Note 4 — Chapter I

Footnote 4:

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It is very evident how the mediæval and old catholic dogmas were transformed in the view which Luther originally took of them. In this view we must remember that he did away with all the presuppositions of dogma, the infallible Apostolic Canon of Scripture, the infallible teaching function of the Church, and the infallible Apostolic doctrine and constitution. On this basis dogmas can only be utterances which do not support faith, but are supported by it. But, on the other hand, his opposition to all the Apocryphal saints which the Church had created, compelled him to emphasise faith alone, and to give it a firm basis in scripture, in order to free it from the burden of tradition. Here then, very soon, first by Melanchthon, a summary of articuli fidei was substituted for the faith, and the scriptures recovered their place as a rule. Luther himself, however, is responsible for both, and so it came about that very soon the new evangelic standpoint was explained almost exclusively by the "abolition of abuses", and by no means so surely by the transformation of the whole doctrinal tradition. The classic authority for this is the Augsburg confession ("hæc fere summa est doctrina apud suos, in qua cerni potest nihil inesse, quod discrepet a scripturis vel ab ecclesia Catholica vel ab ecclesia Romana ... sed dissensio est de quibusdam abusibus"). The purified catholic doctrine has since then become the palladium of the Reformation Churches. The refuters of the Augustana have justly been unwilling to admit the mere "purifying," but have noted in addition that the Augustana does not say everything that was urged by Luther and the Doctors (see Ficker, Die Konfutation des Augsburgischen Bekenntnisse, 1891). At the same time, however, the Lutheran Church, though not so strongly as the English, retained the consciousness of being the true Catholics. But, as the history of Protestantism proves, the original impulse has not remained inoperative. Though Luther himself all his life measured his personal Christian standing by an entirely different standard than subjection to a law of faith; yet, however presumptuous the words may sound, we might say that in the complicated struggle that was forced on him, he did not always clearly understand his own faith.