[473] The Lutheran and the Roman Catholic Catechisms, following the lead of Augustine, regard the second commandment only as an explanation of the first; the Reformed and the Greek Catechisms, following the division of the Jews (Josephus and Philo) and the early Christians (e. g. Origen), treat it as a separate commandment, which prohibits image worship and enjoins the true worship of God, while the first prohibits idolatry and enjoins monotheism. Hence the different modes of counting from the second to the ninth commandment. The division of the tenth commandment follows as a necessity from the omission of the second, but is decidedly refuted by the intrinsic unity of the tenth commandment, and by a comparison of Exod. xx. 17 with Deut. v. 21; for in the latter passage (as also in the Septuagint version of Exod. xx. 17) the order is transposed, and the neighbor's wife put before the neighbor's house, so that what is the ninth commandment in Exodus, according to the Roman Catholic and Lutheran view, would be the tenth according to Deuteronomy. St. Paul, moreover, in enumerating the commandments of the second table, Rom. xiii. 9 (comp. also vii. 7), alludes to the tenth with the words, 'Thou shalt not covet,' without intimating any such division. Comp. also Mark x. 19. The Decalogue consists of two tables, of five commandments each. The first contains the duties to God (præcepta pietatis), the second the duties to men (præcepta probitatis); the first is strictly religious, the second moral. The fifth commandment belongs to the first table, since it enjoins reverence to parents as representing God's authority on earth. This view is now taken not only by Reformed, but also by many of the ablest Lutheran divines, e.g., Oehler, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Tübingen, 1873), I. pp. 287 sqq.; H. Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie (Frankf. a. M. 1869), I. p. 429. On the other hand, Kurtz, Kahnis, and Zezschwitz defend the Lutheran division. The main thing, of course, is not the dividing, but the keeping of the commandments.
[474] See his description, l.c. pp. l.-liv. It is reprinted in the second volume of this work.
§ 44. The Articles of Smalcald. A.D. 1537.
Literature.
Carpzov: Isagoge in Libras Symbolicos, etc., 1675, pp. 767 sqq.
J. C. Bertram: Geschichte des symbol. Anhangs der Schmalk. Artikel. Altdorf, 1770.
M. Meurer: Der Tag zu Schmalkalden und die Schmalk. Artikel. Leipz. 1837.
Köllner: Symbolik (1837), I. pp. 439-472.
G. H. Klippel, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. Vol. XIII. (1860), pp. 600 sqq.
Ch. P. Krauth: The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, Phila. 1872, pp. 280-283.
F. Sander: Geschichtliche Einleitung zu den Schmalkaldischen Artikeln. In the Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie, Gotha, 1875, pp. 475-489.
The older literature, mostly doctrinal and polemical, is given by Fabricius, Walch, Baumgarten, Hase (Libri Symb. Proleg. cxl.), and Köllner.
ORIGIN.
Pope Paul III., yielding at last to the request of the German Emperor and the pressure of public opinion, convoked a general Council, to be opened May 23, 1537, at Mantua, [475] and extended, through his legate, Peter Paul Vergerius (who subsequently became a Protestant), an invitation also to the Lutherans. [476] Though by no means sanguine as to the result, Luther, by order of the Elector of Saxony (Dec. 11, 1536), prepared a Creed as a basis of negotiations at the Council, submitted it to Amsdorf, Agricola, Spalatin, and Melanchthon for approval, and sent it to the Elector, Jan. 3, 1537.
Melanchthon, at the request of the convent assembled at Smalcald, prepared an Appendix on the power and primacy of the Pope, about which the Augsburg Confession and Apology are silent.
SIGNATURE. MELANCHTHON'S POSITION.
The Articles, including the Appendix, were laid before the convent of Lutheran Princes and theologians held in the town of Smalcald (Schmalkalden), in Thuringia, which lent its name to the political league of those Princes for mutual protection, and also to this new Creed. [477] They were signed by the theologians (but not by the Princes) without being publicly discussed. [478]
Melanchthon signed the Articles with the following remarkable qualification: 'I, Philip Melanchthon, approve the foregoing Articles as pious and Christian. But in regard to the Pope, I hold that, if he would admit the Gospel, we might also permit him, for the sake of peace and the common concord of Christendom, to exercise, by human right, his present jurisdiction over the bishops, who are now or may hereafter be under his authority.' [479]
This remarkable concession strongly contrasts with the uncompromising anti-popery spirit of the Articles, and exposed Melanchthon to much suspicion and abuse. It is self-contradictory and impracticable, since the Pope and his hierarchy will never allow the free preaching of the Gospel in the Protestant sense. But the author's motive was a noble desire for a more independent and dignified position of the Church. He feared--and not without good reason--a worse than papal tyranny from rapacious Protestant Princes, who now exercised the power of supreme bishops and little popes in their territories. He sincerely regretted the loss, not of the episcopal domination, but of the episcopal administration, as a check upon secular despotism. [480]