This plan, however, was modified when the Lutherans, after reaching
Augsburg, heard of and read the 404 Propositions published by Dr. John
Eck, in which Luther was classified with Zwingli, Oecolampadius,
Carlstadt, Pirkheimer, Hubmaier, and Denk, and was charged with every
conceivable heresy. In a letter of March 14, accompanying the copy of
his Propositions which Eck sent to the Emperor, he refers to Luther as
the domestic enemy of the Church (_hostis ecclesiae domesticus_), who
has fallen into every Scylla and Charybdis of iniquity; who speaks of
the Pope as the Antichrist and of the Church as the harlot; who has
praise for none but heretics and schismatics; whom the Church has to
thank for the Iconoclasts, Sacramentarians, New Hussites, Anabaptists,
New Epicureans, who teach that the soul is mortal, and the Cerinthians;
who rehashes all the old heresies condemned more than a thousand years
ago, etc. (Plitt, _Einleitung in die Augustana,_ 1, 527 ff.) Such and
similar slanders had been disseminated by the Papists before this, and
they continued to do so even after the Lutherans, at Augsburg, had made
a public confession of their faith and had most emphatically disavowed
all ancient and modern heresies. Thus Cochlaeus asserted in his attack
on the Apology, published 1534, that Lutheranism was a concoction of all
the old condemned heresies, that Luther taught fifteen errors against
the article of God, and Melanchthon nine against the Nicene Creed, etc.
Luther, he declared, had attacked the doctrine of the Trinity in a
coarser fashion than Arius. (Salig, _Historie d. Augsb. Konf.,_ 1, 377.)
These calumniations caused the Lutherans to remodel and expand the
defense originally planned into a document which should not merely
justify the changes made by them with regard to customs and ceremonies,
but also present as fully as possible the doctrinal articles which they
held over against ancient and modern heresies, falsely imputed to them.
Thus to some extent it is due to the scurrility of Eck that the
contemplated Apology was transformed into an all-embracing Confession, a
term employed by Melanchthon himself. In a letter to Luther, dated May
11, 1530, he wrote: "Our Apology is being sent to you--though it is
rather a Confession. _Mittitur tibi apologia nostra, quamquam verius
confessio est._ I included [in the Confession] almost all articles of
faith, because Eck published most diabolical lies against us, _quia
Eckius edidit diabolikontatas diabolas contra nos._ Against these it was
my purpose to provide an antidote." (_C. R._ 2, 45; Luther, St. L. 16,
654.)
This is in accord also with Melanchthon's account in his Preface of
September 29, 1559 to the German _Corpus Doctrinae_ (Philippicum),
stating: "Some papal scribblers had disseminated pasquinades at the diet
[at Augsburg, 1530], which reviled our churches with horrible lies,
charging that they taught many condemned errors, and were like the
Anabaptists, erring and rebellious. Answer had to be made to His
Imperial Majesty, and in order to refute the pasquinades, it was decided
to include all articles of Christian doctrine in proper succession, that
every one might see how unjustly our churches were slandered in the
lying papal writings. ... Finally, this Confession was, as God directed
and guided, drawn up by me in the manner indicated, and the venerable
Doctor Martin Luther was pleased with it." (_C. R._ 9, 929.)
The original plan, however, was not entirely abandoned, but merely
extended by adding a defense also against the various heresies with
which the Lutherans were publicly charged. This was done in an objective
presentation of the principal doctrines held by the Lutherans, for which
the Marburg and Schwabach Articles served as models and guides.