.CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY

Martin Chemnitz' Views on Trent: The Genesis and the Genius of the Examen Concilii Tridentini

ARTHUR CARL PIEPKORN

Current Contributions to Christian Preaching

RICHARD R. CAEMMERER

Homiletics

Book Review

Vol. xxxvn . January 1966 No.1 MARTIN CHEMNITZ' VIEWS ON TRENT: The Genesis and the Genius of the Exan1en

ConaJii Trtdenttni 1 ARTHUR CARL PIEPKORN

"In recent centuries one or the other of the pages of the influential multilingual [the} pillars supporting the Triden­ international Roman Catholic hard-covered tine system have appeared to tremble, but theological journal Concilium. Alberigo's as a whole the system has always survived words add relevance to a review of the the various crises which had only brought genesis and genius of the great 16th­ about certain individual degenerations. Be­ cennuy Lutheran protest against the Coun­ ginning with 1958-1959, through a cil of Trent in the quadricentennial year whole concourse of historical and spiritual of the publication of the first volwne. factors, and certainly under an impulse of The Exanzen Concilii Tfidentini the Holy Spirit, the [Roman} Catholic ("A Weighing of the Council of Trent") Church (and more generally the entire is neither the first nor the last non-Roman­ Christian world) abandoned the Tridentine Catholic analysis of the synod that created system on all fundamental themes. The the Roman Catholic Church. At the turn brief intervening time cannot distract us of the century, Reinhard Mumro (1873 from the global dimensions and the defin­ to 1932) managed to list no fewer than itive significance of this abandonment." 2 87 items written between 1546 and 1564 The author of this statement, Giuseppe which polemicized against the Council,4 Alberigo, is a respected Italian Roman Catholic church historian, philosopher, and Milan. He is associate professor of church his­ academician.3 The statement appeared in tory and professor of philosophy at the U niver­ sity of Florence, secretary to the Centro di Docu­ mentazione of the Istituto per le Scienze Religi­ 1 This article is a chapter in the Symposium ose of Bologna, and a frequent contributor to on the Council of Trent, edited by Elmer Kiess­ professional journals in the areas of theology ling and scheduled for early publication by Con­ and history. cordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1"'fo. CON­ CORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY acknowledges 4 Reinhard Mumm, Die Polemik des Martin with gratimde the permission to publish the Chemnitz gege'i' das Konzil von Trient (Naum­ present article in advance of the appearance of burg-an-der-Saale: Lippert und Co. [G. Piitz'sche the book itself_ Buchdruckerei}, 1905), pp.79-90. A subtitle reads: Erster Theil, mit einem Verzeichnis der 2 Giuseppe Alberigo, "The Council of Trent: gegen das K01zzil von Trient gerichteten Schrif­ New Views on the Occasion of Its Fourth Cen­ ten; the second part which this subtitle implies tenary," Conciliftm, 7 (1965), 69-87. The and to which Mumm makes frequent proleptic quotation appears on p. 86. references in the footnotes of the first part was 3 Alberigo (born 1926) holds a doctorate in apparently never published. After a pastorate jurisprudence from the Catholic University of in Dortmund, Mumm moved more and more into the political arena, joined the Christian So­ Arthur Carl Piepkorn is graduate professor cial Party of Adolf Stocker (1835-1909), later of systematic theology at Concordia Semi­ became successively a member of the German­ nary, St. LOftis. National Party and (in 1929) of the Christian- 5 6 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

It is true that 41 of these titles are from under the anagrammatic pseudonym Pietro the pen of a single author, Peter Paul Ver­ Soave and whose historical study is the gerio (1497?-1565),5 and that the list in­ only critique of Trent to have been pub­ cludes the third edition of the Heidelberg lished in more editions than the Examen; Catechism (1563) wholly on the basis of John Hiilsemann (1602-1661); Abra­ the revised answer to Question 80, de­ ham Calovius (1612-1686); George liberately formulated to condemn the Calixtus (1586-1656); Herman Conring Tridentine decree on the sacrifice of the (1606-1681); Balthasar Cellarius (1614 mass. It is cleat, however, that Chemnitz to 1671); John Henry Heidegger (1633 is far from having been the first to discover to 1698), who depends strongly on Chem­ the peril that Tridentine theology repre­ nitz; 7 John-Conrad Dannhawer (1603 to sented for heirs of the Reformation. 1666); Peter Jurieu (1637-1713); Ed­ In turn, down to 1760 at least, 39 criti­ ward Stillingfleet (1635-1699), bishop cal works on the Council of Trent followed of Winchester; Paul Anton (1661 to the Examen.G The international roster of 1730) ; and Ernest Solomon Cyprian (1673 their authors includes Luke Bacmeister to 1745). (1530-1608); George Carleton (1559 Yet, though the Examen is neither the to 1628), bishop of Chichester; the Servite first nor the last work of its kind on the friar Paul Sarpi (1552-1623), who wrote subject, from its first appearance it asserted itself as the standard by which others were National Arbeitsgemeinschaft, entered the measured, and (with the possible exception Reichstag in 1912, in association with Reinhold Seeberg (1859-1935) reorganized the Kirch­ of Sarpi's quite different lstoria) it has lich-soziale Konferenz that Stocker had founded shown a capacity to survive the passage into the Kirchlich-sozialer Bund, wrote T heorie der christlich-nationalen Arbeiterbewegung of time shared by none of its rivals. (1907) and Der Christ und det' Krieg (1915), which ,,'ent through 10 editions in three years, THE AUTHOR and from 1900 on edited Kirchlich-soziale Bldt­ ter. In 1899 the theological faculty of the Uni­ Martin Chemnitz (Chemnitius, Chern .. versity of Jena accepted his Die Polemik des nieius, Kemnitz, Kemnitius, Kemnicius) 8 Martin Chemnitz as an Inauguraldissertation for the degree of licentiate in theology. This writer 7 So John George Schelhorn in Amoenitates has had access to this work in the form of an litel'ariae, V (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1726), electrostatic copy of an original which the direc­ 207: Praeter Chemnitiana pauca jere habeat de tor of Universitatsbibliothek in Munich kindly suis (quoted by Mumm, p. 53, n. 9). made available to him on microfilm, and ac­ knowledges his extensive dependence on it for 8 As sources for Chemnitz' life we have his many details. autobiography to the year 1555 (with a few per­ sonal entries down to 1579), translated into 5 As papal nuncio Vergerio faced Luther in English by A[ugustus} G[raebner}, "An Auto­ 1535. The bishop successively of Modru~ and biography of Martin Kemnitz, Translated from of Capodistria, Vergerio inclined toward the the German and Latin," in Theological Quar­ Swiss Reformation, was tried, deposed, and ex­ terly, III/4 (October 1899), 472-487; the in­ communicated. After a 13-year-Iong ministry in valuable collection of material in parts III-V of Switzerland, he converted to the Lutheran Philippus Julius Rehtmeyer, Antiquitates ecclesi­ Church, and in 1553 Duke Christopher of Wiirt­ asticae inclytae urbis Brunsvigae, ode?, Der temberg (d. 1568) named Vergerio ducal coun­ beruhmten Stadt Braunschweig Kirchen-Historie, selor. (Braunschweig: Christoph-Friederich Zilligers 6 Mumm, pp.94-104. Wittib und Erben, 1710-1720) ; Eduard THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 7 was born in 1522 at Treuenbritzen, about Prussia (1490-1568) bearing the ex­ 37 miles south-southwest of the Branden­ penses of Chemnitz' promotion. When burger Tor in Berlin. His father, a wool­ pestilence ravaged Konigsberg in 1548, weaver and shopkeeper, died when Martin Chemnitz retired to Salfeld and studied was 11. His mother apprenticed him to Peter Lombard and Luther. Back at the woolweaver's craft, but the generosity Konigsberg, he sent Duke Albert a horo­ of a friend of the family made it possible scope which he had cast for the prince for him to resume his interrupted secon­ and thereby won for himself the post of dary education at Magdeburg. A brief ducal librarian. His interests turned in­ stint of schoolteaching preceded his ma­ creasingly from astrology to theology, for triculation at the University of Frankfurt­ which the resources of the library provided an-der-Oder. In 1545, after another six ample scope. Meanwhile Andrew Osiander months of schoolteaching at Wriezen-an­ (1498-1552) had come to Konigsberg der-Oder (and of collecting the local sales and had provoked the controversy on tax on fish), he transferred to the Univer­ justification. At the duke's command, sity of Wittenberg, where he studied the Chemnitz was one of the two theologians classics and sciences and became interested designated to oppose Osiander at a public in astrology. He was about to take his disputation which was to end the year­ master's degree under Philip Melanchthon and-a-half-old controversy, but Chemnitz' (1497-1560) when the Smalcald War bold assault on the ducal favorite almost broke out. He followed a relative, the resulted in his own dismissal. Joachim poet-laureate and historian George Sabinus Morlin (1514-1571) managed to achieve (1508-1560), to the newly established a brief peace of sorts between the con­ University of Konigsberg (now Kalinin­ tending parties, but the conflict broke out grad). Here he continued his studies while anew. Caught in the conflict of loyalties heading up the Kneiphof School, and in to his friend Morlin and to his ducal 1548, at the first degree-granting convo­ benefactor, Chemnitz resigned his post at cation of the new university, he took his the end of 1552 and left Konigsberg in master's degree, with Duke Albert of early 1553. En route to Wittenberg again, he stopped over at Danzig (now Gdansk) Preuss, "Vita Martini Chemnicii," in the author's and at Ciistrin (now Kostrzyn); here he edition of Examen Concilii Tridentini per Mar­ cast a horoscope for Margrave John (1535 tinum Chemnicium scriptum (Berlin: Gustav Schlawitz, 1861), pp.925-988; Heinrich to 1571) of Brandenburg-Custrin, who Schmid and Johannes Kunze, "Chemnitz, Mar­ gave him a 50 Thaler honorarium for it. tin," in Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theologie find Kirche, 3d ed., III (1897), 796 At Wittenberg he became a boarder in to 804; Mumm, pp. 28-78. Inaccessible to this Melanchthon's home, and in January 1554 writer were Johannes Gasmer, Oratio de vita, he was admitted to the philosophical studiis et obitfl Martini Chemnicii ([Bruns­ wick? : ] No publisher, 1588), and Hermann faculty as an examiner. In June he began Hachfeld, Martin Chemnitz nach seinem Leben to lecture on MeIanchthon's Loci com­ find W irk en, insbesondere nach seinem Ver­ munes ( "Commonplaces") before large haltnisse zum Tridentinurn (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1867). A comprehensive biography student audiences. In the meantime Marlin of Chemnitz is a major desideratum. had become Superintendens of the churches 8 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

in tb.; Lower Saxon city of Brunswick and trine") . Moderate in tone, although he invited Chemnitz to become his co­ unqualified in its rejection both of the adjutor. Chemnitz delivered his last lec­ papalist and of the Reformed positions, ture in Wittenberg on October 20. On it won immediate approval; for example, St. Catherine's Day, John Bugenhagen in reply to a request for counsel from (1485-1558) ordained him to the sacred King John II Sigismund Zapolya (d. ministry in St. Mary's Church, and Chem­ 1571), the theological faculty of the Uni­ nitz entered upon his new office in Bruns­ versity of Rostock recommended Chem­ wick in mid-December. The following nitz' work as the simplest and most accurate year he married Anna Jager - described exposition of Eucharistic doctrine to as pia, pulchra et parca - who bore him be had. two sons and eight daughters. In 1562 Chemnitz became involved in Self-imposed tasks at Brunswick in­ his long controversy with the Jesuits and cluded a semiannual public disputation with the Roman Catholic Church that was on a selected set of doctrinal theses, of to engage almost all his leisure for over which Pcilycarp Leyser the Elder (1552 to a decade. From 1567 on, however, the 1610) was able to include 19 in his edition needs of the Lutheran community made of Chemnitz' l,oci theologici ("Theologi­ more and more levies upon his time. In cal Commonplaces"), the continuation of that year, Morlin and Chemnitz returned his lectures on Melanchthon's Loci. to Prussia to prepare a corpus doctrinae, Chemnitz began the study of Hebrew in or collection of symbolical books, for the 1556 and made rapid progress. His asso­ Lutheran Church in Duke Albert's do­ ciation with Morlin was most cordial, and mains. After they had returned to Bruns­ Chemnitz' prudent moderation served as wiele, Duke Albert sought to secure their a brake upon Morlin's occasional bursts of services permanently, Morlin to become excessively vehement zeal. The year 1557 bishop of Samland, Chemnitz to become saw both of them first at Wittenberg at­ dean of the cathedral in Konigsberg. tempting to help relieve the tensions After some negotiations, the common evoked by the Adiaphoristic and Syner­ council of the boroughs of Brunswick gistic controversies and then, later, at agreed to let Morlin go provided that Worms for the famous colloquy between Chemnitz would accept the superinten­ the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans. dency. This he agreed to do after the Chemnitz' first published work, Vera et council in hlrn had accepted certain con­ sa'na doctrina de pfaesentia corporis et ditions designed to secure the freedom of sangttinis Christi in sacra coena ("The the church and of the clergy from inappro­ True and Sound Doctrine about the Pres­ priate interference, and he entered upon ence of the Body and Blood of Christ in his new duties the same year. In 1568 he the Holy Communion") came off the press took the degree of doctor of sacred the­ at Leipzig in 1560, followed by a German ology at the University of Rostock with version and (in 1561) a second Latin edi­ the cost of his promotion borne by the tion under the title Repetitio sanae doc­ Brunswick council. In the same year, at trina.e ("Repetition of the Sound Doc- the invitation of Duke Julius (1529 to THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 9

1589), the new Lutheran ruler of the played an important role in the conference Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Chem­ at Bergen Abbey at which the criticisms of nitz, in association with James Andreae the Torgau Book were taken account of (1528-1590), supervised the introduc­ and the Formula of Concord was pro­ tion of the Lutheran Reformation into the duced and signed by Andreae, Nicholas previously Roman Catholic territory. For Selneccer (1528-1592), Andrew Mus­ the guidance of the clergy Chemnitz drafted culus (1514-1581), Christopher Cor­ a set of symbols, a service-book, and Die nerus (1518-1594), David Chytraeus furnehmsten Hauptstucke der christlichen (1531-1600), and Chemnitz. After the Lehre ("The Most Important Chief Parts formal publication of the Book of Con~ of Christian Teaching" ) , later retitled cord on June 25, 1580, half a century to Handbuchlein der christlichen Lehre the day after the reading of the Augsburg ("Little Manual of Christian Teaching"). Confession before the imperial diet of The year 1568 also saw the issuance of his 1530, Chemnitz was one of the three theo­ theological opinion in connection with the logians designated to prepare the Apologia controversy on good works that centered oder Verantwortung des christlichen Cor/.­ around George Major (1502-1574) and cordiertbuchs ("An Apology or Defense Nicholas von Amsdorf (1483-1565), of the Christian Book of Concord"), pub­ the quondam bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz; lished in four parts in 1582 and 1583. this presaged a constantly increasing role In 1576, Chemnitz participated in the in the adjudication of the controversies formal inauguration of the new imperially that had been dividing the Lutheran com­ chartered University of He1mstedt. 9 That munity since 1546. In 1571 Chemnitz wrote the Lower Saxon Confession, sub­ 9 When plans were being made for the for­ scribed to at Heinrichstadt (now part of mal opening, Chemnitz in a letter to Duke Wolfenbuttel) by the theologians of Julius spontaneously promised that "in view of the imminent inauguration and publication of Rostock and Lower Saxony, and later by the privileges [of the university} he would give the clergy of Hamburg and Lubeck. In careful attention to the arrangement of the sky, 1574 he reworked Andreae's Swabian to ascertain when there would be a favorable constellation [for the occasion]." The practical­ Concordia to produce the Swabian-Saxon minded duke wrote back that "it was far more Concordia. In 1576-the same year in necessary to be concerned about the sources of which Duke Julius formally published a the income for the support of the academy than about fa horoscope}, since 'the stars incline but slightly expanded version of the Corpus do not compel''' (Rehtmeyer, III, 418-419). Jztlianum that Chemnitz had compiled - The 20th century is inclined to take what may be too jaundiced a view of the interest of (and in part written) as the docttinal men like Chemnitz in astrology. Until the mid- norm for his territories - Chemnitz par­ 17th century it was a perfecdy respectable avo­ ticipated in the conference at Torgau cation of a Lutheran clergyman; thus John Micraelius (1597-1658), rector of the Royal which welded into a single document (the Paedagogium in Stettin (Szczecin), in his "Me· 'Torgau Book") the Swabian-Saxon Con­ moria ... Dr. Christophori Schulteti [1602 to cordia and the Maulbronn Formula of Luke 1649}" gives a very careful horoscope cast for the exact hour of his subject's birth; it is repro­ Osiander (1534-1604) and Balthasar duced in Henningus Witten, Memo.,iae theo­ Bidembach (1533-1578). In 1577 he iogorum nostr; saecuii clarissimorum renovatae 10 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAiYIEN same year - in consideration of a grant sehen Gregoria1]O Calendro an den Marek­ of 1,000 Thaler - he entered into an grafen ttnd Hertzog in Preussen ("An agreement with the city council of Bruns­ Account of the New Papalist Gregorian wick not to accept any other vocation. Calendar to the Margrave and Duke in In 1578 a rift in his friendship with Prussia"),1° he counsels adoption of the Duke Julius occurred, when, against new calendar, although he also urges that Chemnitz' advice, the duke scandalized it be undertaken in such a way that the the Lutheran community by having his pope be not given an oblique precedent 14-year-old Lutheran son, the later Duke for intervening in the affairs of the Lu­ Henry Julius (1564-1613), who at the theran community. Similarly, in 1583 he age of two had been elected bishop of Hal­ drafted a reply (published in 1585), written berstadt through the influence of his in the name of the imperial estates which Roman Catholic grandfather, Duke Henry had accepted the Book of Concord, to the (1514-1568) of Brunswick-Wolfen­ proposal of the then Reformed King buttel, receive the tonsure (along with Henry of Navarre (d. 1610) for a com­ two of his brothers) at the hands of the prehensive alliance of Lutheran and Re­ Roman Catholic Abbot of Huyseburg and formed communities against the aggressive by having him formally introduced into designs of the pope. In this document his see with the traditional Roman Cath­ Chemnitz insisted that a "compression of olic rite and ceremonial. The rift be­ opinions that is called a syncretism," came wider in 1579, when Duke Julius in which each party continues to affirm attempted to muzzle Chemnitz and the its distinctive position at home while simu­ clergy of the city of Brunswick. Ultimately lating agreement in public, is neither the duke receded from his position, but pleasing to God nor beneficial to the the old intimacy with Chemnitz was never church; instead, Chemnitz urged, let Henry restored; the duke withdrew his subscrip­ accept the Book of ConcordP (Henry did tion to the Book of Concord on a tech­ not adopt this well-meant counsel; instead nicality, and so the Corpus lulianum he converted to the Roman Catholic rather than the Book of Concord became Church to become Henry IV of France!) the symbolical standard of the duchy in Chemnitz' health failed rapidly after the subsequent period. 1582, and on April 8, 1586, he died In spite of Chemnitz' bold anti-Roman­ quietly. His last recorded words, spoken Catholic stand, he was not anti-Roman­ two days before his end, after he had made Catholic on principle and at all costs. Thus his confession and had received holy abso­ in 1582, in his Berieht vom netten pabsti- lution, were: "Lord, do with me according centuria (Frankfurt-am-Main: Martinus Haller­ to Your will and command that my spirit vordus [Johannes Andreae], 1685), pp. 1050 may be received in peace, for it is much to 1051. On the positive contributions to science better for me to die than to live." of these Lutheran astrologer-astronomers, see John Warwick Montgomery, "Cross, Constella­ 10 Printed out in full Rehtmeyer, Appendix tion, and Crucible: Lutheran Astrology and Al­ to Part III, 359-362. chemy in the Age of the Reformation," Ambix, XI (1963), 65-86. 11 Ibid., pp. 367-388. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 11

THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE JESUITS tories for the papacy, responded with their On the Feast of the Assumption of the Censura et docta explicatio errorum cate­ Blessed Virgin Mary, 1534, Ignatius of chismi ] ohannis Monhemii, grammatici Loyola (1491-1556) with six com­ Duesseldorpensis, in qua tum s{ acrae} panions had founded in Paris what was to scripturae atq{ue} vestussis{imorum} pa­ become the Society of Jesus. In 1540 Pope trum testimoniis, tum evidentiss{imis} Paul III (1468-1549) had confirmed the rationibus veritas catholicae religionis foundation of the society with his bull defenditur, per deputatos a sacra theologica Regimini militantis ecclesiae. Alphonse facultate universitatis Coloniensis ("An Salmeron (1515-1585) and Peter Cani­ Evaluation and Learned Unfolding of the sius (1521-1597) came to the University Errors of the Catechism of John Mon­ of Ingolstadt in 1549. The Collegium Ger­ hem ius, Grammarian at Dusseldorf, in manicum came into being at Rome in Which the Truth of the Catholic Religion 1552 to prepare young Germans for the Is Defended Both with the Testimonies task of leading their homeland back to of the Sacred Scriptures and of the Most union with the Roman see. In 1554 Igna­ Ancient Fathers and with the Most Evi­ tius of Loyola drafted a master plan for dent Reasons, by Persons Which the the destruction of the Reformation in Ger­ Faculty of Sacred Theology at the Uni­ many. Two years later the Society estab­ versity of Cologne Has Charged with This lished itself at the languishing University Responsibility") .13 The work bears marks of Cologne and soon proceeded to domi­ of having been put together rather hastily nate the theological faculty. The Cologne by a number of authors. Nevertheless, it is Jesuits received their first great opportunity in general a competently written attack on to test their theological mettle in 1560. Monhemius' work, on the reading of the Sacred Scriptures by laymen, and on the John Monhemius (1509?-1564) was individual's certainty of salvation. It fol­ the brilliant and influential headmaster of lows the pattern of medieval theology in the academy at Dusseldorf. He had demon­ its uneasy synthesis of works-righteousness strated his Erasmian leanings in three cate­ and righteousness by grace. It demands a chisms which he had edited in 1547 and subjection of the secular power to the 1551. In 1560 he showed himself a full­ church. It devotes 22 pages to a defense blown, even though cautious, Calvinist, in of the communion of the congregation his Catechismus in quo christianae religi­ under the appearance of the consecrated onis elementa . . . explicantur ("A Cate­ bread alone. The authors are well ac­ chism in Which the Elements of the quainted with the positions of the Re­ Christian Religion ... Are Unfolded"). formers; they quote both the fathers Designed for students in the fourth and (notably the writings of St. Augustine and fifth forms, it consists of 11 dialogues be­ tween a father and his sonP 13 The publisher is Maternus Cholinus of The Jesuits at Cologne, as part of their Cologne, the date 1560. The book runs to 354 pages, plus an index. The library of Concordia program to save the lower Rhine terri- Se~nary! St. Louis, has a microfilm copy of the original in the Universitatsbibliothek, Munich. 12 Mumm, pp. 18-21. A second edition came out in Cologne in 1582. 12 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

Termllian's De praescriptione) and the friend of Chemnitz. This work, also pub­ medieval scholastics. They quote the Bible lished in 1561, saw a second printing the in the original, although their interpreta­ same year, edited by Chemnitz' Brunswick tions involve "unscrupulous eisegesis." 14 colleague, John Neukirchen (Neopha­ What makes this work significant for the nius) . prehistory of Chemnitz' Examen is that His interest aroused by these develop­ their clinching argument is often a decree ments, Chemnitz now entered the lists in of the Council of Trent! 1562 with his Theologiae lesuitarum Monhemius' prince, Duke William V praecipua capita ex quadam ipsorum cen­ (1516-1592) of Jillich, forbade Mon­ sura, annotata ("The Chief Chapters of hemius to reply, in the hope that he could the Theology of the Jesuits, Taken from thereby placate the Roman Catholic party an Evaluation of Theirs and Annotated" ) .16 and also evade the necessity of banishing The dedicatory epistle, dated Jan. 27, 1562, his brilliant headmaster. The task of reply­ is addressed to Elector Joachim II (1505 ing in the name of the Dusseldorf acad­ to 1571) of Brandenburg, and contains emy thus fell upon the otherwise unknown this statement: "So that these messengers Henry Artopoeus (Becker), who produced of the bishop of Rome [i. e., the Jesuits] a lively rejoinder, cannily published out­ may be more fully exposed and so that side the country in September 1561/5 they might become known in our churches which paid the Jesuits off in their own (for the ruination of which their idol coin. The Censura drew at least two other called them into being) not only by name, replies. The more important of the two, but particularly in terms of the criminal which concerned itself with the church­ shamelessness of what they teach, I felt and-state issue raised by the Censura, was that it would be worth my while to as­ the critical Responsio duodecimi articuli in semble from that Censura of theirs the cemura theologomm Coloniensium de cate­ chief chapters of Jesuit theology, so that, chismo M. lohamzis Monhemii ("A Reply to the Twelfth Article of the Evaluation 16 This work is available to the present writer in two editions: (1) Theologiae Jesui­ of the Catechism of John Monhemius, tarum brevis ac nervosa descriptio et delineatio, M. by the Theologians at Cologne") by e:x praecipNis capitibus censura ipsomm, quae Henry Hamelmann (1525-1595) of anna lvlDLX Coloniae edita est ("Brief and Vig­ orous Description and Portrayal of the Theology Lemgo, an Osnabruck-born Roman Cath­ of the Jesuits, Taken from the Chief Chapters olic priest who had converted to the of Their Evaluation, Which Was Published at Lutheran church in 1550 and was a close Cologne in the Year 1560") (Frankfurt and Wittenberg: Haeredes Tobiae Maevii et Elerdus Cologne in the Year 1560") (Frankfurt and Wit­ 14 Mumm, pp.22-25. tenberg: Haeredes Tobiae Maevii et Elerdus 15 Henricus Artopoeus, Ad theologastorum Schumacherus, 1653), where the text occupies Coloniensium censura ... responsio, pro de/ensi­ 41 folio pages appended to the 1653 edition of one catechismi Joannis Monhemii, praeceptoris Chemnitz' Loci theologicij (2) Martinus Kemni­ sui, conscripta ("A Reply to the Evaluation of cius, "De origine Jesuwitarum et quo consilio the Theologasters of Cologne, Written in De­ secta illa recens constituta sit," in Conrad us fense of the Catechism of John Monhernius, His Deckehrus (editor), Tractatus de proprietatibNs Teacher") (Grenoble: Petrus Cephalius Duro­ J esuitarmn (Oppenheim: Hieronymus Gallerus, montanus, 1561). 1611), pp. 1-150. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 13 sketched as it were in brief tabular form Latin, one could resolve lesuita into Jesum and set forth for the world to see, they vita ("Avoid Jesus"). In Low German could be recognized by all men and might Jesu witt means "far from Jesus." In High be appreciated for what they really are. German lesmuider means "against Jesus"; 1£ this kind of thing represents the first­ the shift from "t" to "d" presents no prob­ fruits of their preliminary exercises, let lem, since a Thumbherr (modern, Dom­ the kind reader determine for himself what herr) canon in a cathedral chapter or a Germany can await from this sect in the collegiate church) rates as a dummer Herr future if it should acquire great strength." ("a stupid mister"). Some hold that Jesu­ The sharp, sometimes witty, sometimes wider is an inadvertent but idiomatic Ger­ heavily ironic, but consistently hard-hitting man rendering of "Antichrist." Some attack on the Neopelagianism and the in­ etymologists regard the initial syllable of defensible hermeneutics of the Censura a word as a superfluous addition, hence for takes the position that the Jesuit doctrine Jesuitae read Suitae, the name Horace represents a new development within the applies to "a hog of the sect of Epicurus." papalist community which deserves a spe­ Chemnitz follows the introductory chap­ cific refutation. ter with 15 doctrinal chapters - on the A Joachim Loneman of Salzwedel con­ Sacred Scriptures, sin, free will, the Law, tributes an uncomplimentary 72-line the Gospel, justification, faith, good works, "hendecasyllable" on the Jesuits. An intro­ the Holy Communion, the invocation of ductory chapter discusses the origin of the the saints, penance, confirmation, extreme Society. In the course of this chapter unction, images and celibacy. A final chap­ Chemnitz quotes some speculations on the ter discusses "certain Jesuit axioms scat­ origin and meaning of the name Jesuit, tered here and there" in the work. When but soberly insists that he is merely "re­ the Jesuits find that some point of theirs viewing various opinions and then allow­ cannot be proved from the Sacred Scrip­ ing the reader to make his own decision." tures, they have found it safer to say Some Roman emperors were called Afri­ in essence: (1) It is a tradition, and when canus, Germanicus, and Asiaticus, not be­ even this cannot be proved, the bare as­ cause they were the friends but the sertion suffices; (2) the church, that is, the conquerors of the people whose name bishop of Rome and his supporters, have they took; this would make the Jesuits so ruled, and such a ruling deserves no less the sworn enemies of the Lord Jesus. Some respect than an explicit word of God; (3) looked for similar-sounding names in the nonecc!esiastics ought not to ask if the Old Testament and thought that "Jesuit" things proposed to them are right or other­ might be a kind of paranomasia for Esau­ wise, but ought humbly kiss the hinder ites 17 or Jebusites. Working from the parts of the chapter in canon law which begins Si Papa;18 (4) if the learned con- 17 This pun occurs at least as early as 1560, for example in James Andreae's Bericht von del' 18 Decreti Magistri G1'atiani, prima pars, Einigkeit und Uneinigkeit der christlichen Augs­ distinctio XL, caput VI. Aemilius Friedberg purgischen Confessions verwandten Theoioge11 (editor), Corpus juris canonici (Graz: Akade­ (Tiibingen: N. p., 1560). mische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1955), col. 14 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEK tradict, let them at once be got rid of with Council of Trent when he expressed dis­ sword or flame. pleasure at the decree which declared that There are a few references to the Coun­ traditions ought to be received and kept cil of Trent, for instance, to the decree on with the same dutiful affection and rev­ the Vulgate; 19 to the "blasphemous" de­ erence as the written Gospel; as well as the cree which anathematizes those who say effort of Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579) that the satisfaction of penitents is nothing to support the council's position on tra­ else than faith which trusts that Christ dition with a qnotation from Plato.21 made satisfaction for them; 20 and to the Chemnitz' faithful friend and colleague experience of the bishop of Chioggia, John Zanger, an Innsbruck-born convert whom the papal legates expelled from the to the Lutheran Church, translated the work into German before the year was out 146: Dampnatur Apostolicus qui suae et fra­ under the title Vom 1Ieuen Orden der ternae sal litis est negligens. Item ex gestis Boni­ facii Martiris. III. Pars. Si Papa suae et frater­ fesuwider, was ihr Glaube sei und wie sie nae salutis negligens reprehenditur inutilis et wider Jesum und sein heiliges Evangelium remissus in operibus suis et insuper a bono streiten ("Of the New Order of Opponents taciturnus, quod magis officit sibi et omnibus, nichilominus innumerabiles populos catervatim of Jesus, What They Believe and How secum ducit, primo mancipio gehennae cum They Make War on Jesus and His Holy ipso plagis multis in eternum vapulaturus. Gospel" ). Both in Latin and German the Huius culpas istic redarguere praesumit morta­ lium nuUus, quia cuncros ipse iudicaturus a work received instant and widespread nemine est iudicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide recognition. devius; pro cuius perpetuo statu universitas fide­ lium tanto instantius orat, quanta suam salutem Even apart from its irony and sarcasm, post Deum ex illius incolumitate animadvertunt there are other defects in the work, some propensius pendere. ("The pope is condemned of which Mumm points out. At one point who is unconcerned about his own and his brothers' salvation. Item: From the Deeds of Chemnitz attributes to the Jesuits the St. Boniface the Martyr [680?-754}. Part Three hoary comparison of the Sacred Scriptures [i. e., of the Distinctio}. If a pope, unconcerned to a "wax nose," 22 although the CelZSura about his own and his brothers' salvation, is found to be useless and remiss in his deeds and cites this not as a Jesuit principle but as beyond that silent over against that which is a vulgar axiom. Again, the unqualified good, which is the more harmful to him and charge that the Jesuits teach that the to everyone, even though he leads countless people by whole troops with him, he shall by church has power to alter institutions and himself be Hogged forever with many stripes at prescriptions of the Sacred Scriptures 23 has hell's first taking over of him. No mortal man not taken cognizance of the parenthetic presumes to admonish the faults of this man here below, because he who has to judge all illustration of the CelZSura - "as Acts 15 men ought to be judged by no one, unless he be caught wandering away from the faith. The 21 Ch. XVII, under Axiom 1. The "bishop whole number of the faithful prays so much the of Chioggia" referred to was James Nacchianti more instantly for his continual good estate as (1500?-1569); see Hubert Jedin, A Histor'Y they consider that their salvation under God of the Council of Trent, trans. Ernest Graf, II depends the more readily from his preserva­ (St.Louis: B. Herder Book Co., c. 1961),64 tion." ) to 65 (esp. n. 2), 86-87, 92-93. 19 Ch. X, Sec. xi. 22 Ch. II, Sec. ii.

20 Ch. XII, Sec. iii. 23 Ch. XVII, under Axiom 2. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 15 makes clear in connection with things get's German translation of Chemnitz' strangled and blood and the keeping of work. Chemnitz regarded the work as so the Sabbath that the Sacred Scriptures inept as to be almost beneath contempt. command." 24 In the preface to the Examen he notes that The counterfire began promptly. An has assembled are not wholly consistent; one or otherwise unknown John Albrecht (AI­ the other of the older historians may have erred bertus) ,25 lay professor of oratory at the in transcribing his sources, or the data collected University of Ingolstadt - where Jesuits by Dr. Buzas may not all refer to the same John Albert. had been teaching since 1549 - wrote The Matrikel der Ludwig-Maximilians-Uni­ a plaintive and rambling German defense venitat Ingolstadt-Landshut-Munchen, I (1937), of the Society,26 designed primarily, it 36, reports a "Johannes Albertus Wimpinensis would seem, to counter the effect of Zan- dioecesis Wormatiensis" as having been matricu­ lated as a studiosus artium on January 21, 1561. (It is difficult to imagine that in a matter of 24 Mumm, pp. 44--45. Mumm also states barely two years he could have completed his that he could not locate two passages which im­ universiry career and have been made a profes­ ply moral relativism on the part of the Jesuits sor.) Johannes Nepomucenus Mederer, Annales and which Chemnitz quotes in chapter V, sec­ In golstadiensis academiae, I (1782), 267, re­ tion iv, either on the leaf which Chemnitz cites ports that 19 days earlier, on January 2, 1561, or anywhere else in the Censura. a John Albert became magister a1"tium. (If the 25 The forms Alberus and Allerus seem to persons are the same, one of the entries is be mistakes. wrong; Dr. Buzas believes that Mederer has committed "an obvious error.") Carl Prantl, 26 The full title reads: Von der Gesellschaft Geschichte det" Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Jesu warha/ter und wolgegrundter Bericht, mit Ingolstadt-Landshut-Munchen, I (1872), 229. Widerlegung des uppigen lasterlichen Schrei­ 238, reports that Albert became professor of bens, so bayde Martin Kemnitz und Johann rhetoric in 1563 (the year in which he wrote Zanger, die Diener zu Bratlnschweyg, haben Von der Gesellschaft Jesu), and that in 1564 newlich wider das Colnisch Buch, Censuram etc., the Jesuits at the universiry tried to have him lassen aussgehen, durch Ioannem Albertum admitted to the liberal arts faculry, but that the Wimpinensem, Professorem zu Ingolstatt «(In­ faculry refused to receive him. (The latter golstadt:] N. p., MDLXIII; 13 unnumbered statement presents patent difficulties, since as pages, 120 numbered leaves; 10 by 15 cm.) The professor of rhetoric he was a member of the work is dedicated to Paul Smayner, Benedictine liberal arts faculry.) Prand's statement that Abbot of Niederalten (i. e., Niederaltaich, CUf­ Albert was a Jesuit is refuted by Franz Sales rently one of the centers of German Roman Romstock, Die Jesuitennullen Prantl's an der Catholic ecumenical activiry). The dedicatory Universitat Ingolstadt (1898), p. vii. epistle is dated August 10, 1563. The library of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has an electro­ Finally, we have the article on a John Albert static reproduction from a microfilm kindly sup­ in Anton Maria Kobolt, Baierisches Gelehrten­ plied by the Universitatsbibliothek, Munich. lexikon, I (1795), 755-757. It reports that he Von de., Gesellscha/t Jesu reveals that Albert lived at the end of the 16m and the beginning was a master of arts and a lay ("a simple com­ of the 17th century, that he was well-versed in mon layman," p. a vi recto) professor of oratory philosophy and theology and that he was an at the Universiry of Ingolstadt. The agnomen excellent speaker. It further describes him as Wimpinensis (alias Wimpinaeus) identifies his a physician by profession and (although the birthplace as Wimpfen, Kreis Heilbronn. For dukes of Bavaria did not achieve the electoral additional information about him, Oberbiblio­ digniry until 1623) Electoral Court Physician theksrat Dr. phil. Ladislaus Buzas of tl1e Univer­ in Munich. His medical colleagues attacked him sitatsbibliothek in Munich has thoroughly exam­ for his refusal to submit blindly to the dicta of ined the sources available to him and has kindly the traditional medical authorities, for his critical communicated his findings to me in a letter comparison of these authorities with one an­ dated February 25, 1964. The items which he other, and for his insistence that physicians 16 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN no member of the Society of Jesus had D'ANDRADA'S Orthodoxae Explicatiolles undertaken to reply to his work. "Never­ Meanwhile another defender of the theless, so that they would not be altogether Jesuits was entering the lists. James Payva silent, which might have been interpreted d'Andrada (l528-1576?) was a secular as a fault, they pushed forth a kind of hired priest and a missionary-minded professor messenger, an exceedingly wretched little of theology at the Portuguese University far-shooting Apollo, John Alber[t}us of of Coimbra. The young Jesuit-educated the University of Ingolstadt, who put on King Sebastian I of Portugal (1554 to his mask and as if it were on a stage acted 1578) had sent d' Andrada to the Council out that play written in German in such of Trent as a member of a 4-man team of a laughable fashion, that he had hardly theologians. At the Council his homiletic begun the introduction (protasis) when abilities, his learned orations, his more than he saw from afar the development of the rudimentary acquaintance with the pub­ drama's action ( epitasis ), threw off his lished works of the Reformers, and a bril­ mask, and dashed out of the theater, but liant paper on the authority of the pope not before he had given the spectators hope soon secured for him an impressive repu­ that soon another comic actor would fol­ tation. At Trent he seems to have chanced low him who would complete the rest of on Chemnitz' Theologiae Jesuitarttm prae­ the drama if not more happily, at least ciptta capita by himself.28 One of those more nobly." 27 who strongly urged d'Andrada to prepare a should study nature for added insight. Kobolt reply was King Sebastian's orator at Trent, does not list Von der Gesellschaft Jesu among Ferdinand Martinez of Mascarenhas, who this John Albert's works, although he does had been informed by "many" in conver­ catalog five medical works published at Ingol­ stadt and three other medical titles that came sation that Chemnitz' work was being from Albert's pen but may not have been pub· received among the Lutherans and the Re­ lished. formed with great enthusiasm.29 The 27 Martinus Chemicius, Exame1' Concilii nature of the debate at Trent at the mo- Tridentini, ed. Ed[uardus} Preuss (Berlin: Gus­ tav Schlawitz, 1861), Part One, praefatio, par. 1, 28 Didacus Payva Andradius, p. lA. Hereafter page references in the Examen Orthodoxarum explicationum libri decem (Venice: Jordanus are to this edition, the letters A and B repre­ Ziletus, 1564), Epistola nuncupatoria, fol. *3 senting the left-hand and right-hand columns verso: "Incidi in libellum quendam l\1artini respectively. Chemnitz presumably has in mind Kemnicii." the statement which Albertus makes almost ex· actly halfway through his book: "Inasmuch as 29 "Accessit summa Ferdinandi Martinez we have received certain information that a Mazcarenii . . . auctoritas qui cum multorum highly learned and able theologian has already sermone intellexisset, has commentarios magna begun a comprehensive confutation and apology cum haereticorum omnium applausu et gratula­ and has progressed very far in his work, I have done exceptos fuisse, vehementer me incitavit" regarded it as unnecessary to follow my original (ibid., fol. [*4J recto). Among the multi we undertaking and to provide a lengthier refuta­ can well include three of the leading Jesuits at­ tion and thus to infringe upon someone else's tending the Council: James Lainez (1512 to labors, especially since the other work is so 1565), the second general of the Society; Sal­ arranged and so solidly founded that thereby meron, who had attended the crucial imperial Kemnitz and his translator will receive more diet of Augsburg in 1555; and Canisius, first than enough" (f01. 57). provincial of the Society's German province. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 17 ment gave d'Andrada the necessary leisure. The remaining nine books discuss the The work came out in Venice in 1564.30 questions that Chemnitz had raised in his A few months later in the same year, the attack on the Jesuits - the sacred Scrip­ printer to the University of Cologne, Ma­ tures, sin, free will, the law and the Gos­ ternus Cholinus, who had published the pel, justification and faith, the Holy Com­ Censura ( as he reminds the "candid munion, penance, confirmation and extreme reader" in his brief address following the unction, the veneration of the saints and title page), reproduced the Venice edition images, and celibacy. The viewpoint is the in Germany.3! rigidly authoritarian one which the Iberian D'Andrada dedicates the lO-book work bishops represented at Trent. to his monarch. The first book begins with a slashing attack on the "impious, crafty, THE ExameJZ Concilii T.;denti1ti passionate, Satanic" catechism of Mon­ Chemnitz gladly picked up the gage of hemius. Chemnitz, whom he calls - some­ battle that d'Andrada had thrown at his what proleptically - a Brunswick doctor, feet. Obviously the 10 books of the is a pseudoprophet whom Satan has in­ Coimbra professor's ambitious effort de­ cited. Next d'Andrada gives a life of manded a similarly extensive reply. The Ignatius of Loyola and a somewhat dith· course of events seemed to Chelllilitz to yrambic description of the progress of the dictate the form that his reply must take. Society. This first book was published For one thing, the Censura had re­ separately as well.32 peatedly clinched its points by quoting a Tridentine decree. For another, d'Andrada, 30 The title of the "extremely rare" (so Toussaint) Venice edition reads: Orthodoxarum himself a participant in the Council, had explicationum libri decem, in quibus omnia writen his attack on Chemnitz at Trent. fere de religione capita, quae his temporibus ab haereticis in controversiam vocantur, aperte et If Chemnitz concluded that d' Andrada had dilucide explicantur, praesertim contra Martini written his book by direction of the Coun­ Kemnicii petulantem audaciam, qui Colonien­ cil itself,33 he cannot be blamed too much. sem censuram, quam a viris Societatis Jesu com­ positam esse ait, una cum ejusdem sanctissimae Societatis Jesu origine libellus, authore D. Jacobo societatis vitae ratione, temere calurrmiandam Payva ... contra Kemnicii cujusdam petulantem suscepit ("The Ten Books of the Orthodox audaciam. A copy is in the British Museum. Interpretations, in Which Almost All the Chap­ Johannes Georgius Walchius, Bibliotheca theo· ters About Religion That in These Times Have logica selecta, II (Jena: Vidua Croeckeriana, Been Called into Controversy by the Heretics 1758), 290, lists a Cologne 1564 edition as Are Frankly and Clearly Unfolded, Especially well. Against the Wanton Impudence of Martin Kem­ 33 Exame1z Concilii Tridentini, Part One, nitz, Who Rashly Undertook to Misrepresent the locus VI, sectio i, par. 2, p. 123B. - The first Cologne Evaluation, Which He Says Was Put complete edition of the canons and decrees of Together by Men of the Society of Jesus, Along Trent came off the press in Rome shortly after with an Account of the Life of the Same Most Pius IV confirmed them in 1564. The amplest Holy Society"). collection of supplementary materials is the 31 Except for the place of publication and Giirres·Gesellschaft's Con cilium T ridentirmm: the publisher's name, the Cologne title is all Diariol'um, actorum, epi-stolarum, tractatuum but identical with that of the Venice edition. nova collectio, 13 vol. (Freiburg·im-Breisgau: The library of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis has Herder, 1901-1961). H. J. Schroeder, Canons a microfilm copy of each edition, made from and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Original originals in the Universititatsbibliothek, Munich. Text with English Translatio?~ (St. Louis: B. 32 As an appendix to J. Rut, ed., Epistolae Herder Book Co., 1941), draws on the Giirres­ Indicae (Louvain, 1566), under the title De Gesellschaft text. 18 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

Finally, the fact that d'Andrada's book Indeed, one of the first major Roman arrived in Brunswick almost simultaneously Catholic attempts at refuting the Examen, with the last decrees of Trent decided that of Jodoc Ravesteyn, strongly criticizes Chemnitz' course for him: He would ana­ lyze the doctrinal decrees of Trent at the and the Roman Catholic position on justification as unbridgeable. Yet such inquiries as Hanns hand of the commentary with which he Riickert, Die Rechtfertigungslehre auf dem Tri­ saw d'Andtada's book providing him. dentinischen Konzil (Bonn: A. Marcus und E. This decision, natural for a person of Weber's Verlag, 1925), and Hans Kiing, Rechtfertigung: Die Lehre Karl Barths und Chemnitz' mind-set, had two consequences. eine katholische Besinnung (Einsiedeln: Jo­ By concentrating almost exclusively on hannes Verlag, c. 1957), translated by Thomas the dogmatic decrees Chemnitz spared him­ Collins, Edmund E. Tolk, and David Granskou as Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and self the added effort of a full-dress discus­ a Catholic Re/iectio17 (New York: Thomas sion of the Council's decisions in the area Nelson and Sons, c. 1964), indicate that the Tri­ of reform. Yet these reform decrees were dentine fathers were far from unanimous in their doctrine of justification and that some of not uninfluenced by doctrinal considera­ this diversity finds expression in the language tions, nor were they without doctrinal im­ of Trent. Similar differences in opinion are plications; except by an intolerably narrow alleged in the case of the relation of Scripture and tradition; see Gabriel Moran, Scripture and definition of "doctrine," many of the re­ Tradition: A Survey of the COl1trovefSY (New form decrees were really doctrinal too. York: Herder and Herder, 1963), and Georges The fact that Chemnitz deliberately ignored Tavard, "The Problem of Tradition Today," in Gregory Baum, ed., Ecumenical Theology Today them almost altogether tended to render (Glen Rock, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1964), pp.18 incomplete, at least to some extent, the to 27. At the same time, Pelikan's observations picture of Trent which the Examen gave are apposite in this connection: "Revisionists have attempted to show that on the doctrine of to the non-Roman-Catholic reader whose justification and on the authority of Scripture the chief source of information about Trent formulations of Trent are actually a compromise would be this volume. between the Reformation extreme and the oppo­ by letting d'Andrada's work site extreme of certain fifteenth century theolo· Similarly, gians. Only when they are read in the light of serve as a commentary on the Tridentine both extremes, rather than merely in the light decrees, Chemnitz canonized for his read­ of the reformers, are these formulations said ers as the authentic understanding of the to come into proper perspective. There is un· doubtedly something to be said for this interpre· Tridentine position the partisan interpreta­ tation, and it deserves more careful attention tion of the Latin theologians of the ex­ than Protestant theologians have been willing treme right. Thus Chemnitz introduced to give it. But it does not appear to have demo onstrated its fundamental contention; for the into the Lutheran interpretation of Trent explicit target of Trent's anathema is consistently a hermeneutical skew which largely fore­ the Reformation position - or 'extreme'­ closed the possibility of a more moderate while some fairly subtle and sophisticated his­ torical scholarship is often necessary to unearth and a more "evangelical" interpretation.34 the opposite 'extreme' also included in the con· demnations." (Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, The Riddle 34 This observation is particularly true with of Roman Catholicism [New York: Abingdon reference to at least some aspects of the doc­ Press, c. 1959}, pp. 52-53.) D'Andrada's work trines of justification and of the sources of reve· has never been officially disavowed. Chemnitz lation. As Werner Elert, Morphologie des Lu· unquestionably intended to reply to the inter· thertums, 2d ed., I (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche pretation of the Tridentine decrees that appeared Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1952), 65, points out, to him to square with the intentions of the coun· Chemnitz sees the chasm between the Lutheran cil fathers. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 19

Chemnitz for having at times confused the to 1592), headmaster of St. Catharine's opinion of the theologians of d'Andtada's School in Brunswick.36 The first part dis­ type with the real content of the decrees. cusses the teaching about traditions, orig­ The preparation of the Examen absorbed inal sin, concupiscence, the word "sin," the Chemnitz' leisure for the next nine years. conception of t...he Blessed Virgin Mary, By the end of March 1565 he had worked the works of unbelievers, free will, justifi­ out the first part sufficiently to send it cation, faith, and good works. The second to a colleague in Frankfurt-am-Main, Mat­ part discusses the sacraments in general, thias Ritter (1526-1588), with the re­ Baptism, confirmation, the sacrament of quest that he try to find a publisher. On the Eucharist, Communion under both Christmas Eve of that year Chemnitz was appearances, the mass, penance, contrition, still reading proof and finding "manifold confession, satisfactions, extreme unction, and most horrible errors" (multiplicia et the sacrament of orders, and matrimony. foedissima errata). 35 The following spring The third part covers the issues of vir­ the first part came out, dedicated to Duke ginity, priestly celibacy, purgatory, and the Albert Frederick (1553-1618), the invocation of the saints. The fourth part youthful son of Duke Albert the Elder. continues the third, with sections on the The second part followed in the same year, relics of the saints, images, indulgences, dedicated to Margrave John of Branden­ fasting, the distinction of foods, and the burg-Gistrin, after Chemnitz' friend, Duke feasts of the calendar. Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, had Since the first edition, there has never refused the honor because of the miIi­ tant commitment of his father, the still 36 In 1578 Berg subscribed the Formula of Concord, but soon began to have doubts about reigning Duke Henry, to the Roman Cath­ the correctness of some of its definitions. He olic party. In 1573 both the third part, corresponded with Reformed theologians like dedicated to Elector John George (1525 Theodore de Beze (1519-1605) in Geneva and with Mark Menning (d. 1584) in Bremen, and to 1598) of Brandenburg, and the fourth in 1580 he formally withdrew his subscription and final part, dedicated to Duke Henry to the Formula in a "Protestation" to the Bruns­ Julius (1554-1613) of Brandenburg­ wick ministerium. In this document he took issue with the Formula on predestination and Wolfenbuttel, the son of Duke Julius, who free will, on the hypostatic union and the ex­ now reigned as a Lutheran in his deceased change of qualities of our Lord's two natures, father's domains, came out. on our Lord's ascension and session, and on the Holy Communion. Cited to answer before the Part One is prefaced with a Narratio de ministerium, Berg was charged by Chemnitz Synodo Nicena versibus exposita ("Narra­ with Calvinism. Berg thereupon changed his mind again, and the city council and the min­ tive Account of the Council of Nicaea Set isterium commanded him to do public penance Forth in Verses"), four solid double-spaced in St. Ulric's Church: He was to kneel through­ pages of hexameters in the Preuss edition, out the sermon at vespers on Trinity XI and thereupon formally to recall his errors. This composed by Matthias Berg, M. A. (1536 he did, but in 1582 he relapsed into Calvinistic ways of thought again, and the city council gave 35 Preuss, "Historia libri impressi," in his him eight days in which to go into exile. Berg edition of the Examen, pp.959-964. The fre­ spent the rest of his life as a professor at the quent dating of the printing of the first part in University of Altdorf. (Rehtmeyer, III, 500 to 1565 is accordingly wrong. 503; appendix, 347-359.) 20 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

been a century in which the Examen was TRANSLATIONS OF THE Examen not republished. Twenty subsequent edi­ From a note that may have been written tions came out in Frankfurt-am-Main (two as early as 1571, it appears that John in 1574, one each in 1576, 1577, 1578, Zanger translated at least a part of the 1585, 1588, and 1590, two in 1596, one Exanzen into German; if the work was each in 1599, 1605, 1606, and 1609, two ever printed, no copies have survived. All in 1615, one each in 1619, 1642, 1690, four parts are included in the stout folio and 1707), plus five in Geneva (1614, German translation by George Nigrinus, 1634, 1641, 1667, and 1668), and one published in 1576/1577_38 Abridged trans­ each In Wittenberg (1598) , Berlin lations into German came out in this (1861), and Leipzig (1915).37 country in 1875,39 and in Germany in 1884.40 37 The information contained in this para­ graph is based on Preuss, pp. 961-962; Mumm, pp.90-91; Gottfried Noth, Grundlinien de)' St. Louis; the publisher is again Paul (us) Raf­ Theologie des lvIartitl Chemnitz, 1930, an un­ feler(us), the page size 9.7 by 15.5 em. It is published holographic copy of a University of quite possible that both of these editions may Erlangen doctoral dissertation (available to this have been reprints of the first part only, occa­ writer in a microfilm copy of the original in the sioned by an increase in the print runs of Parts Universitatsbibliothek, Erlangen), p. ii; a care­ Two through Four in the course of the printing ful review of the holdings of the library of Con­ of the octavo edition of 1574. cordia Seminary in St. Louis; an examination of 38 Examen, das ist, Erorterung dess Triden­ the Library of Congress Union Catalog in Wash­ tinischen Concilii in Latein bescbrieben und in ington, D. c., and of the catalogs of the libraries vier Theil ver/asst, darinn eine starcke vollkom­ of the British Museum in London, the Univer­ mene W iderlegung der /umemmen Hauptpunc­ sity of Erlangen, the University of Marburg, the ten der gantzen papistischen Lehre, auss dem University of Kiel, the University of Bern, Grundt det' H. Schrifft zlnd dem Consens det' Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, the rechtlehrenden V dter z1lsammen getragen und Theological Seminary of Capital University in in ein Bueh veT/aSS! ist, auss dem Latein vel'­ Columbus, Wartburg Theological Seminary in teutsehet dureb Georgium Nigrin1lm (Frank­ Dubuque, the Rock Island (Illinois) Campus furt-am-Main: [Georg Raben}, 1576 [colophon of the Lutheran School of Theology, Northwest­ date: 1577}). This writer has been given gen­ ern Lutheran Theological Seminary in Minne­ erous access to the copy of the Reverend Robert apolis, the Geistliches Ministerium in Greifs­ ,\:Vilken of the Gettysburg (Penn.) Theological wald, and the Societe des Pasteurs et Ministres Seminary faculty. in Neuchatel, and of the catalogs of the Biblio­ 39 Examen Coneilii T1'identini, d. h. Prultmg theque Nationale in Paris, the Deutsche Staats­ des C oncils von T rient, w01'in die Hauptlehren bibliothck in East Berlin, the Bayerische Staats­ des ga,zzen Papstthums sowohl aus den Qttellen bibliothek in Munich, the Herzog-August-Bib­ heiliger Sehri/t als aucb dem Consens der reeht­ liothek in Wolfenbiittel, the Bibliothek der Han­ glaubigen V dter grundlieh lmd vollstdndig wi­ sestadt Liibeck, the Bibliotheque Publique et derlegt werden, a1ls dem Lateinischen aufs neue Universitaire of Geneva, and the Stadtbibliothek ins Deutsche fibertrager, von etliehen luthe­ of Zurich. - The edition of 1576 (so the colo­ risehen Pastoren (St. Louis: 1. Volkening, 1875; phon; the title page gives the date as 1577), not xx, 256 pp.). The translator of the first part, otherwise recorded, is represented by a copy of all that was ever actually published, was Carl Part One in the Universitatsbibliothek Erlangen; Adolf Frank (1846--1922). the publisher is Paul ReHeler (data confirmed 40 Examen Coneilii Tridentini, das ist, Be- in a letter from Bibliotheksrat Dr. Franken­ 1eucbtung und Widerlegung der Beschlusse des berger, dated Feb. 5, 1964). The edition of tridentinischen Konzils, de1llieh bearbeitet von 1577 (so both title-page and colophon), not R. Bendixen in VerbindU1~g mit Chr(istoph} otherwise recorded, is represented by a copy of E(rnst} Lttthardt [l823-1902} (Leipzig: Dorf­ Part One in the Library of Concordia Seminary, fling unJ Franke, 1884; xvi, 487 pp.). THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 21

In 1582 an English translation of the In 1963 the Reverend Frederick H. S. Has­ section on traditions was published in sold, D. D., a retired Lutheran pastor of London by Thomas Purfoot and William Glenside, Australia, brought to a conclusion Pounsonbie under the title A Discoverie his typewritten 2,505-folio translation of and Batterie of the GI°eat Fort of Unwrit­ the Examen into English.4s An abridged ten Traditions: Otherwise} An Examination English translation, which will reproduce of the Counsell of Trelzt Touching the in their entirety Sections I and VIII of Decree of Traditions} done by Marti1Zus the commonplace on Sacred Scriptures and Chemnitius in Latine and translated into the whole of the commonplaces on tradi­ Ellglishe. The translation is dedicated to tions, free will, justification, the sacrament Sir James Altham (died 1617), whom of the Eucharist, the mass, purgatory, and Francis Bacon called "one of the gravest indulgences, with the balance of the Ex­ and most reverend judges of this king­ amelI summarized, is in preparation under dom." 41 On page 85 the translator, identi­ the aegis of the Committee on Scholarly fied only by the initials R. v., promises: Research of The Lutheran Church - Mis­ "The discourse of the Scripture is placed souri Synod. before this of traditions, which, if God In 1588 the then 30-year-old Hungarian will, shall one day be translated also." 42 Lutheran Baron Gergely Horvath of Fels6- Eor published a faithful sentence-by-sen­ H On Altham see the article in The Diction­ ary of Natiollal Biography, I (1885), 348. tence Ivfagyar translation of paragraphs 9 through 11 of Part Four, locus III, section 42 The library of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis has an electrostatic copy of this 85- iii of the Exam en} a discussion of the page book. The translator has not been identi­ legitimacy of images.44 fied. For a number of reasons, this writer would suggest further inquiry into the possibility that Way to Heave1~ and A Good Presedent for the translator may have been the Richard Ven­ nar(d), or Venner, whose career is sketched in Lawyers and All Other Good Cbristiam, the latter part in 1605, dedicated to James I, as The The Dictionary of National Biography, XX True Testimonie 0/ a Faithful Subject, Contain­ (1899), 210-212. (1) For quite a period ing ... a Thanksgiving to God fo·, the Happie before and after 1582, Vennar is apparently the Deliverie of the House of Parliament from tbe only British author known to have published Late Horrible Treason (that is, the Gunpowder under the initials R. V. (2) Just prior to Plot). June 10, 1581, when he was admitted to Lin­ coln's Inn, Vennar had returned to England 43 The typescript of this translation, com­ from a long visit to the Continent, inclllding plete except for some of the prayers in Part Germany. (3) Both Altham, to whom A Dis­ Three, locus IV, sectio ii, has been acquired by coverie is dedicated, and Vennar were lawyers. the Committee on Scholarly Research of The (4) The subsequent course of Vennar's life Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. It has been microfilmed and xeroxed and copies are avail­ would account for his failure to complete, or at least to publish, the promised section of the able for sale to libraries of universities and Examen on the Sacred Scriptures. (5) Vennar theological seminaries. is known to have been anti-Raman-Catholic and 44 Ed. Preuss, pp.771-772. The Magyar to have had, among other interests, a lively in­ title reads: Az kepekrol valo t1tdomany, mely terest in religion. In 1601 Thomas Este of Lon­ Chem1Zit'Z Marton irasabol, kit dMkul ki boc­ don published Vennar's The Right Way to zatot, minden embemek jauara, magyar nyelwre Heaven and the True Testimonie of a Faithful! fordetatot Stansit Hort'at(h} Gergely altaI and Loyall Subject. The first part of this work (Bartfa: N. p., 1588; S unnumbered pages; 21 was reprinted in 1602 under the title The Rigbt em). Each page of the text contains 29 lines. 22 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

The statement is frequently made that ume offered a translation into French of the Examen was translated into French. the third commonplace, on indulgences.46 Actually, this is true only of part of Part Besides these editions and translations, Four. In 1599 the first commonplace of the Examen received additional attention. this part, on the relics of the saints, was Solomon Gesner (1559-1605) made it published in a French translation as an the subject of 18 disputations over which appendix to an edition of John Calvin's he presided at the University of Witten­ Traitte des reliques,45 while another vol- berg; they were published in 1602.47 In 1701 Samuel Benedict Carpzov (1647 to The printer, although not named on the tide page, is certain to have been David GutgeseI, 1707) published the Disputationes isago­ a devoted Lutheran whose press issued other gicae in Chemnitium systematicae et anti­ orthodox Lutheran publications and of whom papisticae ("An Introduction to Chemnitz the chronicle of the city of Bartfa affirms that "he published neither Sacramentarian nor Arian in the Form of Systematic and Antipapistic nor Anabaptist books nor any other heretical Disputations") of John Benedict Carpzov writings." the Elder (1607-1657). In 1736 Theo­ In his 16th year Baron Horvath had begun doric Reimbold published his Historiae a tour that kept him from his homeland for seven years and that took him to Germany eXamt17ts concilii Tridentini specimen (where he attended the Lutheran universities ("A Sample of a History of the Examen of Wittenberg and Strasbourg), Holland, Swit­ C oncilii T ride1Ztini") . zerland (where he studied at the University of Basel and the Academy of Geneva) and Italy. Back in FeIso-Eor, he set up an academy in one THE THEOLOGY OF THE Examen of his casdes, established generous scholarships for poor students, and himself joined the teach­ The theology which underlies the Ex­ ing staff as teacher of dialectics, ethics, and rhet­ amen is that of a second-generation Refor­ oric. At this particular time the number of mation theologian who is both a disciple Roman Catholics in Hungary had declined to a point where they no longer constituted a threat tOilS les corps saincts et reliques ... atdre traitte to the Lutheran movement. More dangerous de reliques contre Ie decret du Concile de Trente, was the rising tide of Reformed influence, and trtuiuit du Latin de M. Chemnicius ... Geneva, Baron Horvath did what he could to stem it. P. de la Roviere, 1599). The volume also in­ Among his polemical works is a multivolume cluded French translations of an anonymous in­ Latin polemic against the Reformed preacher ventory of the relics of Rome (from the Italian) Sebastian (Ambrose) Lam of Kesmark. The and of a similarly anonymous reply to Bellar­ anti-iconoclastic purpose behind Baron Horvath's mine's assertions in favor of relics. The transla­ publication of the Chemnitz excerpt contributed tor is not identified. A second edition of the to the charge of being an image-worshiper that work came out in 1863. the Reformed party brought against him. (The present writer owes this information to the 46 Traitte des indulgences contre Ie decret du kindness of the Reverend Jeno Virag, librarian Concile de Trente; brie/ve consideration sur l'an at the Lutheran Theological Academy in Buda­ du Jubite; Ie vrai et grand pardon general de pest, who in turn states that he derived it from pleniere remission des peches. Traduit du Latin an article by Mikl6s Vertesy in a professional de M. Chemnitz avec une pre/ace (Geneva: 1. librarians' journal. Pastor Virag states that he Choiiet, 1599; 239 pp.). The translator is not has personally examined a surviving copy of identified. Baron Horvath's little translation.) 47 The proponent in the fifth disputation was 45 Jean Calvin, T?aitte des reliques, ou, Ad­ Count Axel Gustafsson Oxenstjerna (1583 to vertissement tresutile du grand profit qui revien­ 1654), who became the chancellor of Sweden droit d la ChYestietlte, s'it se /aisoit inventaire de a decade later. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 23 of Luther and a disciple of Melanchthon. pre-Arminian Holland.49 With this aber­ Put differently, Chemnitz reproduces the ration Chemnitz had no sympathy. theological concerns of Luther with the The second type of Melanchthonian in­ careful precision that the Brunswick super­ heritance we can call "Calixtine." It is intendent had learned from his mentor the moderate, humanistic approach that Melanchthon, for whom he always main­ combined an open commitment to the Lu­ tained a dutiful respect, even when circum­ theran position with a greater degree of stances required him to dissent from some tolerance and of concern for the unity of of Melanchthon's positions.48 the empirical church than many of the One can differentiate three types of representatives of classic Lutheran Ortho­ "Melanchthonianism" in the disciples of doxy commonly displayed. This type of the Praeceptor Germaniae. One type we Melanchthonianism, although it both ante­ can call "Cryptocalvinist." It is the position dated and survived the great Helmstedt that some of Melanchthon's more extreme theologian, found expression in the move­ disciples 1n Wittenberg and elsewhere took ment associated with the name of George when they exaggerated and absolutized Calixtus. 5o incidental elements of Melanchthon's the­ The third type we can call "Chemni­ ology. After the victory of the Formula !ian." On issues where Lutheran and Re­ of Concord forced the representatives of formed theology take different positions this school in many Lutheran territories - even where Reformed theology appeals out of the Lutheran Chutch and into the to a real or fancied agreement with Reformed camp, this theological emphasis Melanchthon for support - Chemnitz helped to give German Reformed Ortho­ takes the Lutheran view on principle, but doxy some of the characteristic features - 49 The relationship of Melanchthonianism to notably a stress upon the universality of German Reformed theology is complex and grace - that differentiate it from the must not be oversimplified, as Heinrich Heppe (1820-1879) did in his day. Concerning him more uncompromisingly predestinarian Karl Barth observes: "According to him it was Reformed Orthodoxy of Switzerland and strangely not Calvin but the later Melanchthon who, taken stricdy, would have to have been the father of Reformed theology" (Barth's in­ 48 Gottfried Noth explores the tension be­ tween the Lutheran and the Melanchthonian ele­ troduction to Heinrich Heppe, Die Dogmatik ments in the theology of Chemnitz in his Grund­ det evangelisch-reformierten Kit-ehe, ed. Ernst zuge der Theologie des Martin Chemnitz (see n. Bizer, 2d ed. [Neukirchen Kreis Moers: Neu­ 37). The three major sections discuss Chemnitz' kirchener Verlag, 1958], p. ix; see Bizer's his­ views of Scripture and tradition (for which torical introduction to this work passim pp. xxxiv-lvi, especially p. xli). Noth draw, heavily on the Bxamen for docu­ mentation), his soteriology, and his sacramental 50 See, for instance, Friedrich Wilhelm doctrine in relation to his Christology. Noth Kantzenbach, Das Ringen urn die Binheit det" examines the same tension in a narrower seg­ Kirehe im lahrhundert der Reformation (Stutt­ ment of Chemnitz' theology in his article, "Pec­ gart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1957), espe­ cata contra conscientiam," in Friedrich Hiibner, cially Chs. III (Me1anchthon) and VII (Calix­ Wilhelm Maurer, and Ernst Kinder, ed., Ge­ tus). The most recent discussion of the role of denksehrift fur D. Werner Blert: Beitrage zur Calixtus is Hermann Schiissler, Georg Calixt: historischen und systematischen Theologie (Ber­ Theologie und Kirehenpolitik - eine Studie lin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1955), pp. 211 ZU1" 6kumenizitat des Luthertums (Wiesbaden: to 219. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1961). 24 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN without the bitter anti-"Philippist"polem­ the writings of the fathers the place that ics of the "Gnesio-Lutherans." Among the they ought to have - and it is one that major representatives of this type of does them honor - as those that have un­ Melanchthonianism are Chemnitz himself folded the meaning of many passages of and his two fellow proteges of Melanch­ Scripture most clearly, that have defended thon among the coauthors of the Formula the ancient dogmas of the church out of of Concord, Nicholas Selnecker and David the Scriptures against the novel corruptions Chytraeus. of the heretics, that have rightly ex­ The "Lutheran" emphases that one plained many passages of doctrine, that would expect to find in Chemnitz are not have recorded many items out of the his­ missing. We shall take our examples ex­ tory of the early church, and in a useful clusively from Part One of the Examen. fashion have given us many additional in­ In his teaching on Sacred Scripture, structions. . . . It is our conviction that Chemnitz may stand as an epitome of the in religious controversies the judge is the historic tension in Lutheran theology be­ Word of God and that afterward there is tween a defensible Biblicism which insists added the confession of the true church." 52 that the Sacred Scriptures are the sole rule Original sin is "in the will a turning and norm of all articles of faith on the away from God and enmity against God, one hand and a profound concern for every in the heart a stubbornness of the disposi­ insight that the tradition of the church tions, and in all of a human being's powers can provide for the proper understanding a horrifying disorder and debasement as far of the divine oracles on the other. Chem­ as divine or spiritual matters are con­ nitz manages to maintain both emphases cerned." 53 The unreborn human being has in a proper balance. Thus against the "wholly lost the power, the strength, and charge that the Lutheran position in the the efficacy or faculty with which to begin matter of relics of the saints is a novelty, and carry out spiritual actions as he should." 54 he declares defiantly: "Our antiquity is The doctrine of the divine forgiveness of: Christ and the Sacred Scriptures." 51 But with equal energy he rejects the charge sins by grace for Christ's sake through that Lutherans "across the board attribute faith - what Lutheran theology techni­ cally describes as "justification" - is central no value to the witness of antiquity, count for Chemnitz. ("The sum total and, as the authority of the Fathers as without it were, the scope of all of the Sacred Scrip­ weight, and weaken the approval, the faith, tures is the remission of sins," he ob­ and the majesty of the church," and he serves.) 55 Justification is "the chief article counters with the declaration: "We give

52 Part One, locus II, sectio vi, pars. 1-2, 51 "Respondemus primo nostram antiquita­ p.8IA. tern esse Christum et sacram scripturam" (Part Four, locus I, sectio iii, par. 15, p. 759A). See 53 Part One, locus III, sectio ii, par. 2, p. also Part One, locus I, sectio viii, par. 2, p. ()()A. I03B. The issue of Scripture-and-tradition receives a 54 Part One, locus VII, sectio iii, par. 1, p. careful treatment in Arthur 1. Olson, "Martin I36B. Chemnitz and the Council of Trent," Dialog, 55 Part Four, locus III, sectio i, capus ii, par. II (1963), 60-67. 1, p. 799A. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 25 of Christian doctrine." 56 Justifying faith we in no way believe that any Christian, is "that instrument or organ through without distinction and without a legiti­ which we seek, lay hold of, accept, and mate vocation, ought or can arrogate to apply to ourselves the mercy of God in himself or exercise the ministry of the the word of the Gospel - of a God who Word and of the sacraments. But just as in takes away sins and receives us to eternal a case of necessity the ancients say that any life on account of His Son, our Medi­ Christian layman can administer the sacra­ ator." 57 We "ought not to attribute to the ment of baptism, so Luther said the same merits of our own works the expiation of thing with reference to absolution in a case our sins or the offering of a propitiation for of necessity where a priest is not to be had, our sins, for this belongs to an office which and he said nothing more than what Peter is exclusively that of Christ, the Mediator. Lombard ... and Gratian ... say about Hence the remission of sins, reconciliation a case of necessity on the basis of the with God, adoption, salvation, and life opinions of the ancients." 59 A little later eternal do not depend on our merits, but on he asserts in the same vein: "God, who they are given gratuitously on account of alone takes away sins, does not do this the merit and the obedience of the Son of without means but through the ministry of God, and they are received through faith. the Word and of the sacraments." 60 The But once we have been reconciled, good fact of baptism does not dispense Christian works thereupon please God through faith lay people from the due reverence to and on account of the Mediator, and so they recognition of the authority of the sacred have spiritual and bodily rewards both in ministry, any more than it dispenses them and after this life." 58 from their due obedience to the political Chemnitz has a high view of the sacred authorities.61 ministry. In connection with his discussion Chemnitz sees values in ascetic disci­ of holy absolution, he says: "Even though plines. He agrees that there is a right kind the keys are given to the church herself, of fasting, which believers can offer as a as the ancients rightly report, nevertheless voluntary sacrifice in their worship of God.62 56 Part One, locus VIII, examen, par. 1, p. 146A. At the same time Chemnitz refuses to make of this doctrine what a later age of com­ 59 Part Two, locus X, examen, par. 1, p. parative theologians would call a "material 453B. See also Treatise on the Authority and principle." While he recognizes the relatedness Primacy of the Pope, 67. of all revelation, he also accepts the multiplicity 60 Part Two, locus X, sectio i, par. 5, p. and the variety of the self-disclosure of God's 454B. See also Augsburg Confession, V, 1-2; being and purposes. XIV; XXVIII, 5-9; Apology, XIII, 7-13; XXVIII, 12-13. 57 Part One, locus IX, sectio ii, par. 1, p. 182A. 61 Part Two, locus II, sectio vi, par. 3, p. 275A. See also Large Catechism, Fourth Com­ 58 Part One, locus X, quaestio iv, par. 1, p. 212B. See also Apology of the Augsburg Con­ mandment, 158-166. fession, IV, 348-372. (So that the reader can 62 Part Four, locus IV, sectio i, caput iii, pp. satisfy himself of the congruence of Chemnitz' 845-849. The final sentence reads: "Si fines position with the Lutheran symbolical books, [jejunii] recte indicentur et explicentur, tunc cross references to the latter are offered in this apud pios talia exercitia sponte sequentur, et and the following footnotes.) tunc etiam fiunt cultus, si ex fide propter veras 26 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

He recognizes that celibacy is some­ according to which He is there in a right thing which individuals with the necessary use of the Sacrament, and (2) that it is gift for it can intentionally undertake and licit to employ the Eucharist in another sets up six rules to guide such persons,6S way and for another use beyond and out­ and he endorses in all its terms the con­ side the one which has the endorsement fession of the fourth-century Council of and command of Christ's institution, as, for Gangra: "The holy church of God with example, that of sacrificing it or reserving humility admires and glorifies virginity, it or carrying it about or exposing it for praises widowhood, and honors and sup­ adoration or for related activities." 66 At ports the chaste bond of marriage." 64 the same time he takes the terms usus and Pious and good, he says, and neither to actio broadly enough to include the primi­ be rejected nor condemned, is the thought tive practice of having the deacons take that the blessed saints in light, even the body and blood of Christ to the absent though they do not know the particular members of the community and the prac­ circumstances of individual persons on tice of some early bishops of Rome of send­ earth, nevertheless pray for the good estate ing part of the Eucharist from their own of Christ's church militant on earth, that celebrations as a symbol of intercommunion they are concerned about the faithful upon to the places in the city where bishops and earth, and that they ask of Christ on behalf priests from Asia and elsewhere were cele­ of the faithful on earth everything good brating the Sacrament of the Altar.67 Even and a final transition for them to their with reference to the ancient practice which company in the heavenly fatherland.65 had communicants take with them from Chemnitz yields not an inch in insist­ the celebration of the Eucharist some of ing on the dynamic character of the Sacra­ the consecrated species for private com­ ment of the Altar and in rejecting "two munion at home (attested as late as Saint major columns supporting the papalist Augustine) and the primitive custom of dominion, namely, (1) that once the words reserving the Sacrament for possible ad­ of institution have been recited over the ministration to the dying, Chemnitz asserts bread even outside the use divinely or­ (although withholding his approval): dained and commanded in our Lord's in­ "We do not condemn those ancients who stitution, Christ, God and man, enters into observed this custom, for they had weighty an enduring conjunction with the bread grounds for doing so by reason of their and remains therein in the very same way times." 68 fines sint voluntaria sacrificia." See also Augs­ 66 Part Two, locus IV, section iii, par. 12, burg Confession, XXVI, 33-39; Apology, XV, p.310A. 46-47. 67 Ibid., par. 14, p. 31OB; sectio vii, par. 12, 63 Part Three, locus I, sectio ii, caput v, pp. p.329. Par. 14, p. 330A: "In hisce exemplis 541-544. See also Apology, XXIII, 36-40. omnibus servatur adhuc usus sive actio a Christo 55. 67-69; XXVII, 21 and 27. instituta. " 64 Part Three, locus I, sectio ii, p. 523B. 68 Ibid., par. 19, p. 331B. John Gerhard 65 Part Three, locus IV, sectio i, par. 19, p. devotes a large part of Chapter XVII, "De repo­ 660A. See also Apology, XXI, 9 and 27; sitione sacramentali," Loci theologici, V, locus Smalcald Articles, Part Two, II, 26. XXI, pars. 191-198, ed. Preuss pp. 180-195, THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 27

We encounter in Chemnitz a profound Communion with a peculiar kind of pres­ Eucharistic piety. Typical is this assertion: ence and grace so that here He truly and "In the Eucharist we receive a most certain substantially conveys to all the communi­ and excellent pledge of our reconciliation cants His body and His blood, although of with God, the forgiveness of sins, immor­ course Chemnitz rejects an adoration of tality, and future glorification. And indee

In the realm of ceremonial, he regards dox theologians of the next century, "rather the dilution of the wine in the Holy Com­ suspicious of scholastic philosophy." 75 munion with a little water as an indifferent His real target is the dogmatic system matter, concedes that our Lord probably emerging at Trent, as he sees it through mixed water with the wine at the first d'Andrada's eyes. The Society of Jesus is Eucharist, and notes that the custom was no longer the novel peril that it appears general (although probably not universal) to be on the pages of the Theologiae Jeslti­ in the ancient church.73 tarum praecipua capita. Even d'Andrada He accepts (recte definit; non male recedes into the background after Part One. definit) the definition of catholicity given Altogether Chemnitz cites an astonishingly in his Commonitory by St. Vincent of small number of Roman Catholic theo­ Lerinum (died before 450) - quod ubi­ logians by name. In the dogmatic system que, quod semper, quod ab omnibus that his adversaries are developing he creditum est - and uses it against his senses the striving of the papacy for su­ opponents a number of times, for instance, premacy that he unhesitatingly calls in connection with the reservation of the "Antichristian" and that since the Gallican Holy Eucharist and the invocation of the movement has been called "ultramontane." saints.74 "Ultimately," he says in one of the bitterest THE METI-IOD OF THE Examen passages of the Examen, "it is all the same [to the papalists} whatever religion any­ Methodologically, Chemnitz follows a body embraces, whether it be that of the general pattern, modified to meet the exi­ philosophers or even that of the Turks, as gencies of the particular issue. He quotes long as the state of their dominion remains .in full the Tridentine statement under dis­ unaffected." 76 cussion. Next he points out the errors that he finds expressed or latent in it. He Chemnitz understands that, as d'Andrada examines these on the basis of the Sacred interprets them for him, Trent's doctrinal Scriptures. Thereupon he considers the decrees ate simply the extension and the papalist rebuttals of his evidence, refutes systematization of a very late medieval the objections, fortifies the lutheran posi­ scholasticism, just as he points out fre- tion with appropriate Biblical arguments, and replies to objections based on an 7;) Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, F1"01Jl Lttther to Kierkegaard, 2d ed. CSt. Louis; Concordia Pub­ appeal to tradition by providing a genetic lishing House, 1963), p. 54. See the dedicatory account of the doctrine or practice at issue. epistle of Part One: "Consuta [sunt} Tridentina Chemnitz emerges from the ExameN, as decreta hoc consilio et hoc fine ut usitatas adulte­ rationes quas ex philosophia male et infe1iciter from his other works, as a Biblical theo­ cum theologia dilutas monachi in ecclesiam in­ logian who is, unlike the lutheran Ortho- vexerunt . . . retinere . . . possint" ( ed. Preuss, p. xi, lines 26-29). 73 Part Two, locus VI, sectio vi, pp.420 to 76 Part One, locus VI, sectio i, par. 5, p. 42l. 124A: "Idem enim [Pontificiis} est, quam­ 74 Part Two, locus IV, sectio vii, par. 6, p. cumque quis re1igionem amplectatur, sive sit 327B; Part Three, locus IV, sectio v, caput iii, philosophica, sive forsan Turcica: modo ipsis par. 21, p.72IB. status regni sui salvus maneat." THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 29 quently that the antithesis which Trent at least as potent a factor as either of the anathematizes is a distorted caricature of other two motives mentioned.77 the reformers' real position. Chemnitz' impressive scholarship reflects His concern is with the issues before the best learning of the times, and he him. His style makes no pretense at prides himself on the fact that he used literary artistry. He has his own vocabu­ original sources which he himself verified lary, which needs to be mastered. He is and did not - as his opponents at times often diffuse and from commonplace to were wont to do - acquire his wisdom commonplace he is frequently redundant only from commentaries and florilegia.78 and repetitious; this may reflect merely a Yet his learning was that of his times and reluctance to wield a blue pencil, but it must be gauged by that criterion. (By the may also indicate an awareness that his same token, in spite of the stimulation that readers are likely to consult his book on an his compendious work gave to theological ad boe basis rather than to read it through. inquiry - notably in the fields of syste­ There are more than a few asides that are matic, polemic, and historical theology - something less than fully germane to his it cannot simply be invoked in the 20th argument. century in the way it could be in the He takes his weapons where he finds 16th.) 79 them. In his masterful use of patristic evi­ It does no discredit to Chemnitz to con­ dence in support of his polemics he stands cede that he was too close to the event squarely in the Lutheran tradition of the of Trent to be able to have a wholly bal­ 16th and 17th centuries exemplified before anced view of the council, its proceedings, him by his mentor Melanchthon and by and its historical significance. The addi- Matthias VlaCi6 (Flacins) (1520-1575) 77 Toward the fathers of the primitive church and by John Gerhard and George Calixtus he exhibits a charitable and dutiful piety that he and Abraham Calovius after him. Lu­ expresses in the principle voiced in connection with a "rash assertion" of St. Epiphanius: "Pu­ therans for whom the appeal to Christian dench patrum praestat tegere quam denudare nisi antiquity seems a betrayal of their nuda adversariorum impudentia veritatem inde op· Seriptwra principle have sometimes stressed pugnantium aliud cogat" (Part Three, locus II, caput iv, par. 25, p. 578A). that Chemnitz is merely catering for the 7:; Part One, locus I, secrio iv, articulus i, willingness of both theologians and the par. 18, p. 25A (replying to the charge that common folk to be impressed by the wit­ "like a debauchee [Chemnitz] operates with ness of the church fathers. They have also mutilated and abbreviated statements of the holy {fathers], to defraud the inexperienced mul­ urged that Chemnitz is merely using a titude"): "Nos vero Dei beneficio et possumus gambit designed to demoralize his oppo­ et solemus auto rum loca inspicere, nec ex solis nents by turning against them the charge commentariis sapere." with which they sought to write off the 79 For example, neither Chemnitz' concern for truth nor his erudition always preserved him Reformation, namely that the reformers from exaggerating the congruity of the Lutheran were innovating. It must be noted, how­ position and that of certain of the fathers whom he adduces or of minimizing the di.fferences be­ ever, that Chemnitz's honest concern to be tween them. On p. 39, n.4, Mumm catalogs standing in the continuity of the church is a few examples. 30 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

tional material that four centuries have It was with reference to the Examen made available enable us to correct many that the papal nuncio Count Bartholomew details, and the scholarly researches into de Portia called Chemnitz "the most im­ the progress of the debates give us a better pious of Lutherans (sceleratissimus Luthe­ understanding of the process by which the ranus) ." 81 Through 1717) Mumm records council arrived at its formulations. Chem­ eleven Roman Catholic replies to Chem­ nitz might divine but he could not foresee nitz' work.82 the course of four centuries of Roman In 1568 the Louvain professor Jodoc Catholic Church history, and the theologi­ Ravesteyn (1506?-1570) published the cal developments implied by the condem­ first part of his Apology; the second part nations of Bajus and Jansenism, by the came out in the year of his death.83 In dogmatic definitions of 1854, 1870, and 1575 William Damasus van der Linde 1950, or by the contemporary impact of (1525-1588), successively Bishop of the Biblical, limrgical, and ecumenical Roermond and of Ghent, came out with movements that have produced the thrust the first of two broadsides against the toward modernization of which Vatican II Exame1Z. 84 The second came Out in 1577.85 is the monument. Chemnitz' references to his adversaries 81 Karl Schellhass, ed., "Die siiddeutsche Nuntiatur des Grafen Bartholomaus von Portia," sometimes sound unduly harsh and un­ in N U??tiaturberichte aus Deutschland, III/3 charitable to the ears of our ecumenically (Berlin: A. Bath, 1896),217; in Elert, Mor­ conditioned age. It is, however, if any­ phologie, I, 251. thing somewhat more restrained than the 82 Mumm, pp. 92-94. 83 Jodocus Ravesteyn, Apologiae seu de/en­ run-of-the-mine polemic diction of the sionis deeretorum concitii T ridentini, quae period. The pejorative opinions that he quidem ad religionem et doctrinam Chris­ expresses about his opponents, their "lies," tianam pertinent, adversus censuras et examen Martini KefMIitii pars prima [-altera) (Louvain: and their "deceptions" is compounded in Petrus Zangrius, 1568-1570) (Schottenloher equal parts of the conventional language 43218). Another edition came out in Cologne of polemical rhetoric and of the passionate in 1608. A projected third part was never pub­ lished. certimde of the rectimde of his own po­ 84 Wilhelmus Damasus Lindanus, Stromattlm sition.so libri tres pro variis sacrosancti concilii Triden­ tini deeretis ac potissimum de suscipiendis una THE ROMAN CATHOLIC REACTION cum divina scriptut'a etiam apostolicis traditioni­ bus et pro panopliae suae evangelicae atque The Roman Catholic response to the apologetici de/ensione contra Martinum Chemni­ Examen was not slow in coming. tium et alios Momos (Cologne: Maternus Choli­ nus, 1575; 71 pp. in folio) ( Schottenloher 80 "With the rigidity of men who knew 43218d). A second edition from the same press, before they started just where their analysis dated 1577, has 264 pages in small-octavo for­ would lead them, the defenders of the faith mat. demolished their opponents without ever meet­ 85 Lindanus, De apostolico virginitatis voto ing them or their arguments. But as it was car­ atque evangelico sacerdotum coelibatu pro de­ ried on by men like Martin Chemnitz ... the jensione s{ancti} concili; Tridentini libri V, polemical theology of these centuries did voice contra Martilli C hemnitii Lutherani superinten­ a testimony that was always firm and sometimes detttis calurrmias (Cologne: Maternus Cholinus, even gentle." (Pelikan, The Riddle 0/ Roman 1577; 24, 259 pp.). A second edition came out Catholicism, p. 218.) at Antwerp in 1579. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 31

The most ambitious reply was that of The nihil obstat (typis mandavi posse d' Andrada himself, under the title Defensio et legi debere censeo) of Bartholomew Tridentinae fidei ("Defense of the Tri­ Ferreira in the name of Henry, Cardinal dentine Faith") .86 His death kept him of Portugal, the supreme inquisitor, which from discussing more than the first five sees Chemnitz and his fellow heretics sessions. His two brothers edited the work "clinging to the remnant of their master, posthumously, and the second volume Satan, who in tempting our Savior Christ promised in the Ad lectorem never ap­ in the desert perversely cited passages of peared. The introduction ends with a the most sacred Scriptures," is dated May 8, somewhat condescending disavowal of 1575. The author dedicated the work to Chemnitz' suggestion that d' Andrada had Gregory XIII (1502-1585). Jerome written his Orthodoxae explicationes at the Osorio (1506-1580), Bishop of Silves behest of the Tridentine fathers.87 in Algarve,88 wrote a commendatory letter as a preface. 86 Didacus Payva Andradius, Defensio Tri­ dentinae fidei catholicae et integenimae quinque An essay on the authority of general Ubfis comprehema adversils haereticorum detes· councils is followed by treatises on the tabiles calumnias et praesertim Martini Chemnitii authority of the Sacred Scriptures and of Germani ([Lisbon: N, p., 1578J). The library of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has an elec­ tradition, on the canonical books, on the trostatic copy of an undated but clearly a very authority of the Vulgate, and on original early edition made from the copy in the library sin and the remnants of original sin or of the theological seminary of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Mequon, Wis­ the concupiscence which is left in the soul consin, with the kind permission of the librarian after Holy Baptism. Four poems by at the latter schooL The imprimatur (censeo Brother Cosmas of the Presentation, 0. S. A., recudi posse) of Gregory de Valentia, S,]., dean of the theological faculty at the University of in tribute to d'Andrada, introduce the book. Ingolstadt, points to that city as the place of The fourth, a decastich addressed to Chem­ publication, but the title page lacks the addition nitz, begins: nunc primum in Germania multo quam antea emendatius impressa ("now printed in Germany Bis, Martine, paras bello certare nefando; for the hrst time in a better form than before") Bis vicrus, Payva bis superante cadis. which appears on the title page of the edition ("Martin, twice you prepare to engage in that David Sartorius printed at Ingolstadt in your criminal warfare, 1580 (16, 500, 12 leaves) (Schottenloher 43219a). In 1580, according to Mumm, Ma· Twice defeated you fall while d'Andrada temus Cholinus of Cologne also printed an edi· twice knows success.") tion, and in 1582 another was put out in Venice. Jacobus Wilhelmus FeuerIin, Bibliotheca sym­ It is d'Andrada's "best work," 89 both bolica evangelica ltttherana, ed. Johannes Bar­ solider and tighter than the Orthodoxae tholomaeus Riederer (Nuremberg: Wolfgangus Schwartzkopf, 1768), II, 157 (No.2078) lists po suisse; tum quia neque synodi sumIDam auc­ a 1590 Cologne edition. toritatem decebat Kemnitii vel nomen curare vel 87 Sed ne mihi eas laudes videar silentio ar­ ineptiis respondere, tum vero quia si id e sua rogare quas in me falso Kemnitius confert tacere esse dignitate arbitraretur, viris abundabat omni non potui, haud, quidem mihi fuisse a sanctis­ eruditionis genere clarissimis qui munus ilIud sima synodo munus aliquod scribendi injunctum, possent pro dignitate explere. ut ille putavit, sed hominum gravissimorum et 88 The seat of the bishop was transferred to cum qui bus maxime mihi necessitudo intercede­ Faro in 1577. bat hortatu decem illos de orthodoxis explica­ 89 So Arthur J. McCaftray in Catholic Ency­ tionibus libros, dum con cilium agitaretur, com- clopedia, I (1907), 469. 32 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN explicationes,9o and quite understandably Gregory de Valentia (1551-1603),94 and it won for him the thanks of the pope. the energetic Jesuit proselytizer John Roman Catholic writers of the present like Kraus (1649-1732) .95 to point out that the work "forced even Of interest chiefly because Mumm, mis­ Chemnitz to proclaim the knowledge and taking the date, lists it as the first Roman the alluring eloquence of his adversary." D1 Catholic reply to the Examen, is the clan­ Others who wrote against the Examen destinely published mid-17th-century work were the ex-Lutheran Caspar Franck of an otherwise unknown Martin Gartner, (1543-1584); 92 Robert Cardinal Bel­ presumed to have been a Roman Catholic larmine (1542-1621), who regards priest, against Chemnitz' treatment of the Chemnitz as one of his major adversaries; 93 Eucharist.96

90 So C. Toussaint in Dictionnaire de the­ 94 Gregorius de Valentia, De rebus fidei hoc ologie catholiqtte, I (1909), 1179, who notes tempore controversis libri qui hactemts extant that Book 5 is of special interest for the large Oinnes, ctim 110nnullis aliis nondum antea editis number of savants' opinions on the Immaculate (Leyden: Haeredes Gulielmi Rovilii [Petrus Conception of the B. V. M. which it assembles. Rolandus], 1591), passim. This collection in­ Of d'Andrada's remaining works a treatise De cludes two works which name Chemnitz on their eonciliorttm potestate and seven volumes of title pages: Disputatio theologica de vera et Portuguese sermons were published, but his /alsa differentia vetet'is et novae legis and De reputation derives from the Orthodoxae explica­ sacrosancto missae sacrificio, both of 1580. See tiones and the De/emio (Cesare Bertola, in De Backer·Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de la Enciclopedia cattolica, 1[1948], 1181), Compagnie de jesus, VIII (1898), 388-400 (Nos. 10, 11, 36). 91 So, for instance, Toussaint, loc, cit., and 1. Loevenbruck, in Dictionnaire de theologie 95 Johannes Kraus, Der abgetuiesene Kraus­ catholique, II (1905),2357. oldus, ader Anttuort aft! den Ge11eral- und Spe­ cialbericht des sogena1z11ten lutherischen Baali­ 92 Caspar Franck, Rettung ttnd Erklarung tenstellers M. Valentini Krausoldi (Prague: dess heyligen algemeinen Tridentinischen Con­ Wolfgang Wickhart, 1717) . His immediate cilii: 1. Von den canonisehen Buchern dess alten target was Krausold's Hinckender Baalit wider tmd netuen Testaments; II. Wie auch dieselbige das Loschhomle (Dresden: Zimmer, 1717), eigentlich solle1z verstanden und aussgelegt 1Oer­ which Krausold had written in defense of Val­ deu, S(impt Erortemng vii anderer notwendigen entin Ernst Loscher's Der abgewiesene Demas. jetziger Zeit strittigen Articttln, wider Martin See De Backer-Sommervogel, IV (1893), 1226 Cbemnitz ttngegriindtes Schreiben und intitu­ to 1227.-An 18-book refutation of the Ex­ fiertes Examen der Deeret des Tridentinischen rl7J1.en which the unfortunate Julius Caesar Vanini Concilii, so von Georg Nigrino verteutscht (In­ (l579?-1619) allegedly wrote in Paris, Apolo­ golstadt: \'Volfgang Eder, 1583; 12 leaves, 216 gia concilii Tridentini contra Chem7litium, ap­ pp.) (Schottenloher 43219c). Following H. pears never to have been printed. Hurter, Nomenclator literarius, 1/2 (Innsbruck, 96 Martinus Gartner, Chem11itius reformatus 1892), 69, Mumm lists a Cologne edition of circa venerabile sacramentum euchal'istiae, hoc 1582. Feuerlin, II, 153 (No. 2033) knows an est, discussio et prof/igatio errorum quibus Mart. Oratio apologetica pro pro/essiol1e fidei juxta Chemnititts in examine concilii T ridentini de­ concilium Tridentinum adversus Chem11itium by formavit orthodoxam doctri1Zam sacramenti Franck, published at Ingolstadt in 1581. eucharistiae (N. p.: N. p., 1666). Mumm, p, 93 Robertus Bellarminus, "Disputationum 92, citing as his authority Christian August Salig . . . de controversis christianae fidei adversus ( 1692-1735), V ollstandige Historie des T ri­ hujus temporis haereticis tomus primus [-quar­ de1Zti1iiscbw C01uiliums, III (Halle, 1745), tus]," in Opera omnia, I-IV (Naples: Josephus 283, gives the date as 1566. This is obviously Giuliano, 1856-1858). The first volume of the wrong, since the dedicatory letter of Part Two Disputationes came out in 1581. of the Examell, which contains the (ommon- THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 33

Some Roman Catholic readers, however, John Olearius (1611-1684), writing in appear to have found the Examen per­ 1661, reports that a few years before a suasive. Among them was a Jesuit-trained learned man, whom he identifies merely by Austrian canon at Sechow in Styria, Fran­ the initials J. R. W., and whom he de­ cis Leopold von Reissing, who had received scribes as "having been educated by the permission to read canonically prohibited Jesuits from his youth and well practiced books. The Examen planted the first seeds in the controversies [between the two con­ of doubt in his mind. They grew until he fessions], was brought by God's help to a finally determined to convert to the Lu­ recognition of the truth of the Gospel theran Church. After two years' imprison­ through the diligent reading of Dr. Martin ment in Rome, the Inquisition sentenced Chemnitz' Examen Concilii Tridentini."98 him to lifelong retirement in the Collegia "J.R. W." is clearly John Roger Weir Santa Maria de Pace. He escaped to Genoa (Weyer), who describes himself (on the and fled on foot via Switzerland to Jena. title page of a dissuasive from conversion Here he was received into the Lutheran to Roman Catholicism which he delivered Church. He later became a Lutheran at the University of Wittenberg in 1653) clergyman, first in Slesvig, then in Blanken­ as Equitttm magister and whom the Rector burg in the Duchy of Oldenburg. After 1715 he drops out of sight. After his con­ Rotermund, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, VI (1819),1747-1748 (wrong, however, in stat­ version to the Lutheran religion he de­ ing that Reissing entered the Jesuit order); clared: "What shall I write about Martin F ranciscus Leopoldus Ii Reissing, "Brevis relatio Chemnitz, to whom, after God, lowe my de horrendo inquisitionis processu," in Fort­ gesetzte SammlU1zg von alten und neuelt theo­ conversion, and whose really unanswer­ logischen Saehen ... auf das lahr 1723 (Leip­ able Examen Concilii Tridentini puts all zig: Joh. Friedr. Brauns Erben [Jacob Andreas Bock], (1723]), 27-43.-Lutherans deplore papalist libraries to shame? ... I confess, the fact that in 1871-1872 Dr. Eduard Preuss, to the highest comfort of my soul, that the distinguished 19th-century editor of the I was converted wholly and entirely Exame'1l, of John Gerhard's Loci, and of John through the reading of the divine Word William Baier's Compendium theologiae posi­ tivae, while a member of the faculty of Concor­ and of the incomparable Examen Concilii dia Seminary, St. Louis, made the opposite transi­ Tridentini - which the papacy has never tion, from the Lutheran religion to Roman altogether succeeded in refuting - by the Catholicism. See Ludwig Fuerbringer, 80 Ever/t­ ful Years (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing highly enlightened and celebrated Dr. Mar­ lishing House, 1944), chapter 26; Preuss' own tin Chemnitz of blessed memory." 97 anonymous Zum Lobe der unbefleekten Emp­ jdngni.rs der alZerseligsten lung/rau (Freiburg­ place on the Eucharist, is dated Dec. 18, 1566. im-Breisgau: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, JOcher-Adelung, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, 1879), pp. 181-227; [Carl Ferdinand Wil­ Fortsetzung, II (1787),1310, gives the date of helm] W [altherJ, "Ein AbfaH," Der Lutheraner, Gartner's work correctly as 1666. XXVIII, 10 (Feb. 15, 1872), 73-75. 97 Georgius Henricus Goetzius, De conversis 98 Johannes Olearius, Die wunderliche Giite pontificiis ex ectione libMz,m [""theri Luthe­ rlns Allerhochsten, welehe Er demm, so Ihm kind­ ranorumque doctorum ad veritatem evangelico­ lich vertrauen, vaterlieh erweiset (Leipzig: Joh. lutheranam perductis schediasma historico-theo­ Wittigauens Wittwe und Friederich Knochen, logica (Leipzig: Christian Emmerich [Literae 1679), p.770. The dedicatory epistle is dated Fuldianae), 1705), pp. 46-47; Jocher-Adelung- 1661. 34 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

Magnificus, Geoffrey Schwab (Suevus) EVALUATIONS OF THE EXL.len (d. 1659), in inviting the Wittenberg Quite understandably, one's denomina­ students to the lecture described as an ex­ tion has through the centuries tended to papalist and a praefectus turmae in the determine the stance one takes toward imperial army.99 He was the brother-in­ Chemnitz' Exaraen. law of the Lutheran educator, historian, and After reading the second part of the doctor of medicine Sylvester Kundtmann Exaraen in manuscript, Lord Andrew von (1595-1656), who recommended to him Meyendorff zu Ummendorff (d. 1583), no the reading of the Sacred Scriptures and mean lay theologian in the opinion of of Chemnitz' Examen. In the revocatory many of his ordained contemporaries, con­ address which he delivered in 1651, Weir gratulated Chemnitz in a letter dated Jan. himself relates that the first time he read 22, 1566: "I do not doubt that your work the Examen though he was still so thor­ will be most useful to the church. For even oughly under Jesuit influence that he though Bl. [Martin] Luther overthrew the "refused to let himself be drawn into the papacy, it is always bent on rising net of the Lord Christ." It was only after again." 101 a period of agnosticism and during a crisis Andrew Tricesius of Cracow (b. 1520), in his life brought on by his experiences a Polish poet, hailed the Examen with a in the Thirty Years' War that the works quatrain preserved in John Gasmer's which his brother-in-law had recommended Oratio de vita, studiis et obitu Martini to him exerted a decisive effect.100 Chemnitii: Chemnitii, Latii pestis saevissima papae, 99 Johannes Rogerius Weir, De non imitando ad vomitum redeunte cane, hoc est, de vitando Vive diu et magni exemplo felicibus ausis, ad Papismum relapsu oratio (Leipzig: Praelum Alcide, Satanae exitiabile confice mon- Ritschianum [l653}), title page and folio 1-3 strum; verso. On p. 13 Weir refers to the Examen of Sic tibi laus surget quae nullo desinet Chemnitz, "the one who overturned the Triden­ aevo. tine conventicle~" ("Long may you live, 0 Chemnitz, the 100 Goetziu5, pp. 11-12, 47. Martin Lipe­ fiercest plague of Rome's pontiff; nius, Bibliotheca realis theologiea (Frankfurt-am­ Main: Johannes Friderici, 1685), p.673, who Let this great work be the pattern of dar­ consistently misspells Weir's name "Weikers," ing deeds no less happy, lists, in addition to De non imitando, 'Weir's Through which, Alcides [that is, Hercules), Latin Dissertatio revocatoria (Leipzig, 1651), you slay the dreadful monster of Satan. the same work in German (Leipzig, n. d.), Des H. Romisehen Reichs Ge/ahr (Leipzig, n. d.), So will well forth to you praise that never and Ursaehen, das Pabsthum Z1t verlassen (Leip­ shall know any ceasing.") 1Q2 zig, n. d.). The second last title is either identi­ cal with or a translation of De perenni periculo Ungedultiges Sehreyen und erbarmliches Wehkla­ S{aneti} Rom{ani} Imperii (Leipzig, 1652), gen lobst. Keddens in etwas gestillet (Leipzig, listed by Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses voll­ 1654), not recorded in de Backer-Sommer­ standiges Univenal-Lexicon, LIV (1747), 1043. vogel. Ursaehen, das Pabsthum zu verlassen may be 101 Rehtmeyer, V, Supplementa, 108. a German vegion of De non imitando, siDce Zeidler gives what is apparently a fuller title, 102 Preuss, "Vita Martini Chemnitii," p.930. Ursaehen, das Pabsttum zu fliehen und zu meiden The Latin of the second line is not wholly (Leipzig, 1653). Zedler also lists a polemic by transparent and admits of various interpreta­ Weir against Jodoc Kedd, S. J. (1597-1657): tions. THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 35

The dean and the professors of the theo­ John Francis Buddeus (1667-1729) logical faculty of the University of Rostock stated that among Lutheran polemical in the Programma sive testimonium pro­ writings against Roman Catholic error, motio12is Martini Chemnitii in doctorem Chemnitz is as important as all the rest ("Diploma or Certificate of the Promotion put together.105 of Martin Chemnitz to the Doctorate"), John George Walch (1693-1775), Lu­ on the Feast of the Visitation, 1568, ther's editor, asserted that Chemnitz' called the then half-published Examen "an "Examen reflects special honor upon our integrated body of true doctrine, to which church, since it is incontrovertibly to be he has added in connection with each regarded as the chiefest work against the article an insightful and energetic refuta­ papists." 106 Elsewhere he observes that tion of errors that militate against that "it is praised as excellent but not diligently truth, partly in the form of most clear and read." 107 absolutely certain evidences from the Frederick Eberhard Rambach (1708 to divine Word and partly from the opinions 1775), in his German version of Sarpi's of the entire ancient church and the old IstOfia insists: "To the present hour the fathers. With singular diligence, faithful­ wound which [the Exame11} administered ness, and judgment he inquired into and to the papacy through its attack on the brought together testimonies and decisions Tridentine Council has not been healed. in the matter of doctrine from every period, The replies of d'Andrada, Ravenstein, van and he read through all the ancient ec­ der Linde, Franck, and Gartner are so clesiastical writers in order to search out shallow and pitiful that they have not the opinion of Christ's Catholic Church for been able in even the slightest degree to the vitally necessary and welcome resolu­ detract from the esteem in which it is tion of the most serious controversies of held." 108 our times and to oppose those who were Henry Schmid (1811-1885) called it camouflaging manifest errors with the "the ablest defence of [the Lutheran posi­ name of the fathers and of the Catholic tion] ever published." 109 Church." 103 105 Johannes Frandscus Buddeus, Isagoge Nathan Chytraeus (1543-1598), historico-theologica ad theologiam universam widely traveled headmaster of the Bremen singulasque partes (Leipzig: Thomas Fritsch, 1727), I, 498: "De ipso autem hocce opere academy and a poet of renown, paid egregio prorsus nihil did potest tam praeclare Chemnitz this tribute: quin multis modis illud superest; estque in hocce Hactenus invicta et nulli vincenda deinceps genere Chemnitius instar omnium." Papicolae, ima ipsi rumpantur ut ilia 106 Johann Georg Walch, Einleitung in die Religions-Streitigkeiten, welche sonderlich atmer papae. der lutherischen Kirche entstanden, II (Jena: ("Never vanquished to date, nor destined Johann Meyers Wittwe, 1734), 813. to yield to a papist, 107 Ibid., p. 795. Whose lower parts are torn open like the 108 Friedrich Eberhard Rambach, ed., Paul Sarpius Historie des Tridentinischen Concilii, V Pontiff's own entrails.") 104 (Halle: Gebauer und Stettinsche Buchhandlung, 1765),473, note x. 103 Rehtmeyer, III, Beylagen, pp.140-14l. 109 Heinrich Schmid, Doctrinal, Theology 0/ 104 Preuss, ibid. the Evangelical Lutheran Church, translated by 36 THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN

Mumm, no uncritical admirer, calls troversialist has expounded the theology of Chemnitz "the most influential of all of the Reformation in a comprehensive Luther's disciples." 110 The popular adage, analysis over against Tridentine Roman Si Mal'til1us 110n fuisset, Martinus vix ste­ Catholicism after a fashion that through tisset, endorses this judgment - "if Martin the centuries has never again been either [Chemnitz} had not come along, Martin repeated or achieved." 115 [Luther] would hardly have survived." 111 Jaroslav Jan Pelikan observes that Otto Ritschl (1860-1944) refers to "Chemnitz' critique of the Council of "the elenctic that the great denominational Trent was based on a depth of patristic polemicists carried on with holy earnest­ scholarship difficult to match. He went ness from the second half of the 16th cen­ through the patristic evidence with care tury on" and credits the Examen with "lay­ and discrimination, sorting out the rele­ ing the foundation for an eminently vant from the irrelevant and demonstrating moderate style that moves along on the that Trent had done violence to the tra­ rails of serene objectivity." 112 dition, while the Reformation had been Although Wilhelm Pauck knows the faithful to the best in the tradition by ExameJZ only on the basis of the abridged being faithful to the Scriptures." 116 Bendixen-Luthardt translation, he declares Franz Lau sees the Examen as "a worthy that "with great thoroughness and without and knowledgeable presentation and cri­ any of the passionate hatred and intem­ tique of the Tridentine decrees, in which perance that had characterized the polemics above all else the evangelical Scriptural of the Reformation age, [Chemnitz} en­ principle is clearly worked out," 117 deavored to prove that the Roman Cath­ Arthur L. Olson describes Chemnitz as olic doctrine was against Scripture and "an important defender of the Reformation the ancient fathers." 113 against the revived energy of Roman J. L. Neve and O. W. Heick refer to Catholicism manifested in the Counter­ Chemnitz' "brilliant" criticism of Trent.11 4 Reformation" and the Examen as a major Ernst Wolf avers that in the Examell work whose "many editions attest to its Chemnitz "in the role of theological con- influential role as a classic . . , criticism of the Council of Trent." 118 Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs, 3d ed. Bengt Hagglund refers to the Examen (1899) (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), p.666. 115 Ernst Wolf, in Neue defttsche Biographie, 110 Mumm, p. 77. III (1957),201. 111 Realencyklopiidie fur protestantische T he­ ologie und Kirche, 3d ed., III (1897), 803. 116 Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Luther the Exposi­ tor: Introduction to the Reformers Exegetical 112 Otto Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestant;'smus, IV ( Gottingen: Vandenhoeck Writings (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing und Ruprecht, 1927), 236. House, c. 1959), p.82. See also his From Lu­ ther to Kie.,kegaard, p. 53, and his The Riddle 113 Wilhelm Pauck, The Heritage of the of Roman Catholicism, p. 52. Reformation, rev. ed. (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 161 and 389, n. 29. 117 Franz Lau, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwal't, 3d ed., I (1957), 1647. 114 J. L. Neve and O. W. Heick, A HislMY of Christian Thollght, I (Philadelphia: The 118 Arthur L. Olson, "Martin Chemnitz," in Muhlenberg Press, c. 1946), 332. Herman A. Preus and Edmund Smits, eds., The THE GENESIS AND THE GENIUS OF THE EXAMEN 37 as "exemplary" as far as interconfessional terpretation, history and dogmatics, it en­ polemics is concerned and as one of Chem­ deavors to oppose each of the decrees of nitz' "great contributions." 119 the Council of Trent," 120 A German A 20th-century European Roman Cath­ Roman Catholic church historian acknowl­ olic appraisal calls the Examen "actually a edges that "through his famed polemical course in theology as practiced by the Lu­ work against Trent, Chemnitz exerted a theran churches. It was so highly regarded century-spanning influence . . . on evan­ that it put its author into the front rank gelical controversial theology as it con­ among the evangelical theologians of the fronted the Roman Catholic Church at the 16th century. Reinforced on a big scale same time that he set forth positively the with arguments taken from Biblical in- evangelical understanding of the faith." 121

Doctrine of Man in Classical Lutheran Theology St. Louis, Mo. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, c. 1962) , pp. 226-227. 120 L. Loevenbruck, in Dictionnaire de the· 119 Bengt Hagglund, Theologins historia: ologie cathoUque, II (1905), 2356. En dogmhistorisk oversikt, 2d ed. (Lund: CWK 121 E. W. Zeeden, in Lexikon fur Theologie Gleerups Fi:irlag, 1963), p.248. 1md Kirche, 2d ed., II (1958), 1044.