The Book of Concord (1580) or Concordia (often referred to as the Lutheran Confessions) is the historic doctrinal standard recognized as authoritative by many Lutheran church bodies since the 16th century. It consists of ten creedal documents and is also known as the symbolical book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.F. Bente, ed. and trans., Concordia Triglotta, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), p. i.
The Book of Concord was published in German on June 25, 1580, in Dresden, the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg. The authoritative Latin edition was published in 1584 in Leipzig.F. Bente, ed. and trans., Concordia Triglotta, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), p. 5.
Those who accept it as their doctrinal standard recognize it to be a faithful exposition of the Bible. The Holy Scriptures are set forth in The Book of Concord to be the sole, divine source and norm of all Christian doctrine.Formula of Concord, Epitome, Rule and Norm, 1 (Bente, 777).
Origin and arrangement The Book of Concord was compiled by a group of theologians led by Jakob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz at the behest of their rulers, who desired an end to the religious controversies in their territories that arose among Lutherans after the death of Martin Luther in 1546.Robert Kolb et al., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 481-485. It was intended to replace German territorial collections of doctrinal statements, known as (bodies of doctrine) such as the Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum or Misnicum. This aim is reflected by the compilers' not calling it a although it technically is one.F. Bente writes in his Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, §1: "Book of Concord, or Concordia, is the title of the Lutheran corpus doctrinae, i.e., of the symbols recognized and published under that name by the Lutheran Church" (F. Bente, ed. and trans., Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 3). The German Wikipedia article :de:Konkordienbuch states: "In diesem Sinne kann es auch als Kanon oder Corpus doctrinae der lutherischen Kirche bezeichnet werden": "In this sense it can also be described as the canon or corpus doctrinæ of the Lutheran Church." The Kolb-Wengert edition of the Book of Concord states: "The authors of the Formula of Concord responded to objections from followers of Melanchthon who treasured the Corpus doctrinae Philippicum, and therefore they did not use the term corpus doctrinae when they prepared the Formula for publication with the ancient creeds of the church, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, and Luther's Smalcald Articles and Catechisms after the completion of the Formula in 1577" (Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. and trans., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000, p. 2). The list of writings predating the Formula of Concord that would be included in The Book of Concord are listed and described in the "Rule and Norm" section of the Formula.Theodore G. Tappert, trans and ed. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 503-506; Kolb, 526-529.
Following the preface written by Andreae and Chemnitz (1578–1580)Tappert, 3, footnote 1. the "Three Ecumenical Creeds" were placed at the beginning in order to show the identity of Lutheran teaching with that of the ancient Christian church.Tappert, 17; Kolb, 19. These creeds, the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed, were formulated before the East-West Schism of 1054, but the Nicene Creed is the western version containing the filioque.
The other documents come from the earliest years of the Lutheran Reformation (1529–1577). They are the Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, both by Philipp Melanchthon, the Small and Large Catechisms of Martin Luther, his Smalcald Articles, Melanchthon's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord, which was composed shortly before the publishing of the Book of Concord and intended for the same purpose: the pacification and unification of the growing Lutheran movement. The preface of the Book of Concord was considered to be the preface of the Formula of Concord as well.
The Augsburg Confession has singular importance A recent book on Lutheranism asserts, "To this day ... the Augsburg Confession ... remains the basic definition of what it means to be a 'Lutheran.Robert Kolb and Charles P. Arand, The Genius of Luther's Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 16. The Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise, and the Formula of Concord explain, defend, or serve as addenda to The Augsburg Confession.Kolb, 8, note 9; 97-98; 287ff.; 319; 465; 504-505.
Contents Preface (1579) The Three Ecumenical creeds. The Apostles' Creed The Nicene Creed The Athanasian Creed The Augsburg Confession of 1530 The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531) The Smalcald Articles of Martin Luther (1537) Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537) The Small Catechism of Martin Luther (1529) Luther's Marriage Booklet (1529) and Baptism Booklet (1526) were included as part of the Small Catechism in a few of the 1580 editions of the German Book of ConcordSee The Book of Concord, edited by Kolb and Wengert (2000) and the second edition of Concordia: The Lutheran Confesions (2006). The Large Catechism of Martin Luther (1529) Epitome of the Formula of Concord (1577) The Solid or Thorough Declaration of the Formula of Concord (1577). The Catalog of Testimonies was added as an appendix in most of the 1580 editions.
Context in Christendom The simple Latin title of the Book of Concord, Concordia (Latin for "an agreeing together"Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 402.), is fitting for the character of its contents: Christian statements of faith setting forth what is believed, taught, and confessed by the confessors "with one heart and voice." This follows St. Paul's directive: "that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." (1 Cor. 1:10; NKJV). The creeds and confessions that constitute the Book of Concord are not the private writings of their various authors:F. Bente, Historical Introduction to the Lutheran Confessions, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House: 1921, pp. 3, 23, 24, 46, 247Edmund Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, Paul F. Koehneke and Herbert J. A. Bouman, trans., (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961; reprint, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), xvii–xviii.
Contemporary subscription
To this day the Book of Concord is doctrinally normative among traditional and conservative Lutheran churches, which require their pastors and other rostered church workers to pledge themselves unconditionally to the Book of Concord.C. F. W. Walther, Why Should Our Pastors, Teachers and Professors Subscribe Unconditionally to the Symbolical Writings of Our Church They often identify themselves as "confessional Lutherans". They consider the Book of Concord the norma normata (Latin, "the normed norm") in relation to the Bible, which they consider the norma normans (Latin, "the norming norm"), i.e. the only source of Christian doctrine (God's authoritative word). In this view the Book of Concord, on the topics that it addresses, is what the church authoritatively understands God's authoritative word to say. This is also called a "" (because) subscription to the Lutheran confessions, i.e. one subscribes because the Book of Concord is a faithful exposition of the Scriptures.
It implies that the subscriber has examined the Lutheran confessions in the light of the Scriptures in order to arrive at this position, which in the subscriber's view does not require the disclaimer implied in a "" (insofar as) subscription. One who subscribes the Lutheran confessions quatenus, insofar as they are a faithful exposition of the Scriptures, believes that there might be contradictions of the Scriptures in them. In some cases this is the manner of subscription of some other Lutheran churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which regard the Book of Concord as an important witness and guide to the historical teachings of the Lutheran Church although not necessarily doctrinally binding.Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,"Scriptures, Creeds, Confessions" The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,""
English translations English translations of individual documents of The Book of Concord, notably The Augsburg Confession, were available since the 16th century.The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Theodore G. Tappert, editor, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), v. The first complete English translation of The Book of Concord was the 1851 Henkel edition followed by a second edition in 1854. These volumes included historical introductions.
Henry E. Jacobs and others published the next English version in 1882 with a revised "People's Edition" in 1911. The 1882 edition was accompanied by a companion volume that contained historical introductions and English translations of other documents illustrative of the history of The Book of Concord.
The third complete English translation, which also included the German and Latin texts, was published in 1921 as a jubilee observance of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation (1917) called the Concordia Triglotta: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, German-Latin English edited by Friederich Bente.The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), vii-viii. This edition introduced the practice of inserting in square brackets the translations of variant readings of either the Latin translation of the German or the German translation of the Latin text. A smaller edition with just the English text was also published.
The differences of the German translation of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession from the original Latin text were made apparent by Bente's insertion within square brackets of the variant readings of his English translation of the German text into the main body of his translation of the original Latin text. Justus Jonas, who had originally translated the Apology from Latin into German, made use of both the quarto and the octavo editions. The other reason for the differences is the "looseness" of the Jonas translation that is more like a paraphrase than a translation.Roland F. Ziegler, "The New English Translation of The Book of Concord (Augsburg/Fortress 2000): Locking the Barn Door After ...," Concordia Theological Quarterly, 66 (April 2002) 2:150.