TheAltered Augsburg Confession (Lat.Confessio Augustana Variata) is a later version of the LutheranAugsburg Confession that includes notable differences with regard toholy communion and the presence of Christ in bread and wine. It is distinguished from the unaltered orEditio princeps (original edition).
Philipp Melanchthon made several changes to the original edition of theAugsburg Confession in the years following its 1530 publication. Most of the changes were about the language of the confession. In 1540 and 1542, he rewrote some parts of the confession in order to reconcile it with the views of Calvinists.[citation needed]
Articles 2, 4, 5, 20 and 21 of Part 1 are enlarged in theVariata. Various other sentences are altered, and the order of the articles in part 2 are rearranged.[1]
The most discussed difference between theVariata and theEditio princeps is in the theology ofReal Presence, article 10.
| invariata (1530) | De Cœna Domini docent, quod corpus et sanguis Christi vere adsint, et distribuantur vescentibus in Cœna Domini; et improbant secus docentes.[1] | Touching the Supper of the Lord they teach, that the body and blood of Christ are there present indeed, and are distributed to those that eat of the Lord's Supper; and they condemn those that teach otherwise.[2] |
| variata (1540) | De Coena Domini docent, quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi, vescentibus in Coena Domini.[3] | Touching the Supper of the Lord they teach, that, together with the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ are truly exhibited to them that eat of the Lord's Supper,[2] |
Martin Luther did not object to thevariata, nor did other Lutherans at the time of its printing. Objection first came from opposingRoman Catholics at theColloquy of Worms.[4] Melancthon testified that there were no changes of "matter, substance and meaning."[4]
Reformed theologians also signed the Augsburg Confession, presumably theVariata.John Calvin atStrasbourg and again at the 1541Conference of Ratisbon,William Farel andTheodore Beza at the 1557Colloquy of Worms, andFrederick III at the 1561 convent of Princes in Naumburg, among others.[5] TheVariata enabled Calvinist domains security in the 1555Peace of Augsburg.
United churches in the 19th and 20th centuries preferred theVariata.[6][1]
Lutheran churches often specify that they agree to the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as opposed to the altered version.
It is, to a certain extent, also the Confession of the Reformed and the so-called Union Churches, in Germany,
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