ANTINOMIANS. - The term was coined by Luther himself in the controversy with Johannes Agricola, his disciple, to characterize the doctrine according to which the Christian had been freed from the observance of the Old Law, and thus from the precepts of the Decalogue themselves.
From the earliest times of Christianity there were sectarians, among whom the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics, etc., who, under the pretext that the Old Law had been abolished, proclaimed even the most sinful acts to be lawful. This error was revived in the new Nicolaitans of the 11th century and, according to some, in the Apostolics of the 12th century. The Anabaptists of the 16th century then claimed to be free from the observance of any civil law. In the first half of the 16th century, Johannes Agricola, drawing from his master’s doctrine of “faith without works,” concluded that if the Christian is saved solely by faith, it was useless to worry about the morality or immorality of his actions. Although Agricola later returned, at least outwardly, to Luther’s side and retracted his error, the doctrine continued to spread, especially during the dispute between Georg Major, who upheld the necessity of good works, and Nicolaus von Amsdorf, who, developing Luther’s teaching, asserted that good works, far from being necessary, were even an obstacle to salvation. With the *Formula of Concord* of 1577, the controversy subsided for a time. Antinomianism resurged vigorously in the 17th century among the Puritans and English Independents. Some derived it from Calvin’s theory of predestination, since if God had decreed that some men should be saved and others damned, the decree must inexorably come to pass, whatever life such men led; others, instead, deduced it from the doctrine of the admissibility of justice, according to which sins committed by the just—and all who held this doctrine believed themselves to be just—were not sins, because they did not diminish justice.
These extreme theories, with the restoration of the monarchy and Anglicanism, no longer manifested themselves openly. Anglican bishops kept watch, and even John Wesley, accused of antinomianism, had to defend himself before the Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson. The Moravian Brethren were also accused of antinomianism. At the beginning of the 19th century, antinomianism gathered new strength in a select group of English society, and it cannot be considered entirely extinct even today.