough
and more than enough has been done and accomplished at this Diet. ...
Now, if we obtain also the third thing, that we adjourn with worldly
peace secured, then we shall have clearly defeated Satan in this year."
(Enders, 8, 95; St. L. 16 927. 1666.)

July 21, 1530, Luther wrote in a similar vein to Jonas: "The fact that
these frogs [the papal theologians who wrote the Confutation] with their
croakings [_coaxitatibus_ = pasquinades against Luther, instead of
answers to the Augustana] have free access [to the Emperor] chagrins me
very much in this great work in the most important matters. ... But this
happens to prove that I am a true prophet; for I have always said that we
work and hope in vain for a union in doctrine; it would be enough if we
could obtain worldly peace." (16, 927. 2324.) August 25, when the
prolonged discussions of reconciliation were nearing their end, he wrote
to Melanchthon: "In sum, it does not please me at all that unity of
doctrine is to be discussed, since this is utterly impossible, unless
the Pope would abolish his entire popery. It would have sufficed if we
had presented to them the reasons for our faith and desired peace. But
how can we hope that we shall win them over to accept the truth? We have
come to hear whether they approve our doctrine or not, permitting them
to remain what they are, only inquiring whether they acknowledge our
doctrine to be correct or condemn it. If they condemn it, what does it
avail to discuss the question of unity any longer with avowed enemies?
If they acknowledge it to be right, what necessity is there of retaining
the old abuses?" (16, 1404.)

Though willing to yield to the Catholic party in all other matters,
Luther refused to compromise the divine truth in any point or in any
way. For this reason he also insisted that the Emperor should not be
recognized as judge and arbiter without qualification, but only with the
proviso that his decision would not conflict with the clear Word of God.
According to Luther, everybody, Pope and Emperor included, must submit
to the authority of the Scriptures. In a letter of July 9, 1530 he wrote
to the Elector: "In the first place; Should His Imperial Majesty desire
that the Imperial Majesty be permitted to decide these matters, since it
was not His Majesty's purpose to enter into lengthy discussions, I think
Your Electoral Grace might answer that His Imperial Majesty's manifesto
promises that he would graciously listen to these matters. If such was
not intended, the manifesto would have been needless, for His Imperial
Majesty might have rendered his decision just as well in Spain without
summoning Your Electoral Grace to Augsburg at such great labor and
expense. ... In the second place: Should His Imperial Majesty insist
that the Imperial Majesty be permitted to decide these matters Your
Electoral Grace may cheerfully answer Yes, the Imperial Majesty shall
decide these matters, and Your Electoral Grace would accept and suffer
everything, provided only that His Imperial Majesty make no decision
against the clear Scriptures, or God's Word. For Your Electoral Grace
cannot put the Emperor above God, nor accept his verdict in opposition
to God's Word." (16, 815.)

38. Papal Peace Sought by Emperor.

By their obstinate refusal to regard themselves as a party summoned, the
Romanists from the outset, made it impossible for the Emperor to
maintain the role of an impartial judge, which, probably, he had never
really intended to be. At any rate, though earnestly desirous of
religious peace, his actions throughout the Diet do not reveal a single
serious effort at redeeming his promise and putting his beautiful words
into practise. Being bound to the Pope and the papal party both
religiously and politically, Charles did not require of the Romanists a
fulfilment of the obligations imposed upon them by his manifesto. All
the concessions were to be made by the Lutherans. _Revoca!_--that was
the first and only word which Rome had hitherto spoken to Luther.
"Revoke and submit yourselves!"--that, in the last analysis, was also
the demand of the Emperor at Augsburg with respect to the Lutheran
princes, both when he spoke in tones friendly and gentle and when he
uttered severe and threatening words. Charles, it is true, desired
peace, but a Roman peace, a peace effected by universal blind submission
to the Pope; not a peace by mutual understanding and concessions; least
of all a peace by political religious tolerance, such as Luther desired,
and which in our days is generally regarded as the outstanding feature
of modern civilization, notably of Americanism. To force the Lutherans
into submission and obedience to the Pope, that was the real object of
the Emperor. And the political situation demanded that this be
accomplished by peaceable and gentle means--if possible.

Self-evidently, in his endeavors to establish a Papal Peace, the
Emperor, who was haunted and tormented by the fear that all efforts
might prove futile, was zealously seconded, encouraged, and prodded on
by the papal theologians. To bring about a religious peace, such as the
Emperor contemplated, this, they flattered Charles, would be an
ever-memorable achievement, truly worthy of the Emperor: for the eyes of
all Christendom were upon him, and he had staked his honor upon the
success of this glorious undertaking. June 3 the Father Confessor of the
Emperor, Garsia, then at Rome, wrote to Charles: "At present there is
nothing so important in this life as that Your Majesty emerge victorious
in the German affair. In Italy you will be accounted the best prince on
earth if God should vouchsafe this grace unto us that the heresies which
have arisen in that nation be cured by your hand." (Plitt, 4.) June 6
Garsia wrote: "Gracious Lord! After the letters from the legate
[Campegius, concerning the return of Christian II to the Roman Church,
the disagreement between Philip of Hesse and the Elector, etc.] had been
read at to-day's Consistorial Meeting, almost all the cardinals said
that Your Majesty was the angel sent from heaven to restore Christendom.
God knows how much I rejoiced, and although the sun burned fiercely when
I returned to my home, how patiently I bore it! I was not sensitive to
it from sheer joy at hearing such sweet words about my master from those
who a year ago had maligned him. My chief comfort, however, was to
behold that they were right; for it seems as if God were performing
miracles by Your Majesty, and to judge by the beginning you have made in
curing this ailment, it is evident that we may expect the issue to prove
far more favorable than our sins merit." (II. 67.)

39. Compulsion Advocated by Theologians.

All Romanists, the Emperor included, were of the opinion that the
Protestants must be brought back to the papal fold. But they differed
somewhat as to the means of accomplishing this purpose. Some demanded
that force be resorted to forthwith, while others counseled that
leniency be tried first. Campegius advised kindness at the beginning,
and greater severity only in dealing with certain individuals, but that
sharper measures and, finally, force of arms ought to follow. At Rome
force was viewed as the "true rhubarb" for healing the breach,
especially among the common people. July 18 Garsia wrote to the Emperor:
"If you are determined to bring Germany back to the fold, I know of no
other or better means than by presents and flattery to persuade those
who are most eminent in science or in the empire to return to our faith.
Once that is done, you must, in dealing with the remaining common
people, first of all publish your imperial edicts and Christian
admonitions. If they will not obey these, then the true rhubarb to cure
them is force. This alone cured Spain's rebellion against its king. And
force is what will also cure Germany's unfaithfulness to God, unless,
indeed, divine grace should not attend Your Majesty in the usual
measure. God would learn in this matter whether you are a faithful son
of His, and should He so find, then I promise you that among all
creatures you will find no power sufficiently strong to resist you. All
will but serve the purpose of enabling you to obtain the crown of this
world." (42.)

Among the open advocates of force were Cochlaeus, Eck, Faber, and the
theologians and monks who flocked to Augsburg in large numbers about the
time the Augsburg Confession was read. They all considered it their
prime duty to rouse the passions of the Emperor, as well as of the
Catholic princes and estates, and to incite them against the Lutherans.
Their enmity was primarily directed against the Augustana, whose
objective and moderate tone had gained many friends even among the
Catholics, and which had indirectly branded Eck and his compeers as
detractors and calumniators. For had not Duke William of Bavaria, after
the reading of the Confession, rebuked Eck, in the presence of the
Elector of Saxony, for having misrepresented the Lutheran doctrine to
him? The moderation of the Augustana, said these Romanists, was nothing
but the cunning of serpents, deception and misrepresentation, especially
on the part of the wily Melanchthon, for the true Luther was portrayed
in the 404 theses of Eck. Cochlaeus wrote that the Lutherans were slyly
hiding their ungodly doctrines in order to deceive the Emperor: "astute
occultari in illorum Confessione prava eorum dogmata, de quibus ibi
tacendo dissimulabant, ut in hypocrisi loquentes Maiestati Tuae aliisque
principibus imponerent." (Laemmer, _Vortridentinische Theologie,_ 39.)
Thus the malice and fanaticism of the papal theologians and the monks
rose in proportion as friendliness was shown the Lutherans by Catholic
princes and the Emperor. They feared that every approach toward the
Lutherans would jeopardize the _pax Pontificia._

The fanaticism of the papal theologians is frequently referred to by the
Lutherans. June 26 Melanchthon wrote to Luther: "Sophists and monks are
daily streaming into the city, in order to inflame the hatred of the
Emperor against us." (_C. R._ 2, 141.) June 27: "Our Confession was
presented last Saturday. The opponents are now deliberating upon how to
answer; they flock together, take great pains, and incite the princes,
who already have been sufficiently aroused. Eck vehemently demands of
the Archbishop of Mainz that the matter be not debated, since it has
already been condemned." (144.) June 29 Jonas wrote to Luther: "Faber is
goaded on by furies and Eck is not a whit more sensible. Both insist in
every manner imaginable that the affair ought to be managed by force and
must not be heard." (154.) Melanchthon, July 8: "By chance Eck and
Cochlaeus came to the legate [Campegius, with whom Melanchthon was
deliberating]. I heard them say, distinctly enough, I believe, that the
opponents are merely deliberating upon how to suppress us by force."
(175.) July 15: "Repeatedly have I been with certain enemies who belong
to that herd of Eck. Words fail me to describe the bitter, Pharisaical
hatred I noticed there. They do nothing, they plan nothing else than how
they may incite the princes against us, and supply the Emperor with
impious weapons." (197.) The implacable theologians also succeeded in
fanaticizing some of the princes and bishops, who gradually became more
and more opposed to any kind of settlement by mutual understanding.
(175.)

The chief exponent of force was Cochlaeus. In his _Expostulatio,_ which
appeared at Augsburg in May, 1530, he argued that not only according to
papal, but according to imperial law as well, which the Evangelicals
also acknowledged, and according to the Scriptures, heretics might, aye,
must be punished with death. The treatise concludes as follows: "Thus it
is established that obdurate heretics may be executed by every form of
law. We, however, much prefer to have them return to the Church, be
converted, healed and live, and we beseech them to do so. _Constat
igitur, haereticos pertinaces omni iure interimi posse. Nos tamen longe
magis optamus et precamur, ut redeuntes ad ecclesiam convertantur,
sanentur et vivant._" (Plitt, 1, 5.)

Naturally Eck, too, was prominent among those who counseled the
employment of compulsory measures; indeed, he could not await the hour
when the order would be given to proceed against the heretics with fire
and sword. He lamented, in bitter terms, the fact that the Emperor had
not made use of stern measures as soon as he arrived in Germany. For
now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the
Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it
impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the
case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and
bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly
declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed
the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany,
had courageously attacked the Lutherans with the sword, and beheaded one
after another, the matter would have been easily settled. But all this
was prevented when he permitted the Elector of Saxony to speak and be
heard through his chancellor." (St. L. 16, 1636.)

40. Emperor Employs Mildness.

While a number of the Catholic estates, incited by the theologians, were
also in favor of immediately resorting to brutal force, the Emperor, for
political reasons, considered it more advisable to employ kindness.
Lauding the extreme affability and leniency of Charles, Melanchthon
wrote to Luther, January 25: "The Emperor greets our Prince very kindly;
and I would that our people, in turn, were more complaisant towards him.
I would ask you to admonish our Junior Prince by letter in this matter.
The Emperor's court has no one milder than himself. All others harbor a
most cruel hatred against us. _Caesar satis benigne salutat nostrum
principem; ac velim vicissim nostros erga ipsum officiosiores esse. Ea
de re utinam iuniorem principem nostrum litteris admonueris. Nihil ipso
Caesare mitius habet ipsius aula. Reliquii omnes crudelissime nos
oderunt_." (_C. R._ 2, 125.)

The reading of the Augustana strengthened this friendly attitude of
Charles. Both its content and its conciliatory tone, which was not at
all in harmony with the picture of the Lutherans as sketched by Eck,
caused him to be more kindly disposed toward Protestantism, and
nourished his hope that religious peace might be attained by peaceable
means. Other Catholic dignitaries and princes had been impressed in the
same manner. July 6 Luther wrote to Hausmann: "Many bishops are inclined
to peace and despise the sophists, Eck and Faber. One bishop [Stadion of
Augsburg] is said to have declared in a private conversation, 'This [the
Confession of the Lutherans] is the pure truth, we cannot deny it,' The
Bishop of Mainz is being praised very much for his endeavors in the
interest of peace. Likewise Duke Henry of Brunswick who extended a
friendly invitation to Philip to dine with him, and admitted that he was
not able to disprove the articles treating of both kinds, the marriage
of priests, and the distinction of meats. Our men boast that, of the
entire Diet, no one is milder than the Emperor himself. Such is the
beginning. The Emperor treats our Elector not only graciously, but most
respectfully. So Philip writes. It is remarkable how all are aglow with
love and good will toward the Emperor. It may happen, if God so wills,
that, as the first Emperor [Charles at Worms] was very hostile, so this
last Emperor [Charles at Augsburg] will be very friendly. Only let us
pray; for the power of prayer is clearly perceived." (St. L. 16, 882.)
The Emperor's optimism was, no doubt, due to the fact that, unlike his
theologians, he did not perceive and realize the impassable gulf fixed
between Lutheranism and the Papacy, as appeared also from the Augustana,
in which, however, the Emperor mistook moderation of tone for surrender
of substance.

41. Augustana Submitted to Catholic Party.

Full of hope the Emperor, on June 26, immediately after its public
presentation, submitted the Lutheran Confession to the Catholic estates
for deliberation. These, too, though not in the least inclined to
abandon their arrogant attitude, seem to have given themselves over to
the delusion that the Lutherans could now be brought to recede from
their position. Accordingly, their answer (Responsum) of June 27,
couched in conciliatory language, recommended as "the humble opinion of
the electors and estates that the Imperial Roman Majesty would submit
this great and important matter to a number of highly learned, sensible,
honest, conciliating, and not spiteful persons, to deliberate on, and to
consider, the writing [the Augustana], as far as necessary, enumerating,
on the one hand, whatsoever therein was found to be in conformity and
harmony with the Gospel, God's Word, and the holy Christian Church, but,
on the other hand, refuting with the true foundation of the Gospel and
the Holy Scripture and its doctrine, and bringing into true Christian
understanding, such matters as were found to be against, and out of
harmony with, the Gospel, the Word of God, and the Christian Church."
(Laemmer, 32.) They recommended, however, that in this entire matter
Campegius be consulted, and for that purpose be furnished with a copy of
the Lutheran Confession.

The Romanists furthermore resolved that the Lutherans be asked whether
they had any additional points to present, and, if so, to do this
immediately. The Lutherans, considering this a snare, declared, on July
10, that in their Confession they had made it a special point to present
the chief articles which it is necessary to believe in order to be
saved, but had not enumerated all abuses, desiring to emphasize such
only as burdened the consciences, lest the paramount questions be
obscured; that they would let this [all that was enumerated in their
Confession] suffice, and have included other points of doctrine and
abuses which were not mentioned, that they would not fail to give an
answer from the Word of God in case their opponents should attack the
Confession or present anything new. (Foerstemann, 2, 16. _C. R._ 2,
181.) No doubt, the Papists felt that the Lutherans really should have
testified directly also against the Papacy, etc. This, too, was the
interpretation which Luther put on the inquiry of the Romanists. July
21, 1530, he wrote to Jonas: But now I see what the questions aimed at
whether you had other articles to present. For Satan still lives and has
noticed very well that your Apology [Augustana] steps softly and has
passed by the articles concerning purgatory, the adoration of the
saints, and especially Antichrist, the Pope. (St. L. 16, 2323, Enders,
8, 133.)

July 5 the Emperor accepted the opinion of the estates and appointed the
confutators. At the same time he declared with reference to the
Lutherans that he was the judge of the content of their writing
(Augustana); that, in case they should not be satisfied with his
verdict, the final decision must remain with the Council, but that
meanwhile the Edict of Worms would be enforced everywhere. (Laemmer, 34;
_C. R._ 2, 175.) Thus the Emperor, in unmistakable terms, indicated that
the Roman Confutation would bring his own final verdict, which no
further discussions could modify, and that he would compel the Lutherans
by force to observe the Edict of Worms if they refused to submit
willingly. The Catholic estates endorsed the Emperor's declaration, but
added the petition that, after the Confutation had been read, the
Lutherans be asked in all kindness to return and that, in case this
remained fruitless, an attempt be made to bring about an agreement to be
reached by a committee appointed by both parties. Evidently, the estates
as well as the Emperor expected the Lutherans to yield and surrender.
Still, for the present, they were willing and preferred to attain this
end by mild and gentle means.

42. Rabid Theologians Appointed as Confutators.

Campegius, to whom the entire matter was entrusted, manipulated things
in such a manner that the result was the very opposite of what the
Emperor and estates had resolved upon. To be sure he made it appear as
though he were entirely neutral leaving everything to the discretion of
the German princes. He knew also how to hide his real sentiments from
the Lutherans. Jonas, for example reports that in his address of June 24
Campegius had said nothing harsh or hateful (_nihil acerbe, nihil
odiose_) against the Lutherans. Spalatin reports: "Some one besought the
Legate and Cardinal Campegius to assist in obtaining peace for the cause
of the Gospel. To this he responded: Since the papal power was
suspicious to us the matter rested with the Emperor and the German
princes. Whatever they did would stand." (Koellner, _Symbolik,_ 403.)
Thus Campegius created the impression of absolute neutrality while in
reality he was at the same time busy with secret intrigues against the
Lutherans.

Among the Confutators (Brueck mentions 19, Spalatin 20, others 22, still
others 24), selected by Campegius and appointed by the Emperor, were
such rabid abusive and inveterate enemies of Luther as Eck, Faber,
Cochlaeus, Wimpina, Colli (author of a slanderous tract against Luther's
marriage), Dietenberger etc. The first three are repeatedly designated
as the true authors of the Confutation. In his _Replica ad Bucerum,_ Eck
boasts: "Of all the theologians at Augsburg I was chosen unanimously to
prepare the answer to the Saxon Confession, and I obeyed. _Augustae ab
omnibus theologis fui delectus unanimiter, qui responsum pararem contra
confessionem Saxonicam, et parui._" (Koellner, 407.) July 10 Brenz wrote
to Myconius: "Their leader (_antesignanus_) is that good man Eck. The
rest are 23 in number. One might call them an Iliad [Homer's Iliad
consists of 24 books] of sophists." (_C. R._ 2, 180.) Melanchthon, too,
repeatedly designates Eck and Faber as the authors of the Confutation.
July 14 he wrote to Luther: "With his legerdemain (_commanipulatione_)
Eck presented to the Emperor the Confutation of our Confession." (193.)
August 6: "This Confutation is the most nonsensical of all the
nonsensical books of Faber." (253.) August 8, to Myconius: "Eck and
Faber have worked for six entire weeks in producing the Confutation of
our Confession." (260.) Hence also such allusions in Melanchthon's
letters as "confutatio Fabrilis," "Fabriliter scripta," and in the
Apology: "Nullus Faber Fabrilius cogitare quidquam posset, quam hae
ineptiae excogitatae sunt ad eludendum ius naturae." (366, 10.) Brueck
was right when he said that some of the Confutators were "purely
partial, and altogether suspicious characters." (Koellner, 411.)

43. Confutation Prepared.

The resolution which the Catholic estates passed June 27 was to the
effect that the imperial answer to the Lutheran Confession be made "by
sober and not spiteful men of learning." The Emperor's Prolog to the
Confutation, accordingly, designated the confutators as "certain
learned, valiant, sensible, sober, and honorable men of many nations."
(_C. R._ 27, 189.) At the same time they were told to couch their answer
in winning, convincing, moderate, and earnest terms. The imperial
instruction read: "To this end it is indeed good and needful that said
document [the Augustana] be carefully considered and diligently studied
by learned, wise, and sober persons, in order that they [the Lutherans]
be shown in all kindness (_durch gute Wege_) where they err, and be
admonished to return to the good way, likewise, to grant them whatsoever
may be serviceable and adapted to our holy Christian faith; and to set
forth the errors, moderately and politely, with such good and holy
arguments as the matter calls for, to defend and prove everything with
suitable evangelical declarations and admonitions, proceeding from
Christian and neighborly love; and at the same time to mingle therewith
earnestness and severity with such moderation as may be likely to win
the five electors and princes, and not to destroy their hope or to
harden them still more." (Koellner, 403)

However, inspired by Campegius and goaded on by blind hatred, the
Confutators employed their commission for the purpose of casting
suspicion on the Lutherans and inciting the Emperor against them. They
disregarded the imperial admonition for moderation, and instead of an
objective answer to the Augustana, they produced a long-winded
pasquinade against Luther and the Evangelical preachers, a fit companion
piece to the 404 theses of Eck--a general accusation against the
Protestants, a slanderous anthology of garbled quotations from Luther,
Melanchthon, and other Evangelical preachers. The insinuation lurking in
the document everywhere was that the Confession of the Lutheran princes
was in glaring contradiction to the real doctrine of their pastors. The
sinister scheme of the Romanists, as the Elector in 1536 reminded the
Lutheran theologians, was to bring the princes in opposition to their
preachers. (_C. R._ 3, 148.) The mildness and moderation of the
Augustana, they openly declared, was nothing but subtle cunning of the
smooth and wily Melanchthon, who sought to hide the true state of
affairs. In a book which Cochlaeus published against the Apology in 1534
he said that the open attacks of Luther were far more tolerable than the
serpentine cunning and hypocrisy of Melanchthon (_instar draconis
insidiantis fraudes intendens_), as manifested in particular by his
demeanor toward Campegius at Augsburg in 1530. (Laemmer, 56; Salig, 1,
376.) Thus the Roman Confutators disregarded their commission to refute
the Augustana, and substituted a caricature of Luther and his doctrines
designed to irritate the Emperor.

44. A Bulky, Scurrilous Document.

The Confutation, compiled by Eck and Faber from various contributions of
the Confutators, was ready by the 8th of July, and was presented to the
Emperor on the 12th or 13th. The German translation was prepared by the
Bavarian Chancellor, Leonhard von Eck. July 10 Brenz had written: "It is
reported that they are preparing wagonloads of commentaries against our
Confession." (_C. R._ 2, 180.) Spalatin reports that the Confutators
delivered to the Emperor "a pile of books against Doctor Martin with
most scurrilous titles." The chief document was entitled: "Catholic and,
as it were, Extemporaneous Response concerning Certain Articles
Presented in These Days at the Diet to the Imperial Majesty by the
Illustrious Elector of Saxony and Certain Other Princes as well as Two
Cities. _Catholica et quasi extemporanea Responsio super nonnullis
articulis Caesareae Maiestati hisce diebus in dieta imperiali Augustensi
per Illustrem Electorem Saxoniae et alios quosdam Principes et duas
Civitates oblatis._" It was supplemented by nine other treatises on all
manner of alleged contradictions and heresies of Luther and Anabaptistic
as well as other fruits of his teaching. (Laemmer, 37, _C. R._ 2, 197.)
The pasquinade with its supplements comprised no less than 351 folios,
280 of which were devoted to the answer proper. Cochlaeus also
designates it as "very severe and extended, _acrior extensiorque._" July
14 Melanchthon reported he had heard from friends that the Confutation
was "long and filled with scurrilities." (193. 218.) July 15: "I am
sending you [Luther] a list of the treatises which our opponents have
presented to the Emperor, from which you will see that the Confutation
is supplemented by antilogs and other treatises in order to stir up
against us the most gentle heart of the Emperor. Such are the stratagems
these slanderers (_sycophantae_) devise." (197.)

The effect of the Confutation on the Emperor, however, was not at all
what its authors desired and anticipated. Disgusted with the miserable
bulky botch, the Emperor convened the estates on July 15, and they
resolved to return the bungling document to the theologians for
revision. Tone, method, plan, everything displeased the Emperor and
estates to such an extent that they expunged almost one-third of it.
Intentionally they ignored the nine supplements and demanded that
reflections on Luther be eliminated from the document entirely;
moreover, that the theologians confine themselves to a refutation of the
Augustana. (Laemmer, 39.) Cochlaeus writes: "Since the Catholic princes
all desired peace and concord, they deemed it necessary to answer in a
milder tone, and to omit all reference to what the [Lutheran] preachers
had formerly taught and written otherwise than their Confession stated."
(Koellner, 406.) In a letter to Brueck he declared that such coarse
extracts and articles [with which the first draft of the Confutation
charged Luther] should not be mentioned in the reply to the Confession,
lest any one be put to shame or defamed publicly. (Laemmer, 39.)

In his Annals, Spalatin reports: "At first there were perhaps 280
folios. But His Imperial Majesty is said to have weeded out many folios
and condensed the Confutation to such an extent that not more than
twelve folios remained. This is said to have hurt and angered Eck
severely." (St. L. 21a, 1539.) In a letter to Veit Dietrich, dated July
30, Melanchthon remarks sarcastically: "Recently Eck complained to one
of his friends that the Emperor had deleted almost the third part of his
treatise, and I suspect that the chief ornaments of the book were rooted
out, that is, the glaring lies and the most stupid tricks, _insignia
mendacia et sycophantiae stolidissimae._" (_C. R._ 2, 241.) Brenz
regarded this as an evidence of the extent to which the Augustana had
perturbed the opponents, leaving them utterly helpless. July 15 he wrote
to Isemann: "Meanwhile nothing new has taken place in our midst, except
that I heard that the confession of the sophists was to-day returned by
the Emperor to its authors, the sophists, and this for the reason that
it was so confused, jumbled, vehement, bloodthirsty, and cruel
(_confusa, incordita, violenta, sanguinolenta et crudelis_) that he was
ashamed to have it read before the Imperial Senate.... We experience
daily that we have so bewildered, stunned, and confused them that they
know not where to begin or to end." (198.) "Pussyfooting
(_Leisetreten_)!"--such was the slogan at Augsburg; and in this
Melanchthon was nowhere equaled. Privately also Cochlaeus elaborated a
milder answer to the Lutheran Confession. But even the friends who had
induced him to undertake this task considered his effort too harsh to be
presented to the Emperor.

The first, rejected draft of the Confutation has been lost, with the
sole exception of the second article, preserved by Cochlaeus. On the
difference between this draft and the one finally adopted, Plitt
comments as follows: "The Confutation as read simply adopted the first
article of the Confession [Augustana] as in complete agreement with the
Roman Church. The original draft also approved this article's appeal to
the Council of Nicaea, but added that now the Emperor should admonish
the confessing estates to accept everything else taught by the Catholic
Church, even though it was not verbally contained in the Scriptures, as,
for example, the Mass, Quadragesimal fasting, the invocation of the
saints, etc.; for the wording of the doctrine of the Trinity could be
found in the Scriptures just as little as that of the points mentioned,
furthermore, that he also call upon them to acknowledge said Synod of
Nicaea in all its parts, hence also to retain the hierarchical degrees
with their powers; that he admonish them to compel their preachers and
teachers to retract everything which they had said and written against
that Synod, especially Luther and Melanchthon, its public defamers.
Refusal of such retraction would invalidate their appeal to that Synod
and prove it to be nothing but a means of deception. Finally they were
to be admonished not to believe their teachers in anything which was
against the declarations of the Church catholic. Such was the form in
which the first draft of the Confutation was couched. Everywhere the
tendency was apparent to magnify the differences, make invidious
inferences, cast suspicion on their opponents, and place them in a bad
light with the Emperor and the majority. This was not the case in the
answer which was finally read." (37.)

45. Confutation Adopted and Read.

Only after repeated revisions in which Campegius and the imperial
counselors Valdes and Granvella took part was an agreement reached
regarding the form of the Confutation. July 30 the Emperor received the
fourth revision and on August 1 he presented it to the bishops, princes,
and estates for their opinion. There still remained offensive passages
which had to be eliminated. A fifth revision was necessary before the
approval of the Emperor and the estates was forthcoming. A Prolog and an
Epilog were added according to which the Confutation is drawn up in the
name of the Emperor. Thus the original volume was boiled down to a
comparatively small document. But to speak with Kolde, even in its final
form the Confutation is "still rather an accusation against the
Evangelicals, and an effort to retain all the medieval church customs
than a refutation of the Augustana." (34.) August 6 Jonas wrote to
Luther: "The chaplain [John Henkel] of Queen Maria informed us that they
had five times changed their Confutation, casting and recasting, minting
and reminting it, and still there finally was produced nothing but an
uncouth and confused conglomeration and a hodgepodge, as when a cook
pours different soups into one pot. At first they patched together an
enormous volume, as Faber is known to be a verbose compiler; the book
grew by reason of the multitude of its lies and scurrilities. However,
at the first revision the Emperor eliminated the third part of the book,
so that barely twelve or sixteen folios remained, which were read." (St.
L. 21a, 1539.)

On August 3, 1530, in the same hall in which the Augsburg Confession had
been submitted thirty-eight days before, in the presence of all the
estates of the empire, the Augustanae Confessionis Responsio,
immediately called Confutatio Pontificia by the Protestants, was read in
the German language by Alexander Schweiss, the Imperial Secretary.
However, the reading, too, proved to be a discreditable affair. Owing to
the great haste in which the German copy had been prepared, an entire
portion had been omitted; the result was that the conclusion of Article
24 as well as Articles 25 and 26 were not presented. Furthermore,
Schweiss, overlooking the lines of erasure, read a part which had been
stricken, containing a very bold deliverance on the sacrifice of the
Mass, in which they labored to prove from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
that the word _facite_ in the institution of the Sacrament was
synonymous with "sacrifice." (Kolde, 34.) August 6, 1530, Jonas wrote to
Luther: The opponents presented their Confutation to the Emperor on July
30, and on the 3d of August it was read in the presence of the Emperor
and the estates, together with a Prolog and an Epilog of the Emperor.
"The reading also consumed two entire hours, but with an incredible
aversion, weariness, and disgust on the part of some of the more
sensible hearers, who complained that they were almost driven out by
this utterly cold, threadbare songlet (_cantilena_), being extremely
chagrined that the ears of the Emperor should be molested with such a
lengthy array of worthless things masquerading under the name of
Catholic doctrines." (St. L. 21a, 1539.) August 4 Brenz wrote to
Isemann: "The Emperor maintains neutrality; for he slept both when the
Augustana and when the Confutation was read. _Imperator neutralem sese
gerit; nam cum nostra confessio legeretur obdormivit; rursus cum
adversariorum responsio legeretur, iterum obdormivit in media negotii
actione_." (_C. R._ 2, 245.)

The Confutation was neither published, nor was a copy of it delivered to
the Lutherans. Apparently the Romanists, notably the Emperor and the
estates, were ashamed of the document. True, Cochlaeus reports that
toward the close of the Diet Charles authorized him and Eck to publish
it, but that this was not done, because Duke George and the Emperor left
Augsburg shortly after, and the printer also moved away. (Koellner,
414.) All subsequent pleading and imploring, however, on the part of Eck
and others, to induce the Emperor to publish the Confutation fell on
deaf ears. Evidently Charles no longer took any interest in a document
that had so shamefully shattered his fond ambition of reconciling the
religious parties. What appeared in print, early in 1531, was merely an
extract prepared by Cochlaeus, entitled, _Summary of the Imperial
Answer,_ etc. The first Latin edition of the Confutation appeared as
late as 1573; the first German edition, in 1808. All previous German
impressions (also the edition of 1584) are translations of the Latin
edition of 1573. (_C. R._ 27, 25. 82.) Concerning the German text of the
Confutation Kolde remarks: "Since changes were made even after it had
been read, we have even less definite knowledge, respecting details, as
to what was read than in the case of the Augustana." (35.) One may
therefore also speak of a Confutatio Variata. The doctrine of the
Confutation does not differ essentially from that which was later on
affirmed by the Council of Trent (1545-1563). However, says Kolde,
"being written by the German leaders of the Catholic party under the eye
of the Papal Legate, and approved by the Emperor, the German bishops,
and the Roman-minded princes, it [the Confutation] must be reckoned
among the historically most important documents of the Roman Catholic
faith of that day."

46. Confutation Denounced by Lutherans.

In the opinion of the Lutherans, the final draft of the Confutation,
too, was a miserable makeshift. True, its tone was moderate, and, with
few exceptions, personal defamations were omitted. The arrangement of
subjects was essentially the same as in the Augustana. Still it was not
what it pretended to be. It was no serious attempt at refuting the
Lutheran Confession, but rather an accumulation of Bible-texts,
arbitrarily expounded, in support of false doctrines and scholastic
theories. These efforts led to exegetical feats that made the
Confutators butts of scorn and derision. At any rate, the Lutherans
were charged with having failed, at the public reading, to control their
risibilities sufficiently. Cochlaeus complains: "During the reading many
of the Lutherans indulged in unseemly laughter. _Quando recitata fuit,
multi e Lutheranis inepte cachinnabantur._" (Koellner, 411.) If this did
not actually occur, it was not because the Confutators had given them no
cause for hilarity.

"Altogether childish and silly"--such is Melanchthon's verdict on many
of their exegetical pranks. August 6 he wrote letter after letter to
Luther, expressing his contempt for the document. "After hearing that
Confutation," says Melanchthon, "all good people seem to have been more
firmly established on our part, and the opponents, if there be among
them some who are more reasonable, are said to be disgusted
(_stomachari_) that such absurdities were forced upon the Emperor, the
best of princes." (_C. R._ 2, 252.) Again: Although the Emperor's
verdict was very stern and terrible, "still, the Confutation being a
composition so very puerile, a most remarkable congratulation followed
its reading. No book of Faber's is so childish but that this Confutation
is still more childish." (253.) In another letter he remarked that,
according to the Confutation, in which the doctrine of justification by
faith was rejected, "the opponents had no knowledge of religion
whatever." (253.)

August 4 Brenz wrote to Isemann: "All things were written in the fashion
of Cochlaeus, Faber, and Eck. Truly a most stupid comment, so that I am
ashamed of the Roman name, because in their whole Church they can find
no men able to answer us heretics at least in a manner wise and
accomplished. _Sed omnia conscripta erant Cochleice et Fabriliter et
Eccianice. Commentum sane stupidissimum, ut pudeat me Romani nominis,
quod in sua religione non conquirant viros, qui saltem prudenter et
ornate nobis haereticis responderent._" (245.) August 15 Luther
answered: "We received all of your letters, and I praise God that he
made the Confutation of the adversaries so awkward and foolish a thing.
However, courage to the end! _Verum frisch hindurch!_" (Enders, 8, 190.)

47. Luther on the Confutation.

Derision increased when the Papists declined to publish the Confutation,
or even to deliver a copy of it to the Lutherans for further inspection.
This refusal was universally interpreted as an admission, on the part of
the Romanists, of a guilty conscience and of being ashamed themselves of
the document. In his _Warning to My Beloved Germans,_ which appeared
early in 1531, Luther wrote as follows: "But I am quite ready to believe
that extraordinary wisdom prompted them [the Papists at Augsburg] to
keep this rebuttal of theirs and that splendid booklet [Confutation] to
themselves, because their own conscience tells them very plainly that it
is a corrupt, wicked, and frigid thing, of which they would have to be
ashamed if it were published and suffered itself to be seen in the light
or to endure an answer. For I very well know these highly learned
doctors who have cooked and brewed over it for six weeks, though with
the ignorant they may be able to give the matter a good semblance. But
when it is put on paper, it has neither hands nor feet, but lies there
in a disorderly mass, as if a drunkard had spewed it up, as may be seen,
in particular, in the writings of Doctor Schmid and Doctor Eck. For
there is neither rhyme nor rhythm in whatsoever they are compelled to
put into writing. Hence they are more sedulous to shout and prattle.
Thus I have also learned that when our Confession was read, many of our
opponents were astonished and confessed that it was the pure truth,
which they could not refute from the Scriptures. On the other hand, when
their rebuttal was read, they hung their heads, and showed by their
gestures that they considered it a mean and useless makeshift as
compared with our Confession. Our people, however, and many other pious
hearts were greatly delighted and mightily strengthened when they heard
that with all the strength and art which our opponents were then called
upon to display, they were capable of producing nothing but this flimsy
rebuttal, which now, praise God! a woman, a child, a layman, a peasant
are fully able to refute with good arguments taken from the Scriptures,
the Word of Truth. And that is also the true and ultimate reason why
they refused to deliver [to the Lutherans a copy of] their refutation.
Those fugitive evil consciences were filled with horror at themselves,
and dared not await the answer of Truth. And it is quite evident that
they were confident, and that they had the Diet called together in the
conviction that our people would never have the boldness to appear, but
if the Emperor should only be brought to Germany in person, every one
would be frightened and say to them: Mercy, dear lords, what would you
have us do? When they were disappointed in this, and the Elector of
Saxony was the very first to appear on the scene, good Lord, how their
breeches began to--! How all their confidence was confounded! What
gathering together, secret consultations, and whisperings resulted! ...
The final sum and substance of it all was to devise ways and means
(since our men were the first joyously and cheerfully to appear) how to
keep them from being heard [block the reading of the Augustana]. When
also this scheme of theirs was defeated, they finally succeeded in
gaining the glory that they did not dare to hand over their futile
rebuttal nor to give us an opportunity to reply to it! ... But some one
might 

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