Luther, vol. 6 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

The theological warfare which followed on Luther’s decease opened with the Osiandric controversy which arose from the modifications of Luther’s idea of justification introduced subsequent to 1549 by Andreas Osiander, pastor and professor of theology at Königsberg. After Osiander’s death in 1552 the struggle was carried on by the Court preacher Johann Funk who held like views. Johann Brenz also defended Osiander’s opinion, whereas Melanchthon, Flacius Illyricus, Johann Æpinus, Joachim Westphal, Joachim Mörlin and others were opposed to it. Duke Albert of Prussia was for a long time a patron of Osiander’s doctrine, but was persuaded later to alter his views, and his Court preacher Funk did likewise. The old Lutherans, however, continued the struggle against Funk and, in 1566, owing to the charges brought against him by the Estates of abusing his position and of having violently championed “heretical doctrines,” he was beheaded.[1520] Osiander, however, the author of this new “heresy,” had himself been by no means wanting in Lutheran zeal where Catholics were concerned. Already in 1549 he wrote a tract against the Interim entitled: “On the new Idol and Antichrist at Babel,” in which he lashed those who “were sneaking back to Antichrist under cover of the Interim.”

The second, or Majorite controversy broke out at Wittenberg itself, and like the ones which followed was called forth by the opposition of the Lutheran zealots to any Melanchthonian modifications of Luther’s doctrines. George Major, professor at Wittenberg, and subsequently Superintendent at Eisleben, backed by Justus Menius, Superintendent at Gotha, had the courage to declare that works were necessary for salvation, and that, without works, no one could be saved. For this he and Menius were branded as “heretics” by Flacius Illyricus, Nicholas Amsdorf, Johann Wigand, Joachim Mörlin and Alexius Prætorius. It was in the midst of this passionate wrangle, which deeply agitated the ranks of the preachers and disturbed the congregations, that Amsdorf, with a determination and defiance equal to Luther’s own went to the extremes of publishing his tract entitled “That the proposition ‘good works are harmful to salvation,’ is a sound and Christian one.”[1521] Flacius brought a writing against Major to a close with the pious wish that Christ would speedily crush the head of the serpent. Major, the confidant of Luther whom he had once despatched to attend the religious Conference at Ratisbon, was now obliged to give in; he made a shameful recantation. Menius, however, was denounced to the preachers and people as a “Papist,” and, in spite of his weak compliance, was unable to maintain his position against the inquisition put into motion by the higher powers. Although he resigned his office as Visitor and submitted patiently to a reprimand from the Court, he was obliged to leave the land; he besought the sovereign in vain for protection against his theological adversaries and freedom to communicate with the “dear gentlemen” at Wittenberg. The Town Council of Gotha was forbidden to give him a testimonial to the purity of his doctrine, and he himself, in spite of his protest that he was as much heir to Luther’s doctrine as Flacius, was summoned to take his trial before a sort of religious Synod at Eisenach in 1556, which also ousted him from his Superintendency. “He died on Aug. 11, 1558, from the effects of what he had undergone.”[1522]

In the third great controversy, the Adiaphoristic, Flacius Illyricus behaved with great violence, indeed his extreme Lutheran views were the cause of the quarrel which in itself well illustrates the pettiness and acrimony of those concerned in it. The question under dispute was whether certain “indifferent matters” (ἀδιάφορα) sanctioned in the Augsburg Interim of 1547 might be allowed in Protestant circles even though Luther during his lifetime had frowned on them. Under the Elector Maurice the theologians and Estates of the Saxon Electorate had answered in the affirmative. This answer embodied in the so-called “Leipzig Interim,” was firmly contradicted by Flacius. It is true that what was in question was not only ceremonies, images, hymns and such-like external things but also the rites of Confirmation and Extreme Unction, and, in a certain sense, the use of Penance, the celebration of a kind of Mass and the veneration of Saints. Flacius was supported by Nicholas Gallus, Johann Wigand, Nicholas Amsdorf, Joachim Westphal, Caspar Aquila, Johann Aurifaber, Anton Otto and Matthæus Judex. These poured forth a stream of angry tracts against the opposite party, the Wittenbergers, who, however, defended themselves with a will, viz. against Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, George Major, and Paul Eber, and their friends elsewhere, such as the Provost of Magdeburg and Meissen, Prince George of Anhalt, Bernard Ziegler and Johann Pfeffinger of Leipsig, Justus Menius of Gotha, etc. Even the use of lights on the altar and of surplices were to these zealots “Popish abominations” and a sign of the abandoning of all that Luther had won; they even complained, though untruly, that the Wittenberg theologians no longer declared the Pope to be Antichrist.[1523] Bugenhagen, Luther’s right hand man at Wittenberg, had to hear himself charged by Flacius, Amsdorf and Gallus with having denied and falsified Luther’s doctrines and with teaching something not far short of Popery. These Adiaphorists, wrote Amsdorf, “in the name and under the semblance of the Word of God, seek to persuade us to worship the Antichrist at Rome, the Whore of Babylon and the Beast on which she is seated (Apoc. xvii.).” Such dangerous men he brands as “belly servers” “who seek to make terms with the world.” He himself on the other hand was ready to meet the contempt of the world for the falling off in the number of Luther’s true followers, hence on the title-page of the new edition of Luther’s works, which he commenced when the quarrel was at its height (1555), he printed the consoling verses: “Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased the Father to give you a Kingdom” (Luke xii. 32), and “In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John xvi. 33).[1524] Towards the end of the Preface he consoles those who shared his way of looking at things, and, as Luther had done before, he alludes to the near end of the world, when everything would be righted.

At the time when the private judgment Luther had preached was thus bearing fruit we hear Melanchthon groaning: “You see how many teachers are fighting against us in our own Churches; every day new foes spring up, as it were, from the blood of the Titans; gladly would I leave these regions, nay, shake off my mortal coil, to escape the fury of such men.”[1525] Melanchthon too was accused of indirectly promoting Popery. An obstinate opponent of his was that very Johann Aurifaber who had been present at Luther’s death and who subsequently published the Table-Talk. Melanchthon included him in 1556 among the “unlearned fanatics, men filled with furious hate, lickspittles at the Court who seek to curry favour with the populace,” and with whom it was impossible to come to any understanding.[1526] Aurifaber, like many others of his party, was dismissed from his post as Court preacher at Weimar, and, subsequently, when pastor at Erfurt, was excommunicated on account of his teaching, particularly on original sin. His opponents he persisted in charging with Popery.

Against any relapse into Popery the Lutherans were well guarded since 1555, by the Religious Peace of Augsburg and its principle: “Cuius regio, illius et religio.” This, however, produced no inward unity, rather the opposite. The war among the theologians on account of the “adiaphora” still went on in the Protestant camp. The hopes entertained of the Protestant Convention at Coswig (1556) suffered shipwreck owing to Melanchthon’s disinclination to come to terms. Nor did the Conference at Altenburg (1568) settle things. It was not until 1577-1580 that the formulas of Concord established a “modus vivendi” by leaving to each individual Church the decision about the “adiaphora.” Flacius himself was compelled to leave Wittenberg early in the controversy. He went to Magdeburg, but fell into disgrace on account of his tendency to insist on the Church’s independence and had to go into exile to Ratisbon, Antwerp, Frankfurt, Strasburg, wandering about from place to place until, at last, he, Luther’s most ardent champion, died in want and poverty at Frankfurt-on-the-Main (1575).

With the Synergistic controversy the name of Flacius is likewise very closely linked.

Here, however, the question on which minds were divided was a vital one. Many refused to accept Luther’s rigid doctrine that, in Justification, the Holy Ghost worked on man as on a senseless block. Johann Pfeffinger of Leipsig agreed with Melanchthon in assuming some sort of co-operation (“synergia”) of the human will. In this he had the Leipsig Interim on his side; eventually Victorinus Strigel of Jena, George Major, Paul Eber, Christian Lasius and others also embraced this view. Against them stood the zealots like Flacius and Amsdorf, the latter of whom boldly attacked Pfeffinger’s “De libertate voluntatis” and insisted on the unfreedom of the will. Certain of the theologians of Jena also distinguished themselves by their opposition to the Synergists.

Flacius Illyricus went to great extremes in his antagonism to Synergism. He asserted that man was powerless by means of free will to effect anything in the matter of his salvation because “original sin was a ‘substance’ for otherwise holiness too would not be a ‘substance’”; the soul was by nature a mirror or image of Satan; it was itself original sin, and original sin was no mere ‘accident.’ It was impossible for Luther’s doctrine to be carried to its legitimate conclusion more ruthlessly than in this theory of Flacius. “It was utter demonism, was this doctrine of the substantial bedevilment of human nature.”[1527] At this point, however, Luther’s true friends drew back: Johann Wigand and Tilman Hesshus, professors at Jena, withstood Flacius, arguing that he was a traitor to Lutheranism and that his teaching was Manichæan. Like some others Cyriacus Spangenberg, then Dean of Mansfeld, was accused of favouring Flacius and of teaching that Satan had created man, that sin was baptised, and that pregnant women bore within them young devils. As was usual in such controversies, the people took an active share in the quarrel.

When the Elector August of Saxony assumed the government of the Duchy of Saxony, Hesshus and Wigand were deprived of their offices and driven from the land. Nine Superintendents and 102 preachers lost their posts at the same time. Hesshus had already tasted exile as pastor of Magdeburg, when in 1562 the Town Council expelled him from the town with his wife and child on account of his too emphatic enforcement of the strictest Lutheranism.