Torgau Articles (1574)

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In addition to the more well-known Torgau articles , a preliminary work for the Confessio Augustana of 1530, the Torgau article also refers to a commitment to the Lord's Supper, which in 1574 led to the exclusion of the followers of Philipp Melanchthon , the so-called Philippists , in Electoral Saxony in connection with the Second Communion dispute .

Elector August of Saxony , who had supported the Philippists for a long time, turned increasingly to the Gnesiolutherans after the Bartholomew Night . After the publication of the Exegesis perspicua by Joachim Cureus and the discovery of a conspiratorial correspondence between his councilors Georg Cracow and Caspar Peucer and the court preacher Christian Schütz , he decided to take action against the Philippists. So he left for the state legislature in Torgau convened a commission in May 1574 which published a series of articles, the orthodoxy of as on the basis of crypto Calvinist suspected theologians should be noted. Although the articles developed primarily by Heinrich Salmuth , Paul Crell and Martin Mirus endeavored to convey the doctrine of the Last Supper by Melanchthon and Luther, the Wittenberg professors Friedrich Widebram , Heinrich Moller , Caspar Cruciger the Younger and Christoph Pezel refused to sign what was required August 1574 led to her release. In September 1574 the articles were printed in Wittenberg and distributed to the Saxon parish offices. All theologians and scholarship holders had to sign them in order not to lose their offices or scholarships.

The articles consist of four questions about the doctrine of the Lord's Supper of the "Exegesis perspicua" as well as a confessional text, which authoritatively defines the correct doctrine of the Lord's Supper in ten positive statements and 20 rejections. They claim to be a binding interpretation of the Consensus Dresdensis of 1571. The positions of the spiritualists Andreas Karlstadt and Caspar Schwenckfeld are rejected as well as those of the Reformed theologians Ulrich Zwingli , Johannes Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger .

The Torgau Articles should not be confused with the Torgau Book or Torgian Book of 1576, which, as a preliminary stage of the Bergisch Book, formed the basis for the Concord formula .

text

  • Torgau article (1574), edited by Henning Jürgens. In: Irene Dingel (ed.): The debate about the Wittenberg doctrine of the Lord's Supper and Christology (1570–1574) (= Controversia et Confessio 8). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008. pp. 1090–1152.

literature

  • Irene Dingel: The Torgauer Article (1574) as an attempt to mediate between the theology of Luther and Melanchthon . In: Hans-Jörg Nieden (Ed.): Praxis pietatis. Contributions to theology and piety in the early modern period. Wolfgang Sommer for his 60th birthday . Stuttgart u. a .: Kohlhammer 1999. ISBN 978-3-17-015981-5 . Pp. 119-134.
  • Johannes Hund: The Word became flesh: a systematic-theological investigation into the debate about the Wittenberg Christology and the doctrine of the Lord's Supper in the years 1567 and 1574 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006. ISBN 9783525563441 , esp. Pp. 630–644.