Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope

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The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537) (Latin, Tractatus de Potestate et Primatu Papae) is the seventh Lutheran credal document of the Book of Concord. Philip Melanchthon, its author, completed it on February 17, 1537 during the assembly of princes and theologians in Smalcald. This assembly approved it as an appendix to the Augsburg Confession since that document did not have an article stating the Lutheran stance on the office of the papacy. Martin Luther and the Smalcaldic League saw this as important in view of the impending church council that would utlimately meet as the Council of Trent. The Treatise historically was considered part of Luther's Smalcald Articles because both documents came out of the Smalcald assembly and the Treatise was placed after the Smalcald Articles in the Book of Concord.

Melanchthon used much the same rhetorical style in this treatise as he did in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531): both were originally written in Latin. Melanchthon used biblical and patristic material to present and support three main points: 1) the pope is not head of the Christian Church and superior to all other bishops by divine right (de iure divino), 2) the pope and bishops do not hold civil authority by divine right, 3) the claim of the Bull Unam sanctam (1302) that obedience to the pope is necessary for salvation is invalid since it contradicts the doctrine of Justification by faith. Luther's position that the claims of the papacy undermine the Gospel is set forth in this treatise as the position of the Lutheran laity and clergy, and it achieved "confessional" or "symbolic" status rather quickly: the authoritative teaching of what would become the evangelical Lutheran Church.

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