Editing Book of Concord (section)

==Origin and arrangement==
''The Book of Concord'' was compiled by a group of theologians led by [[Jakob Andreae]] and [[Martin Chemnitz]] at the behest of their rulers, who desired an end to the religious controversies in their territories that arose among Lutherans after the death of [[Martin Luther]] in 1546.<ref>Robert Kolb ''et al.'', ''The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church'', (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 481-485.</ref> It was intended to replace German territorial collections of doctrinal statements, known as {{Lang|la|corpora doctrinæ}} ([[Body of Doctrine|bodies of doctrine]]) such as the ''Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum'' or ''Misnicum''. This aim is reflected by the compilers' not calling it a ''{{Lang|la|corpus doctrinæ}}'' although it technically is one.<ref>F. Bente writes in his ''Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church'', §1: "Book of Concord, or Concordia, is the title of the Lutheran ''corpus doctrinae'', i.e., of the symbols recognized and published under that name by the Lutheran Church" (F. Bente, ed. and trans., ''Concordia Triglotta'', St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 3). The German Wikipedia article [[:de:Konkordienbuch]] states: "In diesem Sinne kann es auch als Kanon oder Corpus doctrinae der lutherischen Kirche bezeichnet werden": "In this sense it can also be described as the ''canon'' or ''corpus doctrinæ'' of the Lutheran Church." The Kolb-Wengert edition of the Book of Concord states: "The authors of the Formula of Concord responded to objections from followers of Melanchthon who treasured the ''Corpus doctrinae Philippicum'', and therefore they did not use the term ''corpus doctrinae'' when they prepared the Formula for publication with the ancient [[creed]]s of the church, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, and Luther's Smalcald Articles and Catechisms after the completion of the Formula in 1577" (Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. and trans., ''The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church'', Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000, p. 2).</ref> The list of writings predating the ''[[Formula of Concord]]'' that would be included in ''The Book of Concord'' are listed and described in the "Rule and Norm" section of the ''Formula''.<ref>Theodore G. Tappert, trans and ed. ''The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church'', (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 503-506; Kolb, 526-529.</ref>

Following the preface written by Andreae and Chemnitz (1578–1580)<ref name=":0">Tappert, 3, footnote 1.</ref> the "Three [[Ecumenical Creeds]]" were placed at the beginning in order to show the identity of Lutheran teaching with that of the ancient Christian church.<ref>Tappert, 17; Kolb, 19.</ref> These creeds, the [[Apostles' Creed]], [[Nicene Creed]], and [[Athanasian Creed]], were formulated before the [[East-West Schism]] of 1054, but the Nicene Creed is the western version containing the [[filioque]].

The other documents come from the earliest years of the Lutheran Reformation (1529–1577). They are the ''[[Augsburg Confession]]'', the ''[[Apology of the Augsburg Confession]]'', both by [[Philipp Melanchthon]], the ''[[Luther's Small Catechism|Small]]'' and ''[[Luther's Large Catechism|Large Catechisms]]'' of Martin Luther, his ''[[Smalcald Articles]]'', Melanchthon's ''[[Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope]]'', and the ''[[Formula of Concord]]'', which was composed shortly before the publishing of the Book of Concord and intended for the same purpose: the pacification and unification of the growing Lutheran movement. The preface of the ''Book of Concord'' was considered to be the preface of the ''Formula of Concord'' as well.<ref name=":0"/>

The ''Augsburg Confession'' has singular importance {{blockquote|as the unanimous consensus and exposition of our Christian faith, particularly against the false worship, idolatry, and superstition of the papacy and against other sects, and as the symbol of our time, the first and unaltered Augsburg Confession, which was delivered to Emperor Charles V at Augsburg during the great Diet in the year 1530 ...<ref>Tappert, 465.</ref>}} A recent book on Lutheranism asserts, "To this day ... the Augsburg Confession ... remains the basic definition of what it means to be a 'Lutheran.{{'"}}<ref>Robert Kolb and Charles P. Arand, ''The Genius of Luther's Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church'', (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 16.</ref> ''The Apology'', the ''Smalcald Articles'', the ''Treatise'', and the ''Formula of Concord'' explain, defend, or serve as addenda to ''The Augsburg Confession.''<ref>Kolb, 8, note 9; 97-98; 287ff.; 319; 465; 504-505.</ref>