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XV. The Flacian Controversy

167. Flacius Entrapped by Strigel

Matthias Flacius Illyricus, one of the most learned and capable theologians of his day and the most faithful, devoted, staunch, zealous, and able exponent and defender of genuine Lutheranism, was the author of the malignant controversy which bears his name. Flacius was born March 3, 1520, in Illyria hence called Illyricus. He studied in Basel, Tuebingen, and Wittenberg. At Wittenberg he was convinced that the doctrine of the Lutheran Church is in complete agreement with the Word of God. Here, too, he was appointed Professor of Hebrew in 1544. In April, 1549, he left the city on account of the Interim. He removed to Magdeburg where he became the energetic and successful leader of the opponents of the Interimists and Adiaphorists. He was appointed professor at the University of Jena, founded 1547, partly in opposition to Philippism. In December 1561, he and his adherents were banished from Jena. When the latter returned in 1567, he was not recalled. Persecuted by his enemies (especially Elector August of Saxony) and forsaken by his friends, he now moved from one place to another: from Jena to Regensburg, thence to Antwerp, to Frankfort-on-the-Main, to Strassburg (from where he was expelled in the spring of 1573), and again to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he found a last asylum for himself and his family (wife and eight children), and where he also died in a hospital, March 11, 1575.

In the Adiaphoristic Controversy Flacius had time and again urged the Lutherans to die rather than deny and surrender the truth. And when in the controversy about original sin all shunned him and turned against him he gave ample proof of the fact that he himself was imbued with the spirit he had endeavored to kindle in others, being willing to suffer and to be banished and persecuted rather than sacrifice what he believed to be the truth. – The most important of his numerous books are: Catalogus Testium Veritatis, qui ante nostram aetatem reclamarunt Papae, 1556; Ecclesiastica Historia, or the so-called Magdeburg Centuries (Centuriones), comprising the history of the first thirteen centuries, and published 1559-1574; Clavis Scripturae, of 1567; and Glossa Novi Testamenti. Walther remarks: "It was a great pity that Flacius, who had hitherto been such a faithful champion of the pure doctrine, exposed himself to the enemies in such a manner. Henceforth the errorists were accustomed to brand all those as Flacianists who were zealous in defending the pure doctrine of Luther." (Kern und Stern, 34.)

The Flacian Controversy sprang from, and must be regarded as an episode of, the Synergistic Controversy, in which also some champions of Luther's theology (Amsdorf, Wigand, Hesshusius, and others) had occasionally employed unguarded, extreme, and inadequate expressions. Following are some of the immoderate and extravagant statements made by Flacius: God alone converts man, the Adamic free will not only not cooperating, "but also raging and roaring against it (sed etiam contra furente ac fremente)." (Preger 2, 212.) The malice of our free will is a "diabolical malice (nostra diabolica malitia carnis aut liberi arbitrii)." By original sin man is "transformed into the image of Satan (ad imaginem Satanae transformatus, eiusque charactere [foeda Satanae imagine] signatus)." (Gieseler 3, 2, 245.) By original sin "the substance of man is destroyed (substantiam hominis ablatam esse);" after the Fall original sin is the substance of man; man's nature is identical with sin; in conversion a new substance is created by God. In particular, the assertions concerning the substantiality of original sin gave rise to the so-called Flacian Controversy. After Strigel, at the second session of the disputation in Weimar, had dilated on the philosophical definitions of the terms "substance" and "accident" ("accidens, quod adest vel abest praeter subiecti corruptionem"), and had declared that original sin was an accident which merely impeded free will in its activity, Flacius, in the heat of the controversy, exclaimed: "Originale peccatum non est accidens. Original sin is not an accident, for the Scriptures call it flesh, the evil heart," etc. Thus he fell into the pitfall which the wily Strigel had adroitly laid for him. Though Flacius seemed to be loath to enter upon the matter any further, and protested against the use of philosophical definitions in theology, Strigel now was eager to entangle him still further, plying him with the question: "An negas peccatum originis esse accidens? Do you deny that original sin is an accident?" Flacius answered: "Lutherus diserte negat esse accidens. Luther expressly denies that it is an accident." Strigel: "Visne negare peccatum esse accidens? Do you mean to deny that sin is an accident?" Flacius: "Quod sit substantia, dixi Scripturam et Lutherum affirmare. I have said that Scripture and Luther affirm that it is a substance." (Luthardt, 213. 216.)

After the session in which the fatal phrase had fallen from his lips, Wigand and Musaeus expostulated with Flacius, designating (according to later reports of theirs) his statement as "this new, perilous, and blasphemous proposition of the ancient Manicheans (haec nova, periculosa et blasphema veterum Manichaeorum propositio)." (Planck 4, 611.) Flacius declared that, "in the sudden and pressing exigency, in the interest of truth, and against Pelagian enthusiasm, he had taken this expression [concerning the substantiality of original sin] from Luther's doctrine and books." (Preger 2, 324.) In the following (third) session, however, he repeated his error, declaring: I must stand by my statement that original sin is not an accident, but a substance, "because the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures which employ terms denoting substance (quae verbis substantialibus utuntur) are so numerous." (Planck 4, 610; Luthardt, 216.) Also later on Flacius always maintained that his doctrine was nothing but the teaching of the Bible and of Luther. As to Scripture-proofs, he referred to passages in which the Scriptures designate sin as "flesh," "stony heart," etc. Regarding the teaching of Luther, he quoted statements in which he describes original sin as "man's nature," "essence," "substantial sin," "all that is born of father and mother," etc. (Preger 2, 318.)

However, the palpable mistake of Flacius was that he took the substantial terms on which he based his theory in their original and proper sense, while the Bible and Luther employ them in a figurative meaning, as the Formula of Concord carefully explains in its first article, which decided and settled this controversy. (874, 50.) Here we read: "Also to avoid strife about words, aequivocationes vocabulorum, that is, words and expressions which are applied and used in various meanings, should be carefully and distinctly explained, as when it is said: God creates the nature of men, there by the term nature the essence, body, and soul of men are understood. But often the disposition or vicious quality of a thing is called its nature, as when it is said: It is the nature of the serpent to bite and poison. Thus Luther says that sin and sinning are the disposition and nature of corrupt man. Therefore original sin properly signifies the deep corruption of our nature as it is described in the Smalcald Articles. But sometimes the concrete person or the subject that is, man himself with body and soul in which sin is and inheres, is also comprised under this term, for the reason that man is corrupted by sin, poisoned and sinful, as when Luther says: 'Thy birth, thy nature, and thy entire essence is sin,' that is, sinful and unclean. Luther himself explains that by nature-sin, person-sin, essential sin he means that not only the words, thoughts, and works are sin, but that the entire nature, person and essence of man are altogether corrupted from the root by original sin." (875, 51f.)

168. Context in which Statement was Made

In making his statement concerning the substantiality of original sin, the purpose of Flacius was to wipe out the last vestige of spiritual powers ascribed to natural man by Strigel, and to emphasize the doctrine of total corruption, which Strigel denied. His fatal blunder was that he did so in terms which were universally regarded as savoring of Manicheism. As was fully explained in the chapter of the Synergistic Controversy Strigel taught that free will, which belongs to the substance and essence of man, and hence cannot be lost without the annihilation of man himself, always includes the capacity to choose in both directions, that also with respect to divine grace and the operations of the Holy Spirit man is and always remains a liberum agens in the sense that he is able to decide in utramque partem; that this ability, constituting the very essence of free will, may be weakened and impeded in its activity, but never lost entirely. If it were lost, Strigel argued, the very substance of man and free will as such would have to be regarded as annihilated. But now man, also after the Fall, is still a real man, possessed of intellect and will. Hence original sin cannot have despoiled him of this liberty of choosing pro or con also in matters spiritual. The loss of original righteousness does not, according to Strigel, involve the total spiritual disability of the will and its sole tendency and activity toward what is spiritually evil. Moreover, despite original corruption, it is and remains an indestructible property of man to be able, at least in a measure, to assent to and to admit, the operations of the Holy Spirit, and therefore and in this sense to be converted "aliquo modo volens." (Planck 4, 667. 675. 681.)

It was in opposition to this Semi-Pelagian teaching that Flacius declared original sin to be not a mere accident, but the substance of man. Entering upon the train of thought and the phraseology suggested by his opponent, he called substance what in reality was an accident, though not an accident such as Strigel contended. From his own standpoint it was therefore a shrewd move to hide his own synergism and to entrap his opponent, when Strigel plied Flacius with the question whether he denied that original sin was an accident. For in the context and the sense in which it was proposed the question involved a vicious dilemma. Answering with yes or no, Flacius was compelled either to affirm Strigel's synergism or to expose himself to the charge of Manicheism. Instead of replying as he did, Flacius should have cleared the sophistical atmosphere by explaining: "If I say, 'Original sin is an accident,' you [Strigel] will infer what I reject, viz., that the corrupt will of man retains the power to decide also in favor of the operations of the Holy Spirit. And if I answer that original sin is not an accident (such as you have in mind), you will again infer what I disavow, viz., that man, who by the Fall has lost the ability to will in the spiritual direction, has eo ipso lost the will and its freedom entirely and as such." As it was, however, Flacius instead of adhering strictly to the real issue – the question concerning man's cooperation in conversion – and exposing the sophistry implied in the question put by Strigel, most unfortunately suffered himself to be caught on the horns of the dilemma. He blindly walked into the trap set for him by Strigel, from which also later on he never succeeded in fully extricating himself.

With all his soul Flacius rejected the synergism involved in Strigel's question. His blunder was, as stated, that he did so in terms universally regarded as Manichean. He was right when he maintained that original sin is the inherited tendency and motion of the human mind, will, and heart, not toward, but against God, – a direction, too, which man is utterly unable to change. But he erred fatally by identifying this inborn evil tendency with the substance of fallen man and the essence of his will as such. It will always be regarded as a redeeming feature that it was in antagonizing synergism and championing the Lutheran sola gratia that Flacius coined his unhappy proposition. And in properly estimating his error, it must not be overlooked that he, as will be shown in the following, employed the terms "substance" and "accident" not in their generally accepted meaning but in a sense, and according to a philosophical terminology, of his own.

169. Formal and Material Substance

The terms "substance" and "accident" are defined in Melanchthon's Erotemata Dialectices as follows: "Substantia est ens, quod revera proprium esse habet, nec est in alio, ut habens esse a subiecto. Substance is something which in reality has a being of its own and is not in another as having its being from the subject." (C. R. 13, 528.) "Accidens est quod non per sese subsistit, nec est pars substantiae, sed in alio est mutabiliter. Accident is something which does not exist as such nor is a part of the substance, but is changeable in something else." (522.) Melanchthon continues: "Accidentium alia sunt separabilia ut frigus ab aqua, notitia a mente, laetitia, tristitia a corde. Alia accidentia sunt inseparabilia, ut quantitas seu magnitudo a substantia corporea, calor ab igni, humiditas ab aqua, non separantur… Et quia separabilia accidentia magis conspicua sunt, ideo inde sumpta est puerilis descriptio: Accidens est, quod adest et abest praeter subiecti corruptionem. Whatever is present or absent without the corruption of the subject is an accident." (C. R. 13, 523; Preger 2, 396. 407; Seeberg 4, 494.)

Evidently this last definition, which was employed also by Strigel, is ambiguous, inasmuch as the word "corruption" may signify an annihilation, or merely a perversion, or a corruption in the ordinary meaning of the word. In the latter sense the term applied to original sin would be tantamount to a denial of the Lutheran doctrine of total corruption. When Jacob Andreae, in his disputation with Flacius, 1571, at Strassburg, declared that accident is something which is present or absent without corruption of the subject, he employed the term in the sense of destruction or annihilation. In the same year Hesshusius stated that by original sin "the whole nature body and soul, substance as well as accidents, are defiled, corrupted, and dead," of course, spiritually. And what he understood by substance appears from his assertion: "The being itself, the substance and nature itself, in as far as it is nature, is not an evil conflicting with the Law of God… Not even in the devil the substance itself, in as far as it is substance, is a bad thing, i. e., a thing conflicting with the Law." (Preger 2, 397.)

The Formula of Concord carefully and correctly defines: "Everything that is must be either substantia, that is, a self-existent essence, or accidens, that is, an accidental matter, which does not exist by itself essentially but is in another self-existent essence and can be distinguished from it." "Now, then, since it is the indisputable truth that everything that is, is either a substance or an accidens that is, either a self-existing essence or something accidental in it (as has just been shown and proved by testimonies of the church-teachers, and no truly intelligent man has ever had any doubts concerning this), necessity here constrains, and no one can evade it if the question be asked whether original sin is a substance, that is, such a thing as exists by itself, and is not in another, or whether it is an accidens, that is, such a thing as does not exist by itself, but is in another, and cannot exist or be by itself, he must confess straight and pat that original sin is no substance, but an accident." (877, 54; 57.)

Flacius, however, took the words "substance" and "accident" in a different sense. He distinguished between the material and formal substance, and the latter he regarded as man's true original essence. This essence he explained, consisted in the original righteousness and holiness of man, in the image of God or the will as truly free and in proper relation toward God. He said: "Ipsum hominem essentialiter sic esse formatum, ut recta voluntas esset imago Dei, non tantum eius accidens." (Seeberg 4, 494.) He drew the conclusion that original sin, by which the image of God (not the human understanding and will as such) is lost, cannot be a mere accident, but constitutes the very essence and substance of fallen man. He argued: The image of God is the formal essence of man, or the soul itself according to its best part, by original sin this image is changed into its opposite: hence the change wrought by original sin is not accidental, but substantial, – just as substantial and essential as when wine is changed into vinegar or fire into frost. What man has lost, said Flacius, is not indeed his material substance (substantia materialis), but his true formal substance or substantial form (substantia formalis or forma substantialis). Hence also original sin, or the corruption resulting from the Fall, in reality is, and must be designated, the formal substance or substantial form of natural man. Not all gifts of creation were lost to man by his Fall; the most essential boon, however, the image of God, was destroyed and changed into the image of Satan. "In homine," said Flacius, "et mansit aliquid, et tamen quod optimum in ratione et essentia fuit, nempe imago Dei, non tantum evanuit, sed etiam in contrarium, nempe in imaginem diaboli, commutatum est." The devil, Flacius continued, has robbed man of his original form (forma), the image of God, and stamped him with his own diabolical form and nature. (Luthardt 215; Gieseler 3, 2, 253.)

170. Further Explanations of Flacius

The manner in which Flacius distinguished between material and formal substance appears from the tract on original sin (De Peccati Originalis aut Veteris Adami Appellationibus et Essentia), which he appended to his Clavis Scripturae of 1567. There we read: "In this disputation concerning the corruption of man I do not deny that this meaner matter (illam viliorem materiam) or mass of man created in the beginning has indeed remained until now, although it is exceedingly vitiated, as when in wine or aromas the spirituous (airy) or fiery substance escapes, and nothing remains but the earthy and watery substance; but I hold that the substantial form or the formal substance (formam substantialem aut substantiam formalem) has been lost, yea, changed into its opposite. But I do not speak of that external and coarse form (although it too, is corrupted and weakened very much) which a girl admires in a youth, or philosophy also in the entire man, according to which he consists of body and soul, has an erect stature two feet, hands, eyes, ears, and the like, is an animal laughing, counting, reasoning, etc.; but I speak of that most noble substantial form (nobilissima substantialis forma) according to which especially the heart itself or rather the rational soul, was formed in such a manner that his very essence might be the image of God and represent Him, and that his substantial powers, intellect and will, and his affections might be conformed to the properties of God, represent, truly acknowledge, and most willingly embrace Him." (Preger 2, 314; Gieseler 3, 2, 254.)

Again: "In this manner, therefore, I believe and assert that original sin is a substance, because the rational soul (as united with God) and especially its noblest substantial powers, namely, the intellect and will which before had been formed so gloriously that they were the true image of God and the fountain of all justice, uprightness, and piety, and altogether essentially like unto gold and gems, are now, by deceit of Satan, so utterly perverted that they are the true and living image of Satan, and, as it were, filthy or rather consisting of an infernal flame, not otherwise than when the sweetest and purest mass, infected with the most venomous ferment, is altogether and substantially changed and transformed into a lump of the same ferment." (Gieseler 3, 2, 254.) Original sin "is not a mere accident in man, but his inverted and transformed essence or new form itself, just as when a most wholesome medicine is changed into the most baneful poison." "The matter remains, but it receives a new form, namely, the image of Satan." "Man, who in his essential form was the image of God, has in his essential form become the image of Satan." "This change may be compared to the change which the golden image of a beautiful man undergoes when it is transformed into the image of a dragon, the matter at the same time being corrupted." (Preger 2, 214. 217. 325.)

Dilating on the substantiality of original sin, Flacius furthermore declared: "Original malice in man is not something different from the evil mind or stony heart itself, not something that destroys him spiritually as a disease consumes him bodily, but it is ruined and destroyed nature itself (sed est tantum ipsa perditissima et iam destructissima natura). Original malice was not, as many now think infused from without into Adam in such a way as when poison or some other bad substance is thrown or poured into good liquor, so that by reason of the added bad substance also the rest becomes noxious, but in such a way as when good liquor or bread itself is perverted so that now it is bad as such and poisonous or rather poison (ut illud per se iam malum ac venenatum aut potius venenum sit)." (Preger 2, 313.)

Also concerning the body and soul of fallen man Flacius does not hesitate to affirm that, since they are permeated and corrupted by original sin, "these parts themselves are sin, eas ipsas [partes, corpus et animam] esse illud nativum malum, quod cum Deo pugnat." "Some object," says Flacius, "that the creature of God must be distinguished from sin, which is not of God. I answer: now do separate, if you can, the devil from his inherent wickedness!.. How can the same thing be separated from itself! We therefore can not distinguish them in any other way than by stating that with respect to his first creation and also his present preservation man, even as the devil himself, is of God, but that with respect to this horrible transformation (ratione istius horrendae metamorphoseos) he is of the devil, who, by the force of the efficacious sentence and punishment of angry God: 'Thou shalt die,' not only captured us to be his vilest slaves, but also recast, rebaked, and changed, or, so to speak, metamorphosed us into another man, as the Scripture says, even as he [the devil] himself is inverted." All parts, talents, and abilities of man, Flacius contends, are "evil and mere sins," because they all oppose God. "What else are they than armed unrighteousness!" he exclaims. Even the natural knowledge of God "is nothing but the abominable source of idolatry and of all superstitions." (Preger 316f.; Gieseler 3, 2, 255.)

That the fundamental view of Flacius, however, was much farther apart from Manicheism than some of his radical phrases imply, appears from his "Gnowthi seauton, De Essentia Originalis Institutiae," of 1568. After admitting that Augustine, Luther, and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession are correct when they define original sin as an inordinate disposition, a disorder (ataxia), perversion, and confusion of the parts of man, Flacius proceeds: "The substantial form of a certain thing for the most part, consists in the right position and disposition of the parts; as, for example, if a human body were born which had its eyes, ears, and mouth on the belly or feet, and, vice versa, the toes on the head, no one would say that it was properly a man, but rather a monster. … It appears, therefore, that the inordinate disposition of the parts produces an altogether new body or thing. Thus, forsooth, the horrible perturbation of the soul has also produced, as it were a new kind of monster fighting against God." (Preger 2, 409.) Accordingly, it was not man's body and soul as such, but the alteration of the relation of his powers toward one another and the consequent corruption of these powers, that Flacius had in mind when he designated original sin as the new substantial form, or substance, of sinful man.

Flacius expressly denied that the fall of man or his conversion involved a physical change. "I do not teach a physical regeneration," he declared, "nor do I say that two hearts are created, but I say that this most excellent part of the soul or of man is once more established, or that the image of God is recast and transformed out of the image of Satan, even as before the image of God was transformed into the image of Satan. Physicam renascentiam non assero nec dico duo corda creari, sed dico istam praestantissimam animae aut hominis partem denuo condi aut ex imagine Satanae refundi aut transformari imaginem Dei, sicut antea imago Dei fuit transformata in imaginem Satanae." (Seeberg 4, 495.) Gieseler pertinently remarks: "It is apparent that Flacius did not deviate from the common concept of original sin, but from the concepts of substance and accident, but that here, too, he was uncertain, inasmuch as he employed the terms substantia, forma substantialis, and substantia formalis promiscuously." (3, 2, 255.)

If not necessarily involved in, it was at least in keeping with his extreme position and extravagant phraseology concerning original sin when Flacius, in his De Primo et Secundo Capite ad Romanos, quatenus Libero Arbitrio Patrocinari Videntur, rejected the doctrine of an inborn idea of God and of His Law inscribed in the heart of natural man. On Rom. 1, 19 he comments: It is only from the effects in the world that man infers the existence of a supreme cause. And with respect to Rom. 2, 15 he maintains that Paul's statements were to be understood, not of a law written in the heart of man, but of a knowledge which the heathen had derived by inference, from experience, or from tradition of the fathers. On this point Strigel, no doubt was correct when he objected: If the knowledge of God's existence were really extinguished from the heart, there could be no discipline among men; and if man had no inborn knowledge of the Law, then there could be no such thing as conscience which condemns him when he sins. The fact that man fears punishments even when there is no government to fear, as was the case with Alexander when he had murdered Clitus, proves that in the heart there is a certain knowledge both of God and of His Law. (Preger 2, 213.) However, Flacius did not, as Strigel seems to insinuate, deny that natural man has an obscure knowledge of God's existence and Law, but merely maintained that this knowledge was not inborn or inherited, but acquired from without.