Second sacrament controversy

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The second sacrament controversy was waged during the Reformation in Germany between Lutherans and Reformed and within the Lutheran churches between Gnesian Lutherans and Philippists .

After the slowdown in the first Reformation Supper dispute between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli and their followers came in the 1550s to a renewed outbreak of the conflict. The occasion was the publication of the Consensus Tigurinus concluded in 1549 between Heinrich Bullinger and Jean Calvin in 1551 , with which Calvin, whose doctrine of the Lord's Supper had initially been accepted by the Lutherans, had approached the Zwinglian view. The Hamburg theologian Joachim Westphal published an attack on Calvin in 1552; this defended himself in 1555 with a Defensio sanae et orthodoxae doctrinae , whereupon he from the Lutheran side u. a. was attacked by Erhard Schnepf , Johannes Brenz and Nikolaus Amsdorf . For Calvin's position, in addition to Bullinger et al. a. also Johannes a Lasco and Theodor Beza .

As in the dispute between Luther and Zwingli, the main subject of the controversy was the real presence of the body of Christ, which the Gnesiolutherans in particular did not see as sufficiently secured in Calvin. One of the main arguments was the doctrine of ubiquity , through which one could counter Calvin's argument that Christ's body could not be materialite (purely material) on earth.

In connection with this dispute there were also attacks on Philipp Melanchthon and his followers, the "Philippists", who are known to be cryptocalvinism , i. H. accused an approach to the understanding of the Lord's Supper. Melanchthon himself tried to come to an agreement through correspondence with Calvin, but shied away from clearly taking sides. However, some Philippists such as Albert Hardenberg in Bremen went over to the Calvinist camp, as did the Palatinate Elector Friedrich the Pious , who in 1560 dismissed the Gnesio-Lutheran general superintendent Tilemann Hesshus and assigned his territory to Calvinism.

Only with the agreement on the concord formula , which was admittedly not signed by all parties involved, was there a certain settlement of the doctrinal disputes within Lutheranism in 1577.

literature

  • Ernst Bizer : Studies on the history of the Lord's Supper dispute in the 16th century. 3rd unchanged edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1972, ISBN 3-534-05929-8 ( contributions to the promotion of Christian theology 46).
  • Wilhelm H. Neuser : The second sacrament controversy . In: Handbook of the history of dogmas and theology, 2nd ed. Carl Andresen , 2nd edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, pp. 272–285.