Most
of Osiander’s opponents acknowledged the Christological difficulties inherent
in Osiander’s position. But they attacked them in a myriad of ways. For
example, already Osiander’s earliest opponent from outside Königsberg, Stephan
Roting, mentioned the problem of separating Christ’s sacrificial death “1500
years ago,” as Osiander put it, from the present. This simply invited reinstituting
the sacrifice of the Mass, Roting thought. The whole point of Christ’s incarnation
was to defeat sin, and thus it could not be relegated to a past event (Rot 01
[1551]: Testimonium, D 23-D 3r. He also referred to Osiander’s earlier
disputation over the necessary of Christ’s incarnation).
Erasmus
Alber, one of the first to attack Osiander’s Confession in print,
focused on Osiander’s comments about Christ’s blood. The Königsberg theologian had
argued that passages referring to salvation through Christ’s blood could not be
taken as the cause of human righteousness before God because blood was only
mortal and thus could not truly being the divine righteousness that was truly
needed. Alber did nothing to hide his contempt for such talk. Osiander thought
so little of Jesus’ blood, “so that it is a sign that his heartfelt position
about it is no different than the Jews and that he is an enemy of Christ” (Alb 01
[1551]: Wider das Lesterbuch, D 4r: “so ists ein Zeychen/das ers in
seinem hertzen mit den vngleubigen Jūden helt/vnd Christo feind ist”). Later in
the tract, he returned to the problem, reducing Osiander’s argument to a syllogism
to prove Osiander’s Arianism: “Christ’s blood is a creature. How can a creature
justify? Do you see how Arius is raising up his head?” Under another stunning
piece of vitriol, Alber managed to cloak an important point. “The devil spits
out such religion as much as this one, where it says, THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH” (Wider
das Lesterbuch, E 1v). The connection to John 1:14 would remain important for
others as well . . . . Alber also suspected Osiander of the Zwinglian heresy,
since tying the blood to Christ’s humanity meant removing it from the Lord’s
Supper, and he accused him of Nestorianism. But Alber also introduced another
aspect of the Christological debate. “Osiander boasts that he knows very well
what the Communicatio idiomatum [communication of attributes] is all
about. If he knows, then why does he separated the WORD from the flesh, that
is, the righteousness from the blood of Christ?” (Wider das Lesterbuch,
F-4r: “Osiander rhūmet sich/er wise wol wie es sich halt vmb die Communicatio
idiomatum. Weys ers/warumb trennet er den das WORT vom Fleische/ das ist/
die Gerechtigkeit vom Blute Christi?”). (Timothy J. Wengert, Defending
Faith: Lutheran Responses to Andreas Osiander’s Doctrine of Justification,
1551-1559 [Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation 65; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2012], 88)
During a meeting at Wūrttemberg,
June 1, 1552:
What
followed was a discussion of hermeneutics: how one rightly interpreted biblical
texts. This allowed the Wūrttembergers to excuse Osiander’s mistaken interpretation
of texts without their having to condemn him as a heretic. They contended that,
while it was crucial in the central points of Scripture to interpret texts
according to their proper, basic understanding, “some sayings [in Scripture],
because of their circumstances and also propter tropos and schemata [on
account of tropes and figures of speech] that are more recognizable to one
[reader] than to another, may be interpreted in several ways” (Ausschreiben,
I 1v: “Aber es kan sich wol zutgragen/das etlich sprūch jrer vmbstend halben/auch
propter tropos vnd schemata, so einem mehr bekant/denn dem
andern/auff mancherley weis mögen ausgelegt warden”). This meant for the Wūrttembergers
that “if the interpreters possess Christian opinions, which are grounded in
other clear sayings of Holy Scripture, they are not for this reason to be
condemned as heretics and antichrists, even though them yay have overlooked
something in the Grammatica [grammar] or do not hit the mark quite as
precisely as another person” (Ausschreigeb, L 1v: “So nun die interpretes
Christliche meinung/ die in andern klaren sprūchen/ der heilgen Schrifft
gegrūndet sind/ haben/ seien sie nicht darumb als etzer vnd Antichrist
zuuerdammen/ ob sies chon in der iGrammatica etwas vbersehen/ oder nicht so gar
genawe/ als die andern/ treffen”). They then included several instances of such
disputes. Such grammatical wars, they concluded, belong in the lecture hall,
but not in the pulpit. They were not theological but grammatical issues for
which defense of the Christian faith was not deemed necessary. One found not
only different but even contradictory interpretations of the Scripture among
the church fathers. The Christian church had always put up with such
differences out of love. (Timothy J. Wengert, Defending Faith: Lutheran
Responses to Andreas Osiander’s Doctrine of Justification, 1551-1559 [Spätmittelalter,
Humanismus, Reformation 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 202-3)
Melanchthon,
who was very sensitive to the question of authority, began by noting that the (anti-Osiandrian!)
teachers gathered in fear of God and love of the truth and that, thus, the
Logos himself was reigning in their hearts. After admitting to his own
weakness, Melanchthon criticized Osiander for his “wandering disputes” that
raised to many unanswered questions Either his nature bridled at using good
logic or he wanted to impress the unlearned with his rhetorical tricks. In
contract, Melanchthon wished to speak “the plain meaning [nuda sententia]
concerning this material clearly, without any attempt at contention” (C[orpus]R[eformatorum:
Philippi Melanthonis opera quae supersunt omnia] 8:549: “sine ullo studio contentionis
perspicue nudam sententiam de ea materia”) And then, as if he had Brenz’s
letter on his desk (which he did), Melanchthon added that godly folk knew that this
was no debate over subtleties but concerned “the naked truth [nuda veritas]
about the glory of the Son of God and the salvation of human beings that must
be retained” (CR 8:549: “sed nudam veritatem, propter gloriam filii Dei, et
propter salute hominum retiendam esse”). The purpose behind the Statement,
Melacnthon went on to say, was to demonstrate what was necessary for concord. (Timothy
J. Wengert, Defending Faith: Lutheran Responses to Andreas Osiander’s
Doctrine of Justification, 1551-1559 [Spätmittelalter, Humanismus,
Reformation 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 236)
[Wolfgang
Waldner] examined Osiander’s claim from Jeremiah 23 that righteousness came
from Christ as Jehovah (that is, from his divinity) and not from Christ’s
cross. Waldner again answered Osiander’s theory with a confession, “On the
contrary, I believe firmly from the bottom of my heart” (Waldner, Antworth,
C ivr: Dargegen aber gleube ich festiglich von grund meines hertzen”).
Moreover, Christ’s blood was never to be separated from his divinity. The problem?
Osiander, according to Waldner, understood 1 John 1 (“the blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin”) differently from John’s own intention and form all
interpreters of the text. How was one to determine which interpretation is the
right one? Waldner’s solution was to quote Luther. Here, like Flacius, Waldner
reduced Luther to the final arbitrator of correct biblical interpretation—a far
different use of Luther than Waldner himself had earlier been using. The only
blood of Christ that Waldner wanted to hear of was that poured out on the
cross. That was the same blood that a believer clung to by faith alone or that
a communicant received in the Lord’s Supper.
In
this connection, Waldner suspected that Osiander’s Christology and hermeneutic
was similar to Zwingli’s and Schwenckfeld’s, who separated Christ’s humanity
and divinity in the Suppper in the same way that Osiander separated them in
redemption and justification (Waldner, Antwort, D iv-D iiir,
where he especially mentioned Schwenckfeld). He sought to prove this by
comparing statements of Osiander and Schwenckfeld on just this point. Just as
Schwenckfeld distinguished inner and outer words, so Osiander talked about
human voice in a sermon and contrasted it to the inner, spiritual word of God
that dwelt in us.
Finally,
Waldner examined the problem of the indwelling of God. The two theologians
simply disagreed over the order in which justification and indwelling occurred.
For Waldner, forgiveness of sins always preceded the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Here, again, Waldner turned to Luther for help, quoting his sermon on the
gospel for Pentecost day and his preface to Romans (Waldner, Antwort, Diiiv-D
iiir, quoting WA 29:458, 23-459, 10 and WA DB 7:9, 10-21). Waldner
closed his tract by asking why Osiander was so concerned about the indwelling of
God, when his own behavior seemed to show so little proof of it, given the way
he behaved toward others. What should one think when the fruit of the tree showed
the indwelling not of God but of an evil spirit? But Waldner decided to leave
that question to God’s judgment. (Timothy J. Wengert, Defending Faith:
Lutheran Responses to Andreas Osiander’s Doctrine of Justification, 1551-1559 [Spätmittelalter,
Humanismus, Reformation 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 276-77)
