Friday, October 19, 2007

friedensspruch

Two key mottos came out of the reformation, the first asserts that "we speak where the Bible speaks, and are silent where the Bible is silent." The second dictum received a special name "Friedensspruch" or "Peace Saying." It originates from Peter Meiderlin (known better by his Latin anagram Rupertus Meldenius), a Lutheran theologian and pastor in Augsburg in the seventeenth century.

In 1626 Meldenius wrote the tract Paraenesis votiva pro pace ecclesiae ad theologos Augustanae confessionis auctore Ruperto Meldenio Theologo regarding the controversy over the orthodoxy of Johann Arndt. His closing words are, "were we to observe unity in essentials, liberty in incidentals, and in all things charity, our affairs would be certainly in a most happy situation".
The Latin phrase, "in necessasariis, unitas; In dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas" is now more commonly repeated as, "In all things essential, unity. In all things non-essential, liberty. In all things, charity."

We have drifted a long way from both of these mottos. Schade ...

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