No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The Protestant Reformation was the largest and most sustained challenge to authority ever experienced within the western Church. It involved a repudiation of existing teachings and forms of worship, along with a rejection, even a demonization, of the clergy and ecclesiastical hierarchy. From the 1520s a number of evangelical Churches developed which were often as hostile to each other as they were to the Catholic Church, and, as a result of polemical public discussions over competing teachings and beliefs, it was no longer clear to many people what constituted the Church or who should exercise authority over religious life. Some were led to question whether there was any need for a Church which imposed dogma and religious discipline on all people within a community or country. It is the discussion on the role and powers of the visible Church which will be examined here, by focusing on the city of Augsburg, but doing so through two significant writings by Martin Bucer, the leading theologian of the Protestant Church in Strasbourg. Recent research has added to our awareness of Bucer’s understanding of the relationship between Church and community, and this contribution will provide insight into how the views of Bucer impacted upon the debate on religious separatism which was taking place in Strasbourg, Augsburg and elsewhere in Germany. They show that even after Bucer had persuaded the government of his own city to expel religious radicals, he continued to believe that support for separatist and spiritualist ideas constituted a substantial challenge to the establishment of disciplined Protestant Churches.
1 Some of the most important recent work on Bucer’s views on the Christian community includes: Greschat, Martin, Martin Bucer Ein Reformator und seine Zeit (Munich, 1990)Google Scholar, English trans., Buckwalter, Stephen E., Martin Bucer: a Reformer and his Times (Louisville, KY and London, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wright, D. F., ed., Martin Bucer. Reforming Church and Community (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gäumann, Andreas, Reich Christi und Obrigkeit: Eine Studie zum Reformatorischen Denken und Handeln Martin Bucers (Bern, 2001)Google Scholar; Krieger, Christian and Lienhard, Marc, eds, Martin Bucer and Sixteenth-Century Europe, Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (28–31 août 1991), 2 vols (Leiden, 1993)Google Scholar; Strohm, Christoph, ed., Martin Bucer und dos Recht: Beiträge zum internationalen Symposium vom 1. bis 3. März 2001 (Geneva, 2002).Google Scholar
2 Martin Bucer, ‘Vom Ampt der oberkait in sachen der religion und Gotsdienst. Ain bericht auß götlicher schrifft des hailigen alten lerers und Bischoffs Augustini an Bonifacium, den Kayserlichen Kriegsgrauen in Aphrica. Ins Teütsch gezogen durch Wolfgangen Meüßlin, Prediger beym Creütz zu Augspurg’ [hereafter: Of the Office] in Stupperich, Robert, ed., Martin Bucers Jeutsche Schriften, 17 vols (Gütersloh, 1960–99)Google Scholar, 6.2: 17–38; ‘Dialogi oder Gesprech Von der gemainsame vnnd den Kirchen übungen der Christen Vnd was yeder Oberkait von ampts wegen auß Göttlichem befelch an den selbigen zuuersehen vnd zu besseren gebüre’ [hereafter: Dialogues], in idem, 6.2: 39–188.
3 Gäumann, , Reich Christi, 431.Google Scholar
4 McLaughlin, R. Emmet, Caspar Schwenckfeld Reluctant Radical: His Life to 1540 (New Haven, CT and London, 1986), 104–5.Google Scholar
5 Ibid., 106; Séguenny, André, ‘Caspar von Schwenckfeld’, in Lindberg, Carter, ed., The Reformation Theologians (Oxford, 2002), 351–62, at 353–4.Google Scholar
6 McLaughlin, , Caspar Schwenckfeld, 96–9.Google Scholar
7 McLaughlin, R. Emmet, ‘Sebastian Franck and Caspar Schwenckfeld: Two Spiritualist Viae ’, in Müller, J.-D., ed., Sebastian Franck, 1499–1542 (Wiesbaden, 1993), 71–86, at 71.Google Scholar
8 Franck, Sebastian, 280 Paradoxes or Wondrous Sayings, ed. Furcha, E. J. (Lewiston, NY, 1986), 487.Google Scholar
9 For a more detailed account of these groups see, McLaughlin, , Caspar Schwenckfeld, 160–72.Google Scholar
10 McLaughlin, R. Emmet, ‘The Politics of Dissent: Martin Bucer, Caspar Schwenckfeld, and the Schwenckfelders of Strasbourg’, Mennonite Quarterly Review 68 (1994), 59–78, at 60.Google Scholar
11 Harrison, Carol, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford, 2000), 147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Ibid., 150–1.
13 Ibid., 153.
14 For a detailed account of these events see Roth, Friedrich, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, 4 vols (Munich, 1901–11).Google Scholar
15 Broadhead, P., ‘Politics and Expediency in the Augsburg Reformation’, in Brooks, P. N., ed., Reformation Principle and Practice: Essays in Honour of A.G. Dickens (London, 1980), 55–70, at 56.Google Scholar
16 The most recent analysis of these ‘middle way’ policies is found in, Goßner, Andreas, Weltliche Kirchenhoheit und reichsstädtische Reformation: Die Augsburger Ratspolitik des ‘milten und mitleren weges’, 1520–1534 (Berlin, 1999), 46–52.Google Scholar
17 Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Literalien 2, 1530, fol. 241.
18 Greschat, , Martin Bucer, 99.Google Scholar
19 Brady, Thomas A. Jnr, ‘ “The Earth is the Lord’s and Our Homeland as Well”: Martin Bucer and the Politics of Strasbourg’, in Krieger, and Lienhard, , Bucer and Sixteenth-Century Europe, 1: 129–43, at 134–5 Google Scholar; Gäumann, , Reich Christi, 111.Google Scholar
20 Wolgast, Eike, ‘Bucers Vorstellungen über die Einführung der Reformation’, in Krieger, and Lienhard, , ibid., 1: 159–72, at 152–3.Google Scholar
21 McLaughlin, , Caspar Schwenckfeld, 164–7 Google Scholar. When Schwenckfeld arrived in the city he stayed with the preacher Bonifacius Wolfhart. McLaughlin, The Politics of Dissent’, 67, suggests that members of the Augsburg elite gave a warmer greeting to Schwenckfeld than to Bucer when both men were in the city in 1534.
22 Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Literalien Nachtrag I, 1534, Nr 16. There has been speculation that the author was the patrician, Ehem, Christoph, Hans, W., Gutachten und Streitschriften üher das ius reformandi des Rates vor und während der Einführung der offiziellen Kirchenreform in Augsburg, 1534–7 (Augsburg, 1901), 38 Google Scholar. This claim has been called into question by Ford, J. T., ‘Wolfgang Musculus on the Office of the Christian Magistrate’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 91 (2000), 149–67, at 154–5 Google Scholar. A repudiation of the views in this document was also circulating in the city, ‘Confutacion und Ablainung etlichen vermainten Argumenten so neulich von ainem nachdichter aufgetzaichnet seinnd, darinne angetzogen wirdet, das kainen diener dess Evangelions in der Religion und glaubens sachen die weltlichen Oberkait zu erwecken, noch viel weniger weltlichen Oberkaiten, darein zu greiffen gezymen wölle’. Hans suggests several possible authors, amongst whom Musculus was the most likely, Hans, , Gutachten, 40.Google Scholar
23 Greschat, , Martin Bucer, 121–2.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., 123; McLaughlin, , Caspar Schwenckfeld, 175.Google Scholar
25 ‘Bericht auß der heyligen geschrift von der recht gottseligen anstellung und haußhaltung Christlicher gemeyn, Eynsatzung der diener des worts, Haltung und brauch der heyligen Sacramenten’, in Stupperich, , Martin Bucers deutsche Schiften, 5: 109–258 Google Scholar. The work was dedicated to the mayors of Augsburg.
26 Wolfgang Musculus was an Augsburg preacher and a close associate of Bucer, and was regularly consulted by the Council on religious matters. For an account of his hostility to Schwenckfeld see, Weigelt, Horst, ‘Wolfgang Musculus und die radikale Reformation: Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Musculus und Kaspar Schwenckfeld’, in Dellsperger, Rudolf, Freudenberger, Rudolf and Weber, Wolfgang, eds, Wolfgang Musculus und die oberdeutsche Reformation (Berlin, 1997), 159–72, at 160–8.Google Scholar
27 Of the Office, as published in 1984, does not include the translation of Augustine by Musculus, for which the copy in the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek in Augsburg was consulted. Augustine, ’s, De correctione Donatistarum is published in Alois Goldbacher, ed., CSEL 57 (Vienna, 1911), 1–44.Google Scholar
28 Of the Office, 30. The desire to challenge Franck, ’s misunderstanding of Augustine is also made explicit in, ‘Dialogues’, 133.Google Scholar
29 Séguenny, André, ‘Why Bucer Detested the Spiritualists: Some Reflections on Reading of Bucer’s Dialogues of 1535’, Mennonite Quarterly Review 68 (1994), 51–8, at 55.Google Scholar
30 Dialogues, 57.
31 Of the Office, 29.
32 Dialogues, 50, 65.
33 Ibid., 74.
34 Ibid., 147–8.
35 Ibid., Of the Office, 28.
36 Dialogues, 148.
37 Séguenny, , ‘Why Bucer Detested Spiritualists’, 53.Google Scholar
38 Of the Office, 33.
39 Dialogues, 153. ‘Derohalb werden sy [die obren] verschaffen, das yederman doch höre das Evangelium und im niemand widerspreche oder davon abziehe, weder mit falscher leer noch üppigem leben, alle unzucht und unerbarkait werden syzum ernstlichen anziehen’.
40 Of the Office, 32.
41 Ibid., 33.
42 Dialogues, 98.
43 Ibid., 100.
44 Of the Office, 29.
45 Dialogues, 130.
46 Ibid., 167–8.
47 Ibid., 148. ‘So mag das mitt der warhait nit widersprochen werden, die gutthaten und straffen, durch die oberkaiten recht gemässiget und in namen Gottes wol außgespendet, vermügen vil, die leüt vom gotlosen wesen zu warer und selbwilliger gotsaligkait zu füren und auch entlich zu bringen’.
48 Of the Office, 33.
49 Dialogues, 178.