ROUGHLY EDITED COPY
CONFESSIONS 1
CON1-Q023
JANUARY 2005
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>> DAVID: I appreciate all that has been said about the
ecumenical creeds, but now I would like to ask a question
about the first of our Lutheran Confessions. Could you
please indicate some of the developments that shaped the
historical context surrounding the Augsburg Confession and
explain to us how this confession came about?
>> DR. KLAUS DETLEV SHULTZ: Yes, David. The Augsburg
Confession came about in June 1530. However, in order to
understand the circumstances around that event of 1530, we
need to go back, probably about 13 years, and began with
1517, when Luther posted the “95 Theses” on the church in
Wittenberg and thereby setting off The Reformation as a
movement in all of Germany.
What Luther addressed at the time was a penitentiary
system, that system that did not address confession and
absolution properly and did not demand from those people who
came to confession and absolution in the churches that cont
that was necessary to receive absolution.
Now, Luther addressed The Reformation theologically, but
it took hold in Germany also as a social and political
movement. But in order to understand what the Augsburg
Confession is all about, we should see The Reformation,
first of all, as a theological movement.
Now, let’s go further on to the year 1521. Then the Edict
of Worms was passed by Charles V. Now the Edict of worms
goes back to 1520, the diet of worms, when Luther was
invited to that city of Worms to express his point of view
about his writings and his theology in front of the emperor,
a young emperor, Charles V. Charles V was curious to hear
about what Luther said theologically, and he gave him a
chance to present his view, and above all, to recant all his
writings. Luther stood up and said the famous words, here I
stand. Meaning thereby, that he was only willing to recant
and retract all his writings and theology if he was proven
from scripture and by common reason that he was wrong. Now
that, of course, could not be done. And so the result was
that in 1521, the Edict of Worms was passed over Luther and
all his writings. That meant nobody was allowed to further
The Reformation, to offer Luther shelter, and to promote his
writings and theology. We have, therefore, here a very
important step toward The Reformation. Luther had written
numerous articles and numerous writings already by that year
1521. These writings were disseminated, and thank goodness,
that the printing press by Johann Gutenberg was already
innovated and made public so that Luther became a best
seller in terms of his writings.
As the years ensued after 1521, numerous attempts were
made to find some solution between those that supported The
Reformation and Lutheranism and the sympathies of Charles V,
namely, to further again the Roman Catholic Church in
Germany.
There was one territorial ruler, the *Elector John
Frederick the Wise of Saxony. This emperor favored Luther's
theology, though he himself was a great fan of collecting
relics. But *John Frederick the Wise saw in Luther a person
that also promoted the German cause, and the Elector John
had a great chance, here, to present his view in front of
the Emperor Charles V because he had the status of an
elector, a very important status in the territories of
Germany because not every ruler of a territory had that
privilege. So *Elector John Frederick had to be taken
seriously by Charles V and probably because of his status as
an elector, Charles V was willing to listen more carefully
to that elector than perhaps to anyone else.
And so he offered refuge to Luther in the territory of
Saxony at Wittenberg, supported the new university and made
Luther professor there and also brought a young man called
Philipp Melanchthon to Wittenberg, a young scholar who was
asked to teach the biblical languages. But he was soon
advanced to teach also theology.
One important event is 1528, the Diet of Speyer. Here we
have the name Protestant emerging for the first time.
Because Charles V expected at that diet that all the
territorial rulers of Germany should further the Edict of
Worms. That means that they should rigorously pursue all
those who had sympathies for Luther and his theology.
*Protestatio is called their document and their position.
They are Protestants and refused to do that what Charles V
said. So the thing still remained unresolved by 1528, and
the events than led to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530.
Two important occasions brought this diet about. One was
the Ottoman Empire was spreading to Europe and was
endangering the core of the empire of Charles V. Vienna,
already, was besieged by the Turks by 1529. So the emperor
needed as many supporters as possible to support him to
drive back the Turks from the empire that was his. Another
problem was also France. The king there was rising up
against the emperor, and he, too, had to be addressed. So it
was also a political occasion, this Diet of Augsburg. But he
was also interested to hear exactly what the position was
now of the Lutherans in Saxony and other territories where
it had now taken hold of.
So the emperor, Charles V, invited all Germans to come to
the Diet of Augsburg. And he wanted to hear exactly what
abuses they had addressed. So Elector John, the son of John
Frederick the Wise, called together all important
theologians. Amongst these were also *Justus Jonas and *John
Bugenhagen, both very important figures who furthered the
cause of The Reformation. Next to Luther and Melanchthon,
these were very important theologians.
So these four theologians then immediately went about to
set up a number of articles that would relate to those
abuses in the Roman Catholic Church that they as Lutherans
had addressed and corrected. There is a lot of theology in
the *Tourgau Articles. These are the other articles that
they had compiled and presented in 1530, early in that year
at *Tourgau.
The *Tourgau Articles were taken to Augsburg and to be
presented to Charles V. They were addressing the abuses
only, which is very important to know because when the
theologians and the emperor and other princes in free
cities, all those who had sympathies for The Reformation,
went to Augsburg. They soon discovered that there were other
representatives invited to that diet who also had presented
some of their statements of faith. For example, Zwingli, who
presented his *Fideratio, an explanation of his faith and
his theology. And then there was also the *Confessio
Tetrapolitana, that confession of *Martin Bootse and also
that of the four cities in southern Germany.
Upon that notice of all these further documents being
submitted, and especially that of the Roman Catholic
theologian, *Johann Eck, the 404 Propositions, those
statements that made allegations that Luther, Melanchthon,
and other theologians of The Reformation were heretics.
These all occasioned the Augsburg Confession itself to be
written. The reason is that the *Tourgau Articles were not
enough to put forward what the Lutherans all believed. It
was more an apology, less a confession. And so a confession
had now to be compiled. Melanchthon, being the main author
because of Luther's absence, set about to write the Augsburg
Confession. He had a number of documents to which he could
go back to find certain theological themes that they had
already purported elsewhere.
For example, Melanchthon could go back to the *Marburg
articles, those articles that were discussed at *Marburg
between Luther and Zwingli. There, you know, Luther and
Zwingli could agree on 14 articles. But when it came to
article 15 on Holy Communion, they could not agree on the
presence of Christ in Holy Communion. There was also another
document, the *Schwabe Articles. These were articles
compiled by Luther, Melanchthon, and other theologians, one
of them also *Johannes Brentz, that theologian who furthered
The Reformation in southern Germany later on, and also
responsible for much of what was said in the Formula of
Concord.
Melanchthon took the *Schwabe Articles, together with the
*Marburg Articles, and then in addition to that, Luther's
great confession of the Lord's Supper of 1528, and drew from
these a number of articles, the articles that are now
presented in the Augsburg Confession in the beginning, those
from Article 1 to 21. Articles 22 to 28 are those that we
have from the *Tourgau Articles.
This Augsburg Confession was repeatedly passed on to the
theologians present at Augsburg itself. But Luther himself
also remained in correspondence with Melanchthon finding out
exactly what was being said and written. And he approved of
the Augsburg Confession finding that it succinctly brought
to the point all those questions that Lutherans had with the
Roman Catholic faith.
The Augsburg Confession was read at that diet in Augsburg
on June 25th, 1530. Chancellor *Beyer and John the Elector
of Saxony read it out loud in front of the Emperor Charles V
and all the other delegates that were present. It is said,
and we don't know whether this is true, that Charles V was
bored and fell asleep for the two hours when the Augsburg
Confession was read.
The response was mostly and predominantly negative. It
seems that the Emperor Charles V already had an agenda when
he came to the Augsburg Diet, and that was to listen to the
cause of the Lutherans, but not to change his mind that he
was not willing to condone a different theology in one of
his countries and his lands. And so it seems that the hope
that the Lutherans had coming to the Augsburg diet; namely,
that they were going to present their cause and that they
would be treated as equal partners with the Roman Catholic
delegates and that their truth would persuade Charles V
because they would say nothing else than that what was said
in scripture. And they hoped that their presentation of the
Augsburg Confession, then, with persuade Charles V and all
others. Officially, it was not approved and not accepted by
Charles V.
There is a lot of contrivance that happened behind the
scenes, especially from the Roman Catholic delegates. They
were asked by Charles V to present a response to the
Augsburg Confession. *Johann Eck and other leading
theologians of the Roman Catholic delegation immediately set
about to write a response that is called the *Confutatio. It
was read aloud in front of Charles V. He, too, found it very
boring and very redundant and far too long. And it did not
address the real situation of Lutheranism. So the
*Confutatio was not printed for a very, very long time
precisely because Charles V, though he wanted to further the
Roman Catholic Church, did not really accept the *Confutatio
in its entirety.
Melanchthon had never received a copy of the *Confutatio
so it was not possible for him to review what was being said
therein. But we know that certain notes were taken,
handwritten notes, by those theologians that were present.
So it was possible for him to review those, and upon that,
had written the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.
Unfortunately, Charles V was no longer to give the Lutherans
another hearing, in other words, to listen again to the
Apology. And so the hopes of Lutherans to be accepted by
Charles V were dashed. They all left the Augsburg Confession
– they all left the Augsburg Diet back to the regions from
which they came. Thereby, we have to consider June 1530
perhaps a watershed period in that it now defined
Lutheranism.
I think we can now speak of a Lutheran Church, whereas
before and during Augsburg, they still hoped of being a
movement within the Roman Catholic Church, hoping that they
could reform it. But as things seem now, they had to accept
the fact that they were now becoming a separate movement of
the Roman Catholic Church.