ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 56 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 3238 Rose Street Franklin Park, IL 60131 800-825-5234 *** This text 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. *** >>Would it be all right if I moved on to the Smalcald Articles? Why were the Smalcald Articles needed when the Lutherans already had the Augsburg Confession and the Apology? >>DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: The Smalcald Articles and it's companion piece the treatise on the power and primacy of the Pope in many regards can be considered almost as an appendix to the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Especially the treatise in the part and primacy of the Pope especially when it was officially adopted in 1537 in a meeting of the Smalcald League. The Smalcald Articles were prepared particularly to respond to the very real likelihood that Pope called was going to convene a Christian church council in the city of *Montua in the following year. Now, in order to put the Smalcald Articles into the proper context as they seek to address this council, we need to broaden our horizon a little bit and perhaps go back to 20 years earlier. Lutherans have been calling for a church council for almost 19 years now. Mark Edwards in his book, Luther's last battles, points out that the Lutheran call for a council served the emerging Reformation movement very well on a number of fronts. Acknowledging at the same time what -- you know, that the call for a council was genuine and sincere the issue. But one of the byproducts of that call for council is that it bought the Lutherans you might say it bought them a certain amount of time within which that movement could spread. Edwards points out that the call for a council served the Reformation as I indicated at least three ways. First, it created the widespread impression both in Germany and throughout in Europe that the issues in dispute between Luther and Rome would remain undecided until a council met and resolved them. In other words, as long as Luther and his colleagues continued saying "Look, this can't be handled in a political fashion. This cannot be handled by force. We need to have a council deliberate these matters, discuss these matters and resolved them." So it created the widespread of impression that this matter is not going to be settled until a council is, in fact, convened. It served the movement in a second way, as well. It served the Reformation movement by gaining the support of certain reform-minded sat lix, especially within conciliate circles what do I mean by conciliate circles? Even within the Roman church that was an ongoing debate as to what was the highest authority within the church the paper see or the council? As a rule popes tended not to look councils and were reluctant to convene councils because more often than not, their power would be diluted by the council or things that they wanted perhaps might be overruled by a council. Well, that's the very reason why conciliates are advocates of councils liked councils and they felt it provided a larger voice for the church. So by calling for a council, the Reformers were able to reach out and appeal both to reform-minded Catholics that says yes, there are many abuses. Luther is right. These need to be corrected. As well as the conciliatory said yes, the proper way to resolve these is within the context of a church council. So as a result many Roman Catholics were willing to join their voices with the Protestants in calling for a general council. Finally, the call for a council served the Reformation movement, as I indicated, by securing time for it to spread and to take root. And it provided through a certain extent legal justification for armed resistance if there were an attempt to reimpose the old faith by force. In other words, it would look badly if Charles or others tried to reimpose the Catholic faith upon the Protestants while the appeal for council is still pending. So as I indicated, it bought them some time. Now, the Lutherans have been calling for a council rather consistently ever since the year AD 15. In 1518 following Luther's meeting with Cardinal *Kitine at Augsburg, he then issued an appeal for a Christian council. Similarly, 1520, following the publication of the paper bowl *sergio domina meaning arise oh Lord a wild boor is trampling in the vineyard, a bull threatening Luther with excommunication should he not repent within a certain span of time. Following that, Luther once again issued the appeal for a church council to debate and settle these issues. When we get to the Diet of Worms in 1521, it is reported that someone said "The whole world is crying council, council." In other words, it's an imperial diet of political assembly. Theoretically one could make the argument that the only thing the emperor could decide is the issue of whether or not to use armed force to implement Pope Leo the tenth excommunication of Luther. In other words a Diet of Worms about a month before they met Pope excommunicated Luther and then commanded Charles to carry it out, namely to apprehend or to capture Luther and bring him to Rome or do whatever is necessary. He was not to hear Luther, to give him a hearing or to give him a trial. In fact, the *papero legit on Ash Wednesday during the Diet of Worms made the point that either the emperor or the princely estates were competent to judge whether it is a matter this is a matter to Rome to deal with and Rome had dealt with it. Well, Luther was given a quasi hearing inasmuch as Fredrick *Wise had made the case that *Chero of the fierce grandfather Maximilian in that German subjects were to be given a hearing on German soil before they are judged. But throughout that assembly, that diet, the call for a council had come through loud and clear. Following a Diet of Worms, the Lutheran princes found themselves in a peculiar position. The edict of worms have been an issue declaring of Luther to be an outlaw his reforms were not to be promulgated and spread and anyone who helps him come under the edict. So the princes found themselves in the position of having to -- on one hand if they impose the edict too harshly they risk rebellion among the peasants in their own territories. On the other hand if they don't implement it, they risk incurring the wrath of the emperor and coming under they detective of worms itself. So in the next few diets, the question is what to do about they detective of worms, the Diet of *Numberg they met to consider what to do with. One tactic that was adopted rather consistently is to say "Look. We can't enforce it as it is right now. We need to have either a church council or a national German assembly meet in order to debate these issues, the abuses, and a matter of Luther." At the Diet of *Numberg 1524 the diet for which is famous for Pope *Adrian's admission that the church had been at fault for many of the abuses that had arisen but nevertheless decommand that they detective be in force once again the princes turn up a list of 101 grievances to present to the paper representative and insisted that the council be called. The same thing applied to the Diet of Spire in 1526. And also in 1529 the second dire of spire. Indeed at these diets they even managed to rest the concession from emperor Charles the fifth that he would urge the Pope to convene a council as quickly as possible. Indeed, the stipulation was after the first Diet of Spire, within 18 months, if at all possible. Well, obviously that did not come to pass. Then we move to the diet of Augsburg. You will recall in a preface of the Augsburg Confession, one of the tactiles that Charles Brook adopted was to try and have the emperor keep himself from deciding a religious issue. That was outside his jurisdiction or that properly belonged to the church. And there by, to insist that the Lutherans were on the same side of the emperor. They both wanted a council to be convened. And both wanted a council to be convened the only one from stopping it or preventing it from hoping was the Pope. Well, these calls for a council continued to take place throughout the early 1530s. And finally in 1537, it looks like it's going to happen. The Lutherans may finally get what they want. But that may prove to be something of a double-edged sword. Nevertheless, elect ter John Fredrick on December 11, 1536 asked Luther to prepare a list of items that they might take with them to any council. And the list of items was to include those things that they could discuss for the sake of peace. And it was to include a list of items on which there could be no compromise. Luther prepared this memorandum, if you will, in the latter half of December. Discussed it with the council or a committee of theologians. And they took that to the meeting of *Somocag in February of 1537 for consideration as perhaps either the Confession of faith or the theological platform of a Smalcald League should it attend a council. Now, in the end, Luther's Smalcald Articles was not officially adopted by the Smalcald League though it was signed by a great majority of the theologians present. There are any number of theories and hypotheses as to why the Smalcald League did not officially adopt them as is his statement. Some think because Luther wasn't -- that Luther was too hard on the papacy. I'm disinclined to go that route because when they asked Melanchthon to draw up an appendix to the Augsburg Confession to replace the Smalcald Articles, Melanchthon is just as tough, if not more so on the papacy than Luther was. The most likely possibility is that in the Smalcald Articles, a number of theologians wound up disagreeing with each other than the way in which Luther formulated an article on the Lord's Supper. Because there had been a debate and a controversy you might say the Germans and south Germans Especially those who were closer to Switzerland regarding the real presence. A year earlier in 1536 a Wittenburg Concord seem to bed to be signed which seemed to arrive at a form of agreement or compromise between them. Luther's strong language for the Lord's Supper particularly his emphasis that the ungodly, non-christians receive the body and blood of Christ when they received the Lord's Supper whether or not they had faith appeared to have provoked some of the discussion and disagreement. The end result was that for the sake of the un nitty of a Smalcald League they choose not to go with the Smalcald Articles instead all of the princes resubscribed to the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg's Confession in order to take that to the council to what they intended the treatise on the powered primacy of the papacy. Because that was one of the topics that many felt had been omitted in the Augsburg Confession and needed to be dealt with at some point. *** This text 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. ***