Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Chapter Four Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation The Gospel and Politics The Emperor, the Empire, and the Reformation

In 1523, two prince electors—the prince-archbishop of 'Trier and the secular elector Palatine—joined Landgrave Philip of Hesse in crushing the uprising of imperial knights led by the eccentric Franz von Sickingen.

The same two princes, their differing stances toward the Reformation notwithstanding, joined ranks again two years later and annihilated the troops of rebel peasants. Both events illustrate a complex phenomenon: the political future of the Holy Roman Empire lay in the hands of the territorial princes.! Accordingly, their influence on the development and organization of the Reformation became increasingly great. 'Iwo goals were being pursued in this process, goals that often overlapped or merged in one and the same person. The first of these was the endeavor on the part of the prince to extend his own power and jurisdiction beyond the power and jurisdiction of others—be those the church or the local representatives of the imperial estates—by concentrating as many privileges and rights in his hands as possible. This expansion, however, implied a change in what it meant to "rule" over others. Ruling was no longer primarily seen as the static preservation of domestic law and order but took ona dynamic quality, aiming to achieve the greatest possible good for the many. This process could also be observed in the cities. here we increasingly see "governments" (Obrigkeiten) developing out of the "democratically" elected representatives of the community.' The second goal was the improvement and renewal of the church. This goal cannot be understood separately from the first, but neither can it simply be identified with it.

Martin Bucer Issues of faith and questions regarding the correct understanding of revealed Christian truth were anything but marginal for the political rulers of the time. This relationship is precisely what makes the political positions and decisions of this period so complicated. In any case, the development of the Reformation in the territories and in the cities became increasingly assimilated into the efforts by the rulers to expand and consolidate their own political power. In most places this assimilation resulted in the standardization of doctrine and the organization of territorial church structures under governmental supervision and support. The imperial diet of Speyer in 1526 unintentionally helped bring about this development with its official resolution that, until the next council, "everyone should act as he deems accountable before God, Imperial Majesty, and the Empire."?

The rise and consolidation of princely territorial states within the Holy Roman Empire, a development that began around 1500, was at complete odds with the imperial idea and the vision of a centralized state with a monarch as its head as exemplified by emerging states in Spain, France, and England. Germany's political and ecclesiastical development, however, remained marked by the fundamental dichotomy of the holy Roman emperor on the one side and the territorial princes on the other. It was this fact that made the diffusion and success of the Reformation movement in the empire possible in the first place.

Any emperor who attempted to tighten the reins of power in much the same way as the princes were gradually and successfully doing in their own territories was bound to encounter fierce resistance on their part. At the same time, the imperial idea was so deeply ingrained in the political sphere that the relationship between imperial crown and princes cannot be simplistically reduced to one of antagonism. 'Tensions indeed became greater, however, with the elevation of a Spanish Habsburg to the imperial throne.

Charles V embodied like no other ruler the idea of a universal monarchy, that is to say, one that encompassed many nations. The proud claim that the sun never set on his empire was not false. But for the time being, the overseas territories were much less significant for Charles than the European ones. Charles's territorial holdings managed to surround France and the Papal States in Italy effectively from all sides. This meant that Charles soon found himself involved in a fundamental, enduring struggle with these two European powers. A third factor he had to consider in his foreign policy was the consistent advance of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkan

Peninsula, threatening Vienna and the very Habsburg heartland. On account of his overwhelming political might, Charles V was able to defeat his opponents on countless occasions. But it was precisely this indis-

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putable superiority that incited Charles's opponents to rise up against him time and again, for his final victory could only mean the permanent defeat of his opponents—be they the French king, the German princes, the pope, or the Protestants. These political interests therefore often overlapped and intersected with the religious confrontation between the traditional church and the Reformation movement.

Essential to the self-understanding of the Holy Roman Empire was the assumed unity of the Christian faith. For Charles V, this idea was more than an ideological bond suited for cementing his diverse, far-flung territories. He fought against the Reformation out of heartfelt conviction. For this reason he placed Luther under the ban of the empire and had his writings burned after the diet at Worms in the spring of 1521. And it was under the same presuppositions that Charles's brother Ferdinand demanded from the delegates at the diet of Speyer in April 1529 that they revoke all innovations in matters of faith and be strict in carrying out the provisions of the Edict of Worms.

What role did the imperial cities play in this political setting? "Their natural enemies were the territorial princes. The cities therefore sought protection against them from the emperor. The maintenance of a strong central power in the form of the empire was in the economic and commercial interests of the cities. This interest was one important reason why many cities, including Strasbourg, waited so long before they introduced the Reformation. It also explains their hesitancy to enter a political alliance with the Swiss, the traditional enemies of the Habsburgs. 'They hoped, in spite of the religious dispute, to preserve the traditional harmony with the emperor. The utter failure of this policy became evident at the diet of Speyer in 1529. The cities now had to make up their minds— for or against Charles V. Nuremberg, which had already introduced the Reformation years previously, decided in favor of the emperor. Strasbourg's religious and political development led it, as well as most southern German cities and a few territorial princes, to oppose Charles V.

The "Protestants"

At Worms in 1521, Luther had faced the emperor and the imperial estates alone. Now, eight years later, five princes and fourteen cities united themselves behind the famous "Protestation" of April 19, 1529, rejecting

King Ferdinand's demands and arguing that majority decisions as framed in the imperial diet were inadmissible in questions of faith. For "in issues concerning God's honour and our souls' salvation and redemption each

Martin Bucer one of us must stand alone before God and is called alone to account, so that no one can excuse himself by appealing to someone else's inferior or superior decisions and provisions; beyond this, there are no other upright, well-founded, good reasons that oblige one to act."* Three days later these "Protestants" agreed to an alliance in order to defend themselves and their religious convictions against the emperor and his supporters, by force if necessary.

This unanimity and determination, alas, did not last very long. In the coming months, political and theological differences took precedence over the original common perception of threat. In Electoral Saxony and in the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the number of those refusing to make common cause with "sacramentarians" (Sakramentierer) and "fanatics" (Schwarmer) grew from day to day, with strong support from the theologians there, and particularly from Luther. They argued that if a war for the sake of defending the true faith should really come to pass, one could fight only alongside those with whom one ultimately agreed. Landgrave Philip of Hesse depended urgently on the political and military support of Saxony and therefore sought a pact with Saxon elector John "the Steadfast." At the same time, Philip pursued a second alliance between Hesse and the southern German and Swiss cities. Philip's plans could succeed only if the tiresome controversy over the Lord's Supper could be resolved. It had therefore been Philip's pressing concern for quite some time that a meeting between Luther and Zwingli take place.

The cities too, especially Strasbourg, were convinced that theological differences within the Protestant camp had to be put in the background in order to enhance the rapid creation of a common defense policy. They needed the support of the empire's princes, although they feared being exploited financially and even being dropped by them should political winds shift. The cities' relationship to the Swiss was also fraught with complications. Though the southern German cities had good and manifold relations to their neighbors in the south, they knew that a pact with the Swiss that did not take the princes into account would lead to the dangerous isolation of the southern Germans within the Holy Roman Empire.

For the time being, the Lutheran faction most decisively influenced developments. It met in Schleiz in southern Thuringia, some twenty-five miles northwest of Hof. Delegates agreed on seventeen articles of faith, drafted primarily by Philipp Melanchthon, that were to constitute the theological basis for any political alliance. These statements were definitely a summary of Wittenberg doctrine and included a flat rejection of

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Zwingli's views. Using these theses as his starting point, Luther formulated fifteen articles at the close of the Marburg Colloquy on October 3,

1529. Fourteen articles attested to the matters that the parties agreed upon. The fifteenth then circumscribed the disagreement still persisting in the understanding of the Lord's Supper. Although the Marburg Articles included some formulations that could be understood as efforts to create rapprochement with the opposing side, it soon became clear that they represented anything but a theological agreement, especially from the perspective of the Wittenberg theologians and their supporters. Only a few days later this group met again in Schwabach, just a few miles southwest of Nuremberg, and sternly demanded of all other Protestants that they agree to the Schleiz articles in their original form as the prerequisite for a political alliance. But the southern German cities, especially Strasbourg and Ulm, felt they could only reject these "Schwabach Articles," as they were now being called. The same thing happened all over again at a meeting at the end of 1529 in Schmalkalden, a town administrated jointly by Electoral Saxony and Hesse. Instead of achieving its goal—the creation of a Protestant league—this meeting ended disastrously for the southern

German cities. However, Strasbourg did manage to be admitted into the "Christian Federation" (Christliches Burgrecht) formed by Zurich, Basel, and Bern. Philip of Hesse also joined it in the summer of 1530.

Strasbourg's Position Bucer was actively involved and assumed ever-growing responsibility in these developments. Side by side with Jacob Sturm, he exerted significant influence on the internal policy and even on the foreign relations of the Protestant camp in the following years. At the same time, we should not idealize the relationship between the men. The noble patrician Jacob

Sturm, a member of the city council since 1524 and the determining figure of Strasbourg's foreign policy on account of his position in the Council of the Thirteen, was fundamentally oriented toward the empire, since he held fiefs from the bishop of Strasbourg and particularly the margrave of Baden and other territorial princes. Sturm's ascendancy pushed the council faction headed by Kniebis, which sought closer connections to Switzerland and especially to Zurich, into the background. Of course,

Sturm did not want to betray this group. But an alliance with the Swiss was possible only if it included not only the southern German cities but also the territorial princes. Like Philip of Hesse, with whose politics he agreed

Martin Bucer wholeheartedly, Sturm wanted the dispute over the Lord's Supper to be excluded from all negotiations. And he was particularly vigorous in rejecting the pastors', and especially Bucer's, desire to have a say in the city's politics. Sturm's policy sought the greatest possible internal cohesion of his city, firm connections to the empire, and good relations with Charles V— in the degree that actual circumstances made all these goals possible.

If Sturm wished first of all to maintain Strasbourg's position of power and influence, Bucer had other, bigger goals. 'To be sure, he was also interested in pursuing the vision of a politically mighty city whose citizens lived in unity. But ultimately he saw Strasbourg only as a foothold for the much broader endeavor of spreading the gospel and establishing God's kingdom. That meant a great deal to Bucer—but not everything. His presuppositions did not allow him in any way to ignore, for the sake of politics, what he felt was God's truth. No doubt, God had ordained governmental authority and Christians had to obey its injunctions. But God's law was also binding for rulers. If they wished to be true rulers, pleasing to God, they had to serve God and shape society according to God's norms. And in this action they were dependent on the close and trusting cooperation of the theologians, who were the ones qualified to expound God's will.

Even though a fundamental tension—complete disagreement might, in fact, be more accurate—persisted between Bucer and Sturm on these issues, they shared goals in wide areas. These points of agreement can be summed up in three general points, as far as Bucer's activities during these years are concerned:

1. First of all, it was of utmost importance to create the broadest possible political and theological front uniting Protestants. Since the controversy over the Lord's Supper obstructed this coalition, everything possible had to be undertaken to overcome this conflict. Bucer had already attempted to come to an agreement with the Wittenberg theologians over this issue before 1529, as we saw above. It therefore cannot be said that only political pragmatism now drove Bucer to take action in this area. Of course, changed political circumstances were now favorable to such an endeavor.

2. It was equally important to press forward with all one's might and available means to spread and consolidate the Reformation in the Holy

Roman Empire and beyond.

3. Finally, it was essential to equip the church in Strasbourg with the organization and structures necessary to consolidate what had been achieved thus far. This church could then serve as a foundation for further outreach.

It is these three aspects that we will now analyze in detail.

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation a3 Working for Protestant Unity Overcoming Isolation Bucer participated in the Marburg Colloquy'? of October 1-4, 1529, attending primarily as an appendage of the Swiss delegation. 'The main goal of the statesmen—in other words, of Philip of Hesse, but also of Sturm—had been to bring Zwingli and Luther together at one table. It was Philip's idea to urge Bucer to attend as well. The latter's efforts to reach an understanding in the eucharistic controversy had earned him a good reputation beyond Strasbourg's borders. Caspar Hedio was chosen to attend as a second Strasbourg theologian. He had maintained a good relationship with Melanchthon and was one of the few people to have close ties to Nicolaus Gerbel, the staunch Luther supporter in Strasbourg.

The Swiss—Zwingli and Oecolampadius, with their entourage— arrived in Strasbourg on the evening of September 6, after a thirteen-hour journey by boat down the Rhine from Basel. Joined by the Strasbourg delegation, they continued their trip on September 18, arriving in Marburg on September 27. Bucer hardly played a role in the theological conversations of the following days. However, Sturm brought Bucer into action on the afternoon of October 3, after negotiations collapsed. Sturm was apparently hoping that Strasbourg would abandon its commitment to the Swiss position. Luther, however, flatly rejected Bucer's statements. He not only claimed that one could not trust Bucer but also declared categorically:

"Your spirit and our spirit do not coincide. On the contrary, it is obvious that we do not have one and the same spirit."° One more conversation did indeed take place between the Strasbourg theologians and Andreas Osiander from Nuremberg and Johannes Brenz from Schwabisch Hall on October 4, during which Bucer proved ready to make considerable concessions to the Lutheran theologians. It is, however, highly unlikely that Bucer actually endorsed the Lutheran position on this occasion, as Osiander later claimed. They ultimately parted company unreconciled.

In the coming months, Bucer defended his understanding of the Lord's Supper on the one hand, but on the other he asserted that differing views on this issue must not be overemphasized at the expense of the many things the Protestants did, after all, have in common. Bucer had already made these two points in a memorandum on the Schwabach Articles he had written at the end of 1529 for Sturm to take to Schmalkalden.' There

Bucer had affirmed that Christ does impart himself to believers in the Lord's Supper, but he is not iv the elements of bread and wine. At the same time, the following holds true: whoever rests his hopes on and trusts

Martin Bucer Christ alone and allows Christ to rule his life belongs to the fellowship of Christians, even if that person should err in individual doctrinal issues.

Bucer particularly emphasized this view in the preface, dedicated to the professors of the University of Marburg, that he wrote for his Commentary on the Gospels published in April 1530. "If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be the enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother?

I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing.

This holds true in theology as well." In spite of the personal hurt caused by Luther's condemnations—hurt that can be clearly sensed when reading the preface—in the following years Bucer persisted stubbornly in this hermeneutical insight, much more typical of subsequent thinkers than of his own period. It was the basis for all his attempts to achieve agreement and understanding on each and every theological front. It was the same conviction that he had expressed to Zwingli in 1524: the common spirit is what counts, not the letter. For the Spirit of God, which opens us to faith and love, liberates us to understand genuinely and thus creates true unity. Io persist in the letter, however, divides and destroys fellowship.

But Luther's supporters refused to allow themselves to be wooed by Bucer. Bucer gave the Strasbourg delegates to the Augsburg diet a German version of the aforementioned preface,' but the Lutheran theologians brushed it aside as irrelevant as soon as it fell into their hands. In any case, in Augsburg a situation completely different from that in Speyer the previous year seemed to be taking shape. Charles V, whom the pope had just crowned emperor in Bologna on February 24, 1530, announced in his invitation to the imperial diet of Augsburg that he wanted the supporters of the Reformation to submit and explain their views to him. This request led to feverish efforts on the side of the Protestants to set forth and defend the innovations brought about by the evangelical movement. But then

Johannes Eck published 404 theses of his own in which he accused evangelicals of having separated themselves from the early, true church not just in external details but in all fundamental articles of the Christian faith.

'This attack was more than just a theological challenge. It had dangerous legal implications for the status of Protestants within the empire and had to be taken seriously. Philipp Melanchthon, the main theologian among the Wittenberg delegates in Augsburg, therefore dropped plans for a written defense of evangelical innovations and decided instead to draft a comprehensive confession of doctrine. In this confession, and particularly in the twenty-one dogmatic articles constituting its first section, Melanch-

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thon vigorously emphasized that the Reformation in Electoral Saxony and its supporters were in full agreement with the teachings of the early church.

In view of this goal, any efforts on the part of the Strasbourg delegates to convince the Saxons to join them in a common theological and political front were perceived as bothersome and inexpedient—particularly since the Strasbourg theologians were considered to be clear allies of Zwingli and of the "seditious" Swiss, who did not accept the political predominance of the territorial princes in the empire. And since Strasbourg did not want to ally itself exclusively with the Swiss cities, it as well as other southern German cities stood politically isolated. Efforts by Strasbourg's political representatives to be allowed to endorse the Saxon confession with the single exception of its article on the Lord's Supper met with failure. The Strasbourg delegates thus urgently sent for Bucer and Capito to come to Augsburg to write up a separate confession as quickly as possible.

The twenty-three articles they drafted!" essentially follow the pattern of Melanchthon's confession without reproducing its dual structure of statements of doctrine on the one hand and defense of innovations on the other. With regard to the Lord's Supper, Bucer drew up a very lengthy, long-winded article that sought to accommodate the concerns of the Lutheran camp. But the other southern German cities were unhappy with his wording. Strasbourg invited the delegates of the free imperial cities of Memmingen, Lindau, Constance, Ulm, Biberach, Isny, Kempten,

Heilbronn, Frankfurt, and Wissembourg to meet on June 30. Strasbourg wooed these delegates, hoping to obtain their endorsement of its confession. But even though Bucer went to the trouble of drafting a new eucharistic article, this one much shorter and somewhat vaguer, only

Constance, Lindau, and Memmingen were willing to sign the confession, besides Strasbourg—which is why it was given the name Four Cities' Confession, or Confessio Tetrapolitana. No other city was inclined to support the Strasbourg statesmen and theologians, who were obviously isolated.

Zwingli himself set forth his own confession, his Account of Faith (Fidei Ratio). Thus, the dissonance in the Protestant camp was just as evident as the vulnerability of the Strasbourg position.

In August 1530, however, a new development on the political scene allowed Bucer to overcome the walls of Lutheran resistance that had obstructed his advances until then. The deliberations of a commission of Catholic theologians resulted in the flat rejection of all the Protestant confessions in their entirety. The emperor endorsed this decision. Furthermore, exploratory conversations that a small committee had conducted

Martin Bucer with Melanchthon and Eck, in hopes of bringing both sides closer, came to nothing. The situation was becoming threatening for the Protestants.

These threats became reality on September 22, 1530, with the closing decree of the diet of Augsburg: Charles V gave the Protestants until April

15, 1531, to return to the established church. Their failure to do so would be met with force. These circumstances lent new persuasiveness to the voices of those pleading for concord within the Protestant camp. Indeed,

Sturm and Bucer succeeded in convincing Prince Ernst of Liineburg and the Saxon chancellor Gregor Briick that Strasbourg was genuinely interested in reaching an agreement. Most important, after much hesitation

Melanchthon finally agreed to a lengthy meeting with Bucer on August 24. Bucer had realized long ago that his project to settle the eucharistic controversy was condemned to failure if he did not succeed in getting

Melanchthon on board. Instrumental in swaying Melanchthon had been a scholarly treatise by Oecolampadius in which the Basel theologian impressively demonstrated that the Greek and Latin church fathers were far from unanimous in their teaching on the presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine. Bucer summarized the results of his conversation with Melanchthon in nine theses he dispatched to Luther and to the Strasbourg magistrates. The Strasbourg Council of the Thirteen reacted immediately by sending Capito to Basel and Zurich to begin negotiations on these articles.

Oecolampadius gave his consent, but Zwingli proved to be considerably more skeptical, even though he did not reject Bucer's articles entirely.!! Not a word was heard from Luther. Bucer decided to ride on horseback to the castle of Coburg, the southernmost point of Electoral

Saxony, where Luther was staying during the duration of the Diet of Augsburg. Since Luther was under the imperial ban, he could not leave Saxon territory, but he wished to be as close as possible to Augsburg. Bucer and Luther conducted long and hard conversations, especially on the Lord's

Supper, from September 26 to 28. Like Zwingli, Luther presented objections to Bucer's theses. It soon became evident that Luther was not about to give ground in any way. But Bucer succeeded in one respect: he overcame Luther's distrust. The Wittenberg theologian encouraged him, in fact, to continue in his efforts to bring about an agreement. Consequently,

Bucer rode on, traveling through southern Germany and Switzerland in October 1530, trying to convince statesmen and theologians of the relevance of his articles for a settlement. These theses essentially affirmed that Christ truly gives himself to the faithful in bread and wine, without being bound, however, to the actual elements. At the same time, Bucer repeated

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his conviction that both sides had been in agreement for quite some time already. Bucer was received warmly at the different stops of his itinerary: in Ulm, Memmingen, Isny, Lindau, Constance, and even in Basel and Zurich. The most important of these stays was the one in Zurich, where

Bucer set forth his views to the city council on October 12, using the article on the Lord's Supper in the 'Tetrapolitan Confession as his point of departure. Zwingli was remarkably taciturn. Of course, he realized that Bucer's primary goal was to convince Luther. Zwingli did not oppose

Bucer in a fundamental way, but neither was he by any means willing to express agreement with him. This did not prevent the Strasbourg theologians from drafting a statement by the end of the year 1530, dedicated to Ernst of Liineburg, that would constitute the basis for the resolution of the eucharistic controversy. This statement was a first breakthrough in overcoming the theological isolation of the city.

Rapprochement with Luther Although Luther had expressed strong reservations about Bucer's suggestion for a concord, at least he seemed to be generally well disposed toward that endeavor.!* Things stood differently for Zwingli. On February 21,

1531, he wrote an angry letter to Bucer that implied the end of their friendship.!? Zwingli considered his own views to have been watered down much too extensively and Bucer to have conceded far too much to Luther. What really roused him to indignation, however, was his impression that Bucer had opportunistically turned himself into a lackey of Strasbourg's political goals. Zurich was well aware of the fact that Sturm and Strasbourg were avidly seeking an alliance with Electoral Saxony. Did that not sufficiently explain Bucer's rapprochement with Luther? Bucer was shocked, indeed deeply hurt, by Zwingli's accusations. Of course Bucer was interested in the unification, the theological and political consolidation of Protestantism. But wasn't that Zwingli's goal as well? And this goal was obviously not going to be achieved without an alliance with the territorial princes and a settlement with the Lutherans. Bucer was understandably resentful that his former companion in arms defamed the difficult and intricate efforts to reach a theological settlement as a betrayal of principles. He wrote back to Zwingli: "I will no longer harass you with my plans for concord and apologize for having wearied you up to now with so many expenditures of energy on the part of my colleagues as well as my own toil and effort."!+ This letter provided a dignified, clear response. But it also signaled the definitive break with Zwingli.

Martin Bucer In the meantime, a Protestant defensive league had been voted into existence in Schmalkalden in the final days of December 1530. Strasbourg was admitted into the league on account of the statements in the 'Tetrapolitan Confession. The city's representatives were at the same time encouraged to convince the Swiss to join on the basis of the 'Tetrapolitan

Confession. However, this theological openness disappeared by the time the Schmalkaldic League held its second meeting, in March and April

1531. Voices in the Lutheran faction were demanding the acceptance of the Augsburg Confession of Faith as an essential prerequisite for a joint military alliance. The Swiss could naturally only reject this demand as unreasonable. But an opportunity for serious negotiations on this issue would never arise, for on October 11, the Zurich forces were utterly defeated by the Swiss Catholic cities in a battle near Kappel. Zwingli remained on the battlefield, dead among the fallen. Oecolampadius perished one month later in Basel, a victim of the plague. Especially the death of the latter was a hard blow for Bucer, who lost not only a friend but the most important pillar in his efforts to win over the Swiss and convince them to agree to a settlement with the Lutherans.

Meanwhile, the emperor tried to drive a wedge between the supporters of the Saxon confession and the southern German cities, who once again were being mentioned in one breath with the Swiss. And once again the city of Strasbourg and its supporters had to fear theological and political isolation within the empire. After all, weren't there powerful factions in the Lutheran camp who perceived them anyhow as "sacramentarians" and false brethren? And wasn't the danger present as ever that the territorial princes would come to an agreement and leave the cities to their fate?

Didn't the negotiations that the electors of Mainz and the Palatinate were starting to carry out with the Protestant princes point exactly in this direction? Would Philip of Hesse be strong enough to persevere in his alliance with the cities? And, last, what was to be made of the objective agreement— a favorite theme of Bucer's—between Strasbourg's Tetrapolitan Confession and Saxony's Augsburg Confession? Would it provide a foundation strong enough that the necessary coalition of Protestants could be built upon it?

It was to debate these questions that delegates of the southern German imperial cities assembled in Ulm on March 23 and 24, 1532.!° Thanks to Bucer's tireless efforts, they finally agreed that at the negotiations between Protestant and Catholic princes about to begin in Schweinfurt on April 1, they would sign the Augsburg Confession if necessary. Melanchthon's

Apologia of the Augsburg Confession, published in 1531, paved the way to

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation Oo this important concession. For the first time, the Wittenberg theologian publicly set forth an understanding of the Lord's Supper in which the presence of Christ was bound fo, but not 77, the elements of bread and wine.

Bucer picked up this idea at Schweinfurt when expounding the fundamental agreement of all Protestants in doctrinal matters, including the Lord's

Supper.'° 'To be sure, Bucer persisted in maintaining that unbelievers do not receive Christ and that the "how" of Christ's presence remained a mystery. But in any case, he succeeded brilliantly in raising the quarrel over wordings and formulations to a higher theological level, explaining the meaning and significance of the sacraments thoroughly within the general context of Reformation theology. As he emphasized, they are a "visible reminder" of the fact "that God promises to us that he will be a kindhearted God and Savior and that he will keep us as his children and heirs," a reminder "by which he binds himself to us and offers us his lovingkindness in such a way that when it is given to us to understand this rightly, we in our own turn surrender and offer ourselves entirely to God, from which a godly, very heavenly and eternal life follows."!"

However reluctant and averse the southern German cities might have been to adopting the Lutherans' Augsburg Confession, doing so not only gave them the protection of the Schmalkaldic League but also allowed them to claim the benefits of the imperial truce. Beset by the Ottoman Turks,

Charles V was forced to court the assistance of the very same Protestants he had intended to suppress by force only two years earlier. Bucer immediately put all his energy into negotiating a pact with the emperor that was not exclusively defensive. The decisive question, of course, was whether the territories and cities that joined the Reformation after the conclusion of the cease-fire would also benefit from the emperor's protection. From Bucer's standpoint, this was clearly the case. Anything else would mean confining the gospel and obstructing the spread of God's truth, as Bucer asserted in several lengthy memoranda. Who would want to be responsible for that? "Christ did not wait for us to come to him and call him," Bucer wrote in June 1532, "but went looking for us when we were still enemies of God, and he brought everything to bear, even his soul, in order that we be helped. Therefore we should also love our fellow men in this way."'®

The Nuremberg moratorium (Niirnberger Anstand) of August 1532, an agreement to suspend the issue of religion until a future council, left the aforementioned question of the political protection of newcomers to the Protestant fold unanswered. Nevertheless, this settlement represented a meaningful success for the Schmalkaldic League: for the first time the holy

Roman emperor officially treated Protestants as partners.

Martin Bucer Spreading the Reformation, consolidating and safeguarding what had been reached thus far, and establishing the greatest possible unity and cohesion among Protestants—these were, as mentioned above, three aspects of Bucer's central goal during these years. It was the last of these three tasks that proved to be the most difficult and troublesome during the year 1533. Bucer's public endorsement of the Augsburg Confession during the Schweinfurt assembly caused a great deal of irritation among the Swiss, and it completely shocked many of his supporters and friends in the southern German cities. At the same time, however, Luther did not give him the slightest support, sharply and ruthlessly condemning whoever was not on his side as "sacramentarian," "Zwinglian," or "fanatic"

(Schwarmer). Bucer nevertheless continued to work tirelessly at calming the conflicting parties, taking the edge off opposing positions, trying to find the right balance between both sides in order to reconcile them. In April and May 1533, he once again undertook a major trip through southern Germany and Switzerland, setting forth his theological standpoint and attempting to win his audiences to it. His itinerary included Basel,

Schaffhausen, Dissenhofen, Constance, Bischofszell, St. Gall, Zurich, and Bern, from which he returned to Strasbourg via Basel on May 25. Bucer was received cordially at every stop and his ideas were given a serious, or at least a polite, hearing. It was unmistakably clear, however, that Oecolampadius's successor in Basel, Oswald Myconius, and Heinrich Bullinger, who had assumed Zwingli's legacy in Zurich, remained unconvinced by, and were even openly skeptical toward, Bucer's plans.

What little basis in fact Bucer's image—still widespread today—as a slippery tactician and a wordy opportunist actually has is demonstrated most impressively in the way he responded to Luther's missive to the Frankfurt city council, published in January 1533, which was full of crude and ugly allegations against Bucer. The Frankfurt pastors' Defense

(Entschuldigung), published in March of the same year and drafted by Bucer, is remarkably succinct and sober.!? The drafts Bucer wrote in preparation for this pamphlet do reveal how deeply hurt he was by Luther's brutal polemics. 'The fact that Bucer did not return in kind cannot simply be attributed to tactics. Bucer realized clear-sightedly that, in view of the hardening of theological lines of battle, anyone working for concord and understanding would risk being accused of not really being sure what he believed and of ultimately not believing what he claimed to teach. Bucer was willing to expose himself to this misunderstanding. "In any case," he wrote, "we must seek unity and love in our relationships with everyone—regardless of how they behave towards us."'° Bucer displayed

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the same calm self-assuredness in the face of obstacles and ability to remain above the fray in a letter of February 10, 1533, to Margarethe

Blarer, in which he wrote of Luther: "Now I finally know that the man is seeking God."?! This path was made easier for Bucer by the fact that since

1533 he could count on Melanchthon's support, and even his friendship.'?

Consolidating His Standpoint This state of affairs is the background for two treatises Bucer wrote in 1534 that are fundamental to his understanding of the Lord's Supper. The first one, entitled Report from Holy Scripture (Bericht aus der Heiligen Schrift), appeared in March.'? In it, responding to the events in Miinster that had led to the establishment of an Anabaptist kingdom, Bucer explained his understanding of the church, the ministries, and especially the sacraments, in twenty-eight chapters. His views on these matters had matured in the course of his altercations with Anabaptists and spiritualists in Strasbourg but also in connection with the organization of new church structures in cooperation with the secular authorities. These were fundamental ideas for Bucer and accordingly he dedicated this book to the city council of Augsburg. While this city faced other problems than those that had affected Miinster, both had factions fighting for control over the city, and in both the success of the Reformation was far from certain.

Attaining doctrinal unity and avoiding division were central concerns of Bucer. From a theological standpoint this meant—as Bucer expounded in his Report—listening to Scripture, believing and trusting Christ alone, and loving one another. For the life of the Christian fellowship this meant specifically that a church needs order and discipline, that laypeople are to participate in congregational life as elders, and that secular authorities are to work in close cooperation with churchmen. All these ideals implied that external, "objective" means of grace—especially the ministry and the sacraments—took on a new importance for Bucer compared to his earlier years. It would be admittedly wrong to speak of a fundamental breach in his thought. Throughout the previous years Bucer never wavered in attributing a central role to the Holy Spirit and in affirming that Christians lived a renewed life as a consequence of the liberating effects of the Spirit. However, Bucer's deeper appreciation of Luther's understanding of the Lord's Supper and his expressed conviction that Anabaptists and spiritualists threatened to dilute all established theological and ecclesiastical norms unless a firm institutional dam could be erected, coupled with a thorough study of the Greek church fathers, led Bucer from this time on

Martin Bucer to emphasize more strongly than he had previously the incarnation of Christ, that is to say, the reality of God drawing near and giving himself to humankind.

This new emphasis is a recurring theme throughout Bucer's Report from Holy Scripture. As far as church ceremonies are concerned, it is only logical that Bucer now writes: "The sacraments are divine acts of the church, instituted by God so that through them God's gifts and our salvation— accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ—may be, on the basis of God's promise, administered and given with words and visible signs to those whom the church recognizes as fit, on account of God's promise, for this salvation."** Of course, Bucer was quick to add, this gift can become effective only if received in faith. The mere outward performance of sacraments remains futile. The emphasis, however, lay on God taking the initiative and approaching humankind. Applied to baptism—the main subject matter of this treatise—this meant that infant baptism was meaningful and necessary. "God wants to be the God of our children in Jesus

Christ. Because this is such a great work of God's grace he promises it to them as well as to us. He wants them to participate in the death of Christ and in his salvation; therefore they should be baptized.""? And regarding the Lord's Supper this emphasis meant that "God wants to help us, that is, give himself to us, within and through his church, with and by means of the words and sacraments.

. For this reason nothing in the body and blood of Christ is changed, displaced or destroyed, and our souls are fed not with bread and wine but with our Lord Jesus Christ himself; we would certainly feel this adequately and sufficiently in ourselves if we were only obedient to the Gospel as we should, had true fellowship in Christ, and proper devotion to his Word and to the sacraments.""°

Bucer's book and particularly the statements he made there on the Lord's Supper attracted much applause from figures as diverse as Melanchthon and Osiander, and even from Luther in Wittenberg as well as Bullinger in Zurich. Bucer's second treatise of the year 1534, his Defense against the Catholic Axiom (Defensio contra axioma Catholicum), which appeared in September, also met with a similarly sympathetic reception.?/

In this work Bucer responded to the strong attacks by Robert Céneau, bishop of Avranches and professor of theology at the Sorbonne in Paris, who had assailed the Protestants' understanding of the Lord's Supper as well as the doctrinal dissension among them. In this book, dedicated to the cardinal and archbishop Antoine Duprat, Bucer skillfully asserted not only that all Protestants agreed on the eucharistic issue but also that learned Catholics were in concord with them on this matter, underpin-

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation — 103 ning his claims with quotations from the church fathers and 'Thomas

Aquinas. Bucer affirmed that Christ gave himself for us on the cross once and for all. Believers receive this gift in the Lord's Supper in such a manner that Christ really imparts himself fully and entirely to them when the elements of bread and wine are distributed, and he does so in order that they also offer themselves in a life of service and love toward their fellow human beings. Finally of importance in this treatise is that for the first time Bucer introduced the distinction—so important in later negotiations for eucharistic rapprochement—between believing (p77), unworthy

(indigni), and unbelieving (¢mpiz) recipients of the Lord's Supper. Bucer was convinced that nonbelievers could not receive Christ; they get only bread and wine—a claim that had always been Bucer's standard position.

But now he was also ready to concede that Christ also communicates himself to the unworthy precisely because they are not totally lacking in faith.

Bucer thus reinforced the idea that salvation was being offered in an objective way through the sacraments.

The same effort Bucer made in this book to bridge positions and—in spite of hardening dogmatic fronts—stimulate a conversation between Protestants and Catholics he had made one year previously on a smaller scale, limited to Germany. His Preparation for the Council (Fiirbereytung zum Konzil)* of September 1533 was coupled with the yearning, widespread throughout Germany, for a national council. It also constituted a response in its own right to Erasmus's plea for unity in his book On the Lovely Concord of the Church (De amabili ecclesiae concordia). Once again,

Bucer presented his views in the form of a dialogue, this time between a supporter and an opponent of the Reformation. The rhetorical method chosen was not arbitrary. It corresponded fundamentally with a characteristic feature of his personality and his theology, a feature we have already encountered: the idea that the path to truth is charted through hard struggles to reach a common position and unity. 'This way requires talking and communicating with opponents—opponents of whom one nevertheless must assume that they are also led by God's Spirit and are ultimately pursuing the same goals. Bucer's certainty of knowing the truth did not preclude efforts to win over opponents lovingly. It is out of this conviction that Bucer wrote in a very personal letter to his good friends

Margarethe and Thomas Blarer in Constance, not long after the Preparation appeared: "My striving certainly aims at one thing (although admittedly often without the necessary warmth and prudence): that Christians accept and embrace one another in love. For all moral flaws and faulty judgments have their origin in the failure of the Spirit of Christ to have

Martin Bucer an effect because of insufficient unity. I certainly have experienced quite distinctly in my own person what love and, if not hate, at least antipathy are capable of."'" In the same way as he had approached Luther publicly for the first time in his Conciliation (Vergleichung) of 1528, he was now approaching supporters of the Catholic Church. Back then he had attempted to reach out to the more reflective among Luther's supporters, and now he was pursuing a similar goal, expressly distinguishing between pious Catholics on the one hand and the ensemble of the pope and his supporters on the other.

Admittedly, Bucer's proposed settlement brushed off all too smoothly and harmoniously such difficult and long-lasting problems as the supposed primacy of the pope and disagreements on the understanding of church ministries, and therefore also of the Mass. But we must ask ourselves on the other hand: Which leading theologian of the Reformation possessed at this time the inward freedom to write a book like this? Who else, other than Bucer, would have been capable of publicly proclaiming and drawing the necessary consequences from the following statement, which runs through the book like a scarlet thread? "I do hope, however, that there are many dear children of God on both sides, improperly named after men and thus kept divided. Instead, we should attempt as much as possible to find and use all ways and means in order that all God-fearing persons in all camps become united in Christ, our Lord.">°

Offshoots of the Strasbourg Reformation Western Europe Bucer's frame of reference and his goais—so much is clear—extended far beyond the Strasbourg city limits; in their hopes for effect, they were indeed aimed more broadly than only at the Protestant camp and, ultimately, even the empire. He cultivated contacts just as much with people in Italy as in the Netherlands, in northern Germany and even in Denmark, as well as in Silesia and the surrounding regions.*! Of course many of these relationships were not very deep, which does not mean that Bucer had not sought them intentionally; and most of them did not bring with them any actual influence on the conduct of these persons by Bucer or by the specific emphases of the Strasbourg Reformation. However, it is unmistakably clear that Bucer's thought by this time had assumed a European dimension that distinguishes him from many other Reformation theologians. This far-reaching focus is not the least of the reasons for which many of Bucer's theological statements—both the more carelessly made

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation — 105 and the more deliberately formulated—seemed so unacceptable to many of his supporters and friends at this time and in the following years, since they thought only in local and regional terms.

During these years Bucer attempted twice to influence the spread of the gospel in Western Europe by means of high-level politics. Both attempts ended in failure. These efforts are nonetheless extremely typical for his way of thinking and for his ultimate goals. 'The first situation arose in 1531 with the attempt of Henry VHI of England to annul his marriage, and the resulting opportunity to convince him to join the Schmalkaldic

League.*" Bucer was initially disposed to allow Henry a bigamous marriage, a concession he was ready to make out of pastoral considerations and for the good of the kingdom. But then he retreated from this position step by step, assuming an opposing stance similar to that of Wittenberg.

Bucer's brief intervention in this debate gives us a slight hint of the extremely thorough and comprehensive study of the subjects of marriage and divorce that he was engaged in at the time. We will treat this topic in greater detail later on. The mostly negative judgments of continental

Reformers to Henry's marriage affair led to a cooling of relations with England. This state of affairs, however, did not dissuade Bucer from establishing closer and lasting contacts with leading English churchmen.

Relationships with France seemed to develop more promisingly.*'

Political reasons motivated King Francis I to seek contacts with the German Protestants. His envoy Guillaume du Bellay, brother to the archbishop of Paris, traveled—accompanied by the Strasbourg physician

Chelius, or Geiger—throughout the Holy Roman Empire after the spring of 1534, trying to win support for a larger religious colloquy. Bucer also prepared a major memorandum on this topic, essentially endorsing the position adopted by Melanchthon. There were, however, two important differences between Bucer and his Wittenberg colleague. For one thing,

Bucer very skillfully weaved the theological authority of Thomas Aquinas into his arguments for concord, especially concerning the Mass. Second,

Bucer was basically willing to recognize the primacy of the pope and recognize the Catholic bishops—if these would actually fulfill their official duties as a service in the spirit of Christ and as intended by Christ. Finally,

Bucer wrote a personal letter to the French king on February 8, 1535, in which he lashed out at the deplorable state of affairs in the traditional church and bravely interceded for the persecuted French Protestants.**

Paris did not react to Bucer's advances. Placards with acrid invectives against Catholic worship, particularly the Mass, that a radical Protestant group posted in Paris and the French interior on the night of October

Martin Bucer 17/18, 1534, led not only to a carnage costing the lives of guilty and innocent alike; this event also convinced Francis I that the Reformation was to be equated with riots, revolution, and immorality. The Anabaptist reign of terror in Miinster seemed to confirm him in his prejudices. From now on, Francis persecuted the Reformation's followers in France. German

Protestants interested him solely as possible political allies.

This whole affair had unpleasant consequences for Bucer. His memorandum to Francis I became public and triggered a storm of outrage. Now not only did traditional opponents of his plans for concord, such as Bullinger in Zurich, attack Bucer sharply, but friends such as 'Vhomas

Blarer in Constance did so as well. They asked: Was this where Bucer's quest for reconciliation was ultimately to lead? Did he aim to place the church back under the authority of the pope? Bucer's attempt to defend himself fell on deaf ears: "We cannot, after all, give up on those in the other churches who invoke Christ; therefore, we must see how we can come to an agreement with them, determine what we can concede to them and what we, for their sake, can revoke on our part."*> His opponents' mistrust remained unassuaged by his remarks. Their lasting suspicion was a further impairment to Bucer's efforts, already difficult enough, to convince not only Constance and the Swiss but the southern German cities as well to unite themselves with Strasbourg's theological and political stance.

Ulm Bucer's strong influence on the development of Protestantism in the imperial cities of southwestern Germany has already been referred to, above. We have reported on his frequent trips to this region as well as on his discussions with preachers and statesmen there. His vast, still mostly unpublished correspondence with the representatives of these cities gives ample testimony to the tight network of communication uniting them and to the degree to which Bucer was a sought-after counselor in the entire region. His responses to the numerous queries reaching Strasbourg characteristically accommodated themselves very skillfully to the particular conditions and prerequisites of the individual petitioner. But they also reveal Bucer's permanent attempt to stay in the background, showing his correspondents the way but taking care not to dominate them. Good examples for this diplomatic style can be seen in the way Bucer helped the cities of Ulm and Augsburg establish the Reformation.

'To be sure, political and theological ties between Ulm** and Strasbourg existed already prior to 1529. But it was really the signing of the Speyer

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation — 107 Protestation by both imperial cities that year, and the resulting political isolation, that made them move closer together. Ulm, with its fifteen thousand inhabitants, was smaller and weaker than Strasbourg and was in considerably greater danger, for its territory abutted on staunchly Catholic

Bavaria in the east and on Wiirttemberg in the west. From 1519, Wirttemberg was ruled by the Habsburgs. That was one of the reasons why the patrician council led by veteran burgomaster Bernhard Besserer worked hard at avoiding an unequivocal commitment in religious issues, in spite of the pressure from factions in the city that clearly supported the Reformation. These groups, led onward by the fiery, even uncouth evangelical preacher Konrad Sam, a friend of Zwingli's, impetuously urged the city to abolish the Mass and establish evangelical church structures. The council did not yield to these demands until it sensed that the outside political support it needed to end its vulnerability was forthcoming. 'Then, on November 3, 1530, it called on the guilds to vote on the acceptance of the harshly anti-Protestant closing decree of the Augsburg diet—not before having depicted to the people of Ulm in no uncertain terms what dangers it was exposing itself to if it dared vote against the emperor. These dire warnings notwithstanding, 1,576 citizens voted against accepting the decree, and only 244 in favor. In the spring of 1531, Ulm became a member of the Schmalkaldic League, and on April 14 the council called a committee of nine into being that was charged with formally introducing the Reformation. From the very beginning Ulm planned on steering a middle course between Luther, whose views were rejected by most of the local citizenry, and Zwingli, whom the city could not afford to endorse openly. As a result,

Ambrosius Blarer of Constance, Johannes Oecolampadius of Basel, and Martin Bucer were chosen to assist the committee as outside theologians.

By May 21, all of them had arrived in Ulm. All three had been friends for quite some time already and were lodged jointly in Konrad Sam's large house (found today at Pfauengasse 13). Every single one of them contributed in a significant way to the creation of Protestant church structures in Ulm. But it was Bucer who did most of the work and was actually in charge. For the first time he was given the opportunity of putting his dream of a comprehensive restructuring of society along Christian lines into practice. And Bucer certainly made use of this opportunity.

As a very first measure—the committee of nine had decided this in consultation with the three out-of-town theologians—eighteen articles summarizing the fundamentals of Reformation theology were to be proclaimed to the rural population of Ulm's large surrounding territory. Articles 1 to 6, clearly drafted by Bucer, had Christian doctrine as their subject

Martin Bucer and concentrated on explaining the position that sinners are justified by God's love alone. The next eight articles discussed the errors of the traditional church's theology and worship forms. 'The final four articles were devoted to temporal authority and vigorously proclaimed the government's right to reorder society along Christian lines, including its right to replace the traditional episcopal marriage courts (based on papal canon law) with the magistrate's own secular marriage courts (to be based on Scripture, that is, divine law). Most of the ideas presented up to this point are already familiar to us from previous writings by Bucer—ideas that were shared, of course, by Konrad Sam, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Ambrosius Blarer. It is in the subsequent annotations that Bucer added to explain the eighteen articles that the Strasbourg theologian takes full advantage of the opportunity to develop a comprehensive conception of the church. To begin with, he demands that preachers be selected with the utmost care and be kept under scrupulous control. He assigns this task to a committee of church wardens (Kzrchenpfleger), to be made up of pastors and city council members. Bucer's stipulations also provide for the convening of yearly church synods, the visiting and inspection of rural congregations regularly, the creation of schools, the establishment of catechetical instruction, the constitution of marriage courts, and finally the assurance that the magistrate assumes its responsibility for maintaining a high level of moral discipline in the city.*' Bucer thus placed great importance on the introduction of the "Christian ban" (christlicher Bann): whoever publicly transgressed the 'Ien Commandments was to be admonished three times by "ministers of discipline" (Zuchtherren) according to Matthew 18; if he nevertheless persisted in this behavior he was to be excluded from the Lord's Supper and thus from the congregation.** Oecolampadius had succeeded in convincing Bucer that the decision over such a measure had to be taken by the congregation itself. Correspondingly, the draft ordinance prepared by the three outside preachers provided for the committee of eight ministers of discipline to be made up of three men from the congregations, two pastors, and only three council members. This model, however, was not put into practice. 'he Ulm magistrates were not in the least sympathetic to the idea of creating a church disciplinary body almost entirely exempt from their control. After all, they had not freed themselves from the pope and his irksome legal privileges just to share power over the church with the preachers! 'The definitive church ordinance finally adopted in August

1531 thus determined that of the eight ministers of discipline, four had to be city council members—accompanied by two representatives of the congregations and two of the pastors. The powers of this committee were also

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation

curtailed decisively, allowing it only to admonish and to warn Ulm citizens, but not to excommunicate them. Bucer was bitterly disappointed over this decision, since it fundamentally thwarted his vision of a thoroughgoing, all-encompassing Christianization of society.

The actual process of carrying out practical Reformation measures in Ulm went more smoothly. After the rural congregations had been acquainted with the eighteen articles in a series of sermons, the urban priests were asked to give their opinion on these articles on June 5, 1531.

On June 6 the members of monastic orders were called to take a stance. On the following day it was the village priests' turn to be examined. The general results were not encouraging. Of the city's thirty-five priests, only five expressed themselves unequivocally in favor of the Reformation. 'The rest of the secular clergy and the vast majority of the forty-four members of orders responded noncommittally or in a way indicating that they had not understood the articles. Only Conrad K6llin, prior of the local Dominican monastery, proved to be an eloquent advocate of the traditional church's position. The examination of the village clergy produced similar results.

But in this case as well, an able and energetic spokesman of the established church was found in the person of Dr. Georg Osswald, the minister of Geislingen. He had already caused a minor riot after unreservedly condemning a sermon held by Bucer in Geislingen as a "wicked heresy." Now he proceeded to draft eighteen counterarticles of his own, over which he and Bucer disputed publicly on June 27. But that event was merely a belated skirmish that occurred after the main battle had already taken place.

For on June 16, the Mass was abolished in Ulm. A few days later the city council ordered images and side altars removed from the churches and provided for the Lord's Supper to be celebrated in accordance with the teachings of the Reformation. Bucer left Ulm on June 30, journeying on to the nearby imperial towns of Memmingen and Biberach, together with Oecolampadius, in order to study the situation of the churches there.

He returned to Strasbourg on July 18, 1531, where he proceeded to compose a General Announcement (Gemein Aufischreiben) justifying the Reformation measures taken in Ulm. In this small treatise he put special emphasis on refuting all of Osswald's arguments in great detail. On August

1 the burgomaster and the council of Ulm sent this document and an accompanying letter to a total of thirty-seven cities and territorial princes.

The new church ordinance already mentioned above came off the press a few days later. Once again, Bucer was the main author. The ordinance was based on the draft the three preachers had prepared. But Bucer significantly expanded certain sections as a result of the debates with opponents

Martin Bucer of the Reformation. He added one article devoted exclusively to marriage issues. Reprinted in this publication were also a number of older council mandates concerning moral discipline. With the publication, at the end of September 1531, of the Little Manual (Handbiichlein), a handbook of worship forms compiled primarily by Blarer and Sam, the Reformation in Ulm could finally be considered complete.

Bucer continually maintained his close ties with Ulm in the coming years, particularly with Martin Frecht, Sam's successor. Among other things, they discussed the problems posed by the spiritualists Caspar von

Schwenckfeld and Sebastian Franck, both of whom had many followers in Ulm, even including some in positions of power. Another issue that arose frequently was the antagonism between the pastors and the council. Bucer was often asked to give advice in ticklish issues of marriage and divorce now arising as a consequence of the reorganization of matrimonial law

(hitherto adjudicated by episcopal courts but, according to Reformation demands, now to be exercised by civil courts). Following Strasbourg's example, Ulm set up a marriage court consisting entirely of civil lawyers.

Since these were overtaxed by the problems brought before them, however, it was decided to reconstitute the court on October 27, 1533. Now it was to be composed of five preachers and only two members of the council. Frecht, who like all Reformers considered the administration of marriage law to be a civil and not an ecclesiastical task, was appalled at this affront. Bucer, however, saw this change as an opportunity to bring his views on the subjects of marriage and divorce to bear in Ulm and elsewhere. For this purpose, after already having written several smaller memoranda on this topic, he now drafted a two-hundred-page treatise On Marriage and Divorce according to Divine and Roman Law (Von der Ehe und Ehescheidung aus gittlichem und kaiserlichem Recht),'? which he sent to Frecht at the beginning of December 1533. In this major work he skillfully, if at times a bit speciously, delineates the fundamental agreement between Scripture and Roman law and, on this foundation, discusses the essence of marriage and how marriage is to be contracted properly. This is followed by a detailed presentation of the legitimate grounds for divorce as well as the right to remarry thereafter. Bucer's elementary theological conviction that all human beings have a natural inclination, instilled in them by God, to serve and love their fellow human beings was a cornerstone of his marriage thought. Bucer thus formulates an understanding of the fellowship of marriage that significantly enhances ideas previously set forth by Erasmus. Bucer's deliberations were quite modern for their time; in fact, they definitely had revolutionary qualities about them. For example, Bucer did

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not only permit divorce on account of adultery, inferred on the basis of Matthew 19:9; for him, the irreversible breakdown of a marriage was sufficient to allow separation and remarriage—not only for the man but also for the woman. "You cannot force conjugal love.

. Therefore, in this regard let's not try to be wiser than God himself, who wishes that those who no longer are of a single heart be separated."*°

Bucer's broad-mindedness admittedly had the consequence that his views on marriage and divorce did not receive full support anywhere.

Frecht was not the only one to express his reservations; Ambrosius Blarer in Constance and Simon Grynaeus in Basel also had serious doubts, although they could agree in some points. What dealt a deathblow to Bucer's entire project was the refusal of Ulm burgomaster Bernhard

Besserer, in March 1534, to defend the Strasbourg theologian's uncommon marital ideas in future negotiations with other southern German cities. Dealing with the territorial princes and the Lutherans was difficult enough. Why should Ulm saddle itself with additional problems? Bucer's modern ideas on marriage and divorce would be forced to await the context of more propitious times.

This episode is nevertheless helpful in illustrating how hard it is to reduce Bucer's personality and theology to one plain formula. We see him vigorously championing the rights and the freedom of the individual at the same time that he vests temporal authority with far-reaching powers over the leadership and organization of the church. These thrusts were not mutually incompatible for Bucer. The ecclesiastical and political situation in Ulm and elsewhere made the cooperation of the magistrate with the church indispensable. In fact, it was much more than that: God himself had given the authorities a mission and entrusted them with a special responsibility, and the pastors had every intention of reminding the authorities of this charge. However, at no time did Bucer believe one could build the church exclusively by relying on temporal government. He always remained convinced that the faith of individuals and their empowerment by the Holy

Spirit were of ultimate importance, since the Spirit was to permeate and reshape the entire world and be served by all structures and orders of creation. This conviction, held dearly by Bucer, also guided him in his efforts to help establish evangelical church structures in Augsburg.

Augsburg In no city of the Holy Roman Empire was early capitalism, represented by the Welser, Paumgartner, and especially by the Fugger families, so

Martin Bucer pronouncedly developed as in Augsburg.*! And nowhere did social inequality stand out so glaringly and harshly as in Augsburg. 'The existence of a sizable urban proletariat, particularly among the weavers, was an undeniable reality. In addition, nothing short of an army of beggars, who made up 10 percent of the population, was present in this city. As a result, religious questions were not only closely intertwined with social ones, but the latter tended to eclipse the former. Furthermore, the Reformation movement in the city lacked a leading personality accepted and legitimized by all factions. The impulsive and gruff Michael Keller, an unequivocal supporter of Zwingli, enjoyed the support of the lower classes only. The ministers that Strasbourg had sent to Augsburg—no fewer than five in the course of the year 153 1—were also able to win over only a limited section of the populace. None of these preachers was in a position to mediate between opposing factions, and even less to unite them. 'To be sure, a majority in the Augsburg city council clearly leaned in favor of the Reformation. However, they possessed no united Protestant front at home to fall back on and were exposed to outside political pressure by Catholic Bavaria and the Habsburgs, not to mention the clout wielded by the Augsburg bishop himself, whom the wealthy merchant families of the community firmly supported. As a consequence, the council did everything in its power to avoid committing the city to a specific course toward

Reformation.

Bucer therefore saw his task—a task he took in hand energetically through letters and personal visits—as twofold. First, he had to create unity among the pastors, not just theologically but also on a personal level.

He had to help the city find a theological consensus somewhere between Zwingli and Luther: a difficult task, for the latter had attacked the Augsburg preachers directly and indirectly several times since 1530. The second challenge facing Bucer was the problem of convincing the council not only to make use of its right but also to assume its responsibility to care for the well-being of the church—which implied taking drastic measures to introduce the Reformation.

In June 1531, Bucer came to Augsburg from Ulm for a few days, and he used this opportunity to preach an emphatic "peace sermon." It was of little use, as he found out later from the letters that his friend Gereon Sailer, an Augsburg physician and diplomat, wrote him. The squabbles between the ministers continued, with personal, theological, and social differences and conflicts overlapping and thus exacerbating the dissension. An uninterrupted stream of letters of admonishment, instruction, and encouragement addressed to the Augsburg pastors issued from Bucer's pen. He even

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation

drafted small compendiums of his theology for them, particularly concerning the Lord's Supper. All this activity was to no avail.

A council newly constituted in January 1534 gave fresh impetus to local supporters of the Reformation. It arranged for a large disputation with adherents of the Catholic Church to take place. The latter, however, refused to have anything to do with it. But the evangelicals were reticent as well. Once again, Bucer was asked to come to Augsburg. His commentaries on the epistles of Paul could wait, Sailer wrote to him on April 24, but it was absolutely essential that his presence in Augsburg not be delayed.* His outstanding gifts as a disputant, as a reconciler of hostile camps, and as a leader in the struggle against the papists—these were urgently needed. Bucer did not come until November 6, however, and remained for only one month. In the meantime, on July 22, the council had prohibited Catholic preaching and abolished the Mass in most of the churches. The Mass continued to be held only in the local cathedral and in seven further churches, under the direct jurisdiction of the bishop.

Bucer's principal aim in Augsburg was to unite the preachers on the basis of his conciliatory statements on the Lord's Supper. Again, he had only limited success. He did, however, achieve a major breakthrough the next time around, when he stayed in Augburg at the invitation of the council from February 26 to April 22, 1535, and then again in May of that year.

By means of the sermons he held in St. John's Church, many individual conversations, and, last but not least, the support of the council, Bucer was able to convince the local pastors to endorse ten articles he had drafted.

These included a summary of his theological principles and also promulgated the strict subordination of the clergy to the city authorities. Bucer was essentially contributing to the establishment of a state church system.

This seemed the only way possible to bring about the necessary unity and cohesion of the Protestant camp in Augsburg.

The events of 1535 were just the beginning. Plenty of difficulties still needed to be surmounted, and Bucer, the "actual superintendent" of Augsburg,*> would still have to heed countless calls for help before the victory of the Reformation could be finally secured, in the summer of 1537, with the enactment of a new church ordinance. In the meantime, however, decisive groundwork was carried out. For one thing, reconciliation with Luther and his Augsburg supporters succeeded because of Bucer's ten articles.

Now nothing prevented Augsburg from joining the Schmalkaldic League.

The city was admitted into the alliance on January 20, 1536.

The other issue that occupied Bucer during the entire time of his involvement in Augsburg was that of the right of temporal authority to

Martin Bucer carry out church reforms. In dealing with this question, Bucer thought in a context much broader than merely that of Augsburg. The Augsburg city council had already requested a number of legal opinions on this issue in 1533. On this occasion, Sailer urged the Strasbourg preachers to also draft a memorandum. Bucer therefore dwelled heavily on this topic during his stays in Augsburg. Since the ideas of the spiritualist Sebastian Franck as well as those of Luther found many supporters in Augsburg, Bucer felt compelled to explain his own differing views more extensively. Fulfilling this task meant disproving convincing objections: Was not the gift of faith something entirely spiritual, internal, and therefore out of bounds for any external authority? If one allowed civil authority to decide in spiritual matters, would that not mean getting caught in a new popery and most detrimental tyranny? Not necessarily, felt Bucer. 'To bolster his case, he encouraged the Augsburg preacher Wolfgang Musculus to translate

Augustine's letter to the Roman general Boniface*® into German. Bucer wrote the preface and afterword for this booklet, which was given the programmatic title On the Office of Government (Vom Ampt der Oberkait).*'

About two months later, on May 17, 1535, Bucer published a more detailed presentation of his views on civil authority in his Dialogues or Discussion (Dialogi oder Gesprech).*®

Once again, he selected the genre of the hypothetical dialogue, this time among three friends, two of whom represented the views of the Zwinglians and the spiritualists, respectively. And once again, Bucer skillfully presented his own view, step by step and in great detail, as representative of a position averse to both extremes—which made it the only correct one. As he wrote, it is the duty of government to carry out God's will. The Old Testament, the laws of the Christian Roman emperors, and even papal ecclesiastical law teach this unequivocally. During the years in which Bucer was so concerned with consolidating and organizing Reformation church structures, he made a point of resorting expressly to this legal tradition, for it offered him an abundance of material for enhancing and developing his own theological conviction that divine justice and law lay at the foundation of society.

Consequently, it was only logical that Bucer conceded full legal authority to subordinate authorities such as city councils, which were subject to the emperor, and thus also assigned them the duty of carrying out church reforms. God clearly demanded that everything evil and harmful be eliminated. And God made those to whom he had given power responsible for consummating these activities. But did this action not imply the revocation of due obedience to the emperor? Bucer denied this possibility. In the

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same measure as every subject is called to obey the authorities in all temporal matters—including bishops who are territorial princes—so the imperial cities were bound to the orders of the emperor. However, when the issues at stake involved the will and the commandments of God, it was

God whom one had to obey, rather than any human authority.

But did this power of the state over the church not infringe too far, indeed, much too far on the sovereignty of Christian faith, on the freedom the Holy Spirit grants? Was Bucer now about to abjure this entire framework merely for the sake of establishing a civic community that was religiously uniform and Christian through and through? As much as Bucer cherished such a community as an ultimate goal, we do injustice to his thought if we reduce it to this one aspect. The dialectical tension between law and spirit that manifests itself so often in Bucer's thinking was also present here. Certainly, faith in Jesus Christ and the justification of sinners through this faith remained of central importance. But this justification did not mean that the person made new by the gift of grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit, who now consciously accepted God's law and sought to live according to it, was necessarily infallible or free of sin.

Quite on the contrary, such a person was in need of support and guidance; put in other words, he needed to be educated. In its role of education, civil authority assumed its most important function for Bucer; it was intended to play a central role in carrying through Reformation measures and in developing a system of church discipline. Civil authority provided the orientation necessary to put the ideal of a renewed ethical life into practice.

"Fair punishment is thus nothing else than pure love, mercy and salvation, not just for the troubled congregation, which by means of the punishment is freed from the nuisance and scandal of pernicious ruin, but also for the ethically lax, who in this way are put in fear and consequently persist all the more in the truth, and finally even for those whom one punishes."*"

Bucer's extraordinary confidence in the civil authorities, which finds such ample expression in this treatise, is appropriately understood only if we take two factors into account. To begin with, when Bucer said "civil authorities" (Obrigkeit), he did not mean the modern, anonymous, and almost omnipotent state apparatus we know today but rather the weak statelike entities that were slowly developing and seeking new forms of sovereignty in the early modern period, and that therefore appeared to be quite open to the idea of assuming responsibility for the church. Second,

Bucer was deeply convinced that his own theological views were in league with God's will and God's law, which held sway over the entire world.

To proclaim and help bring about God's rule—that was Bucer's ultimate

Martin Bucer concern, and not the delusion of thinking "that we owe our own existence to ourselves and have a choice to either commit ourselves to God or not, according to our whims."°° This conviction gave Bucer dignity and selfassurance when dealing with the mighty and powerful, taking precedence over any readiness to accommodate to their demands. And this conviction also allowed Bucer to see the development of the Reformation in Germany and Europe in a broader perspective and concentrate all the more on consolidating what the evangelical movement had achieved so far in Strasbourg.

Organizing the Church Reforming the Church The evangelical pastors did not wish merely to destroy. They also wanted to reform the church and make it better.°! The ministers explained their plans to the Strasbourg city council in a detailed manner in the spring of 1529.°* Now that the Mass was finally abolished, conditions were ripe for the transformation of the city of Strasbourg into a truly Christian community. The preachers, and Bucer in particular, placed their hopes on being able to work in close cooperation with the authorities.

Never had the city held as many worship services centered on sermons (Predigtgottesdienste) as it did in this period. Two such services were held

Sundays in every parish church. In addition, Bible lessons took place at noon in the cathedral and in the church of St. Aurelien, and an evening service as well in the cathedral. The council did not make up its mind to remove images and side altars from churches until it had joined the "Christian Federation" (Christliches Burgrecht), a defensive alliance with Basel, Bern, and Zurich, on January 5, 1530. The public disturbances that accompanied this iconoclastic measure led Bucer to write up a brief defense of the removal of images in May.°' And just a few weeks later he decided to respond to the attacks Erasmus was launching against the Reformation, and particularly against the Strasbourg Reformation. Bucer did so by asserting that the authorities had the right and the duty to take part actively in spreading the gospel and helping it take root in society.*+

Besides, according to Bucer, the positive fruits of Reformation efforts had become unmistakably evident in many places, including Strasbourg.

Bucer was exaggerating, of course. Or, to put it another way, he was taking much for granted that had yet to take place in Strasbourg, since he was presuming the authorities would support his endeavors unquestioningly.

Indeed, the council had issued a major mandate on the issue of moral discipline on August 25, 1529. However, the marital court established by the

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city council on December 16, 1529, did not include any pastors among its members—unlike new marital courts in most southern German cities.

Neither did the new marriage ordinance of 1530 take them into account.

On the other hand, Reformation supporters succeeded in having three church wardens (Kzrchenpfleger) assigned to every one of Strasbourg's seven parish churches; they were responsible for supervising church discipline as well as correct evangelical doctrine. These wardens were laypeople; one of them was a council member, another was one of the Schoffen, and the third was chosen from the rest of the citizen body.

The city council did not proceed according to a carefully predetermined plan. It improvised in its tactics, cautiously reacting to the everchanging political circumstances. But this indecision on the part of the council, and particularly its apparent commitment to the sole principle of not allowing anybody else to take decisions out of its hands, made the evangelical preachers all the more impatient and zealous in urging the council to carry through finally with the pursuit of Reformation goals.

Bucer described everything at stake for the city in the small treatise On the Shortcoming of Religion (Vom Mangel der Religion), written in August 1532.°°

In it, Bucer painted a dismal picture of Strasbourg. He claimed that local citizens, including members of the ruling bodies, were lukewarm or even indifferent to questions of faith. Sermon attendance and overall hallowing of the Sunday were less than satisfactory. 'Typical for the mood of the city were not the desirable pious earnestness and strict moral discipline of the Christian community; instead, the day-to-day behavior of its citizens was characterized by extravagant spending, feasting, gambling, drinking, immoral behavior, and even unabashed contempt for the church and its representatives. Bucer protested: "Finally, we can and should not tolerate anybody here—without risking God's severe wrath and the doom of the city and the church—who refuses to vow not to blaspheme our Christian religion and refrain from enticing anybody away from hearing the Word of God, from encouraging other believers to do so, or from praying for God's grace together with other Christians."°°

Using these demands and complaints by Bucer as their starting point, the pastors and church wardens presented a major petition to the city council in November 1532 that contained numerous suggestions designed to bring about the changes that corresponded with their vision of what the church ought to be.°' What the preachers presented to the council was nothing less than a far-reaching plan for the Christianization of all of society. It began with the Christian education of children and youth and included enforced church attendance for all city inhabitants, the inculcation of disciplinary mandates by the magistrate, and even drastic measures

Martin Bucer to improve church discipline. The congregations of the surrounding villages were also taken into consideration, with the demand that they be inspected once a year. The foundation of this entire project was the demand made on the city council that it establish and bring pure Christian doctrine to bear in Strasbourg. "For as far as the teaching of Christ is concerned, almost all say and do whatever they please, without any basis in Scripture, without their action corresponding to their faith, and without any scruples." Therefore, as the pastors' petition declares, "it is no wonder that good morals and piety are going from bad to worse, people are leading one another astray and corrupting one other."°®

When writing this, they particularly had the Strasbourg Anabaptists and the spiritualists in mind. The preachers wished very much to dispute publicly with them, in order to refute their ideas and convince the populace of the errors of these movements and of the truth of the church's teaching. This aspect became especially important for Bucer in the coming months. Strasbourg's tolerant policies had made it possible for a significant number of these "sectarians" to seek and find asylum within its walls. Their presence transformed the debate over defining characteristics of the church into an acute issue for the pastors. Did the Anabaptists and spiritualists all belong to the church, regardless of what they believed?

The pastors certainly did not feel that they did. But how could they be excluded from—or better yet, won back for—the church? Merely by preaching the pure gospel and patiently wooing these seduced Christians?

Bucer was convinced that such measures were not enough. Rather, God's revelation had to be staunchly asserted as the sole truth and then imposed in the city with all available means, including governmental force. '[olerance in issues of doctrine and faith was tantamount to negligence and disobedience toward God's clear commandments. And Bucer's entire concept of a thoroughly Christian society understandably stood and fell with the clarity and uniformity of Christian teaching. Bucer therefore invested all his energy in the establishment of a standard, obligatory norm of Christian doctrine in Strasbourg with the help of the authorities. Not until he had achieved this goal could he hope to win back the Anabaptists—or demand their expulsion.

The "Sectarians"

A new wave of refugees, arriving since 1529, made the number of Anabaptists and spiritualists in Strasbourg rise dramatically.' At their pinnacle, these movements numbered some two thousand members. The occur-

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation

rence of famine and failed harvests was one reason why so many of them took refuge in Strasbourg. A second important reason was the lenient, indeed almost indifferent attitude of the city council toward dissidents.

Apocalyptic expectations now became widespread. Prophets such as Lienhard and Ursula Jost or Barbara Rebstock proclaimed dreams and visions that conveyed images of enormous hostility toward the established social order and its expected destruction in the urgently awaited end times, whose imminent arrival was assumed. 'These ideas, which found a cogent spokesman in the furrier and itinerant preacher Melchior Hoffman from Schwabisch Hall, were especially popular among the lower classes, whereas the more educated and well-off citizens of Strasbourg took a liking to the mystical and spiritualistic ideas proclaimed in Strasbourg by the Silesian aristocrat Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig. In addition to these two main eroups, a smaller group was composed of the followers of the local "Gardener" Clemens Ziegler. He became withdrawn from the world after the disillusionment of the peasants' uprising and took on spiritualistic views. Somewhat similar was the theology of the fellowship begun by Hans

Denck and Jacob Kautz, although it was significantly different from all previously mentioned groups in one respect: these men and their disciples were Anabaptists, that is, they taught and practiced the baptism of adults upon the confession of faith. Further Anabaptist groups were the strictly biblicist "Swiss Brethren," who had originated in Zurich, and—theologically close to the latter—the followers of Pilgram Marpeck. Finally,

Strasbourg harbored supporters of Hans Hut, who were influenced by apocalyptic and revolutionary ideas. Although it was hard to draw clear borders between these different groups in some respects, the religious and theological differences between them were generally harsh and ultimately irreconcilable. These "sectarians" were thus far from constituting a cohesive group. What united them, however, was solely but significantly their rejection of any form of the official church associated with the state. As a consequence, the representatives of this official church, Bucer foremost among them, perceived the Anabaptists as dangerous opponents.

Throughout these years Bucer complained repeatedly about the growing influence of the sectarians and the fateful consequences their activities had for the creation of new evangelical church structures in Strasbourg. For instance, in November 1532 he wrote to his close friend Ambrosius Blarer:

"Pray for our church. The heretics are ruining it incredibly. Through our misguided leniency they have gained such strength that this evil can be neither done away with nor properly remedied."°? This lament was an exaggeration, to be sure. But it aptly reflected the deep disillusionment that

Martin Bucer befell Bucer several times during these months. His letters reflect his conviction that the individuals who governed the city simply let matters drift.

The religious zeal of the early 1520s had to a large extent given way to passivity or even indifference. As a result, Bucer thought, people who took their Christian faith seriously joined the Anabaptists or spiritualists out of disappointment with the fruits of the Reformation. The official preachers felt like powerless fighters for a lost cause. Admittedly, Bucer and his colleagues continued to urge the council to take action. At the same time, he sought to confront his opponents. In the late fall of 1531, he used his lectures to refute Michael Servetus's attacks on the doctrine of the 'Trinity succinctly and precisely.°! This statement, which was spread in handwritten form, won the approval and recognition of his friends. On December

9, 1531, Bucer was finally able to dispute with Pilgram Marpeck inside town hall, but "behind closed doors." The confrontation,°' which continued in written form until the beginning of 1532, when Marpeck left

Strasbourg, revolved primarily around the issue of infant baptism, which was discussed by both participants in great detail. Bucer supported his arguments for infant baptism essentially on the basis of analogy with circumcision in the Old Testament, seeing it as an expression of God's fundamental order—God approaches us unreservedly and unconditionally before we do anything on our part. Marpeck rejected this argument, insisting on personal faith as a decisive prerequisite for baptism.

Bucer was not left unmoved by the deep piety and exemplary moral conduct of this Anabaptist leader and his congregation. But he disapproved of their self-imposed separation all the more. How much more could be achieved, especially regarding church discipline, if all would work together instead of against each other? "Unfortunately, we do not yet have much we can boast about," affirmed Bucer, "even though, God be praised, our teaching is the true, authentic teaching of Christ, in spite of how poorly it is being followed."© Clinging to God's truth and preaching it were the matters that ultimately counted the most for the Reformation. And where these took place, each one would inevitably be confronted with his own pitiful inadequacy before God and with his failings, and therefore also be inclined to tolerate the same shortcomings lovingly in his fellow Christians. Accordingly, the strongest accusation Bucer leveled against the sectarians was that by departing from true doctrine, they betrayed true piety, which lovingly seeks the welfare of one's fellow human beings and of the entire community. As Bucer had written to Margarethe Blarer as early as September 1531: "Heresy is not this or the other delusion or opinion, but rather a craving of the flesh by which one pre-

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation

sumes, in conduct or doctrine, to undertake something apparently better than the divine custom in the common church, and therefore proceeds to separate oneself from the church and join a particular band or sect...

They claim to be holier than everybody else but flagrantly miss the goal of love, which alone lies—as God Himself—at the essence of all piety.

Therein lies the poison."** The Synod In their major petition submitted to the council on November 30, 1532, the pastors and church wardens had demanded that Christian ethical standards and religious discipline shape daily life in the city, that true doctrine be preached and asserted with official sanction, and finally that Anabaptists and spiritualists be publicly refuted. In response to this petition, the council created a commission to which Jacob Sturm, Martin Herlin,

Andreas Mieg, and Sebastian Erb belonged.® When the unrest and disturbances created by Melchior Hoffman's preaching assumed alarming proportions, this body finally came under pressure to take some action.

The lay theologian and furrier Hoffman was arrested on May 20, 1533.

Previously, on April 12, the council had approved the commission's proposal that a city synod be held. The definitive program for this synod was assembled in the following weeks. It was to begin by laying down the principles of true Christian doctrine and having all Strasbourg preachers and teachers commit themselves to these. After that, the leaders of the sectarians were to be cross-examined on the basis of this doctrinal outline.

Finally, all rural ministers and remaining clerics were to be scrutinized.

The ruling authorities thus played a large part in determining the course of further ecclesiastical developments in Strasbourg from the very beginning. By proceeding in this way, they particularly precluded the possibility of radical groups gaining any sort of decisive influence. In May 1533 the pastors and church wardens presented a program for conducting the synod that they had coordinated beforehand with the council's commission. Accordingly, the program harmonized entirely with the policy outlined above. The text, drafted by Bucer, centered on a summary of church doctrine in the form of sixteen articles.

At six o'clock on the morning of June 3, the four members of the council's commission, now functioning as presidents of the synod, gathered in the choir of the Church of the Penitent Magdalens (today Eglise SainteMadeleine) together with the twenty-one church wardens and all the teachers and preachers of the city. They discussed the sixteen articles in

bz Martin Bucer ereat detail and finally endorsed them—in spite of the objections of Anton

Engelbrecht, Hans Sapidus, and Wolfgang Schultheiss, who saw this action as an inadmissible encroachment on the church's sphere of influence and on the conscience of the individual by temporal authority. We will return to this problem when discussing the written debate between Bucer and his opponents that continued until the end of 1533. The synod concluded its first session on June 6, after the pastors and teachers had had the opportunity to conduct their "censure," that is to say, to report what they found objectionable about their colleagues' moral conduct and administration of office. The groundwork for inspecting rural congregations and for dealing with sectarians had been laid.

The main session of the synod took place June 10-14, once again in the Church of the Penitent Magdalens. The censure of the village ministers was carried out without any difficulties, and they promptly endorsed the sixteen articles. Subsequently, the sectarian leaders were questioned, principally Clemens Ziegler, Melchior Hoffman, and Caspar Schwenckfeld.

Bucer, who played the main role in these interrogations, did not find it hard to defend the newly established doctrinal foundation by bringing his eloquence and his debating gifts to bear. However, it is just as evident that he did not succeed in convincing his opponents, and even less in compelling them to join his camp.

The following months went by without any action on the part of the council. So the preachers took the initiative once again, making use of their presence in the synod commission, of which Bucer and Capito were members, to have it present the draft of a church ordinance.®' They also urged the council to have the synod resume its official sessions. 'The commission's draft, entitled Deliberations of the Church Wardens, Pastors and Assistants (Bedacht der Kirchenpfleger, Pradikanten und Helfer), afforded a glimpse in outline form of Strasbourg's future church ordinance—and of the enormous influence over the church the city council would ultimately wield. All final decisions now lay in its hands, from supervising doctrine to appointing ministers, from the weekly meeting (Konvent) of pastors and church wardens to the broader task of church discipline—which, interestingly enough, no longer included the ban and exclusion from church fellowship. Finally, the council was also responsible for making sure Sundays were appropriately hallowed and for keeping watch over sumptuary matters, such as too luxurious dress, as well as keeping tabs on the general state of morals in the city.

The third session of the synod, which met on October 23 and 29, 1533, did not bring any significantly new contribution. The council for its part

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advised the preachers to come to a settlement of their doctrinal differences. Once again a commission was created, charged with inspecting the writings of Hoffman and Schwenckfeld. All other matters were placed on hold for further study. On December 26 the council warned the pastors to stop agitating from their pulpits for the continuation of the synod.

The ministers refused to comply. Caspar Hedio warned in a sermon held before the council on January 14, 1534, and published soon after: "Dear

Strasbourg, spare no pains to guard yourself against doctrinal dissension.

If not, your doom will be near at hand!"°' The preachers once again presented their demands to the magistrate on January 28, barely disguising their threat to resign collectively should no decisions be made, particularly concerning a binding standard of Christian doctrine.'" This time the council did not persist in its policy of vain promises and delaying tactics, sobered by the events taking place in Westphalia: the Melchiorites had seized power in the city of Miinster, ruthlessly expelling the "godless," that is to say their opponents, from the city. The Strasbourg council wasted no time elevating Bucer's Four Cities' Confession of 1530 and his sixteen articles of 1533 to the rank of official Christian teaching on March

4, 1534. These actions were followed by a decree on April 13 requiring all Anabaptists in Strasbourg either to make their peace with the church on the basis of these statements of faith or leave the city within eight days.

Four more mandates were issued in June 1534 providing for the immediate baptism of all infants and the expulsion within fourteen days of those sectarians unwilling to swear an oath confirming their endorsement of the newly established statements of doctrine. These measures indicate that, at least in principle, the new church had firmly taken root in Strasbourg.

Results This synod, with its activities extending over several months, doubtless represented the pinnacle of Bucer's influence in Strasbourg. It was not least due to his tireless efforts that the synod laid the groundwork for firmly organizing the church in the free imperial city on the II] River. Admittedly,

Bucer would still have to endure plenty of disappointments and setbacks on the way to this goal. And the results of the synod were far from being identical with his vision of a city thoroughly Christian in every way.

Nevertheless, Bucer was now regarded as the leading personality of the Strasbourg church. On September 13, 1534, Capito issued the judgment:

"Bucer is the bishop of our church."'! And the Strasbourg preacher Theobald Schwarz (also called Nigri) wrote to Wolfgang Musculus in

Martin Bucer Augsburg as early as July 8, 1533: "I wish so much that you could have seen and heard what grace God bestowed upon Bucer as he responded to all the objections of his opponents. Many (I know I am saying the truth) who previously could not stand even hearing Bucer's name are now beginning to like him sincerely. Even some Papists who up to this point thought only badly of the Gospel agreed with him and are starting to abandon their views. Glory be to God!"""

In preparing and carrying out the synod, Bucer had relied entirely on the close cooperation of the city authorities, as repeatedly noted above.

This relationship was by no means a contradiction of what he had believed previously, but rather the evident continuation of a conception he had developed many years before. In it, lofty theological principles went hand in hand with ideas of a very pragmatic nature. Bucer had always been convinced that he would not succeed in organizing the Strasbourg church anew without the help, and much less against the will, of the authorities.

Consequently, he not only accepted existing power structures, he even sanctioned them. However, he placed enormous emphasis on the responsibility of civil authority before God. Bucer hoped in this way to ensure the church a great deal of influence. The fact that the leading members of the council were rather clueless about how to tackle the theological decisions facing the city attested to the correctness of Bucer's appraisal. When the Tetrapolitan Confession and the Sixteen Articles—in other words,

Strasbourg's future doctrinal norm—were discussed in the council on March 29, 1534, not even committed supporters of the Reformation were capable of uttering an informed opinion of their own on these documents.

The patrician Hans von Blumenau's statement was typical: he declared he did not want to be against it! "Whatever suited milords, that would also suit him," report the minutes.'* To be sure, if Bucer based the independence of the church on the theological illiteracy of the council, which appears to be the case, he was focusing his gaze too much on persons and not paying sufficient attention to the structural changes that his promotion of a state church system was helping bring about.

Bucer's understanding of the church changed in the process. Indeed, he remained convinced that essentially only the elect, who had the Holy

Spirit, belonged to the church; and since only God knew who they were, one was to concentrate on preaching the gospel to all, administering the sacraments to all, and submitting all to discipline. But much of what Bucer himself had believed previously—and which he now encountered in a similar form among Anabaptists and spiritualists—seemed at least to recede into the background. Among these matters were his eschatological frame

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation — 125 of mind and his conviction that spiritual fellowship was one of the essential characteristics of the church—views that he had held passionately in the past, for example, while a preacher in Wissembourg. In those early years he had criticized unjust social conditions in the traditional church sharply, unfazed by the accusation that his and his friends' actions were splitting the church. Now, when the sectarians behaved similarly, he called on them to act lovingly toward their fellow Christians, be patient with corrupt practices not yet eliminated, and particularly not to split off or separate themselves from the church. There is ove principle, however, that Bucer stuck to consistently: his conviction that he had discerned God's truth and had to stand up for it. For this reason, he wanted to renew the church and give it a new organization. And it was because of his conviction that he also attached ever greater importance to formulating church doctrine and defining the office of the minister. Finally, this inner conviction was also the reason for which he struggled so fiercely against "Epicureans" and sectarians in Strasbourg.

"Epicureans" were commonly understood at the time as people given to sensual pleasure and holding no religious beliefs.' The term was polemical and deliberately derogatory. It certainly did not correspond to the way in which the people to whom Bucer applied the name understood and described themselves. What these Epicureans wanted above all was freedom, both intellectual and religious. They therefore opposed any imposition of norms by the church, which for them performed no function other than the limitation and restriction of their freedom of conscience. Quite a few of those whom Bucer was now fighting had been his earlier companions, for instance, Otto Brunfels, Hans Sapidus, and Anton

Engelbrecht, the fellow Dominican who had freed Bucer of his vows back in 1521. The discussions that took place in the course of the synod thus became mixed with a good dose of personal disappointment and even resentment on both sides. It is no coincidence that the debate boiled down to the issue of whether the civil authorities might hold sway over the church's organization and daily life. Engelbrecht and some of his friends were finally willing to yield to Bucer and to political reality inasmuch as they were ready to grant not the authorities as such but Christians holding office the right to influence civic policy according to their religious convictions.'> For Bucer, such a concession was not sufficient. In a gruff and inflexible manner he proclaimed that on the one hand theologians needed to tell those in power which path they had to follow; on the other, pressure and force on the part of the authorities were meaningful ways of educating people on becoming Christians. He wrote: "For it has been

Martin Bucer quite beneficial for many, as we have learned by experience and still remain convinced, to have been compelled first through fear and pain in order to then become wiser, or to have followed with deeds what already had been learned with words."'° There is no doubt that the position held by Engelbrecht and his associates was more modern and promising for the future. When comparing the two stances, it is easy to find Bucer at fault. It cannot be ignored, however, that for all his moral narrow-mindedness and for all his austerity that left little room for laughter, joze de vivre, and the sensory delights of Alsatian wine and cuisine, Bucer was not mistaken in seeing the views of the Epicureans as the tip of the iceberg of an increasingly widespread attitude of religious relativism and indifference—an attitude his theological and religious presuppositions forced him to fight fiercely.

His other opponents were the sectarians. These were, besides Schwenckfeld, with whom Bucer would have plenty of disputes in the coming months and years, the Anabaptists, especially Melchior Hoffman and his followers.

Bucer published his Proceedings against Hoffman (Handlung gegen Hoffman) in 1533, against the will of the city council.'' At the end of that year a publication defending infant baptism (Quid de baptismate infantium sentiendum)'® appeared, in which Bucer attempted to win over to his views Bernd

Rothmann, at the time the leading figure of the Reformation movement in Miinster. In both treatises Bucer expounds arguments already familiar to us: he defends infant baptism by appealing to the precedent of Old 'Testament circumcision and rejects Hoffman's claim that Christ was exclusively divine and that man can ascend to him through his deeds, asserting in response the traditional church doctrine of the two natures of Christ as well as the Reformation teaching on justification by faith.

To begin building the church upon the foundation of the official standard of doctrine that had finally been established, Bucer published a catechism in the spring of 1534.'? Even though he presented the entire contents—the Apostles' Creed, including statements on the sacraments, as well as the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer—in questionand-answer form, the booklet was far too difficult for children and youth.

The exposition was much too lengthy, almost exclusively theological, and of an exceedingly academic nature. Correspondingly, this catechism never took root in Strasbourg.

The new church ordinance was finally printed in December 1534.°° It was a thoroughly revised version of the text that had been presented to the synod commission in the fall of 1533. As already mentioned, the views of the city council carried the day in this version of the ordinance. 'The

Spokesman of the Strasbourg Reformation — 127 council appointed pastors, kept watch over them as well as over the church wardens (Kirchenpfleger), and even supervised the Kirchenkonvent, or meeting of pastors and church wardens, that took place every two weeks, and of which Bucer was made the chairman. Not a word was said in the ordinance about church discipline or the ban. The council did indeed order all disciplinary mandates issued since 1523 to be read aloud in the guild halls on February 7, 1535, and made them binding for all citizens. This decree, however, did little to lessen the disappointment of Bucer and his friends. Previous years had shown what precious little came of such decrees. Not surprisingly, the preachers' complaints about religious apathy, blatant disregard for the work of the church, and immorality in Strasbourg continued. Bucer was very far from seeing the groundwork laid for a comprehensive and truly Christian reshaping of society in Strasbourg— even after the synod.

The discussions and exchanges that took place in the course of the synod provide us with a vivid portrait of Bucer's personality at this time.®?

Bucer's friends praised his intelligence and skill in debating, his certitude of judgment, his persuasive gifts, but also his personal modesty. His opponents spoke of the deft ways in which he used a plethora of formulations and wordings at his disposal to confuse and refute others. They accused him of being self-willed, judging others prematurely, and pursuing his goals with obstinacy. Bucer was beyond all doubt a domineering person who put much value on keeping others at a distance. Never did he try less to appeal to the populace than at this moment. His moral rigidity bordered on pitiless ruthlessness as soon as he became convinced that he was dealing with individuals or groups who were resisting God's evident truth.

But at the same time he was capable of winning people over in a charming and engaging fashion. It is incorrect to assume that in doing so he was behaving selfishly. Personal advantage and gain never played a role in Bucer's personality. Neither did he lose his earlier natural gregariousness and compelling desire to exchange thoughts with like-minded people and friends. His intense correspondence with Ambrosius and Margarethe

Blarer exemplifies this trait eloquently. But all these dimensions of his personality were eclipsed by his overwhelming zeal in preparing the way for God's rule in town and country. This zeal won him few friends—but many critics, distrustful onlookers, and not least fierce opponents. In this respect, Bucer was also a lonely man during these years.

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