Nicholas Amsdorf, the intimate and trusted friend of Luther, was among
the most zealous of the opponents of Majorism. He was born December 3,
1483; professor in Wittenberg; 1521 in Worms with Luther; superintendent
in Magdeburg; 1542 bishop at Naumburg; banished by Maurice in 1547, he
removed to Magdeburg; soon after professor and superintendent in Jena;
opposed the Interimists, Adiaphorists, Osiandrists, Majorists,
Synergists, Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfeldians; died at
Eisenach May 14, 1565. Regarding the bold statements of Major as a blow
at the very heart of true Lutheranism, Amsdorf antagonized his teaching
as a "most pernicious error," and denounced Major as a Pelagian and a
double Papist. But, alas, the momentum of his uncontrolled zeal carried
him a step too far--over the precipice. He declared that good works are
detrimental and injurious to salvation, _bona opera perniciosa_ (noxia)
_esse ad salutem._ He defended his paradoxical statement in a
publication of 1559 against Menius, with whose subscription to the
Eisenach propositions, referred to above, he was not satisfied; chiefly
because Menius said there that he had taught and defended them also in
the past. The flagrant blunder of Amsdorf was all the more offensive
because it appeared on the title of his tract, reading as follows:
"_Dass diese Propositio: 'Gute Werke sind zur Seligkeit schaedlich,'
eine rechte, wahre christliche Propositio sei,_ durch die heiligen
Paulum und Lutherum gelehrt und gepredigt. Niclas von Amsdorf, 1559.
That this proposition, 'Good works are injurious to salvation,' is a
correct, true, Christian proposition taught and preached by Sts. Paul
and Luther." (Frank 2, 228.)
Luther, to whose writings Amsdorf appealed, had spoken very guardedly
and correctly in this matter. He had declared: Good works are
detrimental to the righteousness of faith, "if one presumes to be
justified by them, _si quis per ea praesumat iustificari._" Wherever
Luther speaks of the injuriousness of good works, it is always _sub
specie iustificationis,_ that is to say, viewing good works as entering
the article of justification, or the forgiveness of sins. (Weimar 7, 59;
10, 3, 373. 374. 387; E. 16, 465. 484; Tschackert, 516.) What vitiated
the proposition as found in Amsdorf's tract was the fact that he had
omitted the modification added by Luther. Amsdorf made a flat statement
of what Luther had asserted, not flatly, _nude et simpliciter,_ but with
a limitation, _secundum quid._
Self-evidently the venerable Amsdorf, too, who from the very beginning
of the Reformation had set an example in preaching as well as in living
a truly Christian life, did not in the least intend to minimize, or
discourage the doing of, good works by his offensive phrase, but merely
to eliminate good works from the article of justification. As a matter
of fact, his extravagant statement, when taken as it reads, flatly
contradicted his own clear teaching. In 1552 he had declared against
Major, as recorded above: "Who has ever taught or said that one should
or need not do good works?" "For we all say and confess that after his
renewal and new birth a Christian should love and fear God and do all
manner of good works," etc. What Amsdorf wished to emphasize was not
that good works are dangerous in themselves and as such, but in the
article of salvation. For this reason he added: "_ad salutem,_ to
salvation." By this appendix he meant to emphasize that good works are
dangerous when introduced as a factor in justification and trusted in
for one's salvation.
Melanchthon refers to the proposition of Amsdorf as "filthy speech,
_unflaetige Rede._" In 1557, at Worms, he wrote: "Now Amsdorf writes:
Good works are detrimental to salvation.... The Antinomians and their
like must avoid the filthy speech, 'Good works are detrimental to
salvation.'" (_C. R._ 9, 405 ff.) Though unanimously rejecting his
blundering proposition, Amsdorf's colleagues treated the venerable
veteran of Lutheranism with consideration and moderation. No one, says
Frank, disputed the statement in the sense in which Amsdorf took it, and
its form was so apparently false that it could but be generally
disapproved. (2, 176.) The result was that the paradox assertion
remained without any special historical consequences.
True, Major endeavored to foist Amsdorf's teaching also on Flacius. He
wrote: Flacius "endeavors with all his powers to subvert this
proposition, that good works are necessary to those who are to be saved;
and tries to establish the opposite blasphemy, that good works are
dangerous to those who are to be saved, and that they area hindrance to
eternal salvation--_evertere summis viribus hanc propositionem conatur:
bona opera salvandis esse necessaria. Ac contra stabilire oppositam
blasphemiam studet: Bona opera salvandis periculosa sunt et aeternae
saluti officiunt._" Major continues: "Let pious minds permit Flacius and
his compeers, at their own risk, to prostitute their eternal salvation
to the devils, and by their execrations and anathemas to sacrifice
themselves to the devil and his angels." (Frank 2, 221.) This, however,
was slander pure and simple, for Flacius was among the first publicly to
disown Amsdorf when he made his extravagant statement against Menius.
(Preger 1, 392. 384.)
The _Formula of Concord_ most emphatically rejects the error of Amsdorf
(the bare statement that good works are injurious to salvation) "as
offensive and detrimental to Christian discipline." And justly so; for
the question was not what Amsdorf meant to say: but what he really did
say. The _Formula_ adds: "For especially in these last times it is no
less, needful to admonish men to Christian discipline and good works,
and remind them how necessary it is that they exercise themselves in
good works as a declaration of their faith and gratitude to God, than
that works be not mingled in the article of justification; because men
may be damned by an Epicurean delusion concerning faith, as well as by
papistic and Pharisaical confidence in their own works and merits."
(801, 18.)