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Corpus Doctrinae

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the name given to certain collections of writings which were intended to have authority in the Protestant churches of Germany. The most important of these collections are the following:

1. Corpus Phillippicum, also called Saxonicum or Misnicum (published in 1560, fol. and often). It contained the three general symbols (the Apostolic, Nicaean, and Athanasian), the Confession of Augsburg (the Invariata) and the Apology, and Melanchthon's Loci Communes, Examen Ordinandorum, and resp. ad artic. Bavaric. It was considered as crypto- Calvinistic, and violently denounced by the rigorous Lutherans. The Elector of Saxony, in 1569, threatened with deposition all who refused to teach in accordance with it, but subsequently this decree was repealed, and a number of defenders of the work were tried and imprisoned.

2. The Corpus Doctrinae Pomeranicum had the same contents as the preceding one.

3. The Corpus Doctrinae Prutenicum (Prussian), also called Repetitio doctrinae ecclesiasticoe, was published in 1567, and directed against the Osiandrian errors. A decree of the prince, in 1567, prescribed it as a rule of faith for all times to come, and declared that none who refused to accept it should receive office.