Misplaced Pages

The Altered Augsburg Confession (Lat. Confessio Augustana Variata) is a later version of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession that includes notable differences with regard to holy communion and the presence of Christ in bread and wine. It is distinguished from the unaltered or Editio princeps (original edition).

Philipp Melanchthon made several changes to the original edition of the Augsburg Confession in the years following its 1530 publication. Most of the changes were about the language of the confession. In 1540 and 1542, he rewrote some parts of the confession in order to reconcile it with the views of Calvinists.

Alterations

Articles 2, 4, 5, 20 and 21 of Part 1 are enlarged in the Variata. Various other sentences are altered, and the order of the articles in part 2 are rearranged.

The most discussed difference between the Variata and the Editio princeps is in the theology of Real Presence, article 10.

Reception

Martin Luther did not object to the variata, nor did other Lutherans at the time of its printing. Objection first came from opposing Roman Catholics at the Colloquy of Worms. Melancthon testified that there were no changes of "matter, substance and meaning."

Reformed theologians also signed the Augsburg Confession, presumably the Variata. John Calvin at Strasbourg and again at the 1541 Conference of Ratisbon, William Farel and Theodore Beza at the 1557 Colloquy of Worms, and Frederick III at the 1561 convent of Princes in Naumburg, among others. The Variata enabled Calvinist domains security in the 1555 Peace of Augsburg.

United churches in the 19th and 20th centuries preferred the Variata.

Lutheran churches often specify that they agree to the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as opposed to the altered version.

References

1. ^ Schaff, Philip (ed.). "Creeds of Christendom, Volume III. The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2024-04-18. It is, to a certain extent, also the Confession of the Reformed and the so-called Union Churches, in Germany,
2. ^ Hall, Peter (1842). The harmony of Protestant confessions : exhibiting the faith of the churches of Christ, reformed after the pure and holy doctrine of the Gospel, throughout Europe. Princeton Theological Seminary Library. London : J.F. Shaw.
3. Corpus reformatorum (in Latin). Vol. XXVI. C.A. Schwetschke. 1858. p. 357.
4. ^ Reu, Johann Michael (1930). The Augsburg confession; a collection of sources with an historical introduction. Internet Archive. Chicago, Ill., Wartburg Pub. House. pp. 152–153.
5. "Philip Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume I. The History of Creeds. - Christian Classics Ethereal Library". ccel.org. § 41. The Augsburg Confession, 1530. pp. 235–236. Retrieved 2024-04-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
6. Hauschild, W.-D. (2007). The importance of the Augsburg Confession in German Protestantism between 1530 and 1980 (from the Lutheran point of view). 104. 172-206.

External links

• Latin
  • Full 1540 Text (Variata), Corpus Reformatorum Vol 26 p. 351.
• English
  • Selected Articles of the Variata (1540) in English found in The Augsburg confession; a collection of sources with an historical introduction (1930)
  • Full 1530 Text (Princeps), with a parallel English translation and with notes on the differences in the 1540 edition; from Creeds of Christendom Vol 3 Philip Schaff. Hosted by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
  • Full 1540 Text (Variata) in Harmony of the Protestant Confessions. Note that the articles are organized according to topic, not in their original order.

• Christian statements of faith