Recent from talks
Crypto-Calvinism
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Crypto-Calvinism
Crypto-Calvinism is a pejorative term describing a segment of those members of the Lutheran Church in Germany who were accused of secretly subscribing to Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist in the decades immediately after the death of Martin Luther in 1546. It denotes what was seen as a hidden (crypto- from Greek: κρύπτω meaning "to hide, conceal, to be hid") Calvinist belief, i.e., the doctrines of John Calvin, by members of the Lutheran Church. The term crypto-Calvinist in Lutheranism was preceded by terms Zwinglian and Sacramentarian. Also, Jansenism has been accused of crypto-Calvinism by Roman Catholics.
Martin Luther had controversies with "Sacramentarians", and he published against them, for example, in his The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics and Confession Concerning Christ's Supper. Philipp I of Hessen arranged the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, but no agreement could be reached concerning the doctrine of Real Presence. Subsequently, the Wittenberg Concord of 1536 was signed, but this attempt at resolving the issue ultimately failed.
While Lutheranism had weakened after the Schmalkaldic War and Interim controversies, the Calvinist Reformation was spreading across Europe. Calvinists wanted to help Lutherans to give up "remnants of popery", as they saw it. By this time Calvinism had expanded its influence to southern Germany (not least because of the work of Martin Bucer), but the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had given religious freedom in Germany only to Lutherans, and it was not officially extended to Calvinists until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, had, in 1549, accepted Calvin's much less radical view of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper (that is, that the Eucharist was more than a sign and that Christ was truly present in it and was received by faith), Calvinist theologians thought that Lutheran theology also had changed its view of the Real Presence because the issue was not discussed anymore, and Philippist teaching gave some justification to this conclusion.
Beginning in the 20th century, some scholars began using the term crypto-Philippist in place of the word crypto-Calvinist. However, there is no change in the meaning of the term.
When Luther died in 1546, his closest friend and ally, Philipp Melanchthon, became the leading Lutheran theologian of the Protestant Reformation. He was by training not a theologian but rather a classics scholar, and his theological approach became more or less irenic both toward Catholicism and toward Calvinism, an approach that his disciples, called Philippists, also followed. This attitude towards the Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist had become evident already in 1540, when Melanchthon had published another version of the Augsburg Confession ("Variata"), in which the article on the Real Presence differed essentially from what had been expressed in 1530. The wording is as follows:
The altered edition was made the basis of negotiations with the Roman Catholics at the Colloquies of Worms and Ratisbon in 1541, and at the later Colloquies in 1546 and 1557. It was printed (with the title and preface of the Invariata) in Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum in 1559; it was expressly approved by the Lutheran princes at the Convention of Naumburg in 1561, after Melanchthon's death, as an improved modification and authentic interpretation of the Confession, and was adhered to by the Melanchthonians and the Reformed even after the adoption of the Book of Concord (1580). John Calvin also signed it. However, it did not have the legal status given to the original version by the Peace of Augsburg.
The Real Presence for Luther was beyond any doubt: The host consecrated is Christ's body, while for Melanchthon the words spoken during the establishment by Jesus only promised that his body and blood were received. Melanchthon rejected the doctrine of ubiquity and spoke about the personal presence of Christ in the Eucharist, without any further definitions[citation needed]. The theology of Melanchthon's school in general was opposed by Lutherans, who were called Flacians by their opponents.[citation needed] Later they were called "Gnesio-Lutherans". Matthias Flacius had been the leader against Philippism in earlier controversies, but even Gnesio-Lutherans did not pay much attention to the doctrine of the Eucharist until Joachim Westphal began, in 1552, to write against those who denied the Real Presence. When John Calvin himself answered him in 1555, there was open, inter-Protestant controversy about Eucharist, which involved Lasco, Bullinger, Ochino, Valerandus Polanus, Beza, and Bibliander on the Reformed side and Timann, Heshusius Paul von Eitzen, Schnepff, E. Alberus, Gallus, Flacius, Judex, Brenz, and Andreä on the Lutheran side. The Colloquy of Worms in 1557 was an attempt to achieve unity among Lutherans, but it failed.
During these controversies the State Church of the Electorate of the Palatinate, where Philippism predominated, changed from the Lutheran to the Reformed faith under Frederick III (1560). The Heidelberg Catechism, which was written there, was also meant to form bridges between Lutherans and Reformed in Germany – one of its authors, Zacharias Ursinus, was Melanchthon's disciple.
Hub AI
Crypto-Calvinism AI simulator
(@Crypto-Calvinism_simulator)
Crypto-Calvinism
Crypto-Calvinism is a pejorative term describing a segment of those members of the Lutheran Church in Germany who were accused of secretly subscribing to Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist in the decades immediately after the death of Martin Luther in 1546. It denotes what was seen as a hidden (crypto- from Greek: κρύπτω meaning "to hide, conceal, to be hid") Calvinist belief, i.e., the doctrines of John Calvin, by members of the Lutheran Church. The term crypto-Calvinist in Lutheranism was preceded by terms Zwinglian and Sacramentarian. Also, Jansenism has been accused of crypto-Calvinism by Roman Catholics.
Martin Luther had controversies with "Sacramentarians", and he published against them, for example, in his The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics and Confession Concerning Christ's Supper. Philipp I of Hessen arranged the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, but no agreement could be reached concerning the doctrine of Real Presence. Subsequently, the Wittenberg Concord of 1536 was signed, but this attempt at resolving the issue ultimately failed.
While Lutheranism had weakened after the Schmalkaldic War and Interim controversies, the Calvinist Reformation was spreading across Europe. Calvinists wanted to help Lutherans to give up "remnants of popery", as they saw it. By this time Calvinism had expanded its influence to southern Germany (not least because of the work of Martin Bucer), but the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had given religious freedom in Germany only to Lutherans, and it was not officially extended to Calvinists until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, had, in 1549, accepted Calvin's much less radical view of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper (that is, that the Eucharist was more than a sign and that Christ was truly present in it and was received by faith), Calvinist theologians thought that Lutheran theology also had changed its view of the Real Presence because the issue was not discussed anymore, and Philippist teaching gave some justification to this conclusion.
Beginning in the 20th century, some scholars began using the term crypto-Philippist in place of the word crypto-Calvinist. However, there is no change in the meaning of the term.
When Luther died in 1546, his closest friend and ally, Philipp Melanchthon, became the leading Lutheran theologian of the Protestant Reformation. He was by training not a theologian but rather a classics scholar, and his theological approach became more or less irenic both toward Catholicism and toward Calvinism, an approach that his disciples, called Philippists, also followed. This attitude towards the Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist had become evident already in 1540, when Melanchthon had published another version of the Augsburg Confession ("Variata"), in which the article on the Real Presence differed essentially from what had been expressed in 1530. The wording is as follows:
The altered edition was made the basis of negotiations with the Roman Catholics at the Colloquies of Worms and Ratisbon in 1541, and at the later Colloquies in 1546 and 1557. It was printed (with the title and preface of the Invariata) in Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum in 1559; it was expressly approved by the Lutheran princes at the Convention of Naumburg in 1561, after Melanchthon's death, as an improved modification and authentic interpretation of the Confession, and was adhered to by the Melanchthonians and the Reformed even after the adoption of the Book of Concord (1580). John Calvin also signed it. However, it did not have the legal status given to the original version by the Peace of Augsburg.
The Real Presence for Luther was beyond any doubt: The host consecrated is Christ's body, while for Melanchthon the words spoken during the establishment by Jesus only promised that his body and blood were received. Melanchthon rejected the doctrine of ubiquity and spoke about the personal presence of Christ in the Eucharist, without any further definitions[citation needed]. The theology of Melanchthon's school in general was opposed by Lutherans, who were called Flacians by their opponents.[citation needed] Later they were called "Gnesio-Lutherans". Matthias Flacius had been the leader against Philippism in earlier controversies, but even Gnesio-Lutherans did not pay much attention to the doctrine of the Eucharist until Joachim Westphal began, in 1552, to write against those who denied the Real Presence. When John Calvin himself answered him in 1555, there was open, inter-Protestant controversy about Eucharist, which involved Lasco, Bullinger, Ochino, Valerandus Polanus, Beza, and Bibliander on the Reformed side and Timann, Heshusius Paul von Eitzen, Schnepff, E. Alberus, Gallus, Flacius, Judex, Brenz, and Andreä on the Lutheran side. The Colloquy of Worms in 1557 was an attempt to achieve unity among Lutherans, but it failed.
During these controversies the State Church of the Electorate of the Palatinate, where Philippism predominated, changed from the Lutheran to the Reformed faith under Frederick III (1560). The Heidelberg Catechism, which was written there, was also meant to form bridges between Lutherans and Reformed in Germany – one of its authors, Zacharias Ursinus, was Melanchthon's disciple.