Christ, and sedulously propagated the views of Calvin,
at first secretly and guardedly, but finally with boldness and abandon.
Gieseler says of these Philippists in Wittenberg: "Inwardly they were
out-and-out Calvinists, although they endeavored to appear as genuine
Lutherans before their master," Elector August. (3, 2, 250.)

The most prominent and influential of these so-called Philippists or
Crypto-Calvinists were Dr. Caspar Cruciger, Jr., Dr. Christopher Pezel,
Dr. Frederick Widebram, and Dr. Henry Moeller. The schemes of these men
were aided and abetted by a number of non-theological professors:
Wolfgang Crell, professor of ethics, Esrom Ruedinger, professor of
philosophy; George Cracow, professor of jurisprudence and, later, privy
councilor of Elector August; Melanchthon's son-in-law, Caspar Peucer,
professor of medicine and physician in ordinary of the Elector, who
naturally had a great influence on August and the ecclesiastical
affairs of the Electorate. He held that Luther's doctrine of the real
presence had no more foundation in the Bible than did the Roman
transubstantiation. To these must be added John Stoessel, confessor to
the Elector and superintendent at Pirna; Christian Schuetze,
court-preacher at Dresden, Andrew Freyhub and Wolfgang Harder
professors in Leipzig, and others. The real leaders of these Philippists
were Peucer and Cracow. Their scheme was to prepossess the Elector
against the loyal adherents of Luther, especially Flacius, gradually to
win him over to their liberal views, and, at the proper moment, to
surrender and deliver Electoral Saxony to the Calvinists. In prosecuting
this sinister plan, they were unscrupulous also in the choice of their
means. Thus Wittenberg, during Luther's days the fountainhead of the
pure Gospel and the stronghold of uncompromising fidelity to the truth,
had become a veritable nest of fanatical Crypto-Calvinistic schemers
and dishonest anti-Lutheran plotters who also controlled the situation
in the entire Electorate.

The first public step to accomplish their purpose was the publication of
the _Corpus Doctrinae Christianae_, or _Corpus Doctrinae Misnicum_, or
_Philippicum_, as it was also called. This collection of symbolical
books was published 1560 at Leipzig by Caspar Peucer, Melanchthon's
son-in-law, with a preface to both the German and Latin editions written
by Melanchthon and dated September 29, 1559, and February 16, 1560,
respectively,--an act by which,