Luther's Heirs Define His Legacy: Studies on Lutheran Confessionalization by Robert Kolb

Abstract

464BOOK REVIEWS to be reported, and, when reported, to pay the ultimate penalty. Jansen speculates on why these four were selected for execution. The women's circumstances were very various, and it is difficult to come to a conclusion, except in the case of Elizabeth Barton, whose fame and high contacts made her an obvious victim. Margaret Cheyne may have been an illegitimate daughter of the duke of Buckingham, executed in 1521, and her marriage to Sir John Buhner, whom she was accused ofurging into rebellion,was commonly impugned. ElizabethWood was the wife of a husbandman; curiously, there seems to have been no investigation of her husband's opinions. Mabel Brigge, a widow, was executed ;her married associate Isabel Bucke escaped the death penalty.lt is clearly impossible to recover the particular circumstances which made for condemnation in each case. Professor Jansen has worked carefully through the evidence. She does not press it beyond what it will bear, nor does she make exaggerated claims. It is good to have these cases of awkward, careless, or high-principled women brought to the fore.Women did not take up arms. But their attitudes, if not their actions, seem as various as those of the men, and not very noticeably "gendered." C. S. L. Davies Wadham College, Oxford Luther's Heirs Define His Legacy:Studies on Lutheran Confessionalization. By Robert KoIb. [Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS539] (Brookfield,Vermont :Variorum,Ashgate Publishing Company. 1996.Pp.xii, 322. $89.95.) There is no more convincing demonstration that the fundamental layer of every culture is religion than considering the process called "confessionalization ." TheVariorum series has happily brought together a number ofspecialized studies on the confessionalization which did so much to form modern German culture and character by Dr. Robert KoIb of ConcordiaTheological Seminary in St. Louis.Thanks are due to the Variorum series for retaining the original pagination of the journal articles, which avoids the confusion which could arrive when Kolb's investigations are cited—as they surely will be—in other publications . Collected, the essays raise the hope for a comprehensive history of the Late Reformation. Reprinted in the fresh form of their original printing, they convey Kolb's enthusiasm for his period and his curiosity about individual themes. Together, the essays in the first section, "Theology in the Context of Controversy ," tend to disprove the common opinion that the early controversies about Luther's legacy were mere squabbling.There are careful essays on predestination , the necessity of good works, as well as the Lutheran reaction to the Council of Trent. Impressive is the evidence of his rare gusto for reading and interpreting long-neglected—dusty—Latin tomes of biblical interpretation. In book reviews465 the second section,"TheWittenbergTradition in Biblical Exegesis,"he looks into Luther's influence on the history of commentaries on Genesis and on the Epistle to the Galatians. He is interested not only in the academically acceptable theme of the influence of humanism in the Reformation, but also in the less acceptable themes of the uncompromisingly biblical emphasis of Cyriakus Spangenburg . His investigation of the fate of St. Anselm's interpretation of the atonement as "satisfaction" is a contribution to the unfinished discussion among systematic theologians. I hope that he finds an effective way to insert the insights from his study on the Saints' days into discussions on contemporary liturgical practice. The varied essays have been grouped together in an amiably loose fashion. Since they are both useful contributions to the millennium-long scholarly discussion de methodo, for example, the discussion on the commonplace method could just as well have been grouped with the study of JohannesWigand's use of dialectic in the section, "Theological Freedom and Method." Description of the feisty defense by Matthaeus Judex offreedom of the press could just as well have been included in the section,"Theology in the Context of Controversy." Against Paul Tillich's classification of the partisans, KoIb argues that the Gnesio-Lutherans, who followed Matthias Flacius, were "radicals"; the Philippists , followers of Philipp Melanchthon, were "conservatives" (I, 21). Rather sharing the dismay of Spangenberg, however, that the Formula of Concord originated "in the collusion of princes" (VI, 206), he is sanguine. "As an intellectual...