[565] See Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 466 sq.
[566] In a series of tracts: De personali unione duarum naturarum in Christo, 1561 (written in 1560); Sententia de libello Bullingeri, 1561; De Divina majestate Domini nostri J. Christi ad dexteram Patris et de vera præsentia corporis et sanguinis ejus in cæna, 1562; and Recognitio propheticæ et apost. doctrinæ de vera Majestate Dei, 1564. In Brentii Opera, 1590, T. VIII. pp. 831-1108. Against Brenz wrote Bullinger: Tractatio verborum Domini Joh. XIV. 2, Tiguri, 1561; Responsio, qua ostenditur, sententiam de cælo et dextera Dei firmiter adhuc perstare, 1562; also Peter Martyr and Beza. The Roman Catholics sided with the Reformed against the Lutheran ubiquity. On the Christology of Brenz, comp. Dorner: Entw. Geschichte der Christologie, Vol. II. pp. 668 sqq.; Ebrard: Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 646 sqq. (Brenz und die Ubiquität); and Steitz in Herzog, Vol. XVI. pp. 584 sqq.
[567] 'Majestatem divinam tempore carnis suæ in hoc seculo dissimulavit seu ea sese (ut Paulus loquitur) exinanivit, tamen numquam ea caruit. . . . Texit et obduxit suam majestatem forma servi.'
[568] 'Eum tunc manifesto spectaculo voluisse testificari et declarare, se verum Deun et hominem, hoc est, una cum divinitate et humanitate sua jam inde ab initio suæ incarnationis omnia implevisse.'
[569] 'Ubicunque est Deitas, ibi etiam est humanitas Christi.'
[570] Brenz was followed by Jacob Andreæ, Schegck, and the Swabians generally, who have shown a good deal of speculative genius (down to Schelling, Hegel, and Baur), and also by a few divines of North Germany, as Andreas Musculus, John Wigand, and for a time by Heshusius, who afterwards opposed absolute ubiquity. Leonhard Hutter and Ægidius Hunnius, who were Swabians by birth, likewise took substantially the Swabian view, though more for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the 'Formula of Concord.' See Dorner, Vol. II. p. 775.
[571] In his important work: De duabus naturis in Christo, de hypostatica earum unione, de communicatione idiomatum et aliis quæstionibus inde dependentibus, Jenæ, 1570, and often reprinted. Comp. Steitz, l.c. pp. 592-597; and Dorner, Vol. II. pp. 695 sqq. Heppe says (Dogm. Vol. II. p. 131): 'Der Gegensatz der melanchthonischen und der würtembergisch-brenzischen Christologie ist sonnenklar. Jene erbaut sich auf dem Gedanken, dass Gott wirklicher Mensch geworden ist, während diese sich um den Gedanken lagert, dass ein Mensch Gott geworden ist.'
[572] 'Præsentia hæc assumtæ naturæ in Christo non est naturalis, vel essentialis, sed voluntaria et liberrima, dependens a voluntate et potentia Filii Dei, h. e. ubi se hmnana natura adesse velle certo verbo tradidit, promisit et asseveravit.'
[573] Confessio et doctrina theologorum in Ducatu Wurtembergensi de vera præsentia corporis et sanguinis J. Chr. in Cæna dominica. Here the absolute ubiquity is taught, not, indeed, in the way of a 'diffusio humanæ naturæ' or 'distractio membroram Christi,' but so that 'homo Christus quoque implet omnia modo cælesti et humanæ naturæ imperscrutabili.' See the German in Heppe: Die Entstehung and Fortbildung des Lutherthums und die kirchl. Bekenntniss-Schriften desselben, p. 63. Melanchthon concealed his grief over this change of Brenz beneath a facetious remark to a friend on the poor Latinity of this confession ('Hechingense Latinum:' Corp. Reform. Vol. IX. p. 1036; comp. Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 454; J. Hartmann: Joh. Brenz, p. 249).
[574] Heshusius wrote concerning this Colloquy: 'Constanter rejicio ubiquitatem. Chemnitzius, Kirchnerus, Chytræus antea rejecerunt eam: nunc in gratiam Tubingensium cum magno ecclesiæ scandalo ejus patrocinium suscipiunt, ipsorum igitur constantia potius accusanda est.' Comp. Acta disput.Quedlinb.; Dorner, Vol. II. p. 773; Heppe, Vol. IV. p. 316; and G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 259 (Helmstädt und die Ubiquität).
[575] The Saxon Solida decisio, 1624, and an Apologia decisionis, 1625; Feuerborn: Sciagraphia de div. Jes. Christo juxta humanit. communicatæ majestatis usurpatione, 1621; Kenosigraphia christologike, Marburg, 1627; Mentzer: Juxta defensio against the Tübingen divines, Giss. 1624; Thummius: Majestas J. Christi theanthropou, Tüb. 1621; Acta Mentzeriana, 1625; Tapeinosigraphia sacra, h. e. Repetitio sanæ et orthod. doctrinæ de humiliatione Jesu Christi, Tüb. 1623 (900 pp. 4to). On the Romish side: Bellum ubiquisticum vetus et novum, Dilling. 1627; Alter und neuer lutherischer Katzenkrieg v. d. Ubiquität, Ingolst. 1629; Cotta: Historia doctrinæ de duplici statu Christi (in his edition of Gerhard's Loci theologici, Vol. IV. pp. 60sqq.); Walch: Religionsstreitigkeiten, Vol. I. p. 206; Vol. IV. p. 551; Baur: Gesch. der L. v. d. Dreieinigkeit, Vol. III. p. 450; Thomasius: Christi Person und Werk, Vol. II. pp. 391-450; Dorner, Vol. II. pp. 788-809; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 336.
[576] Hence they were called Kenotiker, Kenoticists.
[577] Hence their name, Kryptiker, Krypticists.
[578] Indistantia, nuda adessentia ad creaturas, præsentia simplex.
[579] Actio, operatio, præsentia modificata. This amounts to pretty much the same thing with the omimpræsentia energetica of the Calvinists.
[580] The same applies to omnipotence. The Tübingen divines gave an affirmative answer to the question, 'An homo Christus in Deum assumptus in statu exinanitionis tamquam rex præsens cuncta, licet latenter, gubernarit?' They made, however, an apparent concession to their opponents by assuming a brief suspension of the use of the divine majesty during the agony in Gethsemane and the crucifixion, in order that Christ might really suffer as high-priest. See Dorner, Vol. II. p. 799.
[581] 'In an individual,' says Strauss, in the dogmatic conclusion of his first Leben Jesu (Vol. II. p. 710}. 'in one God-man, the properties and functions which the Church doctrine ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race they agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures--the incarnate God--the infinite externalizing itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude.'
[582] So Thomasius, Liebner, Gess. But the absolute ubiquity also has found an advocate in Philippi (Kirchl. Glaubenslehre, Vol. IV. I. pp. 394). Dr. Stahl, the able theological lawyer, in his Die lutherische Kirche und die Union (Berlin, 1859, pp.185 sqq.), admits that the ubiquity question has no religious interest except as a speculative basis for the possibility of the eucharistic presence, and approaches Ebrard's view of an 'extra-spacial, central communication of the virtue' of Christ's body to the believer. Dr. Krauth defends Chemnitz's view, and what he would rather style 'the personal omnipresence of the human nature of Christ' (l.c. p. 496). But the human nature of Christ is impersonal, and simply taken up into union with the pre-existent personality of the Divine Logos.
[583] Æpinus: Comment, in Psa. xvi. Frcf. 1544, and Enarratio Psalmi lxviii., with an appendix de descensu Christi ad inferna, Frcf. 1553. A. Grevius: Memoria J. Æpini instaurata, Hamb. 1736; Dietelmaier: Historia dogmatis de descensu Christi, Norimb. 1741, Alt. 1762; Planck, Vol. V. I. pp. 251-264; König: Die Lehre von Christi Höllenfahrt, pp. 152 sqq.; Güder: Die Lehre der Erscheinung Christi unter den Todten, Bern, 1853, pp. 222 sqq.; G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 160 sq.; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. III. p. 397 sqq.
[584] A Hellenized form (Aipeinos, high, lofty) for his German name Höck, or Hoch. He was born, 1499, at Ziegesar, Brandenburg; studied at Wittenberg, became pastor at St. Peter's, Hamburg, 1529, Superintendent in 1532, introduced the Reformation into that city, signed the Articles of Smalcald, 1537, stood in high esteem, and died 1553. He was a colleague of Westphal, and opposed with Flacius the Leipzig Interim.
[585] Sept. 1550, Corp. Reform. Vol. VII. p. 665. Comp. Schmidt, Melanchthon, p. 554 sq. In his Loci, Melanchthon passes by the descensus as unessential. In a letter to Spalatin, March 20,1531 (Corp. Reform. Vol. II. p. 490), he expresses his inability to explain the dark passage, 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. He was pleased with Luther's sermon at Torgau, but added, in a private letter to Anton Musa (March 12, 1543, Corp. Reform. Vol. V. p. 58), that Christ probably preached the gospel to the heathen in the spirit world, and converted such men as Scipio and Fabius. (Zwingli likewise believed in the salvation of the nobler heathen.) He wrote to Æpinus, April 20, 1546 (Corp. Reform. Vol. VI. p. 116), to preach the necessary doctrines of faith, repentance, prayer, good works, rather than speculations on things which even the most learned did not know.
[586] Comp. Flacius: Von wahren und falschen Mitteldingen, etc.; Entschuldigung geschrieben an die Universität zu Wittenberg der Mittelding halben, etc.; Wider ein recht heidnisch, ja Epicurisch Buch der Adiaphoristen, darin das Leipzische Interim vertheidigt wird, etc.; and other pamphlets, printed at Magdeburg (as the 'Kanzlei Gottes'), 1549; Wigand: De neutralibus et mediis, Frcf. 1560; Schlüsselburg: Cat. Hæret. Lib. XIII. (de Adiaphoristis et Interimistis); Biek: Das dreifache Interim, Leipz. 1725, Planck, Vol. IV. pp. 85-248; H. Rossel: Mel. und das Interim (at the close of Twesten's monograph on Flacius, Berlin, 1844); Ranke: Deutsche Gesch., etc. Vol. V.; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 435; Herzog: Encykl. Vol. I. p. 124; Vol. VIII. p. 288; Schmidt: Mel. pp. 491, 495, 524; G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 113, 116; Fr. H. R. Frank, Vol. IV. pp. 1-120; Dorner, p. 331.
[587] See his humorous letter to Buchholzer in Berlin, Dec. 4, 1539 (Briefe, Vol. V. p. 235), which might have considerably embarrassed the anti-Adiaphorists had they known it. He advises Elector Joachim II. that in introducing the Reformation he may, if he desired it, put on one or three priestly garments, like Aaron; may hold one or even seven processions, like Joshua before Jericho; and may dance before it, as David danced before the ark, provided only such things were not made necessary for salvation.
[588] See the text of the two Interims in Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 193-196 and 201-203; the Interim Lipsiense, also, in Corp. Reform. Vol. VII. The term gave rise to sarcastic conundrums, as Interimo, interitus, Hinterim, der Schalk ist hinter ihm (the villain is behind it). On the political aspects of the Interim, see the fifth volume of Ranke.
[589] To the Augsburg Interim he was decidedly opposed, and he had also sundry objections to the ceremonial part of the Leipzig Interim. He is only responsible for its doctrinal part. See his letters from this period in Corp. Reform. Vols. VI. and VII., and Schmidt's Mel. pp. 507 and 524.
[590] In a letter to his enemy, M. Flacius, dated Sept. 5, 1556, he was not ashamed to confess, after some slight reproaches, 'Vincite! Cedo; nihil pugno de ritibus illis, et maxime opto, ut dulcis sit ecclesiarum concordia. Fateor etiam hac in re a me peccatum esse, et a Deo veniam peto, quod non procul fugi insidiosas illas deliberationes. Sed illa quæ mihi falsa a te et a Gallo objiciuntur, refutabo.' Corp. Reform. Vol. VIII. p. 841 sq. And to the Saxon pastors he wrote, Jan. 17, 1557 (Vol. IX. p. 61): 'Pertractus sum ad aularum deliberationes insidiosas. Quare sicubi vel lapsus sum, vel languidius aliquid egi, peto a Deo et ab Ecclesia veniam, et judiciis Ecclesiæ obtemperabo.'
[591] Thus he concisely states the case on the long title-page of his Apology, or Entschuldigung, etc., addressed to the University of Wittenberg, with a letter to Melanchthon, Magdeburg, 1549. The concluding words of the title state the aim of the Interim thus: 'Das Ende ist die Einsetzung des Papstthums und Einstellung des Antichrists in den Tempel Christi, Stärkung der Gottlosen, dass sie über der Kirche Christi stolziren, Betrübung der Gottfürchtigen, item Schwächung, Einführung in Zweifel, Trennung und unzählige Aergerniss.' He relates of Melanchthon that he derived from an eclipse of the moon in 1548 the vain hope of the near death of the Emperor, which would end these troubles. He also published several confidential letters of Luther to Melanchthon, written during the Diet at Augsburg, 1530, upbraiding him for his philosophy and timidity.
[592] Opera, Vol. IX. p. 51, and Letters of Calvin, by J. Bonnet, English translation, Vol. II. p. 257. A letter of similar spirit and import to Melanchthon, by his friend Anton Corvinus (Räbener), a distinguished reformer in Hesse and Göttingen, who suffered imprisonment for his opposition to the Interim, was recently discovered in the Royal Library at Hanover by Iwan Franz, and published in Kahnis, Zeitschrift fur die hist. Theol. 1874, pp. 105 sqq., from which I quote the following passages: 'O Philippe, o inquam Philippe noster, redi per immortalem Christum ad pristinum candorem, ad pristinam tuam sinceritatem! non languefacito ista tua formidine, pusillanimitate et inepta moderatione nostrorum animos tantopere! Non aperito hac ratione ad Papatus recurrentem impietatem ac Idolomanias fenestram ac januam! Non sis tantorum in Ecclesia offendiculorum autor! Ne sinas tua tam egregia scripta, dicta, facta, quibus mirifice de Ecclesia hactenus meritus es, isto condonationis, moderationis, novationis nævo ad eum modum deformari! Cogita, quantum animi ista nostra carnis ac rationis consilia et adversariis addant et nostris adimant.! Perpende, quam placari etiam istis condonationibus adversarii nostri non queant, qui totius Papatus doctrinam et omnes ex cequo impios cultus reposcunt et ex nostra levitate spem concipiunt se hac in re facile voti compotes futuros. Detestatur Dominus apud Jeremiam eos, qui manus pessimormn confortant, ut non convertatur unusquisque a malitia sua. Cur igitur in tam ardua causa non tales nos gerimus ut hujusmodi detestatio competere in nos haud possit? qua perversitate arundo huc illuc ventis agitata dici quam Johannis constantiam imitari malumus! . . . Proinde Te, o noster Philippe, iterum atque iterum per ilium ipsum Christum redemptorem nostrum et brevi futurum judicem rogamus, ut professionis tuæ memor talem te cum reliquis Vitebergensibus jam geras, qualem Te ab initio hujus causæ ad Electoris captivitatem usque gessisti, hoc est, ut ea sentias, dicas, scribas, agas, quæ Philippum, Christianum Doctorem decent, non aulicum Philosophum.'