ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CHURCH HISTORY 02 May 27, 2005 30 CH2 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 1 800 825 7234 * * * * * This is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * >> Ah, now you mentioned a name familiar to me. Augsburg. The diet of Augsburg of 1530. Is that the same meeting in which the Lutherans presented their Augsburg Confession? How did the Augsburg Confession come to be written? Did Luther write it? What was the end result of the Diet? >> David, that's a very good question. Yes, the Augsburg that we're talking about was the famous Diet of Augsburg of 1530 at which the Lutherans did present their very important Confession. But in order to understand what was going on and how that Confession came to be written and presented, we have to back up a little bit and recall what was happening in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1520s in the wake of the Diet of worms especially. Clearly, the Emperor, Charles V, wanted there to be unity within his empire. After the peasants' revolt, for example, in the mid 1520s, it was clear that the princes needed to be unified if they were going to maintain their position within the empire. But it was also true that the emperor himself wanted to present a united front against the Turks, which were threatening not only in the eastern Mediterranean but actually eastern part of the empire, moving up the Danube, until in the late 1520s, they actually were in a position to attack Vienna. It was also true that the emperor was involved, throughout the decade of the 1520s, in conflict with France. A lot of the fighting occurred in Italy, and the Pope and the papal states were also involved in that conflict. So the emperor had a desire for unity. And yet the Reformation was threatening that unity. Well, there were a series of important meetings held by the emperor or his representatives with the leaders of the political territories into which his empire was divided. These meetings are called Diets. And the Diet of 1530 was one of those. Even prior to that, though, meetings had been held, at which religion and the religious divisions were important issues. So, for example, in 1526, there was a Diet held at Spire in the Holy Roman Empire. And there, on account of the fact that the emperor felt a need for this united front, his representatives were willing to make concessions to the Evangelicals; and in particular, the Diet unanimously agreed that the Edict of Worms, which was directed against Luther and Luther's followers would be enforced not at the imperial level but at the level of the estates, or the local rulers. In other words, each territorial prince and each imperial city could make its own decision as to how that edict was going to be enforced, at least until there was some sort of general Church Council to make a final determination of all these issues. Well, that was good news for the Evangelicals because if the Edict of Worms was left to them in their territories, then they could decide, in effect, not to enforce the edict at all. So 1526 marks the emergence of a principle that would become very important over the long term within the Holy Roman Empire. And we often use a little Latin phrase to describe that principle. The phrase is "queue reigio eo religio" and it simply means whoever rules the region, well, he chooses the religion. Each territory, therefore, being able to make its own determination about what religion, what would be the religion within that particular territory. And this principle first starts to emerge here at the first Diet of Spire in 1526. Well, within a few years, the situation had begun to change, at least as far as the emperor was concerned. For one thing, he defeated the French in the Italian wars rather decisively in the late 1520s. And by 1529, the French were in a position, actually, to make concessions and to sign a peace treaty with the emperor. As a result, then, when a second Diet of Spire was held in 1529, this time the emperor's representatives, in particular his own brother, Ferdinand, they were in no mood to continue concessions to the Evangelicals; that is, the Lutheran princes and territories. And so a majority of the Diet cancelled the provisions of the earlier Diet and decided that the Edict of Worms was going to be enforced across the empire no matter what the local rulers wanted to say or do about it. Well, this provoked a heated debate and an official protest from a number of the princes and representatives of the imperial cities. And it's really as a result of that protest that that party or faction came in history to be known as "the Protestants", because they protested the decision of the second Diet of Spire to enforce the Edict of Worms against Luther and his followers. So, all through this period, then, religion is a divisive element within the Holy Roman Empire. But on account of other issues, the emperor sometimes wants to enforce the edict against Lutherans and impose a kind of unity upon the empire and then at other times seems more willing to make concessions. Well, once again, the emperor called for a meeting of his empire, a Diet, representatives of the various estates or divisions within the empire, to be held in Augsburg in the summer of 1530. Although Charles had driven off the Turks from Vienna, and although he had signed a peace treaty with the French, nonetheless, he appeared, at least initially, to be somewhat in a more conciliatory mood with respect to the Lutherans. Since no general Church Council had been held, Emperor Charles seems to have been contemplating holding himself forth as a kind of arbiter for the religious divisions within Christendom. At any rate, he invited the Evangelicals to actually present a statement or statements of their faith and a kind of defense of the changes that they had been making in the religious practices of their various territories as a part of the official agenda for the Diet of Augsburg for 1530. This means, then, that rulers of various territories, like John of Saxony or Philip of Hesse, as well as representatives of various cities that embraced the Reformation would have their opportunity to explain just why they had done that, what was going on in their territories and make an official presentation to the emperor. Now, for sometime, really, prior to that, the Lutherans had been writing down confessions of what they believe, what they stood for. Luther had done so in connection with his debate with Zwingly. Prior to the visitations that had led to the writing of the catechisms, there had been instructions written down. And these instructions also functioned somewhat as a confession of faith. But now, particularly, in response to the emperor's invitation, further documents were forthcoming. The Lector of Saxony saw to it that a statement of faith was drawn up that subsequently came to be known as the Schmalkaldic articles. And then later, even another additional document was written, too, called the Torgal articles. Even at Marburg, articles of religion had been written up, as we have mentioned sometime ago. Well, there were these statements of faith, then, which the Evangelical princes were bringing along with them for presentation to the emperor at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. It turns out that Luther could not attend the Diet of Augsburg because he was still under the explicit condemnation of the empire in the Edict of Worms, so he had to stay behind in Saxon territory where he'd be safe. He did go to Kohlberg, which was the place in Saxony as close to Augsburg as possible so that Luther himself could remain in touch with what was going on in Augsburg during the Diet. His friend and colleague at Wittenburg, Philip Melanchthon, did accompany the Elector of Saxony to Augsburg, and so he was there. Well, when they arrived, the Evangelical princes and representatives of the various cities that embraced the Reformation decided that they'd be in a stronger position if instead of presenting several statements of faith, they could unite behind just one statement of faith. Furthermore, they also discovered that their Catholic opponents were also busy writing up statements. And one of them, John Eck, had written up a long series of articles in which he had tried to identify the Protestant party with heresies of antiquity, arguing that instead of going back to the Bible, they were really adopting all sorts of false doctrines which were in contradiction with the traditions of the church going back to Christ and the apostles. So a new set of issues had also somewhat come to the fore. To make a long story short, the princes gave to Philip Melanchthon the task of preparing a definitive statement of faith that would answer the emperor's requests as well as to refute some of the accusations being made against the Lutherans. Now, Melanchthon did this work with input from other theologians who were there in Augsburg. He also corresponded with Luther, who had an opportunity to look over the various drafts of the confession that were being made. So that by the time the confession was ready for presentation, it was the work of Melanchthon but not simply the work of Melanchthon. And later on Luther himself could call this his own confession even though he was not the one who had actually phrased all of the words within it. It was then on June 25th of 1530 that the Chancellor of Saxony, one Christian Bayer, was permitted to read the confession of the Evangelical princes before the emperor. He read aloud in a strong voice in the German language the confession; and then following his presentation, the confession in two languages, German and Latin, the official theological language, the confession was presented to the Emperor Charles V. It was signed by the Elector of Saxony, John, and his son John Frederick. It was also signed by Philip of Hesse, a handful of other Evangelical princes, and then also the representatives of two of the imperial cities, Nuremburg and Reutlingen. Now, the significance of this confession turned out to be tremendous. For here we had, in a very formal way, an official presentation of what the Evangelical faith meant by representatives of those churches, not simply the clergy. Not simply the theologians. But, indeed, laymen, but laymen who represented the reforming authority within those states and within those cities. Subsequently, in the years that followed, when additional states or territories embraced the Reformation in its Lutheran form, they would signal that by indicating their adherence to the same statement of faith, the Augsburg Confession. In 1521, Luther had stood before the emperor and had made his confession, "Here I stand", he had said. Now, his followers, the representatives of the churches that had embraced Luther's doctrine, stood together and made their stand, "Here we stand", in effect, they said, to the Emperor Charles V, so that the Augsburg Confession becomes really kind of the charter or the cornerstone of what it means to be Lutheran. Now, because of its significance in terms of the confession of our own Evangelical Lutheran Church, it's probably good to say just a word or two about its contents, at least from a historical perspective. I know that in other courses that you will study the Augsburg Confession at greater length, but here let me just mention a few things that are probably worth thinking about in terms of the historical situation. The Confession itself is divided into two parts. In Articles 1 through 21, we have, really, a statement of faith, what it was that the churches committed themselves to in terms of terms of doctrine. I actually will quote from the Confession at this point. The Augsburg Confession says that this is the doctrine that is "preached and taught in our churches for true Christian instruction and consolation of consciences and also for the improvement of believers." That's the first part. The second part offers a justification for changes that have been made in the various territorial churches. Just defending the kind of changes that they had made from Medieval practice. Because the critics of the Reformation had argued that the reformers were breaking with the historic Christian church, one of the things that Melanchthon was careful to do in the Augsburg confession was to point out the continuity between the Lutheran church and historic Christianity. To that end, therefore, Melanchthon made sure to quote the Bible, obviously, but also church fathers and also the Creeds. As for example, the Nicene Creed. He also made sure to condemn the heresies of the ancient church, like the Palagians or the Donitus. Because that's one of the things that he wants to show is that the Lutheran church is historic Christianity. Of course, he also has to address the issues that differentiate the Lutherans from their Roman opponents. And so we're not surprised, then, if we get down to some very important issues in the Augsburg Confession that were central to the Reformation. Here I'm thinking, for example, of Article 4. This is the Article on justification by faith. And here the Lutherans make the point that we are reconciled to God, not by human works or human efforts of any sort, but, rather, by the grace of God for the sake of Jesus Christ. And that we receive the merits of Christ through faith. And that's the whole story right there. Justification by faith. In subsequent articles, the office of the ministry is defined in terms of preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Good works are defended as the fruits of faith, but they make no contribution to justification or salvation. The church is defined not in terms of a hierarchy, but it's defined as the believers, among whom the Gospel is being preached in its purity and the sacraments are rightly being administered. And in each of these respects, the Augsburg Confession is addressing an issue that divided the Lutherans from Rome. But by 1530, other forms of Protestantism had begun to emerge, as well, and so in some of the articles, we can see that Melanchthon has principally in view these other forms of Protestantism. So, for example, in Article 9, baptism is affirmed as necessary for salvation. And the Lutherans affirm the propriety of baptizing infants. Well, this was on account of the fact that there were already some Anabaptists, those who rejected infant baptism. We'll talk about those a little bit more later. But Augsburg Confession indicates that we stand by infant baptism. And then again in the next article on the Lord's Supper, Article 10, here, perhaps, the Zwinglians were in view when Article 10 says that, under the form of bread and wine, the body and blood of our Lord are truly present, are truly present. Different from Zwingly's idea of a memorial meal. So the Augsburg Confession principally has in mind kind of the Catholic opponents of Lutheranism, but on more than one occasion also addresses questions that would separate Lutherans from other forms of Protestantism. In the second part of the Confession, I think it's the Catholics that are more in mind as Melanchthon defends communion in both kinds instead of just one kind. He defends the marriage of priests. He talks about the authority of bishops, rejects monastic vows. Those are the issues, the kinds of issues that are dealt with in that second part. So we have here in this Confession this early, yet definitive, statement of what it means to be a Lutheran. Now, going back to the narrative a little bit, let me say a few words more about what was happening at Augsburg. There were some Protestants at Augsburg who did not sign onto the Augsburg Confession. Martin Butzer, who had been with Zwingly at the Marburg colloquy the year before, been on Zwingly's side, represented Strasburg and a few other cities in the south who could not accept, at that point, what the Lutherans were teaching regarding the Lord's Supper, and so they didn't sign on. And Martin Butzer wrote up a statement of faith on behalf of those four cities as an alternative to the Augsburg Confession. There were Catholic theologians as well as Catholic princes and territories there, as well. And after the Augsburg Confession was actually read, they drew up an official answer or confutation of the Augsburg Confession. At the emperor's request later that summer, this confutation was also read before the Diet. And then, some weeks later, the emperor announced that the confutation had officially refuted the Augsburg Confession. And this meant that as far as the emperor was concerned, everybody should now sign on to the confutation instead of the Augsburg Confession. Well, this was entirely unacceptable to the Lutherans, as you might imagine; and almost at once, Philip Melanchthon began to work on an official defense of the Augsburg Confession. He was not permitted to officially present that to the emperor, so he continued to work on it after the return to Wittenberg. And that document came to be known as the Apology or defense of the Augsburg Confession. It really amounts to an official explanation and elaboration on the teachings in the Augsburg Confession written especially in view of the confutation. So it's kind of an official second document that came to be incorporated later into our Book of Concord. * * * * * This is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * *