LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 290

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290 SUPPLEMENT TO CTCR REPORT

1. The apostle forbids that anyone should have fellowship with
darkness and the spiritual Babylon. 2 Cor. 6; Rev. 18.

2. There is nothing in the royal invitation (the colloquy had
been called by the king of Poland) about joint prayers and
ceremonies; rather that those who had left Roman Catholic-
ism should be distinct and separate.

3. The royal invitation of Dec. 1, 1644, gives sacred guarantees
that charity should be preserved among all. But parity is
violated if we are hindered from reciting our own prayers
and called, as it were, before a tribunal, with the prayers
of the Roman Catholics thrust upon us.

4. The colloquy is to be charitable; but it is a contradiction
of charity to forbid those who have equal rights to conduct
prayers with their fellows, to take away from them the
liberty to pray in public; if we were to condescend to pray
with the Roman Catholic gentlemen, we should sin against
charity, by which we should give offense to the weak.
Rom. 16. :

5. Liberty has been granted three provinces of greater Prussia
in the exercise of religion, according to the teachings of
Holy Scripture and the Unaltered Augsburg Confession; why
should there not also be liberty of reciting prayers, as in
our churches so also in a hall and in a public act of con-
fession.

6. It militates against our protestation, in the preliminary
conditions, which the Roman Catholic part has already con-
firmed. ...

7. It militates against our instructions, in which we are com-
manded to hold firmly and to defend the equality of our
side.

8. It militates against our conscience, which forbids to harm
the neighbor; our neighbor, who is related to our faith,
would be harmed if we were to pray together with Roman
Catholics.

9. We have been instructed to procure and do all things which
could be conducive to avoiding schisms in our churches, and
establish harmony instead, and to nourish harmony with
the churches which are outside [our realm], with which we
are joined in fellowship of faith. But agreeing to pray
[jointly] in public, will give cause for schism, disturb har-
mony, offend the churches without, who will be surprised
that we should be willing to have the liberty of praying
taken away from us.

10. We confess Christ also in our prayers, therefore he who
forbids us these, takes away from us the liberty of con-
fessing Christ.

11. Our instructions prohibit us from accepting from the Roman
Catholics even so much as the manner of conducting the
colloquy; much less will it be right to accept from them
the manner of praying.

12, A charitable colloquy ought not to have the power of
a synod, or the power to compel. But to compel the party
of the Augsburg Confession and to forbid them prayer in
public, what, I ask, is this if not to exercise the power of
a synod against it?

There follow additional reasons why the Lutherans be-
lieved they could not consent to pray with the Roman Catholic
party. The Scriptures referred to are 2 Cor. 6:14-18 (Rev.
18); and Romans 16:17, 18.

In Part V of the second preliminary chapter to the same
book, Historica Syncretistica, which he _ superscribes,
“Wahrer, Gott wohlgefaelliger Kirchenfriede muss auf Got-
tes Wort gegruendet, und der goettlichen Wahrheit in den
Stuecken unsers Glaubens nicht entgegen sein,” (True God-
pleasing peace in the church must be based on the Word
of God, and dare not be contrary to the divine Word in the
articles of faith). Calov quotes without exegesis the follow-
ing passages: 2 John 10, 11; 2 Peter 1:1, 2; 2 Peter 3:17;
Gal. 1:9; 1 Tim. 4:3-5; Rom. 16:17, 18; Titus 1:9, 10; 2 Tim.
2:25: Titus 3:10; 2 Cor. 6:14-17 and others. These, essen-
tially, are the passages which have been quoted in the
Synodical Conference against prayer with Christians of other
confessions. For further information the student is directed
to this work of Calov’s. The text from which we quote
reveals neither the name of the printer, nor the place of
publication. The historical material on the whole syncre-
tistic controversy is found in Schmid, Heinrich, Geschichte
der synkretistischen Streitigkeiten in der Zeit des Georg
Calixt, Erlangen, Verlag von Carl Heider, 1846. On the
Colloquy of Thorn see also under Thorn, Religionsgespraech,
in Herzogs Realenzyklopaedie fuer Protestantische Theologie
und Kirche, Leipzig, 1907, Vol. XTX.

6 See Websters Third New International Dictionary,
G. and C. Merriam Co., 1961, under “prophet.”

7 Bauer (Arndt-Gingrich), under prophéteud (proph-
esy): “To proclaim a divine revelation; prophetically reveal
what is hidden; foretell the future, prophesy.” Thayer, under
prophéteia: “Prophecy, that is, discourse emanating from
divine inspiration and declaring the purposes of God,
whether by reproving and admonishing the wicked, or com-

forting the afflicted, or revealing things hidden; esp. by fore-
telling future events.”

The prophet, (prophétés) is then defined as “an inter-
preter or spokesman for God, one through whom God speaks
. . . One who speaks forth by divine inspiration. ... In
the New Testament one who moved by the Spirit of God
and hence His organ or spokesman solemnly declares to men
what he has received by inspiration. ...” This is essentially
also the understanding in the 82-page article on prophétés
and related words in Kittel, Friedrich, Theologisches Woer-
terbuch zum Neuen Testament, Vol. VI, pp. 781—863. For
this understanding the article refers to Deut. 18:20; 34:10;
Jer. 28:8 ff.; Amos 3:7.

_ § This understanding of “false prophet” is widely recog-
nized by the lexica for New Testament studies.

Bauer (Arndt-Gingrich) recognizes two meanings of
pseudoprophétés: “False prophet, one who falsely claims
to be a prophet of God or who prophesies falsely.” Thayer:
pseudoprophétés: “One who acting the part of a divinely
inspired prophet, utters falsehoods under the name of divine
prophecies.”

We translate the following on pseudoprophétés from the
jengthy article by Friedrich in the Theologisches Woerter-

uch:

The Word pseudoprophétés is not employed by St.Paul. It
is found eleven times in the New Testament, of these, three
times in Matthew, and three times in the Apocalypse. Thé
question whether the pseudoprophet is one who falsely
claims to be a prophet of God, or whether he is thus desig-
nated because he proclaims what is false, must be answered
differently in the New Testament according to the context.
In most cases pseudoprophets are people who come purport-
ing to be prophets without actually being such. According to
Matt. 7:15 they act as though they were prophets, but are
in essence liars. In Mark 13:22; Matt. 24:24; 1John 4:1
(cp. 2:18) they are mentioned together with pseudo-Christs.
As the pseudo-Christ is not a Christ who spreads lies, but
falsely claims the title of Christ, so the pseudoprophet is
first of all a person who takes to himself the title of prophet
without being a prophet. 1 John 4:1-3 shows that the
pseudoprophet is also a man who proclaims lies; for he is
recognized as a false prophet in this that he represents
a false doctrine. 2 Peter 2:1 the false prophets of the Old
Testament are compared with the false teachers of the pres-
ent, who bring in destructive heresies. They are therefore
people who proclaim lies. But by and large the false prophet
is not called a pseudoprophet because his teaching and
prophesying is false, but because he makes the false claim
that he is a prophet. From the fact that he is a false prophet
there follows then in most cases that he also proclaims what
is false, and thus spreads lies. (P. 831)

9 It should be noted, for a proper understanding of this
passage, that the term doctrine in Scripture, when applied to
the truth, is almost always in the singular. On the side of
the truth Scripture knows of one doctrine, the doctrine of
God or Christ. On the side of error it knows of doctrines,
e.g., doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1). The Formula of Con-
cord similarly uses doctrine in the singular for Gospel (FC,
Ep. V, 5; see also FC, SD, X, 31).

In later usage in the church we have become accus-
tomed to speak of doctrines in the plural to designate what
Luther and the earlier theologians of our church, and notably
the Lutheran Confessions, called articles, that is, integral
parts, of the one doctrine, that is, the Gospel. Thus, the
article of justification is considered the chief article of the
Christian doctrine. (Cf. THEOLoGy oF FeLLOwsuip, Part II,
p. 19.)

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

11 The RSV renders the passage, “Do not be mismated
with unbelievers.”

12 Cf, The Book of Concord (Tappert), 328. 41; 493. 6;
611. 6; 615. 22.

13 Brockhaus, Conversationslexikon, 16. Band (Leip-
zig, 1887), p. 39.

14 The term Synkretismus was employed during the
period of 17th-century orthodoxy to denote efforts to re-
unite Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed. These
efforts are described in Abraham Calov’s Historia Syncre-
tistica.

15 E, Eckhardt, Homiletisches Reallexikon (St. Louis),
has no less than 18 pages of reference to “union” and
“unionism,” indicating how live this subject was in the
thinking of the synodical fathers.

16 Fuerbringer, L., Th. Engelder, and P. E. Kretzmann
(eds.), The Concordia Cyclopedia (St. Louis, 1927), under
Unionism.

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