Philippists

It probably originated among the opposite or Flacian party, and was applied at first to the theologians of the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, who were all adherents of Melanchthon's distinctive views, especially those in which he approximated to Roman Catholic doctrine on the subject of free will and the value of good works, and to the Swiss Reformers' on the Lord's Supper.

Somewhat later it was used in Saxony to designate a distinct party organized by Melanchthon's son-in-law Caspar Peucer, with George Cracovius, Johann Stössel, and others, to work for a union of all the Protestant forces, as a means to which end they attempted to break down by this attitude the barriers which separated Lutherans and Calvinists.

It was a misfortune not only for Melanchthon but for the whole Lutheran body, that he who had formerly stood as a teacher by the side Luther, the original leader, was now forced suddenly into the position to head not only the University of Wittenberg but the entire Evangelical Church of Germany.

Melanchthon, on the other hand, with his faithful followers Joachim Camerarius, Georg Major, Justus Menius, Johann Pfeffinger, Paul Eber, Caspar Cruciger the Elder, Victorinus Strigel, and others saw in the self-styled genuine Lutherans nothing but a narrow and contentious class, which, ignoring the inherent teaching of Luther, sought to domineer over the church by letter and name, and in addition to assert its own ambitious self.

The controversy on this subject, in which Melanchthon's friend Albert Rizaeus Hardenberg of Bremen was involved with Johann Timann and then with Heshusius, leading to his deposition in 1561, elevated the doctrine of ubiquity to an essential of Lutheran teaching.

The Elector August was now very anxious to restore peace in the Saxon territories, and John William agreed to call a conference at Altenburg (Oct. 21, 1568), in which the principal representatives of Philippism were Paul Eber and Caspar Cruciger the Younger, and of the other side Wigand, Cölestin, and Kirchner.

Both sides claimed the victory, and the Leipzig and Wittenberg Philippists issued a justification of their position in the Endlicher Bericht of 1571, with which is connected the protest of the Hessian theologians in conference at Ziegenhain in 1570 against Flacian Lutheranism and in favor of Philippism.

The conclusion of the Altenburg Colloquy prompted the elector, in Aug., 1569, to issue orders that all the ministers in his domains should hold to the Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum, intending thus to avoid Flacian exaggerations and guard the pure original doctrine of Luther and Melanchthon in the days of their union.

But the unquestionably Calvinist work of Joachim Cureus, Exegesis perspicua de sacra cœna (1574), and a confidential letter of Johann Stössel which fell into the elector's hands opened his eyes.

It raised its head once more in Electoral Saxony in 1586, on the accession of Christian I., but on his death five years later it came to a sudden and bloody end with the execution of Nikolaus Krell as a victim to this unpopular revival of Calvinism.