ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONFESSIONS 1 CON1-Q024 JANUARY 2005 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 LOMBARD, IL 60148 * * * * * This text is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * * >> JOSHUA: I have to confess that I once thought that Martin Luther wrote all of the Lutheran Confessions. How is it that Melanchthon wrote the Augsburg Confession and not Luther? Did Luther approve of it at the time? Did he remain supportive of its statements? >> DR. KLAUS DETLEV SHULTZ: In my previous question, Joshua, I had already indicated some of that which you have asked now. We must go back again to 1520 and look there at the Diet of Worms where Luther was invited by Emperor Charles V to recant his position; namely, his theology that he had disseminated already in his writings and was willing to recant his theology and not to have his books published any further. The thing is that Luther was not willing to accept any other position than his own, if he would not be proven wrong by scripture and by common reason. And that was not the case so he was not willing to backtrack any further from what he had written and said. The Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire, itself, passed the Edict of Worms in 1521, thereby outlawing Luther and all his supporters, all his writings, and his theology. No one was allowed to offer Luther shelter. Fortunately, and for the sake of The Reformation to take a foothold in Germany, there was the *Emperor Frederick the Wise who had sympathies for Luther and offered him shelter at Wittenberg and in other areas where he ruled over. By the time of the Augsburg Diet in 1513, the Edict of Worms was still in effect. That meant that Luther was still being outlawed. He had taken the task, already, of translating the Bible in the castle of *Wartburg. He was allowed to take refuge at *Wartburg because that, too, belonged to the territories of Elector John of Saxony. However, when it comes to Augsburg, Luther could not attend because that was beyond the territory and the realms of the Elector of Saxony. So all was left to him to come as close as possible to Augsburg, and that was at the great castle of *Cobourg. There he stayed for the time during the Diet of Augsburg. He corresponded a great deal with Melanchthon and with other theologians present at the Diet of Augsburg. So he was not without any knowledge of what was happening there at Augsburg. In fact, he knew every single thing that was being done. A huge number of letters were written between him and the theologians, as I have just said. And so when he heard about the Augsburg Confession having been written, he managed to pass a few comments on what Melanchthon had done. Melanchthon, probably the most influential theologian of The Reformation after Luther, was made the one who was to write that Augsburg Confession. Luther favored the Augsburg Confession saying its theology was succinct to the point. However, he made one comment, a mild criticism, we could say, that Melanchthon was treading very softly. For example, Luther strongly believed that the Pope was the Antichrist, a position he took throughout his life. That was not presented in the Augsburg Confession as he believed. Also, the article on purgatory was missing. And Melanchthon could also have said something more on the invocation of saints. But these mild criticisms aside, Luther strongly supported the Augsburg Confession. And we could say that while Melanchthon was the author, behind it always stood Luther and his theology. Luther's criticism of Melanchthon treading softly is really symptomatic of the character of Melanchthon. Luther was more outspoken, more direct, confronting different positions. Whereas, Melanchthon was not of that type. He was rather of the conciliatory character. He wanted to bring people in diverging positions together. That was the Achilles Heel for The Reformation later on, especially after Luther's death, when there were movements taking place within Lutheranism, and some of those supported Melanchthon, rather than the strong position of Luther. But already during Luther's life, Melanchthon took the task of correcting many things in the Augsburg Confession, of editing it. Throughout the time in the '30's, right up to 1540, we see, therefore, changes being made, subtle changes that might not have necessarily changed much of the theology of the Augsburg Confession. But it is important to note here that the Augsburg Confession must be understood as a confession of the Lutherans. It was no longer a single document belonging to the person of Melanchthon himself. And so the edition that later emerged in 1540, that had a few changes made, especially to Article 10 on Holy Communion, was never accepted by the Lutherans. Later on in the 1560s, territorials, rulers took the 1540 edition, what we call now the *Variata, the changed addition, and appropriated it for their theology and supporting at the same time with it, reform positions on Holy Communion. We today, in the Book of Concord, have the 1530 edition of the Augsburg Confession. That is known to us as the *Invariata. That means the unchanged version.