The Formula of Concord and Lutheran Christology in the 1570s

Abstract

This chapter gives an account of the debates between the followers of Melachthon and the followers of Brenz in the years immediately prior to the Formula of Concord (1577). It then describes the formula itself, and finally the later Christology of Martin Chemnitz, which differs sharply from his earlier views in a number of key respects. It shows that the two parts of the formula, composed respectively by Andreae and Chemnitz, while agreeing that Christ’s human nature possesses divine attributes, diverge in numerous ways on questions of both Christological metaphysics and Christological semantics, and that these divergences render the two parts prima facie incompatible.