Note 46 — Chapter XXIX

It was Luther himself who published the Antinomian theses in two series on Dec. 1, 1537. Cp. “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 420 sqq. The most offensive of these theses Luther described as the outcome of Agricola’s teaching and attributed them to one of the latter’s pupils; Agricola, however, refused to admit that the propositions were his. Cp. Köstlin-Kawerau (2, p. 458), who, after attempting to harmonise Luther’s earlier and later teaching on the Law, proceeds: “He paid no heed to the fact that Agricola was seeking to root sin out of the heart of the believer, though in a way all his own, and which Luther distrusted, nor did he make any distinction between what Agricola merely hinted at and what others carried to extremes: in the one he already saw the other embodied. All this was characteristic enough of Luther’s way of conducting controversy.”