1 August Twesten is widely regarded as the first scholar to identify justification as the principium essendi of the Reformation in the initial volume of his Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche (Hamburg: Perthes, 1826). This notion was further developed by Albrecht Ritschl, in his landmark work, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung (Bonn: A. Marcus, 1870), whence it passed into general usage. ET: A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (trans. John S. Black; Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872). See Konrad Raiser, “Protestantism,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity (ed. Edwin Fahlbusch et al.; 4 vols.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005) 4:395.

2 I have adapted this characterization for the present context from Richard P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318–381 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2006) 13.

3 David C. Steinmetz, “Luther and Calvin on Church and Tradition,” Michigan Germanic Studies 10 (1984) 108.

4 Ernst Walter Zeeden, Konfessionsbildung. Studien zur Reformation, Gegenreformation und katholischen Reform (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1985) 67.

5 The literature on the so-called Konfessionalisierungsthese is immense, but it is limited, for the most part, to scholarship originating in Germany. Seminal contributions include Heinz Schilling, Konfessionskonflikt und Staatsbildung. Eine Fallstudie über das Verhältnis von religiösem und sozialem Wandel in der Frühneuzeit am Beispiel der Grafschaft Lippe (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1981); Wolfgang Reinhard, “Konfession und Konfessionalisierung in Europa,” in Bekenntnis und Geschichte. Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang (ed. Wolfgang Reinhard; Munich: Verlag Ernst Vögel, 1981) 165–89. See also the essays from the following symposia on confessionalization by the Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, in Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland. Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1988 (ed. Hans–Christoph Rublack; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1992); Die katholische Konfessionalisierung: wissenschaftliches Symposion der Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe des Corpus Catholicorum und des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1993 (ed. Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995). For a recent survey in English of the scholarship on confessionalization, Thomas A. Brady, Jr., “Confessionalization: The Career of a Concept,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan (ed. John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, and Anthony J. Papalas; Burlinton, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004) 1–20; Ute Lotz–Heumann, “Confessionalization,” in Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research (ed. David Whitford; Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State, 2008) 136–57.

6 Heinz Schilling, “Die Konfessionalisierung von Kirche, Staat und Gesellschaft: Profil, Leistung, Defizite und Perspektiven eines geschichtswissenschaftlichen Paradigmas,” in Katholische Konfessionalisierung, 41.

7 Winfried Schulze, for example, focuses on the growth of skepticism and “free–thinking” during this period, as well as with the emerging ideals of tolerance and religious freedom to argue that confessionalization paved the way the real main event of early modernity, secularization, in “Konfessionalisierung als Paradigma zur Erforschung des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” in Drei Konfessionen in einer Region. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Konfessionalisierung im Herzogtum Berg vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (ed. Burkhardt Dietz and Stefan Ehrenpreis; Cologne: Rheinland, 1999) 15–30. Legal historians have also pointed out that it was during the supposed peak of confessionalization that the secularization of imperial law first got underway. See, for example, Michael Stolleis, “‘Konfessionalisierung— oder ‘Säkularisierung’ bei der Entstehung des frühmodernen Staates,” Ius Commune 20 (1993) 1–24.

8 Heinz Schilling, “Reformation. Umbruch oder Gipfelpunkt eines Temps des Réformes?” in Die fruhe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch. Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1996 (ed. Stephen E. Buckwalter and Bernd Moeller; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998) 24; cited in Hans J. Hillerbrand, “Was There a Reformation in the Sixteenth Century?” CH 72 (2003) 549.

9 Henri Desroche, Sociologies religieuses (Paris: Presse universitaires de France, 1968) 83.

10 See the retrospective remarks in Heinz Schilling, “Confessionalization: Historical and Scholarly Perspectives of a Comparative and Interdisciplinary Program,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 21–36. If the confessionalization paradigm is open to criticism on this point, it may arise from an overly functionalist account of its phenomenon. “Ein zentrales Postulat der Konfessionalisierungsthese ist die weitgehende sachliche und zeitliche Parallelität und funktionale Äquivalenz des Prozessverlaufs in allen drei Groβkonfessionen”—without much regard for the concrete particularities of “diskurs-, text-, ritual- oder praxisinterpretativen Ansätzen.” Cornel Zwierlein, “‘(Ent)konfessionalisierung— (1935) und ‘Konfessionalisierung’ (1981),” ARG 98 (2007) 220, 222.

11 One impressive attempt in recent scholarship to apply the confessionalization paradigm to intellectual history is Erika Rummel's well-received monograph, The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

12 A point argued developed at some length in Anthony Grafton, What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) esp. 107–12.

13 At the October 2004 meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, a roundtable was held on the topic of “Post-Confessional Reformation History.” Revised versions of the four major papers were published in the 2006 volume of the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte with an introduction by Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Anne Jacobson Schutte, the North American editors of the journal. The editors observe that the transition from confessional to post-confessional history in Reformation studies has only come about within the last generation in North America; ARG 97 (2006) 276.

14 Ethan H. Shagan, “Can Historians End the Reformation?” ARG 97 (2006) 298.

15 See the reflections on this issue by Scott H. Hendrix, “Post–Confessional Research and Confessional Commitment,” ARG 97 (2006) 284–88.

16 Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) 12.

17 Philip Benedict, “What is Post–Confessional Reformation History?” ARG 97 (2006) 277.

18 Berndt Hamm, “What Was the Reformation Doctrine of Justification?” in The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety: Essays by Berndt Hamm (ed. Robert J. Bast; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 179–216; repr., The German Reformation: Essential Readings (ed. C. Scott Dixon; New York: Blackwell) 53–90. This essay updates an argument Hamm first put forward in his 1985 Antrittsvorlesung at the University of Erlangen, published as “Was ist reformatorische Rechtfertigungslehre?” ZThK 83 (1986) 1–38.

19 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 179.

20 Ibid. Hamm cites Ulrich Gäbler and Heinz Scheible as two representatives of this approach. Gäbler writes that “in view of the diversity of theological positions among sixteenth-century Protestants, it is impossible to trace a historically distinct outline of the term ‘evangelical.’” Ulrich Gäbler, Huldrych Zwingli. Eine Einführung in sein Leben und sein Werk (München: Beck, 1983) 47. Scheible, Hamm argues, allows for a certain amount of common ground among the various reformers, but “formulated in such vague and amorphous terms” that it become difficult to differentiate them from medieval Catholic theology. Cf. Heinz Scheible, “Reform, Reformation, Revolution. Grundsätze zur Beurteilung der Flugschriften,” ARG 65 (1974) 117. Hamm is clearly uncomfortable with these characterizations; what is less clear is whether his discomfort ultimately rests on historical or theological grounds. If the historical reality in view—in this case, a supposed evangelical consensus on the nature and scope of justification—is in fact “vague and amorphous,” then it must be described in terms which do not obscure this situation.

21 This trend has only strengthened in the years between Hamm's initial version of the essay and the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999. For a more recent critique of this scholarship, see David C. Steinmetz, “The Catholic Luther: a Critical Reappraisal,” TToday 61 (2004) 187–201.

22 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 182.

23 Luther regards Zwingli's Eucharistic theology as far too close to that of the Schwärmerei for his taste, while Zwingli in turn regards Luther's teaching as still trapped in the labyrinth of Popish superstition. Yet modern historians do not seem overly concerned that such diversity of opinion on so central a matter as the Eucharist disqualifies either figure as genuinely “Reformational.” Instead, we are forced to use terms such as “the Lutheran Eucharist” and “the Reformed Eucharist,” rather than lumping them together under a common generic category. For a recent treatment of the Lord's Supper illustrating just this point, see Lee Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

24 The same holds true of Hamm's positive restatement of the point: The “objective common ground between the reformers” must certainly “find a place in our definition of its features”—a very prominent place, I would argue. But we can only know what that common ground is and how far it extends by examining it in detail. It may be that much of what had previously been taken for granted as “objective common ground” turns out, upon closer examination, to be misunderstanding, misappropriation, or rhetorical posturing, conclusions which cannot be ruled out of bounds a priori. I have some sympathy with Hamm's dismissal of Gäbler's sweeping generalizations, but Scheible's conclusions are based on careful examination of the sources and thus merit much closer attention than Hamm allows. More to the point, the essay by Scheible with which Hamm takes issue is concerned with distinguishing between “Reformation” and “Catholic reform” in the Flugschriften of the early 1520s, a period when these categories were very much in flux. As Scheible explains, “Hierfür muβ zuerst geklärt werden, was unter Reformation zu verstehen ist. Nomen und zugehöriges Verb kommen ja in den zu untersuchenden Texten und auch bei Luther vor. Es bedeutet Verbesserung durch Wiederherstellung der ursprünglichen Gestalt… . Wenn in den Texten des 16. Jahrhunderts das Wort ”Reformation“ begegnet, so müssen wir es mit ”Reform“ wiedergeben. Was Reformation als historisches Ereignis bedeutet, kann also nicht durch philologish-exegetische Untersuchungen gefunden, sondern muβ durch historisch–semantische Überlegungen festgestellt werden.” Scheible, “Reform, Reformation, Revolution,” 115.

25 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 183.

26 For a overview of the negotiations, see Athina Lexutt, Rechtfertigung im Gespräch. Das Rechtfertigungsverständnis in den Religionsgesprächen von Hagenau, Worms und Regensburg 1540–41 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 236–60.

27 In a letter of 10/11 May to the Elector of Saxony, Luther derides the formulation as a “patched and all-embracing” affair. He claims that “the two ideas of justification by faith alone without works (Rom 3:28) and faith working through love (Gal 5:6) had been “zu samen gereymet und geleymet” (thrown together and glued together): whereas one refers to becoming righteous, the other to the life of the righteous.” See WABr 9:406–9, #3616; see also Anthony N. S. Lane, Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment (New York: T&T Clark, 2002) 53.

28 For a recent survey of debate, see Reinhard Flogaus, “Luther versus Melanchthon? Zur Frage der Einheit der Wittenberger Reformation in der Rechtfertigungslehre,” ARG 91 (2000) 6–46.

29 On this point, see David C. Steinmetz, “The Intellectual Appeal of the Reformation,” TToday 57 (2001) 459–50.

30 See the account in Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent (trans. Ernest Graf; 2 vols.; New York: Nelson, 1957) 2:198–201. A letter from Georg Major, the Lutheran representative at the colloquy, to Justus Jonas dated 10 Feb 1546 lists fourteen theses dealing with justification which had been proposed for discussion by his Catholic collocutors; in CR 6:35–37.

31 As Jedin explains, the Tridentine Fathers “were without the guidance of clear directives by the supreme teaching authority in the Church when they sought to bring out the contrast between the Catholic and the Protestant attitude of mind in regard to matters of faith.” Jedin, Council of Trent, 167. See also Gillian R. Evans, “Vis verborum: Scholastic Method and Finding Words in the Debates on Justification of the Council of Trent,” DRev 106 (1988) 264–75.

32 As one scholar has recently put it, “Luther was finally excommunicated for indiscipline, but never actually condemned for heresy by any authority with the necessary jurisdiction until the council of Trent defined propositions with which Luther's views were clearly incompatible.” Anthony Levi, Renaissance and Reformation: The Intellectual Genesis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) 282.

33 Still useful in this connection is the discussion by Lortz on the importance of the distinction between theory and practice in interpreting the early stages of the conflict. Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany (trans. Ronald Walls; 2 vols.; New York: Herder and Herder, 1968) 1:221. Carolyn Walker Bynum, in her recent monograph on blood cult in fifteenth–century Germany, notes the absence of a formal theoretical account of the atonement in late medieval theology. “A soteriology is there,” she argues, but only implicitly. It must be teased out from “the verbs and adjectives chosen, the biblical passages quoted, and the silences, echoes, and missed connections that almost slip past us.” Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) 195–96.

34 William V. Hudon, “Two Instructions to Preachers from the Tridentine Reformation,” Sixteenth Century Journal 20 (1989) 458–59.

35 Surveying initial responses to Luther's attack on indulgences, David V. N. Bagchi concludes that “the first reactions to Luther's indulgence theses show that there was a complete agreement only in a belief that Luther was in error.” In pinpointing where, exactly, Luther was in error, these theologians varied wildly among themselves. It is therefore not surprising that a unanimity quickly developed with regard to the importance of papal power as a means of settling the disputed issue. Luther's Earliest Opponents: Catholic Controversialists, 1518–1525 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 26.

36 This observation could be developed at considerably greater length, but I think the basic point is obvious enough when we consider that absolutely no one in fifteenth- or sixteenth–century Western theology would have denied an important role to any of these key terms, fides, gratia, Christus, or scriptura. The qualifier alone (allein, in Luther's (in)famous translation of Rom 3:28) is added to decouple these terms from other concepts with which they had become linked in Catholic thought and practice: faith from works; grace from merit; Christ from Mary and the saints; scripture from the church's magisterium. It does not supply the actual content of the terms.

37 For a summary of the Council's decrees on justification, see “Trente (Concile de),” in DThC 15.1, cols. 1435–39. For a somewhat different take on the thrust of Trent's decrees on justification, see Otto Hermann Pesch, “La réponse du Concile de Trente (1545–1563): les décisions doctrinales contre la Réforme et ses conséquences,” Irénikon 73 (2000) 5–38.

38 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 189–208. Eleven points are listed here, of course, but the tenth, “Breaking the mold,” is really just a summary of the ways in which the other ten points differ from medieval thought.

39 In describing the Bedingungslosigkeit of justification, Hamm refers to Melanchthon's statement in the Confessio Augustana Variata, whereby it is affirmed that “remissio … non pendere ex condicione nostrae dignitatis, sed donari propter Christum” (MSA 6:16). Hamm is quite right in his assertion that for Melanchthon—as, indeed, for all the reformers—forgiveness of sins (remissio) is not dependent on inherent worth (dignitas) in the sinner. Thus, there is no “cause” for justification to be found in the human. He may push this line of argument too far, however, when he writes that “not even God himself stands in such a causal relation to man and his actions. The acceptance of God, his bestowal of grace on his creature, is not subject to reasons or conditions.” Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 192. It is perfectly correct to describe the reformers' view of justification as an “unconditional promise” in the sense that it does not depend on the human subject meeting any condition in advance. To call it “causeless” in such an absolute sense, however, ignores the detailed discussions and fierce polemics by and among the reformers relating justification to predestination. Justification does not just happen: It is caused by God's electing will. The following comment by Martin Bucer is typical of the reformers' voluntarism in regard to all of God's saving acts: “Caeterum ut iudicet pro nobis Deus, & vitam aeternam adiudicet, prima causa est eius ultronea benevolentia. Sua enim voluntas prima causa est omnium.” Moreover, for Bucer, as for many of the other reformers, affirming that the “voluntas Dei” is the “prima causa omnium” does not preclude assigning more proximate causes within the created order. Bucer continues: “proxima meritum Christi: nam mortuus est pro salute mundi, sed hoc ipsum benevolentiae divinae gratuitum donum est. Tertia, fides, qua hanc Dei benevolentiam & Christi meritum amplectimur & percipimus. Nam qui credit, habet vitam aeternam. Sed haec ipsa quoque fides opus & donum est in nobis propitii iam Dei propter meritum Christi. Postrema caussa [sic], bona opera sunt: nam iuxta opera cuique rependitur, sed haec ipsa quoque sunt dona benevolentiae Dei, effectus meriti Christi, & fructus fidei… . Omnia igitur salutis nostrae donum sunt, & opus ultroneae & gratuitae benevolentiae Dei.” In sacra quatuor Evangelia, enarrationes perpetuae… . (Basel: Hervagius, 1536) 364. According to Bucer, even bona opera have their place in this causal scheme. Other reformers tend to be less willing to follow Bucer in this regard, but the emphasis we see here on the will of God as the causa iustificationis is typical. See Calvin, Institutio (1559) 3.4.25 (OS 4:114.14–18).

40 Hamm contrasts this with prior scholastic thought, in which “man's acceptance into grace and righteousness in justification, and his acceptance into sanctification at the Last Judgment, are two separate things, divided by the way of life inherent in obedience to the law and the principles of satisfaction and merit… . Through the acceptance of the sinner, his entering into the righteousness of Christ, something final has taken place; it cannot be superseded even by the Last Judgment… .” Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 198. This line of argument is developed at greater length in Heiko A. Oberman, “‘Iustitia Christi— and ‘Iustitia Dei’: Luther and the Scholastic Doctrines of Justification,” HTR 55 (1966) 1–26. While I think that this interpretation is basically sound with regard to Melanchthon and Calvin, other reformers saw things differently. Martin Bucer, for example, maintained the medieval interval between the iustitia Christi and the iustitia Dei; on this point, see my essay, “‘The Doers of the Law Will Be Justified—: The Exegetical Origins of Martin Bucer's Triplex Iustificatio,” JTS 58 (2007) 485–524, esp. 509–11. Furthermore, even Luther at times entertained doubts as to what seems to be the inescapable corollary of the latter position: “once saved, always saved.” In a 1538 addendum to the Smalcald Articles, for example, Luther contradicts the notion (widely ascribed to Johannes Agricola) that “all who once have received the Spirit or the forgiveness of sin or have become believers, should they sin after that, would still remain in the faith, and such sin would not harm them.” On the contrary, argues Luther, “when holy people … somehow fall into a public sin (such as David, who fell into adultery, murder, and blasphemy against God), at that point faith and the Spirit have departed. The Holy Spirit does not allow sin to rule and gain the upper hand so that it is brought to completion, but the Spirit controls and resists so that sin is not able to do whatever it wants. However, when sin does whatever it wants, then the Holy Spirit and faith are not there.” SA 3.3.42–45 (BC 318–19). In this passage Luther also explicitly rejects the position Calvin would later hold, namely, that those who fall into such grievous public sin simply demonstrate that they “never really had the Spirit and faith” to begin with. See Institutio (1559) 3.24.7 (OS 4:418–19). I am grateful to Reinhard Hütter for drawing my attention to this passage in Luther's writings.

41 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 203.

42 A generation ago, Steven Ozment famously argued that Luther's message of justification by faith alone gained so much interest because it provided relief from what he described as “the burden of late medieval religion.” The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth–Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) 22. Alister E. McGrath (“Justification and the Reformation: The Significance of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith to Sixteenth Century Urban Communities,” ARG 81 [1990] 5–19) was critical of Ozment's thesis, arguing that outside of the area of Luther's immediate influence—especially in upper Germany and Switzerland—there was little interest in deploying the new theology in “relieving individuals from the rigours of social discipline,” 12. In fact, the Reformation often brought an increase in moral and religious obligations in these territories, rather than a reprieve. The point is well taken, but McGrath overstates his case, ignoring the fact that virtually all of these reformers adopted a similar rhetoric of justification, even if it meant different things in different contexts. The fact that upon his return to Geneva in 1541, Calvin introduced “measures of social control over public morality, maintained by the oppressive sanction of consistorial excommunication” does not mean that Calvin was uninterested in the doctrine of justification, as McGrath maintains. It simply means that he saw no real conflict between the two, a fact which reinforces the suggestion that the doctrine itself was still in a state of development.

43 I borrow this term from patristics scholar Lewis Ayres, who uses it to describe “sets of terminologies embodying similar logics,” with the assumption that “such terminologies were read in the context of a set of wider theological assumptions and practices” (Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004] 84).

44 Hamm, “Reformation Doctrine,” 194.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., 194.

47 Ibid.

48 The centrality of justification both to the first–generation reformers and to later confessional Protestants is well established and need not be rehearsed at length. According to Oswald Bayer, the well–known aphorism describing justification as the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae first appears in Valentin Löscher's Vollständiger Timotheus Verinus of 1718, yet the sentiment is fully in keeping with the views of the early reformers. Luther remarks in his comments on Psalm 130 that “stante enim hac doctrina stat Ecclesia, ruente autem ruit ipsa quoque” (WA 40.3:352). Oswald Bayer, “Justification: Basis and Boundary of Theology,” in By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde (ed. Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Kolden; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004) 69. In like manner, Calvin describes justification from 1539 onward as the “main hinge on which religion hangs (sustinendae religionis cardo)” (Inst. 3.11.1; OS 4:182).

49 There was, of course, plenty about the ways in which Protestant thinkers explained the non-imputation of sins that raised the ire of their Catholic opponents; for example, its Einmaligkeit (that is, its once-and-for-all character), its removal from the context of the sacrament of penance, or its conferral of subjective certainty of salvation. But the basic idea of justification as involving the forgiveness of sins was standard medieval fare. Thomas Aquinas, for example, cites the Glossa ordinaria in a sed contra affirming that remissio peccatorum est iustificatio (Summa Theologiae, Ia–IIae q. 113 a. 1 s.c.). Though Thomas, like most medieval theologians in the West, views justification as a process which makes the sinner righteous, remission of sins is one of the primary effects of this infusion of grace (ST q. 113 a. 2 r.2).

50 According to Ritschl, “We shall … search in vain to find in any theologian of the middle ages the Reformation idea of justification—the deliberate distinction between justification and regeneration. Instances indeed occur in which, by the word justification is specially meant the Divine sentence of absolution from sins—particularly when certain unambiguous expressions of the apostle Paul are laid hold of; but we must not lay stress upon these instances so as to fancy in them an anticipation of the conscious thought of the Reformers.” Ritschl, Critical History, 90; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 215.

51 In dating the “first codification” of Protestant doctrine from the mid-1560s, I am following the historical framework given in Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (2d ed.; 4 vols.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2003) 1:52–59. By “two centuries,” I mean simply to underscore the longevity of these documents' influence, not to suggest a clear end date for confessional orthodoxy—indeed, these confessional documents are still binding in many Protestant churches today. Muller's study of Reformed Orthodoxy terminates circa 1725, by which point its staying power is clearly on the wane.

52 Even Melanchthon, who is often regarded as the source and font of a purely “forensic” approach, does not decisively eliminate the idea of renovatio from his definition of justification until the Römerbrief-Kommentar of 1532, according to Timothy Wengert, Law and Gospel: Philip Melanchthon's Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1997) 179–80. Zwingli, on the other hand, never develops such a distinction; see W. P. Stephens, The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 160.

53 For a summary of this debate, see David C. Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings: From Geiler von Kaysersberg to Theodore Beza (2d ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 64–69.

54 Scholarly opinion remains sharply divided on this issue. On the one hand, a strong tradition of confessional German scholarship from Ritschl to Althaus has maintained the centrality of imputed righteousness in Luther's view of justification, a view which continues to inspire spirited defense; see, for example, R. Scott Clark, “Iustitia Imputata Christi: Alien or Proper to Luther's Doctrine of Justification?” EvQ 70 (2006) 269–310. On the other hand, some lines of scholarship have cast the language of imputation as the distinctive contribution of Philipp Melanchthon, whether wholesome and salutary (as in Lowell Green, How Melanchthon Helped Luther Discover the Gospel: The Doctrine of Justification in the Reformation [Fallbrook, Calif.: Verdict, 1980]) or wicked and pernicious (as in Stephen Strehle, “Imputatio iustitiae: Its Origin in Melanchthon, Its Opposition in Osiander,” ThZ 50 [1994] 201–19). While not denying the presence of imputation in Luther's theology, Tuomo Mannermaa and his disciples have emphasized instead the notion of unio cum Christo as the central theme in Luther's soteriology, downplaying what would become the later confessional emphasis on forensic justification. For a succinct introduction to the main trajectories in the Finnish interpretation of Luther, see Union With Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998); a foundational text for this school has recently been translated into English: Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present In Faith: Luther's View Of Justification, (ed. Kirsi Stjerna; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005 [1989]). The “Finnish school” has often been charged with an ahistorical focus on selected texts in Luther's corpus to the exclusion of those which are deemed ecumenically unhelpful, with little consideration for how any of these texts fit into the ongoing development of the tradition. While I am sympathetic to much of this criticism, there are signs that the more recent Finnish scholarship is becoming aware of the problem. See, for example, the recent monograph by Olli-Pekka Vainio, Justification and Participation in Christ: The Development of the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification from Luther to the Formula of Concord (1580) (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

55 “Et quamquam imperfect hoc adhuc sit dictum, ac de imputatione non clare omnia explicit, placuit tamen iustitiam Dei doceri, qua nos iustificemur.” “Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings,” LW 34:337; WA 54:186.18–20.

56 See Bernhard Lohse, “Zum Wittenberger Augustinismus: Augustins Schrift De spiritu et littera in der Auslegung bei Staupitz, Luther und Karlstadt,” in Augustine, the Harvest, and Theology (1300–1650): Essays Dedicated to Heiko Augustinus Oberman (ed. Kenneth Hagen; Leiden: Brill, 1990) 89–109.

57 The Confessio Augustana was composed in the context of ongoing legal proceedings against the Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire, and this delicate political situation is no doubt reflected in the cautious tone struck by Melanchthon and his colleagues in the document they submitted to the emperor. While space will not allow engagement with other texts from the “first wave” of Lutheran confessional activity, the observations drawn here are by no means incompatible with them. The Small and Large Catechisms do not discuss the article of justification explicitly, and the Smalcald Articles, though less conciliatory in tone, describe justification in terms much closer to the CA than the language of the “second wave” confessions.

58 BC 38–41; BSLK, 56.

59 Although noting that Article IV was rejected by the Catholic theologians charged by Charles V with drafting the Confutatio at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Robert Kress observes that the text “does not teach a merely external and forensic justification, as if nothing happened in the justified human being.” Robert Kress, “The Roman Catholic Reception of the Augsburg Confession,” SCJ 11 (1980) 119.

60 This interpretation is sustained, I believe, by a close reading of Melanchthon's Apology of the Augsburg Confession, where justification is consistently understood in terms of Paul's allusion to Ps 32:1, which Melanchthon cites four times. Typical is the following: “To obtain forgiveness of sins is to be justified according to [Ps 32:1]: ‘Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven’” (BC 133.76). Yet even in this forensic context, a transformational aspect is not excluded: “We obtain the forgiveness of sins only by faith in Christ, not through love, nor on account of love or works, although love follows faith. Therefore we are justified by faith alone, justification being understood as the making of a righteous person out of an unrighteous one or as a regeneration.”

61 If it be objected that propter Christum is really the same thing as the imputation of the iustitia Christi, it should be pointed out that the Council of Trent, in regarding justification as resting on the meritorious cause of Christ's righteousness, affirmed the former and denied the latter; Sessio Sexta … decretum de iustificatione, ch. 7; Schaff, II:95.

62 “Darumb hat darnach der son sich selbs auch uns gegeben, alle sein werck, leiden, weisheit und gerechtickeit geschenckt und uns dem Vater versunet, damit wir widder lebendig und gerecht, auch den Vater mit seinen gaben erkennen und haben moechten.” LW 37:366; WA 26:505–6. The inclusion of such terms as suffering and wisdom in this list of Christ's benefits makes it unlikely, however, that what Luther has in view here is imputation, narrowly construed.

63 In only two places in the Apology is there any hint of the positive imputation of Christ's righteousness. Toward the end of Art. IV on justification, in discussing various proof-texts alleged against the Protestant position by the writers of the Confutatio, Melanchthon argues that the righteousness which “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8) is a righteousness of the law. He contrasts this hypothetical righteousness with that of the Gospel, “because the latter promises us reconciliation and righteousness when we believe that on account of Christ as the propitiator, the Father is gracious to us, and that the merits of Christ are bestowed upon us (donentur nobis merita Christi)” (Art. IV.238; BC 156; BSLK 206). Likewise, in Art. XXI, Melanchthon returns to the idea of justification in a dispute over the invocation of saints. Arguing that the Catholics “actually make the saints out to be not simply intercessors but propitiators,” Melanchthon denies them this function because they do not meet the two conditions essential to qualify as a propitiator. The first need not concern us here; the second, however, involves a “transfer” of righteousness in order to make atonement for sins:

64 CR 15:888.

65 BC 495.

66 For more on the polemical background of this text, see Robert Kolb, “Human Performance and the Righteousness of Faith: Martin Chemnitz's Anti-Roman Polemic in Formula of Concord III,” in By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde (ed. Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Kolden; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994) 125–39.

67 That is not to say that the earlier manner of speaking of justification as primarily forgiveness of sins is entirely eclipsed: The fourth affirmative thesis, for example, states that “according to the usage of Holy Scripture the word ‘to justify— in this article means ‘to absolve,’ that is, ‘to pronounce free from sin’” (BC 495). This statement is not balanced by an affirmation of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Yet in other places, such as the opening statement of the third Article of the FC's Solid Declaration, the imputation of Christ's righteousness is affirmed with no immediate reference to non-imputation of sins (BC 562). In general, however the unmistakable thrust of the FC's treatment of justification involves both imputation and non-imputation viewed as complementary aspects of the same salvific transaction.

68 This is not to say that Zwingli has nothing whatever to say on the matter of salvation in these theses; it is simply to say that the language of justification is not integral to his concerns at this point. The closest he gets, perhaps, to what would become the standard “Protestant” usage comes in Art. 22, “On Good Works”: “That Christ is our righteousness, from which we conclude that our works are good in so far as they are of Christ; in so far as they are works they are neither righteous nor good.” CCFCT 2:210. This, obviously, is a far cry from the iustitia Christi imputata of confessional orthodoxy.

69 Art. 3, CCFCT 2:217.

70 Ch. 3, CCFCT 2:222; CCER 746.

71 Art. 9, CCFCT 2:277; CCER 98–99.

72 CCFCT 2:285; BSRK 104.

73 CCFCT 2:380; BSRK 226.

74 CCFCT 2:381; BSRK 227.

75 CCFCT 2:416; BSRK 241.

76 Nineteenth-century theologians intent on finding anticipations of Luther's mature thought often fastened on biblical expressions such as these in the writings of late medieval theologians. Carl Ullmann, for example, argued on the basis of this language that John of Wesel was one such “forerunner.” Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vornehmlich in Deutschland und den Niederlanden (Gotha: F. A. Perthes, 1866) 325–25. Ritschl, however, points out that this Pauline language is perfectly capable of sustaining a Catholic reading, drily noting that “in the time of the Reformation … men had occasion to learn that contradictory senses could be attached by the conflicting parties to words that had the same sound.” Critical History, 91, 114.

77 CCFCT 2:416; BSRK 241. Later in the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, Reformed theologians would give this concept even more definite shape in distinguishing between the “active” and “passive obedience” of Christ. See Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969).

78 So Timothy George (OER 2:220), who points out the acceptance of this confession in the Swiss cantons and the Palatinate, as well as in the Reformed churches of France, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland in OER, s.v. “Helvetic Confessions.” The date of 1562 given in the text above is the date given in the critical edition by Müller (BSRK 170), and presumably represents the year when the text was completed.

79 Art. 15.1, in CCFCT 2:486; BSRK 191.

80 Art. 15.3, in CCFCT 2:486–87 [emphasis mine]; BSRK 192.

81 Also Ernst Koch: “Die imputatio des Werkes Christi bedeutet gleichzeitig non-imputatio der peccata, positiv gesehen imputatio der iustitia Christi. Hier ist einer der Schlüsselpunkte für die Rechtfertigungslehre der Confessio erreicht.” Ernst Koch, “Die Heilslehre der Confessio helvetica posterior,” in Glauben und Bekennen. Vierhundert Jahre Confessio helvetica posterior (ed. Joachim Staedtke; Zürich: Zwingli, 1966) 284.

82 CCFCT 2:439–40; BSRK 697–98.

83 “Hanc enim ut nostrum induimus, et sane pro nostra nobis a Deo accepta fertur, ut pro sanctis, puris et innocentibus nos habeat … verum iustiam Christi, quae una ut perfecta est, ita sola Dei conspectum sustinere potest, pro nobis sisti oportet ac iudicio repraesentari velut sponsorem. Ipsa vero a Deo accepta fertur ac nobis imputatur, perinde ac si nostra esset.” Institutio (1536) 1.32; OS 1:60–61.

84 By 1541 the formula appears in the Geneva Catechism in the compact, precise form it would take in virtually every subsequent major confessional symbol in both the Reformed and Lutheran churches: “merely through his goodness, without any regard to our works, he is pleased to accept us freely in Jesus Christ, imputing his righteousness to us, and does not impute our sin.” CCFCT 2:333. The Geneva Catechism never held more than a local provenance, though its influence can clearly be seen in some of the later texts noted above. See Robert M. Kingdon, “Catechesis in Calvin's Geneva,” in Educating People of Faith: Exploring the History of Jewish and Christian Communities (ed. John H. Van Engen; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004) 294–313.

85 The state of research in the field precludes any firm conclusions on this point, as we are not in possession of authoritative monographs on any of these figures. Hamm acknowledges as much in his treatment of Zwingli, and it is notable that his analysis places much heavier weight on the other three. Brian Lugioyo's forthcoming monograph, Martin Bucer's Doctrine of Justification: Reformation Theology and Early Modern Irenicism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), is an important contribution to our understanding of a reformer long known to have held distinctive views on justification. Frank James has demonstrated a development in the thought of Vermigli away from an early “Bucerian” position in the 1540s towards a view more in keeping with what I have here described as the konfessionelle Rechtfertigungslehre in the 1550s, in Frank James III, “De Iustificatione: The Evolution of Peter Martyr Vermigli's Doctrine of Justification” (Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 2000).

86 Once again, Hanson, Search, xxi.