The Apology of the Augsburg ConfessionMelanchthon, Philipp
Religion
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession
Melanchthon, Philipp
Lutheran Church -- Catechisms
Neither have we said anything new. The ancient definition understood
aright expresses precisely the same thing when it says: "Original sin
is the absence of original righteousness" [a lack of the first purity
and righteousness in Paradise]. But what is righteousness? Here the
scholastics wrangle about dialectic questions, they do not explain
what original righteousness is. Now, in the Scriptures,
righteousness comprises not only the second table of the Decalog
[regarding good works in serving our fellow-man], but the first also,
which teaches concerning the fear of God, concerning faith,
concerning the love of God. Therefore original righteousness was to
embrace not only an even temperament of the bodily qualities [perfect
health and, in all respects, pure blood, unimpaired powers of the
body, as they contend], but also these gifts, namely, a quite certain
knowledge of God, fear of God, confidence in God, or certainly the
rectitude and power to yield these affections [but the greatest
feature in that noble first creature was a bright light in the heart
to know God and His work, etc.]. And Scripture testifies to this,
when it says, Gen. 1, 27, that man was fashioned in the image and
likeness of God. What else is this than that there were embodied in
man such wisdom and righteousness as apprehended God, and in which
God was reflected, i.e., to man there were given the gifts of the
knowledge of God, the fear of God, confidence in God, and the like?
For thus Irenaeus and Ambrose interpret the likeness to God, the
latter of whom not only says many things to this effect, but
especially declares: That soul is not, therefore, in the image of God,
in which God is not at all times. And Paul shows in the Epistles to
the Ephesians, 5, 9, and Colossians, 3,10, that the image of God is
the knowledge of God, righteousness, and truth. Nor does Longobard
fear to say that original righteousness is the very likeness to God
which God implanted in man. We recount the opinions of the ancients,
which in no way interfere with Augustine's interpretation of the
image.
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