Reformation
Italy / Central Europe
Also: Stancaro
⭐ He is this thread's example of someone who went too far the other way: González says that in refuting Osiander he went to such excess. ⚠ Read him alongside Flacius on thread 3 — he too, in opposing a real problem, pushed his own position too far and was rejected by his own side. This thread has a cliff on each side, and those who stand at the edge have often been pushed there by their opponents.
Below: first his own position, then the church’s verdict — kept separate. A rejected opinion keeps equal weight here.
His own position
He reached the other extreme in the course of refuting Osiander. Osiander said that Christ is Mediator according to his divine nature; Stancaro turned this round and claimed, as González reports, that Christ is Mediator only according to his human nature, not according to his divine nature. ⚠ González notes that this view had been held earlier by Peter Lombard and others — he did not invent it out of nothing, but in this setting it was pushed into the opposite pole.
⭐ Please do not read him as a man who only argued for argument's sake — he drew out part of Calvin's Christology. González records that another opponent who helped to shape Calvin's Christology was Francesco Stancaro. And Calvin's reply to him uses the very same measure Calvin used against Osiander. As González gives Calvin's words: although Christ could not have washed our souls with his blood, nor appeased his Father's wrath with his sacrifice, if he had not been God — since the power of the flesh could not bear so great a burden — it is nonetheless certain that he did all this according to his human nature.
⚠ That is: Calvin stood on neither side — the divine nature makes the sacrifice effective; the human nature makes the sacrifice possible. ⭐ And this is exactly the answer that Article III of the Formula of Concord gave twenty-five years after Osiander's death (1552) (“the whole Christ according to both natures”). A man judged to have gone too far had asked a question that was itself a real question.
The church’s verdict
Rejected together with Osiander by Article III of the Formula of Concord, 1577. That article puts the question this way: does Christ justify according to his divine nature (Osiander) or according to his human nature (Stancaro)? — and then rejects both. The positive statement: Christ is our righteousness “neither according to the divine nature alone, nor according to the human nature alone, but the whole Christ according to both natures, to wit: in his sole, most absolute obedience”.
Threads he belongs to
Justification
Dispute Counterclaim ⚠ He went too far in opposing Osiander — Christ is Mediator only according to his human nature. Those who stand at the edge of a cliff have often been pushed there by their opponents.