Apology of the Augsburg Confession
Philip Melanchthon’s defence of the Augsburg Confession against the Confutation read at the diet of 1530. Its preface is his own account of what happened after the confession was read.
Read the text at bookofconcord.org ↗Melanchthon’s preface, with his account of the diet ↗
The Apology (“defence”) answers, article by article, the reply that the emperor’s theologians made to the Augsburg Confession. In the preface Philip Melanchthon says that the Lutheran princes were refused a copy of that reply except on conditions they would not accept, that he and others drew up a first defence from notes taken while it was read, and that the emperor declined to receive it. He enlarged the text as it went through the press and put his name to it.
It is a primary source for the Lutheran side of the argument at Augsburg, and for the Lutheran account of the diet. It is a party’s statement. What it says of its opponents’ motives is Melanchthon’s own view. The Lutheran churches received it among their confessions in the Book of Concord of 1580.
Cited in
- 25 June 1530, firm date