# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1858_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24

(From the Erlangen Zeitschrift.)

MENIUS AND FLACIUS IN THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE OFFICE AND THE PRIESTHOOD.

The controversy between Menius and Flacius over the relation of the general priesthood to the public office of preaching is, to my knowledge, the first that was carried on between Lutheran theologians over this point. If for no other reason, it would be worth the trouble to set it forth and evaluate it. But two other circumstances make it important as well: first, the two men who carried it on were still contemporaries of Luther and appeal to his writings; second, one of them, Flacius, counts, in the controversies that arose after Luther's death, as the most significant representative of the Lutheran outlook.

One may, to be sure, not expect from either man a scholarly treatment of the question as here named. It did not yet, at that time, carry the weight that is attached to it today. It was tied to the person of Flacius, to his position and conduct in the disputes that at that time agitated and tore apart the Lutheran church. Under the form of a moral reproach against Flacius, the view of Menius presents itself; under the form of a defense, that of Flacius. The controversy did not unfold beyond this personal sphere into a general investigation of the various principles that it had brought to light

Flacius the Illyrian had, through the resoluteness and force of his struggle against the concessions that the Wittenberg school, out of fear of the emperor, had made to the papacy in the Leipzig Interim, become its most significant opponent and the champion of strict Lutheran doctrine. We know how, out of the controversy over the Leipzig Interim and the adiaphora, or "middle things," other points of controversy branched off; of these, the teaching of Major — "good works are necessary to salvation" — gave occasion to the controversy between Menius and Flacius. Flacius had, namely, at the end of a tract "On Unity," which he published in the year 1556, raised the accusation: "Major and Menius are now again stirring up, in their printed books, the error that good works are necessary to salvation; so that it is to be feared that the last misfortune will be worse than the first."

This accusation Menius then sought to meet in an extremely vehement tract, "Verantwortung J. Menii," 1557 (1556?). Thereupon, in rapid succession, three more polemical tracts were exchanged, still in the year 1557. Flacius wrote: "The Old and New Doctrine of J. Menius, by Way of a Vanguard," and Menius his "Answer to the Vanguard," whereupon Flacius, in his "Apologia against Two Unchristian Writings of J. Menius," sought to substantiate his accusation and to fend off the attacks he had suffered. With that the direct exchange of writings between Menius and Flacius came to an end. Now to the matter itself.