§ 135. Calvin and the Astrologers.
§ 135. Calvin and the Astrologers.
Calvin: Advertissement contre l’astrologie qu’on appelle justiciaire: et autres curiosités qui régnent aujourdhuis dans le monde. Genève, 1549 (56 pp.). The French text is reprinted in Opera, vol. VII. 509–542. Admonitio adversus astrologiam quam judiciariam vocant; aliasque praeterea curiositates nonnullas, quae hodie in universam fere orbem grassantur, 1549. The Latin translation is by Fr. Hottman, sieur de Villiers, at that time secretary of Calvin, who dictated to him the work in French. The Latin text is reprinted in the Amsterdam ed., vol. IX. 500–509. An English translation: An Admonition against Astrology, Judiciall and other curiosities that reigne now in the world, by Goddred Gylby, appeared in London without date, and is mentioned by Henry, III. Beil. 212. Comp. Henry, II. 391 sq.
Calvin’s clear, acute, and independent intellect was in advance of the crude superstitions of his age. He wrote a warning against judicial astrology980 or divination, which presumes to pronounce judgment upon a man’s character or destiny as written in the stars. This spurious science, which had wandered from Babylon981 to ancient Rome and from heathen Rome to the Christian Church, flourished especially in Italy and France at the very time when other superstitions were shaken to the base. Several popes of the Renaissance—Sixtus IV., Julius II., Leo X., Paul III. were addicted to it, but Pico della Mirandola wrote a book against it. King Francis I. dismissed his physician because he was not sufficiently skilled in this science. The Duchess Renata of Ferrara consulted, even in her later years, the astrologer Luc Guaric. The court of Catherine de Medici made extensive use of this and other black arts, so that the Church and the State had to interfere.
But more remarkable is the fact that such an enlightened scholar as Melanchthon should have anxiously watched the constellations for their supposed bearing upon human events. Lelio Sozini was at a loss to know whether Melanchthon depended most on the stars, or on their Maker and Ruler.982 In this respect Luther, notwithstanding his strong belief in witchcraft and personal encounters with the devil, was in advance of his more learned friend, and refuted his astrological calculation of the nativity of Cicero with the Scripture fact of Esau’s and Jacob’s birth in the same hour. Yet he regarded the comets, or "harlot stars," as he called them, as tokens of God’s wrath, or as works of the devil. Zwingli saw in Halley’s comet, which appeared a few weeks before the disaster of Cappel, a sign of war and of his own death. The independent and heretical Servetus believed and practised astrology and wrote a defence of it (Apologetica Disceptatio pro Astrologia).
Nothing of this kind is found in Calvin. He denounced the attempt to reveal what God has hidden, and to seek him outside of his revealed will, as an impious presumption and a satanic delusion. It is right and proper, he maintains, to study the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies.983 True astronomy leads to the praise of God’s wisdom and majesty; but astrology upsets the moral order. God is sovereign in his gifts and not bound to any necessity of nature. He has foreordained all things by his eternal decree. Sometimes sixty thousand men fall in one battle; are they therefore born under the same star? It is true the sun works upon the earth, and heat and dearth, rain and storm come down from the skies, but the wickedness of man proceeds from his will. The astrologers appealed to the first chapter of Genesis and to the prophet Jeremiah, who calls the stars signs, but Calvin met them by quoting Isa. 44:25: "who frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad." In conclusion he rejects the whole theory and practice of astrology as not only superfluous and useless, but even pernicious.984
In the same tract he ridicules the alchemists, and incidentally exhibits a considerable amount of secular learning.
Calvin discredited also the ingenious speculations of Pseudo-Dionysius on the Celestial Hierarchy, as "mere babbling," adding that the author of that book, which was sanctioned by Thomas Aquinas and Dante, spoke like a man descended from heaven and giving an account of things he had seen with his own eyes; while Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven, did not deem it lawful for man to utter the secret things he had seen and heard.985
Calvin might have made his task easier if he had accepted the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which was known in his time, though only as a hypothesis.986
But in this matter Calvin was no more in advance of his age than any other divine. He believed that "the whole heaven moves around the earth," and declared it preposterous to set the conjecture of a man against the authority of God, who in the first chapter of Genesis had pointed out the relation of the sun and moon to the earth. Luther speaks with contempt of that upstart astronomer who wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy and the sacred Scripture, which tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth. Melanchthon condemned the system in his treatise on the "Elements of Physics," published six years after the death of Copernicus, and cited against it the witness of the eyes, which inform us that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours; and passages from the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, which assert that the earth stands fast and that the sun moves around it. He suggests severe measures to restrain such impious teaching as that of Copernicus.
But we must remember that the Copernican theory was opposed by philosophers as well as theologians of all creeds for nearly a hundred years, under the notion that it contradicts the testimony of the senses and the geocentric teaching of the Bible. When towards the close of the sixteenth century Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) became a convert to the Copernican theory, and with his rude telescope discovered the satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, he was denounced as a heretic, summoned before the Inquisition at Rome and commanded by Bellarmin, the standard theologian of the papacy, to abandon his error, and to teach that the earth is the immovable centre of the universe (Feb. 26, 1616). The Congregation of the Index, moved by Pope Paul V., rendered the decree that "the doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false, and entirely contrary to the Holy Scripture," and condemned the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, which affirm the motion of the earth. They remained on the Index Purgatorius till the time of Benedict XIV. Even after the triumph of the Copernican system in the scientific world, there were respectable theologians, like John Owen and John Wesley, who found it inconsistent with their theory of inspiration, and rejected it as a delusive and arbitrary hypothesis tending towards infidelity. "E pur si muove," the earth does move for all that!
There can be no contradiction between the Bible and science; for the Bible is not a book of astronomy or geology or science; but a book of religion, teaching the relation of the world and man to God; and when it touches upon the heavenly bodies, it uses the phenomenal popular language without pronouncing judgment for or against any scientific theory.
This characteristic expression he uses repeatedly; for instance, in the work on the Necessity of Reforming the Church, in Opera, VI. 503: "Canis, si quam suo domino violentiam inferri viderit, protinus latrabit: nos tot sacrilegiis violari sacrum Dei nomen taciti aspiceremus? Et ubi esset illud: Opprobria exprobantium tibi ceciderunt super me (Ps. 69:9)?" And, again in the same book (fol. 507), with the addition, that a dog would rather risk his life than be silent.
In applying the epithet nebulo to Castellio, he translates it by the French un brouillon, which means a confused and turbulent fellow (not a scamp). Schweizer renders it Wirrkopf (I. 212).
Isa. 56:10; Matt. 7:6; Phil. 3:2; Rev. 22:15.
Henry says (II. 289) that Pighius was converted by Calvin’s argument, but be died (December, 1542) before Calvin’s reply was published (February, 1543). The story rests on the authority of Crakanthorpe, who asserts, in his Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae, that Pighius by reading Calvin’s Institutes for the purpose of refuting them, became himself a Calvinist in one of the chief articles of faith (he does not say which). The story has been long ago rejected by Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renovati, III. § 60. Comp. Dyer, p. 160.
Sponte et libenter, interiore electionis motu.
See the remarks of Schweizer on the value of this controversy, l.c., I. 198.
The successive changes are marked in the editions of his Loci Theologici, 1525, 1535, 1544, 1548. See above, p. 548.
"Et quidem scio, haec cum tuis congruere, sed sunt pacuvtera, et ad usum accommodata." He also refers to Basil’s saying: movnonqevlhson, kai; qeo;" proapanta'. Calvin’s Opera, XI. 539-542. Melanchthon’s letters are usually interspersed with Greek words and sentences.
Cons. Genev.: "Paulo post librum editum, moritur Pighius. Ergo ne cani mortuo insultarem, ad alias lucubrationes me converti." He characterizes Pighius as a "homo phrenetica plane audacia praeditus," because he attempted to establish the freedom of man, and to overthrow the secret counsel of God, by which he elects some to salvation and others to eternal ruin (alios aeterno exitio destinat). It is no excuse for Calvin’s insulting language on a dead enemy that St. Jerome said of his former friend Rufinus: "The scorpion now lies under ground!" Among Polemic theologians charity is a great rarity.
See pp. 398-413; 452-466.
Apologia Calvini contra Cochlaeum.
Brevis et utilis zoographia Joh. Cochlaei, 1549. Reprinted in Baum’s Beza, I. 357-363.
The Emperor presented him with fifty crowns; King Ferdinand, with five hund-red thaler. Janssen, III. 625. Comp. G. Kawerau (a specialist in the history of the Lutheran Reformation), Johann Agricola von Eisleben, Berlin, 1881.
Letter of July 18, 1550, quoted in § 90, pp. 395 sq. Dyer decidedly defends Melanchthon in this adiaphoristic controversy, and makes the following remark (p. 240): "What a prospect do these squabbles hold out for the future union of the Protestant Church! A silly and scandalous, we had almost said, a childish, quarrel about a surplice and a few minor ceremonies divides the Protestants into hostile factions at the moment of their most eminent peril! With such feelings, how should they hope in quieter times to arrange those more serious questions, which turned on really important points of doctrine?"
For a description of the character of Moritz, see Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, vol. V. 160 sqq. (6th ed. 1881).
The holy coat is still at Treves, and was worshipped by many thousands of devout pilgrims in the year of our Lord 1891!
Bulaeus, Historia Univ. Paris., VI. 384, and the French text in Opera, vol, VII., Proleg., pp. ix-xii.
" ’Hoc facite.’ Facere autem est sacrificare, justa illud Vergilii: Quum faciam vitulâpro frugibus, ipse venito.’ " (Verg.E. III. 77.)
This refers to the mediaeval legend which has found its way into Dante’s Divina Comedia (Purg. X. 75; Par. XX. 109-111), that the Emperor Trajan, nearly five hundred years after his death, was disinterred, and his soul translated from hell to heaven by the prayers of Pope Gregory I., who had learned that he was a just emperor, although he persecuted the Christians. But the pope was punished for his interest in a heathen, and warned by an angel never to make a similar request. Trajan is the only pagan in Dante’s Paradise.
Bonnet (I. 418, note) conjectures that it was Louis du Chemin, or Francois Daniel.
Opera, XII. 61.
Opera, VI. 617-644.
On Bullinger’s views see above, pp. 210 sq., and Schweizer, I. 225, 255 sqq.
Beza: "Senatus ... illum tum ut seditiosum, tum ut mere Pelagianum XXIII. Dec. publice damnatum urbe expulit, fustuariam poenam minatus, si vel in urbe vel in urbis territorio esset deprehensus." Reg. of the Ven. Comp. in Annal. 498: "MeIerosme fut banni àson de trompe des terres de Genève."
According to Beza, Bolsec forsook his wife and allowed her to become a prostitute to the canons of Autun.
Bayle said in his day: "Bolsec seroit un homme tout-à-fait plongédans les ténèbres de l’oubli, s’il ne s’était rendu fameux par certains ouvrages satiriques [meaning his attacks on Calvin and Beza], que les moines et les missionnaires citent encore." In recent times Galiffe and Audin have come up to the defence of Bolsec, but have been refuted by Henri L. Bordier in La France Protestante, II. 766 sqq., and in L’ecole historique de Jérôme Bolsec, Paris, 1880. Schweizer (I. 207) calls those libels "ersonnene Verleumdungen, wie rechtschaffene Katholiken laengst zugeben, anderen aber gut genug zum Wiederabdrucken."
Apologia illustris D. Jacobi a Burgundia Fallesii Bredanique domini, qua apud Imperatoriam Majestatem inustas sibi criminationes diluit fideique suae confessionem edit. In Opera, X. Pt. I. 269-294.
It was published at Amsterdam in a separate volume, 1774, and is reprinted in the Opera and in the collection of Bonnet. Comp. on Calvin’s friendship with De Falais, Henry, III. 64-69; Stähelin, II. 293-302.
Bolsec, in his life of Calvin, invented, among other slanders, the story that the real cause of De Falais’ leaving Geneva was an attempt of Calvin on the chastity of his wife!
He wrote to Caspar Peucer, his son-in-law, Feb. 1, 1552: "Lelius mihi scribit, tanta esse Genevae certamina de Stoica necessitate, ut carceri inclusus sit quidam [Bolsec] a Zenone [Calvino] dissentiens. O rem miseram! Doctrina salutaris obscuratur peregrinis disputationibus." Mel.’s Opera (Corp. Ref.), vol. VII. 932. To his friend Camerarius he wrote, under the same date, Feb. 1, 1552 (VII. 930): "Hic Polonus a Lelio accepit literas .... Ac vide seculi furores, certamina Allobrogica [Genevensia] de Stoica necessitate tanta sunt, ut carceri inclusus sit quidam, qui a Zenone dissentit. Lelius narrat, se korufaivw/cuidam [Calvino] scripsisse, ne tam vehementer pugnet. Et mitiores sunt Tigurini."
His French name is Bastien de Chatillon or Chateillon. He assumed, not without vanity, the classical name Castalio with allusion to the Castalian fountain at the foot of Parnassus. The usual spelling is Castellio. His precise origin is uncertain. He was either a Frenchman or a Savoyard. He was numbered with the liberal anti-calvinistic Italians, and charged with using a corrupt French dialect. See Bayle, l.c., and Schweizer, I. 311.
Stähelin (II. 303) calls him "ein rationalistischer Gefühlstheologe mit ausgeprägt aesthetischem Anstrich."
The latter is Beza’s explanation, Vita Calv. in Annal., Opera, XXI. 134.
"Carmen obscoenum et lascivum, quo Salomo impudicos suos amores descripserit." Comp. Reg. du Conseil, Jan. 28, 1544, in Annal. 329.
Calvin, in his catechism, explains the descensus ad inferos to mean the suffering of the "dolores mortis" (Acts 2:24) or "horribiles angustias" on the cross in behalf of the elect. This unhistorical exposition passed into the Heidelberg Catechism, Quaest. 44: "Christ, my Lord, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, and terrors, which he suffered in his soul on the cross and before, has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell." The true meaning of the clause is, that the descent was an event which took place between the death and the resurrection of Christ. Comp. 1 Pet. 3:19; 4:6; Eph. 4:9.
See Reg. du Conseil, Jan. 14, 1544, quoted in Annal. 328.
Extract from Reg. du Conseil, April 12, 1544, in Annal. 333.
May 31, Annal. 336.
This is the report of Beza: "ex urbe excedere jussus est;" but Castellio seems to have remained in Geneva till July 14. See Reg. du Conseil, in Annal, 340.
Trechsel, Antitrinitarier, I. 219; Stähelin, II. 304.
He wrote to Zanchi at Chiavenna, March 17, 1564: "Optime factum, quod Basileae mortuus est Castellio." Quoted by Trechsel, I. 214, from the Simler Collection in Zürich.
De haereticis an sint persequendi, et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, doctorum virorum tum veterum tum recentiorum sententiae. Liber hoc tam turbulento tempore pernecessarius. Magdeburgi, per Georg. Rausch, 1554, mense martio, 173 pp. 80. I copy the title of the book (which I have not seen) from La France Prot., IV. 130. The writer of this article and Baum attribute the book to Castellio, but Schweizer, I. 315 sq., shows that he wrote only a part of it. Comp. Buisson, l.c., I. 358 sqq., and II. 1 sqq.
"Conseil àla France désolée, auquel est montrée la cause de la guerre présente et le remède qui y pourroit être mis, et principalement est avisési on doit forcer les consciences." The writer in La France Prot., IV. 135-138, gives large extracts from this exceedingly rare tract. See also Buisson, II. 225 sqq.
Henry, II. 422; Schweizer, I. 293.
On the Italian refugees in the Grisons, and in Zürich, see above, §§ 38, 39, and 40; and Trechsel, l.c., II. 64 sqq.
See above, pp. 156 and 162, and C. Schmidt, Peter MartyrVermigli. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, Elberfeld, 1858 (p. 296). Vergerio, the former bishop of Capo d’Istria and papal nuncio, is also numbered among the orthodox Italians, but he had no settled opinions, and was no theologian in the proper sense. See above, § 38, pp. 144 sqq. E. Tremellio, a converted Jew of Ferrara (1510-1580), one of the most learned Orientalists, was a Calvinist.
As a "carmen cantillando magis aptum, quam confessionis formula." In his tract De vera Ecclesiae reformatione. Comp. § 82, pp. 351 sq.
oujsiva, uJpovstasi", provswpon, essentia, substantia, persona, etc., and other terms of the Nicene age.
"Inexplicabilis curiositas," as he called it, adding: "Utinam non simul accederet phrenetica quaedam protervia." Letter to Bullinger, Aug. 7, 1554 (Opera, XV. 208).
Ep. 1212 in Opera, VIII. 307-311. We have in all four letters of Calvin to the elder Socinus, and one from Socinus to Calvin.
Opera, XIII. 337 sq.
Ep. 1323 in Opera, XIII. 484-487.
Opera, XIV. 228. The answer of Calvin in the Geneva library is without date. Bonnet, who first published it (II. 315), puts it at the end of 1551; but it probably belongs to the beginning of 1552. See Melanchthon’s letters of Feb. 1, 1552, in which he mentions Laelio’s reports about Bolsec’s treatment, quoted p. 621, note.
As may be inferred from a postscript to his letter to Bullinger, dated Geneva, April 19, 1554, in Trechsel, II. 437.
Responsio ad aliquot Laelii Socini Senensis quaestiones, printed among the Consilia theologica, in Opera, vol. X. 160-165. Comp. vol. XV. 642.
Ep. 2876 in Opera, XVII. 181 sq. Henry, III. Beilage, 128 sq., first published this letter of recommendation, but misdated it, June, 1553. Laelius did not start on his last journey to Italy before 1558.
Trechsel, II. 166, thus describes the personal relationship: "So manche Erfahrung von Calvin’s Schroffheit Lelio sowohl an sich selbst als an andern gemacht hatte, so war doch nichts im Stande, sein achtungsvolles Zutrauen zu dem ausserordentlichen Manne zu schwächen. Gerade wie ein Pol den entgegensetzten anzieht, so wurde Lelio’s negative Natur von der positiven Calvin’s unaufhörlich angezogen, so konnte der Mann des Zweifels aus einer Art von Instinkt nicht umhin, bei dem Felsenmann des Glaubens, der mit beispielloser Kühnheit und Consequenz die Tiefen der Gottheit erforschte, gleichsam seine Ergänzung zu suchen, ohne dass die totale Divergenz beider Naturen eine Uebereinstimmung des Denkens und der Ansichten jemals erwarten liess."
Also spelled Occhino, in Latin Ocellus.
Boverius (ad ann. 1535): "Bernardinus divinis et humanis literas non mediocriter imbutus."
Sand, Seckendorf, C. Schmidt (in Herzog), and others, state that the pope made Ochino his confessor; but this is without support, and intrinsically improbable. See Benrath, 33 sq. (German ed.).
"Predicava con ispirito grande che faceva piagnere i sassi." Some wrongly attribute this saying of Rosso to the Emperor Charles V., who heard Ochino at Naples. Benrath, 24, note.
He was then the historiographer of Venice, but was soon afterwards created cardinal by Paul III., March 24, 1539.
Caraffa, the restorer of the Inquisition, ascribed his conversion to impure motives, but without evidence. On these calumnies see Benrath, pp. 170 sq. Audin (ch. XLV.), drawing on his imagination, says that Ochino, tempted by the demon of doubt and pride, fled to Geneva with a young girl whom he had seduced!
Colonna sent him afterwards through a messenger some means of support to Switzerland, as we learn from a letter of Bullinger.
Quoted in Italian by Trechsel, II. 203, in German by Benrath, p. 169.
"Le chiese sono purgatissime da ogni idolatria." This testimony is confirmed by Vergerio, Farel, Knox, and others. See § 110, pp. 516 sqq.
Prediche, Geneva, 1542-1544, several editions also in Latin, French, German, and English. See Benrath, pp. 374 sq., and his summary of the contents, pp. 175 sqq.
He wrote to Pellican, April 19, 1543: "Quoniam Italicis plerisque ingeniis non multum fido ..., contuli cum eo diligenter .... Hoc testimonium pio et sancto viro visum est .... Est enim praestanti et ingenio et doctrina et sanctitate." Opera, XI. 528.
Opera, XI. 447 sq. Comp. letter to Viret, October, 1542, ibid. 458: "Bernardus noster miris machinis impetitus est, ut nobis abduceretur: constanter tamen perstat."
"Magnum et praeclarum virum, qui suo discessu non parum Italiam commovit." Opera, XI. 517.
"Bern. Senensis, vir nuper in Italia magni nominis, dignus certe qui habeatur ubique in pretio." Opera, XII. 135. Benrath (192) gives the wrong date of this letter, viz. 1542,—probably a typographical error.
Benrath, p. 194. We know nothing of his wife and children, not even their names. An old monk is not well fitted for a happy family life.
The book was translated from Latin into English by Dr. John Ponnet, afterwards bishop of Winchester, and published in London, 1549. Benrath gives a good summary, pp. 215 sqq.
"Seculi nostri decus." Benrath, 364 sq.
I learn from Schelhorn (III. 2152), that this dialogue appeared in an English translation, "by a Person of Quality," in London, 1657.
The correspondence of the two books has been proven by Schelhorn, l.c., III. 2140 sqq., and I. 631 sqq. Bucer was suspected of being concealed under the Neobulus, but he denied it. See Schelhorn, I. 634.
His wife died in consequence of an accident shortly before the Dialogues were published. Benrath, p. 307.
Spongia adversus aspergines Bernardini Ochini, etc., printed in Hottinger’s Historia Eccles. N. Ti., and in Schelhorn, III. 2157-2194.
From a letter of Knibb to Bullinger, Easter, 1564, in the Simler Collection in Zürich. Trechsel, II. 265; Benrath, 315.
"Absque Christi cognitions, licet non sine Christo, aliquos salutem adipisci." Letter of Vergerio to Bullinger (Tübingen, Sept. 6, 1554), quoted by Trechsel, I. 217. Vergerio denounced Curio to the Swiss Churches. See his letters to Amerbach, in Trechsel, II. 463-465.
De amplitudine beati regni Dei dialogi II. Printed at Poschiavo in the Grisons, 1554.
Dr. Charles Hodge (Syst. Theol. III. 879 sq.) says: "We have reason to believe, as urged in the first volume of this work, and as often urged elsewhere, that the number of the finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will be very inconsiderable."
Trechsel, II. 356.
Ad questiones Blandratae responsum, 1558. See Lit. in § 127.
See on this last chapter in the history of Gentile, Trechsel, II. 355-380.
"Dolendum est quum nos pauci numero idem profiteamur evangelium, sacrae coenae occasione, quam praecipuum inter nos unitatis vinculum esse decebat, in varios sententias distrahi. Sed hoc longe atrocius, non minus hostiliter confligere quam si nihil esset nobis eum Christo commune." Opera, XVI, 429. Planck, the impartial Lutheran historian, calls the sacramental controversy "die aergerlichste aller Streitigkeiten" (l.c., V. I. p. 1).
Opera, IX. 47.
Historia vituli aurei Aaronis Exod. 32 ad nostra tempora et controversias accommodata, Magdeburg, 1549.
See the remarks of the Strassburg editors in vol. IX. Proleg. p. x. There are really only two Reformed theories on the Eucharist—the Zwinglian and the Calvinistic, and the latter was embodied in all the Reformed Confessions. A Lutheran polemic of the seventeenth century conclusively proved to his own satisfaction that "the cursed Calvinistic heretics hold six hundred and sixty-six theses in common with the Turks!"
Farrago confusanearum et inter se dissidentium opinionum de Coena Domini ex Sacramentariorum libris congesta. Magdeburg, 1552 (a small pamphlet, with a preface).
Recta fides de Coena Domini, Magdeburg, 1553. This was followed by Collectanea sententiarum Aurelii Augustini de Coena Domini, Ratisbon, 1555 (the preface is dated September, 1554), and Fides Cyrilli de praesentia corporis et sanguinis Christi, Frankfort, 1555.
A full account in Joh. Utenhoven (who accompanied à Lasco), Simplex et fidelis narratio, etc. Basil., 1560. The spirit of this rare book may be judged from the concluding sentence (quoted by Dalton who examined a copy in Cracow): "In conclusion let us pray all the pious for Christ’s sake not to harbor any hatred against those who have thus persecuted us in our affliction, and not to call fire from heaven as James and John did for the refusal of hospitality, but rather to pray for them that they may repent and be saved." See extracts in Planck, l.c., 36 sqq., and H. Dalton, Johannes àLasco (Gotha, 1881), 427 sqq. Mönckeberg attempts to apologize for Westphal, but without effect. Dorner says (l.c., 401, note): "Westphal wird zum Selbstankläger in der Vorrede zu der Collectanea aus Augustin, rühmt die That der Unbarmherzigkeit als eine gute That, und stellt Nebuchadnezzar als Vorbild für solche Fälle auf."
Adversus cujusdam Sacramentarii falsam criminationem justa defensio, Frankfort, 1555.
Opera, XVI. 552.
The Catholica Refutatio Augustanae Confessionis of Drs. Eck, Faber, and Cochlaeus says: "Decimus articulus [of the Augsburg Confession] in verbis nihil offendit si modo credant [the Lutheran signers], sub qualibet specie integrum Christum esse."
Comp. his letters to Schnepf, Agricola, and Brenz, from the years 1534 and 1535; Matthes, Leben Melanchthons, p. 349; C. Schmidt, Philipp Melanchthon, pp. 680 sqq.
Luther did not object to the change. When he broke out more fiercely than ever against the Swiss, in his "Short Confession on the Holy Sacrament" (1544), Melanchthon, in a letter to Bullinger, called this book not unjustly "atrocissimum scriptum." See vol. VI. 654 sq.
"De Confessione Augustana sic respondeo, verbulum in ea, qualis Ratisponae edita fuit, non exstare doctrinae nostrae contrarium." Opera, IX. 148. Comp. his letter to Schalling at Ratisbon, March, 1557, quoted on p. 377, note (Opera, XVI. 430).
"Solum quod dixi et quidem centies si opus sit, confirmo, non magis a me Philippum quam a propriis visceribus in hac causa posse divelli." Opera, IX. 149.
He refers to their meeting at Frankfurt, which took place in 1539, seven years before Luther’s death and five years before his last book against the Sacramentarians. See above, § 90, pp. 388 sq.
The other leaders of the anti-Melanchthonian ultra-Lutheranism were Amsdorf (d. 1565), Westphal (d. 1574), Flacius (d. 1575), Judex (d. 1574), Jimann (d. 1557), Gallus (d. 1570), and Wigand (d. 1587). The chief pupils of Melanchthon were Eber (d. 1569), Cruciger (d. 1548) and his son (d. 1575), Camerarius (d. 1574), Peucer, Krell, Pezel, Pfeffinger, Hardenberg, Major, Menius. One of the noblest traits of Luther was his hearty appreciation of Melanchthon to the end of his life, notwithstanding the marked difference. His narrow followers entirely lacked this element of liberality and generosity. Comp. Dorner, Geschichte der protest. Theologie, pp. 330 sqq.
I coin this word from the Lutheran formula cum, in, and sub pane et vino. The usual designation "consubstantiation" is repudiated by Lutherans in the sense of impanation or local inclusion.
Planck and Heppe give him a bad character, and charge him with inordinate ambition and avarice. According to Heppe he was, einer der widerwärtigsten lutherischen Pfaffen seiner Zeit." Hackenschmidt judges him more mildly as a consistent advocate of the tendency which makes no distinction between religion and theology, church authority and police force. The Strassburg editors (Opera, IX. Prol. p. xii.) call him a "vir imperiosus et filoneikovtato"." Bullinger compared him to the Homeric Thersites, who was despised for scurrility.
See § 133, p. 669.
Planck, vol. V. Part II. 383 sqq.
He wrote to him: "Oro, si statuisti respondere, respondeas ad argumenta, diligenter preterita persona illa Thersitis homerici."
See § 90, p. 398.
· Responsio ad praejudicium Philippi Melanchthonis, 1560.
980 Astrologia judiciaria as distinct from astrologia naturalis, or simply astrologia.
981 Hence "Chaldaei," "mathematici," "astrologi," were identical terms.
982 He wrote to Bullinger from Wittenberg, Aug. 20, 1550: "Omnes ab uno Melanchthone [pendent], qui Astrologiae judiciariae fuit addictus, et unus ille ab astrisne magis, an ab astrorum conditore ac domino pendeat, ignoro." Quoted by, Trechsel, Antitrin. II. 164, note 4.
983 Comp. Inst. I. ch. V. §§ 2 and 5, where he speaks highly of astronomy.
984 "Curiositas non modo supervacanea et ad nullam rem utilis, verum etiam exitiosa."
985 Inst. Bk. I. ch. XIV. § 4.
986 Copernicus finished his work De Orbium colestium Revolutionibus in 1530, and dedicated it to the pope; but it was not published till 1543, by Osiander of Nürnberg, to whom he had given the manuscript, and who announced the discovery in the preface as a mere hypothesis. He received a copy on his death-bed at Frauenburg on the borders of Prussia and Poland. He was probably a devout man, and is often credited with the prayer graven on his tombstone: "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul; not that given to Peter; give me only the favor which thou didst show to the thief on the cross" ("non parem Pauli gratiam requiro," etc.); but this inscription is taken from a poem of Aeneas Sylvius De Passione Domini, and was put upon the monument of Copernicus at Thorn by Dr. Melchior Pyrnesius (1589). Copernicus is there represented with folded hands before a crucifix. See Prowe’s work on Coper-nicus, and Luthardt in the "Theol. Literaturblatt" for April 22, 1892 (p. 188).