Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 686

662

§ 104.

DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY

[Div. Ill

many

thousands, and became the point of departure for a separate Church organization, multiformity of churchly life became thereby eo ipso^ a fact. For if Luther held to the of

idea that every one who, like himself, broke with Rome, was bound to arrive at like results with himself, from the

nature of the case this idea could not be maintained. For so soon as another effort made its appearance by the side of his, itself possessed of the power to be even more founding churches than his, he might indeed write to Zwingii from Marburg " You are people of another spirit"; but after the Pope had been renounced, and the State had no power outside of its boundaries, there was no authority to prohibit this third " Church-forming " power from making its appearance and from consolidating itself 1517 made Luther powerless in 1529. That the Anabaptist and Socinian movements, in their dualistic-mystic and moderate-

which showed efficient

in

:

:

rationalistic

activity,

have not produced like

results,

and

small groups at most, which have never obtained any universal significance, is not attributable to the fact that these Anabaptists and Socinians were refused the

still

flourish

in

for men would fain have treated the Caland the Calvinists also barely tolerway, same vinists in the it was the immediate result of their but ated the Martinists " Church-formative " (Kirchenbildende) power. want of Such then was the lesson of history, viz. that the Church of Christ was bound to reveal herself in more than one form, but, at the same time, that this multiformity of revelation did not depend upon an arbitrary whim or freak, but was determined by the spiritual and forming power which appeared, or

right of existence

;

;

did not appear, in the several tendencies that raised their heads. Gradually, and of itself, this multiformity of the churches led to the recognition of four fundamental types of Church formation, apart from the Armenian, the Koptic, and other

churches in the far East viz. as the fruit of the Reformation the Lutheran and the Reformed, and by the side of these the Four principal groups, each one of G-reek and the Romish. which exhibits a churchly character of its own, reveals a pecul;

iar effort,

assumes a proper form, and

as such, also represents

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