When Westphal, in 1552, pointed out the Calvinistic menace and sounded
the tocsin, loyal Lutherans everywhere enlisted in the controversy to
defend Luther's doctrine concerning the real presence and the divine
majesty of Christ's human nature. But Melanchthon again utterly failed
the Lutheran Church both as a leader and a private. For although
Lutheranism in this controversy was fighting for its very existence,
Master Philip remained silent, non-committal, neutral. Viewed in the
light of the conditions then prevailing, it was impossible to construe
this attitude as pro-Lutheran. Moreover, whenever and wherever
Melanchthon, in his letters and opinions written during this
controversy, did show his colors to some extent, it was but too apparent
that his mind and heart was with the enemies rather than with the
champions of Lutheranism. For while his letters abound with flings and
thrusts against the men who defended the doctrines of the sacramental
union and the omnipresence of the human nature of Christ, he led Calvin
and his adherents to believe that he was in sympathy with them and their
cause.
Melanchthon's animosity ran high not only against such extremists as
Saliger (Beatus) and Fredeland (both were deposed in Luebeck 1568 and
Saliger again in Rostock 1569) who taught that in virtue of the
consecration before the use (_ante usum_) bread and wine are the body
and blood of Christ, denouncing all who denied this as Sacramentarians
(Gieseler 3, 2, 257), but also against all those who faithfully adhered
to, and defended, Luther's phraseology concerning the Lord's Supper. He
rejected the teaching of Westphal and the Hamburg ministers, according
to which in the Lord's Supper, the bread is properly called the body of
Christ and the wine the blood of Christ, and stigmatized their doctrine
as "bread-worship, _artolatreia_." (_C. R._ 8, 362. 660. 791; 9, 470.
962.)
In a similar manner Melanchthon ridiculed the old Lutheran teaching of
the omnipresence of Christ according to His human nature as a new and
foolish doctrine. Concerning the _Confession and Report of the
Wuerttemberg Theologians_, framed by Brenz and adopted 1559, which
emphatically asserted the real presence, as well as the omnipresence of
Christ also according to His human nature, Melanchthon remarked
contemptuously in a letter to Jacob Runge, dated February 1, 1560 and in
a letter to G. Cracow, dated February 3, 1560, that he could not
characterize "the decree of the Wuerttemberg Fathers (_Abbates
Wirtebergenses_) more aptly than as Hechinger Latin (_Hechingense
Latinum, Hechinger Latein_)," _i.e._, as absurd and insipid teaching.
(9, 1035f.; 7, 780. 884.)