On August 3, 1530, the Roman Catholic theologians presented their Confutation. Any hopes for peace and unity were destroyed when Charles V ordered the Lutherans to return to Rome. Philip Melanchthon wrote the Apology to the Augsburg Confession in response to the Confutation. The first, hastily written, draft was presented to Charles V on September 22, 1530, while the diet was still in session. Charles rejected it.
When Melanchthon returned to Wittenberg, he reread the Confutation and set out to rewrite the Apology. He made the doctrines and positions of the Reformers clearer than they were presented at Augsburg. The result is that Augsburg is seven times longer than the Augustana!
It should come as no surprise that over one-third of the Apology deals with justification! How we are saved was of primary importance to the Lutheran confessors who would soon rally around sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura (“by faith alone, by grace alone, by Scripture alone”).
The Latin edition was completed in April or May of 1530. Justus Jonas translation and published a German version in the autumn of 1531. Luther and others soon recognized the Apology as an excellent exposition of the Lutheran faith and they cited the Apology at various meetings and conferences. It was finally in the Book of Concord in 1580, fifty years after the imperial diet and Melanchthon responded to the Catholic position at Augsburg.
“Apology” here does not mean the Lutheran theologians were regretting or apologizing their beliefs. An “apology” is a defense of a position. Hence, an apology is a defense of beliefs.
Join this forum in the coming weeks as we study this important document in Lutheran history.
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