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The ‘Anitrinitarianism’ of John Campanus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Chalmers MacCormick
Chalmers MacCormick
Affiliation:
Wells College
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Extract

John Campanus was one of the two most notorious Antitrinitarians of northern Europe in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. While, unlike the other, Michael Servetus, he does not seem to have had any lasting marked influence on Antitrinitarian developments, the stir he created among his comtemporaries was considerable. His stature in his own time is partially attested to, albeit negatively, both in a letter of Luther's in 1531 in which he identified Campanus as an adversary of the Son of God who blasphemed Christ even more than Arius had,2 and in the “mild” Melanchthon's opinion— given in response to a statement by Luther that the best way to deal with Campanus was to ignore him—that one should, rather, hitch him to the gallows. Somewhat more positive esteem, on the other hand, is intimated in a letter written to Cardinal Cervini in 1541 by the Catholic reformer Albert Pighius, whose opinion it was of one of Campanus' writings that no other writing of the time, either by a Catholic or a Lutheran, displayed greater erudition and ingenuity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 1963 , pp. 278 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1963

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References

1. For a more comprehensive treatment of Campanus, see the author's dissertation, “The Restitution, Göttlicher Schrifft of John Campanus: an Interpretation and the Text” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1959)Google Scholar—hereafter to be referred to simply as Restitution.

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6. Ibid., pp. 162–63. Notice of the expulsion is given us in a letter written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa in 1520. However, de Hoop-Sheffer, J. G., Geschichte der Reformation in den Niederlanden, trans. Gerlach, P. (Leipzig, 1886), p. 553Google Scholar, n. 2, identifies Agrippa's Campanus with an older one than ours— with one who enrolled at the University of Wittenberg in 1503. But this view is suspect because no John Campanus enrolled in Wittenberg in 1503. Rather, it was “Frater Joannes de Campis.” See Fdrstemann, K. E., Album Academiac Vitebergensis, I (Leipzig, 1841), 9.Google Scholar

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14. See Pighius' letter, Friedensburg, loc. cit.: “Invenio hominem ingenio rarissimo et plane admirabili … qui pene ubique et felicissime pugnat cum Lutero et Phillippe.”

15. Lenz, Max, Brief wechsel Landgraf Philipp's des Grossnzüthigen von Hessenmit Bucer, II (Leipzig, 1887), 435Google Scholar; Rembert, op. cit., p. 271.

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22. On its possible identity see Restitution, pp. 36–40.

23. The poem is discussed by Rembert, op. cit., pp. 178–83 and printed by him, pp. 593–98.

24. Restitution, p. 166.

25. Ibid., p. 157.

26. On both its language and its performance see Ibid., pp. 40–45.

27. Lenz, op. cit., p. 437; Rembert, op. cit., p. 272. Cf. also Melanchthon's stateinent (Loesche, loc. cit.): “Habeo penes me librum scriptum ipsius manu propria, in quo vult conciliare alcorani doetrinam cum Christianorem.”

28. Cf. Lindanus', Pro vero atque vivo Christi … Corpore … responsio (Cologne, 1575), pp. 10, 68Google Scholar, and Rembert, op. cit., pp. 277–78.

29. Restitution, pp. 162–64. Although the German distinguishes between the words “substance” (substanz) and “essence” (wesen), I have felt justified in translating wesen as “substance” in most instances, for “substantia” is the word used by Campanus in the extant Latin fragments of his which roughly parallel the passages I have cited. See Förstemann, K. E. (ed.), “Miscellen. B.,” Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie (1846), pp. 496–97Google Scholar or Restitution, pp. 166, 175–76. The relative suitability of “substance” is also seen in the fact that whereas one may speak about flesh as the common “substance” of man and wife, one would not consider it their common “essence.”

30. Cf. Restitution, Ch. 3 (“von der waren geburt desz suns Gottis ausz dem vatter”). The order of the present summary is based on the probable (and certainly more logical) order of the original Latin articles; i.e., the sequence is Restitution, Chs. 1, 3, 4, 2. Cf. both Luther's Gutachtung of Campanus' articles (TR, III, 522) and the Latin fragments of what probably was the Article Book (Försteinann, “Miscellen.”).

31. Restitution, p. 180.

32. Ibid., p. 184.

33. Ibid., pp. 185–86.

34. Ibid., Ch. 4, esp. pp. 194–99.

35. Ibid., pp. 195–96.

36. Ibid., p. 195.

37. I Cor. 11:3; Restitution, p. 199.

38. Restitution, Ch. 2 passim.

39. Ibid., pp. 166–68

40. Ibid., p. 170.

41. Ibid., pp. 170–71.

42. Ibid., p. 173.

43. Adversus Praxean, XII.

44. Robbins, Frank Egleston, “The Hexaemeral Literature” (Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1912), pp. 52Google Scholar (mel. n. 2), 71, 82; Watkin-Jones, Howard, The Holy Spirit in the Medieval Church (London, 1922), p. 46Google Scholar; Williams, Arnold, The Common Expositor: An Account of the Commentaries on Genesis 1527–1633 (Chapel Hill, 1948), pp. 67, 245.Google Scholar

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56. Ibid., I. vii.

57. Ibid., V. xi.

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59. Quoted in Blau, op. cit., p. 107.

60. Rembert 's overall estimate of Campanus is that he was a 'dangerous agitator” (p. 265). His misconception of the latter 's doctrine of the Godhead is seea in his conjecture that one of Campanus' sources had been the “Free Spirits” (Loïsts) of Antwerp. Cf. op cit., pp. 165–77 and Restitution, pp. 75–77.

61. Cramer, Snmuel (ed.), Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, V ('s-Gravenhage, 1909), 347.Google Scholar

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63. Cramer, op. cit., pp. 526 ff.

64. Ibid., p. 559.

65. Ibid., p. 572.

66. Räss, Andreas, Die Convertiten seit der Reformation, I (Freiburg i. Br., 1866), 166.Google Scholar

67. Williams, George Huntston and Mergal, Angel M. (eds.), Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (Philadelphia, 1957), pp. 158–59Google Scholar. On the dating of the letter, cf. ibid, p. 147, n. 4, and Peuckert, Will-Erich, Sebastian Franck (München, 1943), pp. 594–95.Google Scholar

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69. Martin Bucer (New Haven, 1931), p. 333. I have been unable to see the Verantwortung.

70. “Die Gruppierung der Antitrinitarier des 16. Jahrhunderts”, Scholastik, VII 1932), 494.Google Scholar

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74. Ibid., pp. 525–76.

75. See Restitution, pp. 113–20.

76. CR, VIII, 174–75.Google Scholar

77. Wilbur, Earl Morse, The Two Treatises of Servetus on the Trinity (“Harvard Theological Studies,” XVI, Cambridge, Mass., 1932), p. 6.Google Scholar

78. Ibid., p. 91.

79. Ibid., p. 171.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid., p. 145.

82. Ibid., p. 57.

83. Ibid., p. 50.

84. Ibid., pp. 36–37.

85. Ibid., pp. 37–38.

86. pp. 152–58.

87. Schultz, loc. cit.

88. Restitution, p. 153.

89. Friedensburg, loc. cit.

90. Franek wrote his letter from Strassburg. Mrs. Schultz (op. cit., p. 159, n. 3) thinks the conversations between Schwenckfeld and von Streitten took place ca. 1529–33 in Strassburg.

91. Rörich, Timotheus Wilhelm, “Zur Gesehiclite der strassburgischen Wiedertäufer in den Jahren 1527 bis 1543,” Zeitschrift für die historisehe Theobogie (1860), p. 103.Google Scholar

92. Restitution, pp. 155–58.

93. op. cit., p. 493.

94. Lenz, op. cit., p. 437; Rembert, op. cit., pp. 272–73.

95. This conclusion is supported in a letter to the author from George H. Williams, September 28, 1961.