Dedicatory Epistles
DEDICATORY EPISTLES
Translated by H. R. Curtis
To the most serene and most high prince and lord
Lord Christian II
elector and archmarshall of the Holy Roman Empire
duke of Saxony, Jülich, Kleve, and Berg; landgrave of Thuringia;
marquis of Meissen; burgrave of Magdeburg; count in Mark and Ravensberg;
lord in Ravenstein
to my most clement elector and lord
I pray the perpetual grace of God, perennial tranquility of rule, eternal health
of body and soul.
Most serene elector, most high prince, most clement lord! Cassian famously writes (De Incarnat., bk. 1), “When sickness is resurgent, never should the medicine be delayed, but the greater the illness, just so much more steadfastly is the cure sought after.” Doubtless, the mystical Body of Christ once struggled with the grave illness of various heresies. The Church, I say, was most severely oppressed in earlier centuries by Arians, Photinians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and other monsters of the same sort, but when a cure was provided by the Chief Shepherd and Doctor through the patronage of very devout rulers and faithfully teaching doctors—especially Athanasius, Cyril, Augustine, Vigilius, and other ministers—then the Church, freed from these infections and with her health secured, obtained strength.
But, indeed, that same sickness is resurgent today; the infernal dragon breathes out the same infectious virus, even today, from his own throat. Indeed, how I could obscure differences [in doctrine] in a cloud of silence! Nevertheless, these differences are all erroneous opinions. By means of [such obscuring clouds] a great many proclaimed that Nestorianism and Eutychianism themselves were united in the Church by way of reconciliation. But do those more recent [heretics] not threaten a great infection, whether they be Samosatenes or Photinians (whom the public calls Neo-Arians)? [Indeed,] the former are worse and more pestilent by far than the latter! Shall the healing hand stop here? Shall we stand by in silence and watch a great many members of the Church be snatched up by this wild infection and given over to eternal death?
But that it might be evident how altogether infectious the corruption and how virulently cancerous the doctrine of those Photinians is, read on a little and we will consider it, so that, according to the teaching and warning of our Lord, we may know these false prophets by their fruits (Matt. 7:16). Those [heretics] teach that Christ Jesus is not the true, natural, and eternal Son of God, begotten from eternity by the Father; indeed, they deny any sort of preexistence before His nativity from Mary. On the contrary, they assert that Christ is a mere man to whom divine power and knowledge were communicated in time from God the Father. In this sense and respect, [they assert,] He is now and then called “God” and the “Son of God” in the Scriptures. Therefore in this way they attack the eternal generation of the Son, blaspheme against His divinity, and trample the most holy mystery of the Trinity.
It is possible to clearly recognize from the public writings of Laelius and Faustus Socinus, Franciscus Davidis, Gratianus Turpianus,1 Georgius Cracerus, Johannes Sommerus, Christophorus Ostorodus, Valentinus Schmaltzius, and others that this is their genuine doctrine. Let us call them Photinians or Samosatenes or Servetians—it is all the same, in as much as Photinus (according to Augustine, in his book De haeres. ad Quodvultdeum, c. 45, from Philaster) “had followed the doctrine of Paul of Samosata in all things.” Indeed, the same thing may be seen from a comparison of their respective dogmas. Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch around AD 270, taught that “Christ had not always existed, but that there was a beginning for Him—namely, when He was born of Mary—nor that He is anything more than a man.” (This is how Augustine, De haeres., c. 44, describes his heresy.) “[And] he taught that the Word was in God in the same way as goodness, wisdom, and justice are in Him and as a word is in the heart of a man,” that is, he denied that the Word is a person distinct from the Father. ([Cf.] Epiphanius, in Haeres., bk. 2, vol. 2, heresy 45; Tripart., bk. 1, c. 14; Nicephorus, bk. 6, c. 27.) “That heresy (these are the words of Augustine in the place cited above) was at one time taught by a certain Artemonius, but when he had died, it was renewed by Paul and afterward was so strengthened by Photinus that they were called Photinians more widely than Paulists.” Photinus of Sirmium, bishop around AD 345, “used to avoid saying that the nativity and existence of the Son were before the ages; rather, he said that Christ had His beginning from Mary.” ([Cf.] Athanasius, Orat. de salut. adv. Christi. trip., bk. 5, c. 5; Nicephorus, bk. 9, c. 31; etc.) Michael Servetus, the Spaniard, around AD 1532 dreamed that “the Word was a mere idea in the mind of God, not anything subsisting with the Father, and Jesus was a man in the womb of the virgin, conceived and born by the power of the Holy Spirit from the Word—or divine seed—and the flesh of the virgin as from a material.” See his books De Trinitate. Paul of Samosata was condemned in the Synod of Antioch in AD 274; Photinus, in the Council of Sirmium in AD 356 (or, as some have it, 351). Servetus was burned at Geneva in AD 1555.
From all these quotations concerning the relatedness of the doctrine of the Samosatenes, Photinians, and Servetians, it can easily be established, from what follows below, that those recent heretics in Transylvania, Poland, and neighboring regions who attack the divinity of Christ are also able to be called Samosatenes and Photinians and Servetians. Yet they even come near to the insanity of Photinus, for which reason they were not even unwilling to name themselves after him. For thus writes Faustus Socinus (to whom they were accustomed to attribute a great deal) in Disput. de Jesu Christi Filii Dei natura sive exsistentia, nec non de peccatorum per ipsum expiatione adversus Andream Volanum, p. 239, “This Photinus was at one time the bishop of Sirmium, who, it is certain, pointedly defended our exact opinion by word and writings.” What Ostorodus writes in the introduction to his German book also pertains here (the title of this book is Institutio de praecipuis articulis Christianae religionis in regno Poloniae, fol. 12), “One can especially understand from this that our opinion of Christ is not Arian (this begs to be noted by the benevolent reader) because the Arians in their own council condemned Photinus of Sirmium, bishop of that city, together with his doctrine, whose doctrine (with respect to the article about Christ) as it stands in the historical reports was altogether identical to that which is ours today.” Thus far Ostorodus.
Therefore let them be and be called, if it is so agreeable to them, “Photinians”; thus they will be condemned in their Photinus before they were born. For when Ostorodus accuses that Council of Sirmium of Arianism, he is false in part, in as much as there were mixed together not only Arians but also devout and catholic men, such as the bishops Hosius of Cordova, Eusebius of Nicomedia,2 and Marcus Arethusius, the last of which, who afterward received the martyr’s crown, issued an excellent confession of the faith in that council. (See Hilary’s book De synodis; Tripart., bk. 5, c. 6; Sozomen, bk. 4, c. 5; Socrates, bk. 2, c. 29.) Of course, one can produce different confessions of faith issued by that council—one of which supports Arianism, while another is against it. But in respect to the condemnation of Photinus made by that council with the unanimous consensus of its fathers, that condemnation was always held as valid by all the orthodox, not only those of that time but also in later times. But we will not worry about the name of the heresy of the Photinians as much as the doctrine itself.
Therefore let us continue. When the subsistence3 of the Son of God with the Father from eternity is denied, at once His divine nature is denied; when the divine nature of the Son is denied, the mystery of the most holy Trinity is denied; denied also is the eternal person of the Holy Spirit, coessential with both Father and Son. Furthermore, when the divine nature of Christ is denied, the entire mystery of our redemption and satisfaction supplied through Christ is denied. For the Passion and death of a mere man could not have been a sufficient ransom for the sins of the world; the obedience of a mere man could not have promised justification and salvation to the others; the blood of a mere man could not have extinguished the fire of the divine wrath. “If our sins,” says Dr. Luther in De conc. et eccles., German Jena Edition, volume 7, p. 264, “and the wrath of God owed against our sins were stacked on one pan [of a scale] and in another were placed the death of only a human nature, or if only a man had suffered for our sins, then the first pan would sink us down to the lowest hell. But if, indeed, in the opposite pan the Passion of God were placed, the death of God, God’s blood, or were God to suffer and die for us, then this pan would become heavier and more weighty than all our sins and the entire wrath of God.”
Furthermore, when the satisfaction for our sins supplied by Christ is denied, all that remains is to hope to achieve salvation through the merits of our own works, for no other way of salvation exists. When the merit of our works is set forth, the perfect and in all particulars absolute completion of the divine Law is established. When the perfect completion of the Law by ourselves is set forth, the article concerning gratuitous justification through faith in Christ is overturned. “For if it is by works, then it is no longer by grace” (Rom. 11:6). When the foundation of gratuitous justification is undermined and, on the other hand, the merits of our works and the perfect completion of the Law are established, the powers of the free will are claimed to be whole and complete in every way. When the well-being of free will is established, original sin and the propagation of the same in the descendants of Adam is denied; when original sin is denied, the power of Baptism is denied, and this sacred washing is transformed into a mere external rite devoid of any spiritual efficacy. Finally, when the divine nature of Christ is denied, denied also is the true communion of His own saving body and blood in the Holy Supper, nor could the flesh of a mere man be eaten except in a Capernaitic gnawing, much less could the flesh be life-giving. But the flesh of Christ is life-giving because of this: “Because it is the Word’s own flesh, having power to vivify all things,” as the Council of Ephesus, [anathema] 11, rightly declared.
Yet when the satisfaction for our sins that is provided through Christ is denied, when the merit of Christ is denied, when the gratuitous justification through faith in Christ is denied, when the efficaciousness of Baptism is denied, when the presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Supper is denied, what of hope (I ask), what of consolation, indeed, what of salvation is left for us miserable people? Nevertheless all those Photinians baldly and without any euphemism or whitewash propose, spread, and defend in public writings these monstrous ravings—for they are ravings more than errors—that completely overturn the very foundation of salvation. They recently have arrived at such a state of audacity and impudence that they were not afraid to dedicate a certain catechism published at Racovia to the illustrious academy at Wittenberg and to send and commend the same to the most high Senate of Gotha.
Here and now the bars of that religious silence that orthodox teachers, not without reason, have used up till now must be burst. Here and now, with all force, we must stand in the way of their raving. Here and now, the healing hand must be applied, and with as much zeal as is possible that poisonous crop must be crushed underfoot at the first weed.
Although others might be aware of my inadequacy, I am just as conscious of it. Nor does it escape me that other theologians with whom I ought not be compared in any way in matters of erudition, authority, and experience train in this palaestra and, indeed, will continue training further. Nevertheless I, too, wish to bestow my own little contribution for the use of the Church. Therefore, offering a series of disputations in this first volume, I intend to argue widely against the Photinians and, indeed, against their first lie, with which they attack the eternal generation of the Word from the Father and His personal subsistence. That reverend and most celebrated man, Lord Friedrich Baldwin, the exceptional doctor of theology, professor of the same at the Academy of Wittenberg, and superintendent of the church there, my lord and singularly honorable friend, kindly added the following words of public judgment concerning my little scribbles in his own writings and spurred me on to this task not a little: “In your most holy work you neglect nothing worth examining in the Racovian Catechism concerning the teaching of others; so continue and bring this treatise to public light as quickly as possible, and you will make a work pleasing to God and useful to the Church of Christ, moreover one that is honorable for yourself and salutary for those who either hear or read you.” So far his words. I wanted to place these words, which appear in his own hand on the frontispiece shield of this writing, before all disparagers.
Moreover, Most Serene Elector, I must, as your most humble subject, dedicate this first volume of Theological Commonplaces to Your Highness for a great many weighty reasons. I was born twenty-seven years ago in Quedlinburg, Saxony, which little town rejoices in Your Most Serene Highness’s rule and protection. I was instructed for a three-year period at Your Most Serene Highness’s illustrious Academy of Wittenberg, which I rightly revere as the mother of my studies, inasmuch as she sent me, when first I had drunk the milk of heavenly doctrine, on to other academies elsewhere. Indeed, [I dedicate this volume] to the illustrious House of Saxony, especially to the illustrious and most high prince and lord, Lord Johann Kasimir, duke of Saxony, Jülich, Kleve, and Berg; landgrave of Thuringia; marquis of Meissen; etc. Over the course of four years, my services as your most humble subject have thus far been rendered to my prince and most clement benefactor in churches and school; and, as I hope and pray, they have not been altogether without fruit. Finally, these humble services go forth armed with the privilege of Your Electoral and Most Serene Highness. Therefore to Your Most Serene Highness, as the illustrious head of the House of Saxony, these few pages were rightly owed. Their author freely acknowledges that he owes all things in every way to this same man. Whatever this, my teaching, seemed to do for publicly strengthening that consensus which the most illustrious House of Saxony today protects (both in all other matters as well as in the highest position of religion, by the singular grace of God) against all the hostile divisions that tear at its roots, still all good and peaceful men pray with continuous sighs that [this house] would protect it further.
Take up, therefore, Most Serene Elector, Most Clement Lord, this writing, which I present as a small gift, and open it, so that some light might be procured for this little work from the splendor of the name that has been current among all men for a long time now because of the proven zeal for heavenly truth, the singular specimens of magnificent munificence in the churches and schools, the provident conservation of public peace, the sincere administration of justice, and the other heroic virtues worthy for the Elector, Your Most Serene Highness. [Take it up also] that even more men may be incited to unfurl its scroll.
May our God, who is mightily exalted among the shields of the earth (Ps. 47:[9]), give to Your Most Serene Highness long life, secure rule, a safe home, powerful armies, a faithful senate, an upright populace, a peaceful world, and whatever things constitute the wishes of a man and prince (with which words they were accustomed to supplicate God for the health of the emperors in the early Church, as Tertullian bears witness, Apolog., c. 30).
Written at Heldburg on the first of April, 1610,
to Your Most Serene Highness,
from your most humble subject,
Johann Gerhard, doctor
1 A pseudonym for Faustus Socinus.
2 Gerhard is apparently in error. Unlike Hosius of Cordova and Marcus Arethusius, Eusebius of Nicomedia (who died ca. AD 341) was one of the foremost proponents of Arianism.
3 That is, hypostasis, person.