THESE ADIAPHORISTIC DEVILS

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575) was a prominent and influential theologian in the Adiaphoristic Controversy after Luther’s death and the Schmalkaldic League’s defeat in the Battle of Muhlberg. Bolstered by his victory, Emperor Charles V introduced the Augsburg Interim. This new law applied only to the Lutherans and demanded a return to a number of ceremonies and practices of the Roman Church. Through the jurisdiction of bishops, it also restored Roman authority over the Lutheran churches in Germany. Some Lutherans, including prominent Wittenberg theologians like Philipp Melanchthon, put forth a compromise formula, the Leipzig Proposal, or Leipzig Interim, as Flacius dubbed it in a publicity coup. Flacius vigorously opposed the concessions made to the Roman Catholic Church and secular authorities in both formulae, but especially the Leipzig Interim. He considered the latter blatantly traitorous, open and shameful infidelity to Luther’s Reformation. Together with several other prominent Lutheran pastors and theologians like Nicholas Amsdorf, he spearheaded the literary campaign of the besieged city of Magdeburg, which boldly refused to submit to the new imperial law.
While Flacius has been studied biographically or as part of the broader Lutheran opposition to Wittenberg compromise, his writings have largely been neglected. This thesis examines some of his key publications from the Adiaphoristic Controversy and explicates Flacius’ worldview and perspective, as well as his prominent themes, methods of argumentation, and imagery, upon the basis of these texts. It argues that, as other scholars have contended, Flacius certainly did, like Luther, operate with a keen apocalyptic sense. Importantly, though, it argues that there are a number of other crucial and instructive aspects to his writings beyond the apocalyptic, that the apocalyptic is not necessarily the only noteworthy or exclusively definitive feature of his works. Indeed, Flacius understood history as a sequence of cycles and was aware that the current crisis might simply be a new chapter in a repetitive story of the church militant in the crosshairs of the devil, the Antichrist, and oppressive temporal authorities. The theology of the cross and an emphasis on the church as a remnant run throughout his texts. For Flacius, suffering was part and parcel of the Christian life and even a mark of the true church. Furthermore, while Flacius grounded his teaching in the New Testament, he predominantly appealed to the Old Testament for examples and support, especially regarding resistance to ecclesiastical and secular authority. There he found ample evidence for his picture of the church as the steadfast few, frequently downtrodden yet consistently defiant. Men throughout history had attempted to reconcile Christ and Belial through human wisdom, compulsion, or sophistry, but Flacius left no doubt that the faithful were obligated to resist every attempt. Finally, this thesis also demonstrates that Flacius’ theology in no way developed in a vacuum, but was shaped and defined by the political circumstances of the day. In this way, Flacius’ personal and theological evolution provides perspective for and insight into broader questions and issues of confessionalization in Germany, the process by which the list of theological teachings and ecclesiastical practices upon which agreement was necessary for fellowship expanded and was more narrowly demarcated.