THE XEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
were inconsistent with state gcvemment of the Church; and some (notably so F J. Stahl, in Kirchenverfassung nach Lehre und
4. German RectU der Protestanten, Erlangen, 1840, Reform- 2d ed., 1862; LxUherische Kirche und
ers not Union, Berlin, 1859) have inter- Opposed to preted these ideals as tending in the State Gov- direction of the pre-Reformation conemment. ception; others (as A. L. Richter, in the Zeitschrift fur deutsches Recht und die Rechtswissenschaft , iv., 1840, pp. 1 sqq.; Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, Leipsic, 1841 sqq.; Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenrerfassttng in Deutschland, 1851) think that they sj-mpathize with the presbyterial-synodal organization. This difference of opinion shows how slight is the foundation for either side. Both ^'iews have arisen from the rational desire to obtaia historic support and Reformation authority for party stri-\Tngs — the product and expression of modem times — and the contentions of both Stahl and Richter are inadmissible. The chief argument against Stahl 's theory is the attitude of the Reformers with reference to the actual institution and organization of church government by the territorial sovereigns: it is incompatible with a conception of polity fundamentally contrary. Richter, on his side, to demonstrate his proposition of presbyterial-synodal ideals of organization on the part of the Reformers, assumes that their views imderwent a change somewhere about 1525; before that time their ideals were presbyterial-synodal, but, owing to their experiences with Anabaptism and the Peasants' War, the said ideals were crowded out, and the Reformers were obUged to admit the actual necessity of church government imder territorial sovereignty. Richter submits this contention without more particular evidence, which would be hard to find. He forgets, for one thing, that the principles from which the territorial sovereignty form of church pohty is deduced theologically were extant even prior to 1525, and were declared by the Reformers; on another side, that not until after that year did the Reformation begin its ecclesiastical organization, so that only the ideas realized by the Reformers after that year are in question; it was not in the spirit of that age to project and formulate ideal systems of organization without practical conditions to uphold them.
R. Sohm in his Kirchenrecht (Leipsic, 1892) has defended the thesis that the territorial sovereignty form of church government came about in opposition to Luther's doctrine and after
5. State his death, and that it was a product Government of the pusillanimous faith of Luther's
Accepted contemporaries and successors, being in Luther's closely related to the reaction, espe- Tune. cially on Melanchthon's part, to Roman theories and to the consistorial fabric which grew out of their influence, and the reenforcement of these consistories with temporal means of coercion. This thesis is imtenable. If historical evolution be taken just as it stands, and the Uterature of the sixteenth century be considered as a whole, there can be no doubt that the government of the Church by the sovereigns of the State
was in harmony with the Reformers' theory; provided in this connection is understood by church government not the Reformers' " ecclesiastical authority " (see AuxHORrrT, Ecclesi.\stical), but all that is involved in a legal direction of the church organism. The theorj' in question is not in any way taught byMelanchthon exclusively, as had been occasionally affirmed before Sohm; but in its main outlines it is apparent as early as Luther's tract An den Adel deutscher Nation (cf. O. Mejer, Die Grundlagen des lutherischen Kirchenregiments, Rostock, 1864, pp. 26 sqq.), and it is elsewhere taught by Luther and others. It is clearly impUed in the Lutheran confessional writings (Augs. Con., art. xx\Tii.; Art. Schmal., de potestate papce, pp. 354-355; Larger and Smaller Catechisms, pp. 361, 363, 446, and elsewhere; most plainly in Atigs. Con. variata, article on marriage of priests, in Hase, Libri symbolici, p. L.). Its theological basic thoughts come to fight in a long array of liturgies and other kinds of promulgations on the part of the Reformatory territorial sovereigns.
The Church as a corporate unity separated from the State is a thoroughly modem idea, to Luther thoroughly unknown (cf. Schenkel,
6. Actual TSK, 1850, p. 1; Hundeshagen, ZKR, Views i., pp. 451 sqq.; W. Kahl, Verschiedenof Luther heit der kathoHschen und evangelischen and his Anschauung uber das Verhdltnis von
Contem- Staat und Kirche, Leipsic, 1886; O.
poraries. Mejer, Rechtsleben der deutschen evangelischen Landeskirchen, Hanover, 1899, pp. 28 sqq.; K. Rieker, ut sup., pp. 55 sqq.). In this imity two powers work side by side, the two swords of the Middle Ages; but this indicates merely a " division of the administrative organization of the single body "; the well-known and so often misunderstood utterances of Luther as to the relation of the temporal to the spiritual power are not intended to mean that the temporal power has nothing at aU to do in the Church, but rather that within the one body two members, each in its office, have to cooperate for the weal of the whole organism, only neither is to encroach upon the other within its rightful sphere. The spiritual commission of the teaching order thus appears to be confined to the word and administration of the sacraments (that is, ecclesiastical power in Luther's sense of the term); the authority of the governing order appears to be directed toward rightfuUy upholding the laws of God as expressed in the Ten Commandments, especially according to the first table of the same, to the end that no milawful form of divine service be endured in the land. From these premises everything essential to the state control of church government proceeds with logical finahty. Nor is this conclusion impaired by the fact that the Reformers themselves accoimted the government's position not so much a source of rights as a sum of obUgations the govemment was to fulfil, a responsible office which called into play all those prerogatives which modems are wont to designate as corollaries to a " govemment."
To be sure, alongside these lines of thought are