# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S96
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

96    Church News of the Day.

concealed behind it, whether imagined or merely fabricated — for this Löhe immediately supplies, in what follows, a striking proof. Into his chiliastic notions there fits, namely, nothing less than the truth so clearly and decidedly attested on the Lutheran side, that the Pope at Rome is the true Antichrist. How does he now handle this? He declares simply: "The passages in the Smalcald Articles have not made upon me the impression that Luther meant thereby to set up a Protestant dogma, and to require of the church that one must recognize the Pope as the Antichrist prophesied in Holy Scripture. There have been Antichrists among the popes, just as there have been, and are, enough antichrists — in the sense of St. John — among the bishops and pastors of other churches, including the Protestant ones; but one can no more call all popes, than one can call all bishops and pastors in general, Antichrists. It is moreover evident that among the antichrists there is One, a personal one, a man of sin, a son of perdition, named by St. Paul, who must not be confused with all the remaining antichrists, however much fellowship he may have with them and they with him. What does it help, in all the world — we cannot deny it — that the Antichrist of Daniel and of Paul is a single person living at the end of the age, whom neither Luther nor we ourselves know or can recognize, because he did not live to see the end of the age, and we do not know whether we shall live to see it. Were one, therefore, to take dogmatically the passages of the symbolical books in which the Antichristendom of the Pope is spoken of, one would have to break Scripture and set up and assert something that cannot be maintained." So says Löhe — who nonetheless boldly asserts that he agrees with the symbolical books not so far as (quatenus), but because (quia) they correspond to the divine Word. Yet this is how the relevant passages in the Smalcald Articles actually read: "This point shows powerfully that he (the Pope) is the true end-Christ or anti-Christ, who has set and exalted himself over and against Christ, because he will not allow Christians to be saved without his authority — which, however, is nothing, being neither ordained nor commanded by God. This is, properly speaking, to set oneself up above God and against God, as St. Paul says, 2 Thess. 12:4 [sic, printed thus; recte 2:4]." Part 2, Art. 4. And at the beginning, "Of the Power and Authority of the Pope": "So also all the vices foretold in Holy Scripture concerning the Antichrist agree with the Pope's kingdom and its members. For Paul, when he depicts the Antichrist, 2 Thess. 2, calls him an adversary of Christ, who exalts himself above everything that is called God or worship, so that he sits in the temple of God as a god, and gives himself out to be a god, etc. Here Paul speaks of one who rules in the church, and not of worldly kings, and calls him an adversary of Christ, because he will devise another doctrine, and because he will presume to claim all this for himself, as though he did it by divine right. Now, first, this is true: that the Pope rules in the church, and under the pretense of spiritual authority has brought such dominion upon himself, for he grounds himself on these words: 'I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' Secondly, the Pope's teaching is in every way against the Gospel. Thirdly, that he pretends to be God is to be noted in three particulars. First, that he presumes to alter the teaching of Christ and the true worship instituted by God Himself, and wishes his own teaching and self-devised worship to be held as though God Himself had commanded it. Secondly, that he presumes the authority to bind and to loose, not only in this temporal life, but also in that life to come. Thirdly, that the Pope will not suffer the church, or anyone else, to judge him, but his authority is to stand above all councils and the whole church. But this is to make oneself God, when one will suffer the judgment neither of the church nor of anyone else. Lastly, the Pope has also defended such error and godless conduct with unjust force and murder, in that he has had all those killed who did not agree with him in every particular. Since this is so, all Christians should most diligently guard themselves against becoming partakers of such godless doctrine, blasphemy, and unjust cruelty, but should rather withdraw from the Pope and his members or following, as from the kingdom of the Antichrist, and curse it." And again: "Yes, one ought, out of necessity, to set oneself against him as the true Antichrist."

There one can see how cheaply, given sufficient boldness, the clearest, most definite, most explicit testimonies can be disposed of with the pronouncement: those are not symbolical propositions, not symbolical decisions. So does a man act — and indeed with the pretension of standing at the pure mean of a correct estimation of the symbols, while others, who had earlier been pushed forward by him, are said to have overreached themselves and now overrate the symbols — a man who, years ago, bound his own emissaries by a handshake, in place of an oath, not to depart from our precious Concordia of the year 1580 in "either small or great," or else to lay down their Lutheran preaching office, should they no longer fully agree with it and be unable to regain such agreement through prayer and the searching of Scripture. Where, then, is the fidelity? With the false, hypocritical pretension, or with holding fast to an obligation undertaken out of conviction — must even such precious bonds be torn asunder over this?    C.