CONSENSUS. – A term used by Protestants to indicate a concise doctrinal exposition. They give various names to summaries of their doctrines; they call them catechisms (such as the two of Luther and Westminster), theses (such as the theses of Bern), confessions of faith (such as the Augsburg, Gallican, Belgian, etc.), articles (such as the 39 articles of the Anglican Church), etc., and also “c.” (v. CONFESSIONI DI FEDE PROTESTANTI). Some of these are little known, such as Calovius’s “C. repetitus” (1664) against the syncretism of G. Calixto; others, on the other hand, have remained famous. Of the latter, three originated in Switzerland, namely the “C. Tigurinus” of Zurich of 1549, the “C. Genevensis” of 1552, and the “Formula c. Ecclesiarum Helveticarum” of 1675; another was composed in Poland and is known by the name of “C. Poloniae Sandomiriensis” (1570–95). A brief account of each is given.
I. C. TIGURINUS. The struggle between Luther and Zwingli over the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist did not die out with Zwingli’s death in 1531, but continued with his successor, E. BULLINGER, HEINRICH (v.), who in 1515 published his Vera confessione dei ministri della chiesa di Zurigo... specialmente sulla Cena di N. S. Gesù Cristo. Calvin made several observations on Bullinger’s writing, and these, courteously received, opened the way to a common agreement between the leaders of the two sects, which was then reached in the city of Zurich in 1549. It consisted of 26 articles that equally condemned the Catholics’ transubstantiation and the Lutherans’ consubstantiation. Bullinger accepted almost all Calvinist doctrines, not only concerning the Eucharist, but also concerning particularly distinctive Calvinist doctrines, such as making the efficacy of the sacraments depend on God’s election. Apart from this clause, the whole “c.” also pleased Melanchthon, who was already the leader of the “crypto-Calvinists” (v.), but it gave rise to a violent writing by Gioachino Westal (1552). The “C. Tigurinus” indeed brought the Zwinglians closer to the Calvinists, but separated them ever more from the Lutherans. It was accepted by most of the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, France, and Germany.
II. C. GENEVENSIS. If the “C. Tigurinus” served to establish among the Zwinglians Calvin’s doctrine of the virtual presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the “C. Genevensis” gave him the occasion to explain at length his theory of predestination. It was drawn up in 1552 principally against the Catholic doctor Alberto Pighius Bolsec (v.), who had attacked him, and was addressed “Viris et magnificis dominis, syndicis, senatuique Genevensis, etc.”, an act that gave it a local character. It did not have a wide resonance, perhaps also because of its violent and mordant style and its prolixity.
III. FORMULA C. ECCLESIARUM HELVETICARUM (1675). It was the response of the Swiss Churches to the opponents of Calvinist doctrines (Amyraldists). During the seventeenth century, in the Reformed school of Saumur (v. cameroniti), the Amyraldists, so called after their principal leader Moses Amyraut, taught doctrines that undermined Calvinist ones. Against them the “Formula c.” was drawn up; adhering tenaciously to Calvinist doctrines, it established, among other things, that the verbal inspiration of Sacred Scripture extended “tum quoad consonantes, tum quoad vocalia sive puncta ipsa sive punctorum saltem potestatem etc.”; that God had determined, from the beginning, to create man upright, but permitted his fall and then chose certain men to save them, leaving the others as a corrupt mass and condemning them to eternal punishment; that Jesus Christ had died only for the elect; and that man, before personally committing sin, was condemned for two reasons: because of the hereditary original sin imputed to him, and because of the corruption of nature itself, which remained wholly depraved and spiritually dead. This formula had authority in the cantons of Zurich, Basel, and Geneva, and in some others, but it has now been replaced by the confessions of the free evangelical Churches of Vaud, Geneva, Neuchâtel, etc.
IV. C. POLONIAE O SANDOMIRIENSIS (1570–95). This “C.” was formulated at a gathering between the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Bohemian Brethren of Poland. In it, avoiding certain excessively extreme expressions, such as the Lutherans’ “manducatio realis,” or setting aside contentious questions, such as Calvinist predestination, the three sects declared themselves all to be orthodox, agreed to avoid dissensions and struggles among themselves, permitted the ministers of one to preach from the pulpits of the others, granted one another intercommunion, etc. This “c.” was the precursor of the modern pan-Christian congresses in which, under the appearance of union, the doctrines and errors of each sect remain unchanged. The “c.”, signed by representatives of the three sects and by many distinguished ministers and laymen, was drawn up at Sandomir in Lesser Poland in 1570, published in Latin and Polish in 1586, and confirmed at the Synods of Krakow (1573), Petricov (1578), Vratislavia (1583), and Thorn (1595).