THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
offered not an external sacrifice but himself, through the eternal Spirit, the effect of which was spiritual and everlasting. He has opened for men the heavenly world, where as priest-king he continues his mediation of the new covenant.
In successive periods of the Church the Christian doctrine of mediation reflects the changing doctrine of God and of man; it has therefore been identified in part with the various theories of the Atonement (q.v.). By the Church Fathers, Christ is designated as mediator, since he reconciles God and man, by uniting in his own nature the divine and the human which had become mutually estranged through sin (Cyril of Alexandria, Dial, i., "Concerning the Trinity"; Theophylact on Gal. iii.; Chrysostom, Seventh Homily on I Tim.). Since Gerhard, who followed the lead of many of the Fathers (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. I., iii.), Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin, the mediatorship of Christ has been divided into three aspects. (1) The prophetic: during his earthly life Christ revealed God's purpose of redemption. (2) The high-priestly: Christ fulfilled two functions, satisfaction and intercession. He satisfied God's justice through his active and passive obedience in his earthly life and death, to which the worth of his person and the intensity of his suffering lent an infinite value. As exalted he continues his high-priestly work through his intercession for the redeemed. The mediation of Christ was conceived by the Lutherans as meritorious and as related to all men; by the Reformed, as instrumental and as confined to the elect. (3) Christ's royal office, concealed during his earthly life, was assumed at his exaltation; as king he maintains and governs (a) all creatures (regnum potential), (b) believers here below (regnum gratia), and (c) the church triumphant in heaven (regnum gloria). Ritschl modifies the traditional view by substituting vocation for office in Christ's mediation, by emphasizing the likeness of the community to Christ as respects the vocation, by conceiving of the royal function as fundamental, expressing itself in relation to God in the priestly, in relation to man in the prophetic, activity, and by affirming that the priestly and prophetic vocation extends into the state of exaltation. Christ mediates his forgiveness first to the community and then to individuals according as they become members of the community. The individual believer is brought into communion with God not through the living but through the historical Christ. In many of the popular sermons and hymns of the last two centuries Christ is set forth as mediator between an angry God and the condemned sinner, pleading with God for mercy, at the same time receiving the divine wrath into his own bosom and thus averting from the sinner the consequences of his sin. With the ethicizing of the character of God this view is yielding to a more adequate idea of Christ's mediation, as consisting in the revelation and communication of the life and love of God to men. The intercession of Christ, relieved of its picturesque features, signifies that the relation between God as gracious and man as sinful, established once for all in the life and death of Christ, is permanently valid in the changeless relation of Christ to the Father,
and made effective for men through the influence of Christ's Spirit in their lives. C. A. Beckwith.
Bibliography: G. Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1863; W. Symington, Messiah, the Prince; or, the Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ, New York, 1881; P. G. Medd, The One Mediator, London, 1884; W. Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord, London, 1892; M. S. Terry, The Mediation of Jesus Christ, New York, 1903; and the treatment of Christ as priest and of his offices in the works on dogmatic theology.
MEDICINE. See Diseases and the Healing Art, Hebrew.
MEDINA: The city next in importance to Mecca, of the holy cities of Islam. It contains a large mosque with the mausoleum of Mohammed, and is annually visited by a great number of pilgrims. It has about 15,000 inhabitants. See Mohammed, Mohammedanism, I.
MEDLER, NICOLAUS: Leader of the Reformation in Naumburg; b. at Hof (72 m. s. of Leipsic) 1502; d. at Bernburg (88 m. s.w. of Berlin) Aug. 24, 1551. His preliminary studies were made in his native town and at the Latin School of Freiberg, after which he attended the universities of Erfurt and Wittenberg. After a brief sojourn as teacher at Arnstadt and Hof, he became rector of the school at Eger, where he caused excitement by his Evangelical sermons, and was obliged to withdraw. Returning to Hof, he took charge of the town school, which flourished under his care from 1527 or 1528 onward, and was associated with the town pastor, Loner, as preacher at St. Michael's. On account of their sharp sermons both were expelled from the town July 13, 1531. Medler removed to Wittenberg, and continued there five years. Provided by the elector of Saxony with an annual stipend, he labored as a private tutor and as assistant preacher to Luther, who was then in poor health, and for some time was chaplain to the exiled Electress Elizabeth of Brandenburg. On Sept. 1, 1536, he removed to Naumburg as pastor and overseer of the Church of St. Wenceslaus, an important post to which he had been nominated by Elector John Frederick on the recommendation of Luther. For the next eight years he was the reformer of the ecclesiastical and educational system of Naumburg. Starting from the existing beginnings he proceeded mainly along the Wittenberg lines. His plan for reorganizing the parish church of St. Wenceslaus was approved Oct. 21, 1537, by Luther, Jonas, and Melanchthon, and was ratified by the elector. It shows not a few distinctive elements. The school prospectus makes provision for Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and for the mathematical branches. Medler himself gave instruction in Hebrew. In the matter of ceremonial regulation, what is especially to be remarked is the place of the Confiteor and its wording, which proved of considerable influence, and the use of Luther's German paraphrase of the Gloria in exc-elsis. The five appendixes, including an order of confirmation, have unfortunately been lost.
By 1540 the victory of Protestantism at Naumburg was assured, and the cathedral alone remained as a citadel of Roman Catholicism. In July, 1541.