at the very extreme other end of the scale in this matter (p. 108). Jeremias exposes what is really pure semi-Pelagianism ("a man must first determine himself to what is good, and then God gives him grace; otherwise there would be no free will"[1]). Lastly, he insists on tradition as a source of revelation.
Luke Osiander answered this letter in 1577, refuting each of the Patriarch's arguments from the Protestant point of view; the Patriarch wrote back and refuted Osiander, and then Osiander answered refuting the Patriarch. By this time, then, the correspondence, which had been meant to lead to an alliance, had become simply a rather acrimonious controversy. So, in 1581, Jeremias did a very sensible thing. He wrote, saying that evidently they would never agree: they started from different principles, and it was no good arguing any more. He would be very pleased to hear from them again if they would write for love (φιλίας ἕνεκα), but he did not want any more Protestant theology. Whether the Tübingers wrote him any letters for love I do not know; but that was the end of the attempt at a Lutheran-Orthodox union from Tübingen. Another abortive attempt was made in Poland in 1599. Both Protestants and Orthodox were then being much worried by the Catholic kings, and so the Protestants wrote to the Œcumenical Patriarch, proposing a defensive alliance against the common enemy. Popery. Meletios Pegas (p. 247), who happened to be then administrator of the vacant See of Constantinople (1597–1599), answered by asking them if they were prepared to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the OEcumenical throne. They, of course, said certainly not. What they proposed was to give the Patriarch the right hand of friendship, as St. Paul gave it to the elder Apostles. But to take the right hand of friendship in ecclesiastical matters from people outside his communion is as impossible for the Patriarch as for the Pope. So Meletios could only answer that he was sorry to find them schismatics and heretics, and that he would be glad to hear from them again as soon as they were prepared to join the Orthodox Church. The great affair of Lukaris (p. 264) is connected with this question of Orthodox and Protestants. Count Zinzendorf († 1760), the founder of the
- ↑ See Kyriakos, iii. p. 87.
