| The Book Of Concord |
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The documents of the ''Book of Concord'', composed between 325 - 1580 , are believed by Lutherans to summarize and give a faithful exposition of the Bible . The word "concordia," a transliteration of the Latin ''concordia,'' means "harmony." The book was thus named "Concordia," indicating its purpose as a collection of statements of faith intended to give common voice to the convictions of those who accepted these confessions as their own, and as a means to establish and maintain doctrinal harmony. The first documents in the book are the "Three Ecumenical Creeds ," the Apostles' Creed , Nicene Creed , and Athanasian Creed , all statements of Christian faith that were believed to be almost universally accepted by the established church since before the East-West Schism of 1054 . The next collection of documents comes from the earliest years of the Protestant Reformation . They are the confessions, articles, and treatises by Martin Luther , Philip Melanchthon . They are the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, written chiefly by Melanchthon, then the Small and Large Catechism of Martin Luther, his Smalcald Articles, and Melanchthon's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. The final documents, the two sections of the Formula Of Concord , were written shortly before the ''Book of Concord'' was published. Their intention was the same as that of the book itself: to unify the growing Lutheran movement. To this day the Book of Concord is regarded as doctrinally normative among traditional and conservative Lutherans, and as a witness to the historical teachings of the Lutheran Church by those of the more liberal or mainline Lutheran denominations. Contents
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