# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1965_S283
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP 283

; 339) oem von den zehn Aussdtzigen. 1521. (WA
mer’ Operationes in Psalmos (WA 5, 352).

15 Enarratio Psalmi II. 1532 [1546] (WA 40, IL, 252).

16 Propositiones ... adversus totam synagogam Sathanae
et universas portas inferorum (WA 30, II, 422).

17 Operationes in Psalmos (WA 5, 327).

18 Vorlesungen iiber 1. Mose von 1535—45 (WA 43, 213).

19 Von den Conciliis und Kirchen (WA 50, 545).

20 Vier tréstliche Psalmen an die Kénigin zu Ungarn
(WA 19, 610).

21 Propositiones, etc. See footnote 16.

22 WA TR 4, No. 4637.

23 Von den Conciliis, etc. (WA 50, 544f.).

24 John Gerhard discusses the question of heresy and
heretics at the end of the section on “The Eccclesiastical Min-
istry” (Loci Theologici, ed. E. Preuss [Berlin, 1867] VI,
261—264). He begins with a discussion of the terms for
heresy and heretic in Greek, Hebrew, and German, and
shows what the concept of heresy and heretic was, first in
the church fathers, then under Roman Catholicism. His
discussion indicates that the definition was never fixed, and
that many foolish views were expressed on the subject, par-
ticularly under the papacy. He quotes with approval state-
ments on the subject by Augustine, and then states his own
view. From his treatment of the subject, which covers six
closely printed columns, we quote what amounts to his
conclusion:

Not all who err with respect to the faith or the interpreta-
tion of Scripture are immediately heretics. For all heretics err
with respect to the faith, but not all who err are immediately
heretics, which Augustine, in the preface of the book Concern-
ing Heresies to Quodvultdeus expresses thus: Not every error is
a heresy, although no heresy, which has its foundation in cor-
ruption, could be a heresy without some error. And elsewhere
he writes: Err I may, a heretic I will not be.

So certain teachers of the church, in explaining certain say-
ings of the Scripture, erred from the proper and genuine sense,
whom nevertheless we cannot at once place in the list of
heretics, since in this life we ‘‘know in part and prophesy in
part,”’ 1 Cor. 13:9.

Consider Augustine ... where he shows that it is one thing
to miss the genuine sense of some passage, and another thing
to depart from the rule of faith. Moreover some, with their
error, do not impinge directly on the foundation of the faith
itself, but, holding fast to the foundation of the church, which
is Christ in His person and office, build on this foundation hay
and stubble, 1 Cor. 3:11 ff., of which kind was the error of
Cyprian concerning rebaptizing those who had been baptized by
heretics, and the error of Augustine that infants should be given
the eucharist, etc. To consider such at once heretics is by no
means proper, since heretics seek a different foundation outside
of Christ, while these build on the foundation the stubble of
erroneous opinions.

Some also number among the heretics those who in their
faith cherish private errors, although they do not disseminate
them, nor labor to draw others to their side. But although such
err with great danger to their souls, nevertheless, speaking ac-
curately and properly, they are not heretics, for these are de-
scribed thus in Holy Scripture, that they come to seduce others,
Matt. 7:15; that they come to the Lord’s sheepfold in order to
steal, to hurt, and to destroy, John 10:10; that they stir up di-
visions and offenses, Rom. 16:17; that not only they themselves
depart from the truth, but also subvert the faith of others,
2 Tim. 3:13; that they bring in damnable sects, 2: Peter 2:1; that
they are deceivers, going out into the world and bringing in
strange doctrines, 2 John 7, 10.

Finally, unless there is added to error, which attacks the
foundation, stubbornness it cannot yet be judged to be and to
be called heresy in the proper sense. For this evil is to be sought
neither wholly in the intellect, nor only in the will. For even
as the true and saving faith embraces at the same time knowl-
edge in the mind, and assent and trust in the will, so heresy
embraces at the same time error in the intellect, and, in the
will, stubbornness. . . . Augustine says, 1.18, De Civitate Dei,
ce. 51: “Those in the Church of Christ who savor anything mor-
bid and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savor
what is wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will
not mend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in
defending them, are heretics.” On the other hand, as the same
man writes (Epist.162): ‘Those who maintain their own
opinion, however false and perverted, without obstinate ill will,
especially those who have not originated their own error by bold
presumption, but received it from parents who had been led
astray and had lapsed, those who seek truth with careful in-
dustry, ready to be corrected when they have found it, are by
no means to be rated among heretics. .. .

Finally Gerhard gives his own view concerning what is to
be considered heresy, and who is to be called a heretic:
From all this it is possible to establish the fact that the
following factors must be present if a person is properly to
be called a heretic: ;
1. He must be a member of the visible church, received
through the sacrament of baptism;

2. He must err in the faith, either that he introduces
a new error, or that he embraces an error which he
has accepted from another (although the former
seems to fit the heresiarch, the latter the heretic) ...

3. That the error impinge directly on the very founda-
tion of the faith;

4, That to the error is joined malice and stubbornness,
through which he, although admonished repeatedly,
nevertheless defends his error obstinately;

5. That he stirs up dissensions and offenses in the
church, and splits its unity.
It is to heretics thus defined that Gerhard then applies the
Scripture passages which have traditionally been quoted
in the Synodical Conference against every form of unionism.

It appears that Dr. C. F. W. Walther, the diligent and
astute student of Gerhard’s Leci, had such a concept of
heretic in mind when in 1852 he formulated the second
thesis of his book, Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage
von Kirche und Amt (Erlangen, 1875): “Zu der Kirche
im eigentlichen Sinne des Wortes gehoert kein Gottloser,
kein Heuchler, kein Unwiedergeborener, kein Ketzer.”

25 In theological parlance a dogma is a teaching estab-
lished by divine revelation and formally defined by the
church through a council or a pope. Cf. Marvin Halverson
and Arthur A. Cohen, eds., A Handbook of Christian The-
ology (New York, 1958), pp. 80f.

26 Werner Elert, Abendmahl und Kirchengemeinschaft in
der alten Kirche hauptsaechlich des Ostens (Berlin, 1954),
pp. 5—22.

27 Apology, VII—VIII, 23.

28 Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, De ecclesia militante, 2,
quoted in Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
(St. Louis, 1954), p. 269.

29 Elert, Abendmahl und Kirchengemeinschaft, pp. 132 f.

30 Unleavened bread was the bread eaten at the Jewish
Passover celebration.

31 NPF, Second Series, XIV, 123—160.

32 Augsburg Confession, VII. This and all following cita-
tions of the Confessions are according to the translation
in BC.

33 Tbid., VIII.

34 Smalcald Articles, XII.

35 Apology, VII—VIII, 5.

36 Augsburg Confession, VII.

37 BC, Preface, p. 3.

38 Jbid., p. 11f.

39 Tbid., p. 12. The Latin reads: “Quemadmodum enim
christiana caritate moti in societatem doloris cum eius
dudum venimus... .”

49 Augsburg Confession, VIII.

41 Herbert J. A. Bouman, “The Doctrine of Justification
in the Lutheran Confessions,’ Concordia Theological
Monthly, XXVI, 11 (Nov., 1955), 804.

42 Formula of Concord, Epitome, X, 7.

43 Apology, VII—VIII, 8.

44 Augsburg Confession, VII.

45 BC, Preface, p. 12.

46 Cf. Jac. Heinbronner, Acta Colloquiit Ratisbonensis
(Regensburg, 1602), pp. 25, 27, 71, 102, 131, 170, 224, 350f.
A similar occasion was the common worship at the opening
of the synod of Sandomierz in 1570, in which representatives
of Polish Calvinism, Polish Lutheranism, and the Unity of
Bohemian Brethren participated. Cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, Obe-
dient Rebels (New York, 1964), p. 147.

47 Cf. Albert Hauck, ed., Herzogs Realenzyklopaedie fuer
protestantische Theologie und Kirche (Leipzig, 1907), XIX,
s. v. “Thorn, Religionsgespraech”: “Wieder eine andere
Differenz betraf die Gebete am Anfange der Sitzungen;
die Katholiken beanspruchten die Abhaltung der gemein-
samen Eroeffnungsgebete fuer sich, waehrend die Lutheraner
[Huelsemann and Abraham Calov were among them] ver-
langten, dass die Parteien darin abwechseln sollten; die
Reformierten gaben den .. . Katholiken nach, die Lutheraner
aber beteten vor jeder Sitzung in ihrer Stube besonders;
doch muss bemerkt werden, dass die Gebetsformel der
Katholiken sich in allgemein-christlichen Ausdruecken hielt
und z. B. die Anrufung Marias und der Heiligen vermied.”

48 Cf. Robert H. Fischer, “The Confessionalism of Amer-