The Colloquy of Regensburg
n the spring of 1541, in the imperial city
of Regensburg on the Danube (the older histories call it Ratisbon), Protestant and Roman Catholic
theologians sat at one table and agreed on how a sinner is justified before God. Julius Köstlin
could write of that day: “Never before, and never since, have Protestant and Catholic
theologians approached each other so nearly, nay, been so unanimous, on these fundamental doctrines,
as on that memorable day.”1
Within weeks the agreement was dead. Its failure taught a lesson the church still needs to learn: the Reformation could not be undone by finding the right words.
An Emperor in Need
Charles V needed a united empire. The Turks were pressing on Hungary and France was a constant threat, so he could not afford a Germany divided against itself. Talks at Hagenau and Worms in 1540 had come to nothing, and the emperor adjourned them to the diet he would hold in person at Regensburg.2 He opened the diet on April 5, 1541.
This time the men at the table were chosen for peace. For Rome there were Julius Pflug, Johann Gropper, and Johann Eck. For the Protestants there were Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and Johann Pistorius. The pope sent as legate Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, whom Köstlin calls “a man influenced by purely religious motives.”3 On April 27 the emperor laid before them an untitled book of twenty-three articles, later known as the Regensburg Book. It was an attempt at compromise that Joseph Stump says “was calculated to satisfy neither party.”4
The Article on Justification
The first articles of the book passed with little difficulty. The Regensburg Book’s article on justification did not satisfy the Protestants, so the theologians drafted a new one. In it, Köstlin writes, “it was now unanimously confessed that the faithful soul is sustained solely by the righteousness given by Christ; and for His sake alone, and not for any worthiness or works of its own, is justified and accepted by God.”5
Yet the formula also spoke at length of the righteousness each Christian must strive to attain. Luther was not impressed. To him it was a “roundabout and patched affair” that said too much of works and the believer’s own righteousness, and so threatened to obscure “the primary importance of Christ and of Faith, as the sole means of salvation.” Eck had signed it, but Luther expected him to read the new words in his old way. They were, he said, putting a patch of new cloth on an old garment (Matthew 9:16).6 The Elector of Saxony feared the same, writing that he “could by no means consent to it.”7
Where It Broke
The agreement could not survive the next article, on the church. The Regensburg Book held that the church has a power to interpret Scripture that private persons do not have. When Granvella, the imperial commissioner, pressed him to read the article again, Melanchthon replied that he could not approve it: “For if this power were conceded to councils of the Church, then many errors of former councils would have to be approved and posterity be fearfully burdened.”8
After eight days of debate on the Lord’s Supper, Rome would not give up transubstantiation. The colloquy broke down again over confession, the authority of the bishops and the pope, the saints, and the Mass. On May 31 the Protestants told the emperor that nine articles of the book could not be accepted under any conditions. Melanchthon, so often blamed for yielding, stood firm this time. He declared before Granvella “that he would rather die than yield anything against his conscience and the truth.”9 In the end the Catholic estates opposed even the agreed articles, Eck called the book insipid, and a convention of bishops later rejected it.10
No Half-Christ
John Calvin, then a pastor in exile at Strasbourg, attended as one of that city’s delegates. He loved Melanchthon and Bucer and never doubted their motives, but he feared they were “too accommodating to the temper of the times.” On May 12 he wrote to Farel: “So far as I can understand, if we are willing to be satisfied with a half-Christ, we shall easily be able to come to an agreement.”11
He left Regensburg before the diet ended, and that September he returned to Geneva. “The whole scheme of pacification,” he wrote, “went out in smoke.” But he would not despair:
But our chief consolation is that this is the cause of God and that he will take it in hand to bring it to a happy issue.... We must not doubt that our Lord will come at last to break through all the undertakings of men and make a passage for his word. Let us hope boldly, then, more than we can understand; he will still surpass our opinion and our hope. John Calvinon the Diet of Regensburg, 154112
The Lesson of Regensburg
Thomas Dyer called Regensburg the meeting “in which the Roman Catholics and Reformers came more nearly to an accommodation than at any period before or since.”13 Within a few years the Council of Trent would close that door and condemn justification by faith alone.
Why did it fail? Not because good men lacked charity, and not because the right words could not be found. It failed because justification and the church cannot be separated. If the church claims the right to tell us what Scripture means, then any agreement on the gospel lasts only as long as the church allows it. The Reformers would not trade the sole authority of the Word for a peace of words. They would not settle for a half-Christ. Christ alone is our righteousness, and the Word alone is our rule.
soli Deo gloria