LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 276

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276 SUPPLEMENT TO CTCR REPORT

However Luther, like Augustine, also knows a sub-
jective side of heresy. On this subject he writes:

... They [scil. heretics] are not conquered by the power
of evidence, they do not permit themselves to be led
by reason, also they are not won through the reputation
of others, but are proud against all these things, and
keep the upper hand, until the hand of the Highest
changes them.17

He stresses in particular the love of honor on the
part of heretics:

Thus do commonly at all times all heretics, that they
draw to themselves the honor, which is due the Church
and the people of God; for each of them pretends to be
closest to God.18

Again:

Heretics do not merely err, but refuse to be instructed,
defend their error as being right, and fight against the
truth, which they know, and against their own con-
science. Concerning such St. Paul says (Titus 3:10, 11):
You are to avoid a heretic, when he has been admonished
once or twice and you are to know, that such a man is
perverted, and sins autocatacritos, that is, intentionally
and against better knowledge, and wants to remain in
his error.19

In the course of time Luther came to the conclusion
that heresy is the sin against the Holy Ghost, because he
had never seen or read of a heretic being converted.

I have ... never read, that the teachers who start
heresies have been converted; they remain hardened in
their opinion . . . they do not permit anyone to teach
them or to hinder them. This is the sin against the Holy
Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness. For it finds
neither sorrow nor repentance, but defense and excuses,
as though it were a holy, precious thing, and as though
the true Gospel, which is against it, were wholly of the
evil.

In view of this essentially Augustinian concept of
heresy and heretic in Luther we are not surprised to
find Luther agreeing with Augustine also in his refusal
to consider erring Christians heretics.

Concerning a man who is ignorant of an article of
faith he says:

That man cannot be called a heretic, who is not ac-
quainted with an article of faith.?1

In defense of himself against the charge that he is
a heretic, he writes:

The law [canon law is to be understood] defines and
describes a heretic as a man who defends his error
stubbornly. This we on our part have never done, but
freely showed testimony from the Word of God and
Scripture, and have gladly listened to the opinion of
others.22

Strong in its insistence on the difference between an
erring Christian and a heretic is particularly the follow-
ing statement, in which Luther uses the example of
St. Augustine himself to establish and illustrate the
difference:

[The Holy Spirit] prophesies publicly and mightily that
mingled among Holy Church there will be builders of
wood, straw, and hay, that is, teachers who nevertheless
remained on the foundation would suffer damage through
fire but would nevertheless be saved. This cannot be
understood of heretics. For these lay another foundation,
while those remain on the foundation, that is, in faith
in Christ, are saved and are called God’s saints, never-
theless have some hay, straw, and wood, which must
be burnt through the fire of Holy Scripture, however
without harm to their salvation. As St. Augustine says
of himself: “Err I may; a heretic I will not be.” The
reason is that heretics do not merely err, but are not

willing to be corrected, defend their error as being right,
and fight against the truth which they have come to
know... . But St. Augustine will gladly confess his
error, and be instructed. Therefore he cannot be a here-
tic, even though he should err. All other saints do like-
wise, and gladly give their hay, straw, and wood to the
fire, that they may remain on the foundation of sal-
vation.23

The similarity between the concept of heresy and
heretic in Augustine and in Luther is unmistakeable.
There is, however, also a difference, due to Luther’s
clearer understanding of the doctrine of justification and
of the nature of the church.

The conception of heresy and heretic here set forth
from Augustine, and particularly from Luther, is trace-
able in the Lutheran dogmaticians of the 17th century,
and is plainly evident in some of the writings of
Dr. C. F. W. Walther.*4

5. The Concept of the One Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church

The concept of heresy and schism as set forth from
the writings of Augustine was intimately linked with
Augustine’s concept of the church, which was generally
the concept in the Western Church during the Middle
Ages, except that after Augustine the primacy of the
pope tended to play an increasingly important role in
that concept. Nor should it be overlooked that this con-
cept aroused strong protest from men like William of
Occam, John Wyclif, and John Hus.

It has been properly said that there was no dogma?>
of the church before the Reformation. The doctrine had
not been confessionally fixed. There were, to be sure,
two creedal statements on the church. The Apostles’
Creed says: “I believe in... the holy Christian church,
the communion of saints,” and the Nicene Creed: “I be-
lieve one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Neither of
these statements constitutes a developed doctrine of the
church. Dr. Werner Elert, in his book Abendmahl und
Kirchengemeinschaft in der alten Kirche etc., presents
evidence that the expression in the Apostles’ Creed, “the
communion of saints” may not have been understood
originally as a synonym of the holy Christian church,
but may have meant “participation in sacred things,” in
the sense of the Sacrament of the Altar.?6

The words of the Nicene Creed, “I believe one holy,
catholic, and apostolic church” do not define the church
by a dogmatic definition. Rather, they indicate what
qualities Christians at the time of the Nicene Creed
and thereafter ascribed to the church. These are, in-
deed, genuine qualities of the church. However, these
qualities were not perfectly understood and defined by
Augustine and other church fathers, because the doc-
trine of justification, which is basic for a proper under-
standing of the church, was not adequately understood
by them.

Augustine and other teachers before and in his day
taught that the church is one in the sense of one visible
organization. Heretics and schismatics and their ad-
herents did not belong to this one church. They were
considered to be without hope of salvation unless they
left heresy and schism and joined the one church,