Philippists
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The Philippists formed a party in early Lutheranism. Their opponents were called Gnesio-Lutherans.
Before Luther's death
Philippists was the designation usually applied in the latter half of the sixteenth century to the followers of
Opposition to Melanchthon
But no sooner was Luther dead than did the internal, as well as the external, peace of the
Open conflict
The actual conflict began with the controversy over the Interim and the question of
Lutheran strictures
The
Downfall
Pure Lutheranism was now fortified in a number of local churches by Corpora doctrinæ of a strict nature, and the work for concord went on more and more definitely along the lines of eliminating Melanchthonism. The Philippists, fully alarmed, attempted not only to consolidate in Electoral Saxony but to gain ascendency over the entire German Evangelical Church. They met their downfall first in Electoral Saxony. The conclusion of the Altenburg Colloquy prompted the elector, in Aug., 1569, to issue orders that all the ministers in his domains should hold to the Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum, intending thus to avoid Flacian exaggerations and guard the pure original doctrine of Luther and Melanchthon in the days of their union. But the Wittenberg men interpreted it as an approval of their Philippism, especially in regard to the Lord's Supper and the person of Christ. They pacified the elector, who had become uneasy, by the Consensus Dresdensis of 1571, a cleverly worded document; and when on the death of John William, in 1574, August assumed the regency in Ernestine Saxony and began to drive out not only strict Lutheran zealots like Heshusius and Wigand, but all who refused their subscription to the Consensus, the Philippists thought they were on the way to a victory which should give them all Germany. But the unquestionably Calvinist work of Joachim Cureus, Exegesis perspicua de sacra cœna (1574), and a confidential letter of Johann Stössel which fell into the elector's hands opened his eyes. The heads of the Philippist party were imprisoned and roughly handled, and the Torgau Confession of 1574 completed their downfall. By the adoption of the Formula of Concord their cause was ruined in all the territories which accepted it, although in some others it survived under the aspect of a modified Lutheranism, as in Nuremberg, or, as in Nassau, Hesse, Anhalt, and Bremen, where it became more or less definitely identified with Calvinism. It raised its head once more in Electoral Saxony in 1586, on the accession of Christian I., but on his death five years later it came to a sudden and bloody end with the execution of Nikolaus Krell as a victim to this unpopular revival of Calvinism.[4]
References
- ^ a b Jackson 1914, p. 32.
- ^ Jackson 1914, pp. 32–33.
- ^ Jackson 1914, p. 33.
- ^ Jackson 1914, pp. 33–34.
Works cited
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the New Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Vol. IX (third ed.). London and New York: Funk and Wagnalls.
External links
- Philippists article in Christian Cyclopedia.
- Philippism – Melanchthon and the Consequences by Jürgen Diestelmann.