In order to settle the differences, Flacius and his colleagues (Wigand,
Judex, Simon Musaeus), as well as Strigel, asked for a public
disputation, which John Frederick, too was all the more willing to
arrange because dissatisfaction with his drastic procedure against
Strigel and Huegel was openly displayed everywhere outside of Ducal
Saxony. The disputation was held at Weimar, August 2 to 8, 1560. It was
attended by the Saxon Dukes and their entire courts, as well as by a
large number of other spectators, not only from Jena, but also from
Erfurt, Wittenberg and Leipzig. The subjects of discussion, for which
both parties had submitted theses were: Free Will, Gospel, Majorism,
Adiaphorism, and Indifferentism (_academica epoche,_ toleration of
error). The disputing parties (Flacius and Strigel) agreed that "the
only rule should be the Word of God, and that a clear, plain text of the
Holy Scriptures was to weigh more than all the inferences and
authorities of interpreters" (Planck 4, 606.)
According to the proceedings of the Weimar Disputation, written by
Wigand and published by Simon Musaeus 1562 and 1563 under the title:
"_Disputatio de Originali Peccato et Libero Arbitrio_ inter M. Flacium
Illyr. et Vict. Strigelium Publice Vinariae Anno 1560 Habita," the only
questions discussed were free will and, incidentally, original sin.
Strigel defended the Melanchthonian doctrine, according to which the
causes of conversion are the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the will
of man feebly assenting to the Gospel and, at the same time, seeking
strength from God. He repeated the formula: "Concurrunt in conversione
haec tria: Spiritus Sanctus movens corda, vox Dei, voluntas hominis,
quae voci divinae assentitur." Flacius, on the other hand, defended the
_mere passive_ of Luther, according to which man, before he is converted
and endowed with faith, does not in any way cooperate with the Holy
Spirit but merely suffers and experiences His operations. At the same
time, however, he seriously damaged and discredited himself as well as
the sacred cause of divine truth by maintaining that original sin is not
a mere accident, such as Strigel maintained, but the very substance of
man. The discussions were discontinued after the thirteenth session. The
Duke announced that the disputation would be reopened later, charging
both parties in the mean time to maintain silence in public,--a
compromise to which Flacius and his adherents were loath to consent.
John Wigand and Matthias Judex however continued to enforce the _Book of
Confutation_ demanding an unqualified adoption in every point, _per
omnia._ When the jurist Matthew Wesenbecius declined to accept the book
in this categorical way, he was not permitted to serve as sponsor at a
baptism. John Frederick was dissatisfied with this procedure and action
of the ministers; and when they persisted in their demands, the
autocratic Duke deprived them of the right to excommunicate, vesting
this power in a consistory established at Weimar. Flacius and his
adherents protested against this measure as tyranny exercised over the
Church and a suppression of the pure doctrine. As a result Musaeus,
Judex, Wigand, and Flacius were suspended and expelled from Jena,
December, 1561. (Gieseler 3, 2, 244. 247.) Their vacant chairs at the
university were filled by Freihub, Salmuth, and Selneccer, who had been
recommended by the Wittenberg Philippists at the request of the Duke,
who now evidently favored a compromise with the Synergists. Strigel,
too, was reinstated at Jena after signing an ambiguous declaration.
Amsdorf, Gallus, Hesshusius, Flacius, and the other exiled theologians
denounced Strigel's declaration as insincere and in conflict with
Luther's book _De Servo Arbitrio,_ and demanded a public retraction of
his synergistic statements. When the ministers of Ducal Saxony also
declined to acknowledge Strigel's orthodoxy, a more definite
"Superdeclaration," framed by Moerlin and Stoessel (but not signed by
Strigel), was added as an interpretation of Strigel's declaration. But
even now a minority refused to submit to the demands of the Duke,
because they felt that they were being deceived by ambiguous terms, such
as "capacity" and "aptitude," which the wily Strigel and the Synergists
used in the active or positive, and not in the passive sense. These
conscientious Lutherans whom the rationalist Planck brands as "almost
insane, _beinahe verrueckt,_" were also deposed and banished, 1562.
Strigel's declaration of March, 1562 however, maintaining that "the will
is passive in so far as God alone works all good, but active in so far
as it must be present in its conversion, must consent, and not resist,
but accept," showed that he had not abandoned his synergism. In the same
year he applied for, and accepted, a professorship in Leipzig. Later on
he occupied a chair at the Reformed university in Heidelberg, where he
died 1569, at the age of only forty-five years.
In 1567, when John William became ruler of Ducal Saxony, the Philippists
were dismissed, and the banished Lutheran pastors and professors (with
the exception of Flacius) were recalled and reinstated. While this
rehabilitation of the loyal Lutherans formally ended the synergistic
controversy in Ducal Saxony, occasional echoes of it still lingered, due
especially to the fact that some ministers had considered Strigel's
ambiguous declaration a satisfactory presentation of the Lutheran truth
with regard to the questions involved. That the synergistic teaching of
Melanchthon was continued in Wittenberg appears, for example, from the
_Confessio Wittenbergica_ of 1570.