Prior to 1556 references to the unsound position of the Wittenberg and
Leipzig theologians are met with but occasionally. (Planck 4, 568.) The
unmistakably synergistic doctrine embodied in the _Loci_ of 1548, as
well as in the Leipzig Interim, did not cause alarm and attract
attention immediately. But when, in 1555, John Pfeffinger [born 1493;
1539 superintendent, and 1543 professor in Leipzig; assisted 1548 in
framing the Leipzig Interim; died January 1, 1573] published his "Five
Questions Concerning the Liberty of the Human Will--_De Libertate
Voluntatis Humanae Quaestiones Quinque._ D. Johannes Pfeffinger Lipsiae
Editae in Officina Georgii Hantschi 1555," the controversy flared up
instantly. It was a little booklet containing besides a brief
introduction, only 41 paragraphs, or theses. In these Pfeffinger
discussed and defended the synergistic doctrine of Melanchthon,
maintaining that in conversion man, too, must contribute his share
though it be ever so little.
Early in the next year Pfeffinger was already opposed by the theologians
of Thuringia, the stanch opponents of the Philippists, John Stolz,
court-preacher at Weimar composing 110 theses for this purpose. In 1558
Amsdorf published his _Public Confession of the True Doctrine of the
Gospel and Confutation of the Fanatics of the Present Time,_ in which
he, quoting from memory, charged Pfeffinger with teaching that man is
able to prepare himself for grace by the natural powers of his free
will, just as the godless sophists, Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, and their
disciples, had held. (Planck 4, 573. 568.) About the same time Stolz
published the 110 theses just referred to with a preface by Aurifaber
(_Refutatio Propositionum Pfeffingeri de Libero Arbitrio_). Flacius,
then professor in Jena, added his _Refutation of Pfeffinger's
Propositions on Free Will_ and _Jena Disputation on Free Will._ In the
same year, 1558, Pfeffinger, in turn published his _Answer to the Public
Confession of Amsdorf,_ charging the latter with falsification, and
denouncing Flacius as the "originator and father of all the lies which
have troubled the Lutheran Church during the last ten years." But at the
same time Pfeffinger showed unmistakably that the charges of his
opponents were but too well founded. Says Planck: "Whatever may have
moved Pfeffinger to do so, he could not (even if Flacius himself had
said it for him) have confessed synergism more clearly and more
definitely than he did spontaneously and unasked in this treatise." (4,
574.) Frank: "Pfeffinger goes beyond Melanchthon and Strigel; for the
action here demanded of, and ascribed to, the natural will is, according
to him, not even in need of liberation by prevenient grace.... His
doctrine may without more ado be designated as Semi-Pelagianism." (1,
137.)
At Wittenberg, Pfeffinger was supported by George Major, Paul Eber, and
Paul Crell and before long his cause was espoused also by Victorin
Strigel in Jena. Disputations by the Wittenberg and Leipzig synergists
(whom Schluesselburg, 5, 16, calls "cooperators" and "die freiwilligen
Herren") and by their opponents in Jena increased the animosity. Both
parties cast moderation to the winds. In a public letter of 1558 the
Wittenberg professors, for example, maligned Flacius in every possible
way, and branded him as "der verloffene undeutsche Flacius Illyricus"
and as the sole author of all the dissensions in the churches of
Germany. (Planck 4, 583.)