Chapter Five
Chapter Five A Champion of Protestant Unity Roads In Bucer's days roads were self-contained, colorful worlds of their own, teeming with a garish multitude of people and animals—a vivid reflection of early modern society in all its vulgarity and its glaring contradictions.
Eyewitness reports of the times give us a glimpse into this harsh reality, but perhaps even more poignant are its portrayals in the altarpieces, paintings, and etchings by artists of the time. We see the peasant guiding his heavyladen horse or donkey to market, accompanied by his wife, child, and dog.
We see the merchants traveling with their heavy wagons drawn by two teams of horses and frequently escorted by squads of armed horsemen.
Footloose mercenaries march along, their halberds on their shoulders, as well as impoverished wandering scholars and students in search of a living or just a cheap place to spend the night. Finally, we see monks traveling in eroups of two from one monastery to the next, their eyes downcast. (Bucer had traveled in this way as a Dominican many years ago from his home monastery of Sélestat to Strasbourg, Mainz, and Heidelberg, and later from there to Frankfurt, Basel, and Speyer.) Every once in a while a lonely horseman or a light carriage overtakes the people on foot. And then we see the outcasts of society: vagrants, jongleurs, fugitives, cripples, and people blinded or maimed horribly in some other way, alone or in hordes, assailing and importuning travelers with their loud screams and begging. Life, love, and death were ever-present on these roads. The furtive pair of lovers hidden in the wheat field or in the tall grass just feet away from the road was a beloved motif of artists. More rarely did they draw or paint the travelers who had collapsed in exhaustion, died of hunger, or frozen to death. be
Martin Bucer These roads were ordinarily not paved and were therefore hollowed out and deeply rutted from much use, muddy to the point of miring all traffic in the springtime and fall, and dangerously icy in the winter. 'To have firm ground under their wheels, the wagons had to swerve constantly to the left or to the right of the actual highway. The path cut by travelers thus twisted and meandered its way across the countryside. The large number of crucifixes lining the sides of the roads also struck foreigners visiting the Holy Roman Empire. These, as well as wayside shrines, were especially numerous as one approached the vicinity of villages and cities.
No less typical, however, was the gruesome sight of places of execution outside city gates, with gallows and wheel, rotting cadavers, and crows circling above.
Traveling on roads like these was not just strenuous—it was dangerous.
One did not travel for pleasure. Highwaymen were a constant threat to be reckoned with, especially on secluded paths winding through deep hollows or thick forests. Bandit knights held up merchants. But also other kinds of travelers, small groups, and particularly people traveling alone could never feel safe from bands of thieves or stray mercenaries ganging up on them and killing them for their money, clothes, and horses. A person like Bucer was susceptible to additional, special dangers. For example, when the district governor (Landvogt) of Lower Alsace found out that Capito and Bucer had stayed overnight near Ammerschwihr on their way back from the Bern disputation in 1528, he regretted not having gotten wind of it soon enough to capture the two.' The Landvogt declared he would have happily rewarded anyone disclosing the Reformers' whereabouts on time with one hundred Rhenish guldens. As a consequence, the Strasbourg council refused repeatedly to allow Bucer to travel without armed escort. It was not always possible, however, to provide such protection. There were plenty of occasions on which Bucer would have to travel alone or in the company of merely one or two colleagues on horseback. The horse was clearly the fastest means of transportation of the times. The former Dominican probably learned how to ride during his stay in Sickingen's castles. It is in this period that we first see Bucer undertaking trips on horseback on behalf of this imperial knight.
But even if we leave the omnipresent dangers listed above out of account, traveling remained toilsome and arduous enough. Road conditions caused the axles and wheels of carts and wagons to break repeatedly.
Lighter carriages overturned—and travelers could count themselves lucky if all they ended up with were scrapes and bruises. Horseshoes got detached and horses became lame, forcing their riders to dismount and
A Champion of Protestant Unity Pot lead them by the reins all the way to the next town. Inns and hostels were crowded and filthy and were frequented by people of ill reputation, and guests had good reason to fear being robbed while sleeping. During the day, travelers were completely at the mercy of the inclemency of the weather: they got soaked to the bone by rain, their entire bodies got spattered with mud and slime, and in the winter they were chilled and numbed by wind, snow, and ice. One can imagine the gratitude and relief travelers must have felt upon catching sight of the steeples, towers, and gates of a city in the distance, especially if they could count on friends or acquaintances welcoming them there.
From now on, these realities would characterize Martin Bucer's day-today life not just temporarily, but for months at a time. Hours of intense theological debate, especially in the cities of southwestern Germany and in Switzerland, were preceded and followed by many days and nights on such roads. 'Io be sure, Bucer had already done quite a bit of traveling previously, but now hardly a year went by in which he did not spend at least several months outside of Strasbourg.' From October 1534 to January
1535 he traveled through southern Germany on horseback and then northward to Kassel, covering more than one thousand miles. From February to June 1535 he visited the southwest German cities again, traveling some seven hundred miles. He covered roughly twelve hundred miles from April to June 1536 when traveling through southern and central
Germany and later continuing on to Wittenberg. His trip to the league's diet in Schmalkalden from January to March 1537 and a further roundtrip through southern Germany and Switzerland from May to August of the same year seem almost modest in comparison. Combined, they still represented over eight hundred miles of travel. In April and May 1538 we find Bucer in Switzerland. He rode almost four hundred miles on horseback during those weeks. From October to January 1539 he visited Hesse and Saxony. This involved traveling at least some fifteen hundred miles.
And on an additional trip to these territories from November 1539 until January 1540 he covered another nine hundred miles. 'These estimates are all based on modern highway distances. We can safely assume the distances actually covered by Bucer were even greater. Furthermore, this summary does not take into consideration a number of smaller trips Bucer undertook during these years. All of this means that Bucer practically covered 7,500 miles during the six years—1534 to 1539—under consideration, in other words, about 1,250 miles a year.
Nor did he by any means travel for pleasure. But his passionate desire to unify all Protestants, particularly regarding their understanding of the
ie Martin Bucer Lord's Supper, compelled him to take these troubles and dangers on himself. Just to keep negotiations from stalling, he had to be almost everywhere at once: reinforcing like-minded theologians in their views, encouraging those faltering and wavering, refuting and doing all he could to win over critics and opponents. In many places, fundamental decisions became increasingly dependent on his presence and his vigorous intervention.
Bucer had now become a crucial figure of the Reformation. In fact, during these years he was doubtless the champion of Protestant unification.
The Wittenberg Concord Preconditions Once again, political events were propitious to efforts by individual theologians, especially Martin Bucer, to heal the severe rift in the Lord's Supper issue still afflicting the Protestant camp. At the beginning of 1534,
Landegrave Philip of Hesse undertook a daring attempt to recapture Wurttemberg and restore it to its legitimate ruler by ancestry, Duke Ulrich, expelled by the Swabian League in 1519. Philip was able to count not only on the help of the Schmalkaldic League but also on the consent and support of a remarkable coalition of enemies of the Habsburg dynasty from both within and outside the Holy Roman Empire. Among these improbable allies was the strictly Catholic Bavaria, which felt threatened by the Austrian regime in Wiirttemberg. The pope was also informed about Philip's venture. A most important participant was finally French king
Francis I, a fierce enemy of Charles V and of all Habsburg designs for world dominance. He provided troops and finances in exchange for rights over the Habsburg territory of Montbéliard. The Austrian troops, badly equipped and poorly led, were defeated without much effort near Lauffen on the Neckar River on May 13, 1534. King Ferdinand, Charles's brother, was busy repelling incursions by the Turks in Hungary at the time. He thus had to agree quickly to the peace of Kaaden (near Eger/Cheb in northern
Bohemia), signed on June 29. The treaty attempted a comprehensive solution to the problems at hand. Its main points were: Duke Ulrich got his territory back as an Austrian intermediate fief; that is to say, should Ulrich's lineage die out, Wiirttemberg would revert to the Austrians. In exchange,
Saxon elector John Frederick gave his consent to Ferdinand's election as "king of the Romans"—something he had refused until now. In addition, the harsh legal processes that the imperial Chamber Court was conducting against the Protestants for their violations of existing legislation were to be suspended. Finally, the parties to the treaty agreed to allow no "sacra-
A Champion of Protestant Unity
mentarians" in Wiurttemberg—a formulation that came dangerously close to equating supporters of Zwingli's understanding of the Lord's Supper with spiritualists and Anabaptists. This stipulation brought about feverish efforts to finally reach some kind of an agreement on the Lord's Supper among all Protestants.
For there were naturally quite a few theologians and laypeople in Wiirttemberg who felt at least an affinity to the Swiss position, beginning with Duke Ulrich himself. Also concerned were southern German free imperial cities such as Augsburg, Ulm, Memmingen, Lindau, Isny,
Kempten, and Biberach, which were now hoping to have a reliable ally in the Duchy of Wiirttemberg and were therefore urgently interested in seeing the eucharistic controversy solved. Finally, all sensible people knew that the only way to find a fundamental solution for the problem was for the Wittenberg and Zurich theologians themselves to reach a settlement.
It is on these three different regional levels that Bucer took direct and indirect action in the coming months and years.
During this period, Bucer became one of the leading, if not the leading, figures within German Protestantism. It is true, he never enjoyed the phenomenal intellectual and theological authority that Luther commanded. Melanchthon's theological and church-political influence as the author of the first Protestant dogmatics (Loci Communes) and of the Augsburg Confession (Confessio Augustana) of 1530 was also in some ways more far-reaching. Besides, Melanchthon had the support of Luther (Gf sometimes tense) and of the Saxon elector. Bucer, however, was capable of winning the commitment of and mobilizing a significant portion of those
Protestants, especially in southern Germany, who had been forced to come to terms with reality beyond their limited local and provincial boundaries. Bucer thus became the decisive motor of progress toward an agreement in this camp. He now ceased repeating that the eucharistic controversy was just a squabble over words, at least when he was speaking with the Wittenberg theologians. It was Luther who dictated the conditions for a theological and ecclesiastical agreement—and Bucer conformed. He still remained just as convinced as before that only unity among Protestants would pave the way for the full success of the Reformation in all of the Holy Roman Empire and in Europe—that is to say, for the sweeping realization of Christ's rule. Bucer's consequential use of formulations that could be interpreted and understood in many different ways was held against him already as a sign of insincerity. This harsh judgment fails to notice that Bucer was convinced from the start that the contesting parties concurred in matters essential and crucial but simply were
Martin Bucer not able to come to an agreement on side issues. It also is unmistakably clear that during these years Bucer remained unwaveringly true to the position he had already developed in writings mentioned above, such as in his book "to the Munsterites," as he called it: the Report from Holy Scripture (Bericht aus der Heiligen Schrift).
Bucer had only indirect influence on the eucharistic settlement reached in Wiirttemberg, the Stuttgart Concord on August 2, 1534. His friend
Ambrosius Blarer and the Lutheran Erhard Schnepf agreed on a formulation that the Lutherans had suggested during the Marburg colloquy of 1529.3 The decisive statement in it was the affirmation of the real, that is to say, the corporeal presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Zwingli had rejected this formulation back in Marburg. The fact that Bucer now gave his cautious consent to it aroused a great deal of mistrust, particularly in Heinrich Bullinger of Zurich, who regarded himself as the custodian of Zwingli's legacy. Bucer was indeed able to gain the confidence of the southern German cities at a meeting in Constance in December 1534.
The Swiss, however, refused to show up, merely sending a written statement expressing their skepticism and reservations.
Bucer left Constance in great haste before the meeting was over, dashing northward to Kassel, for Philip of Hesse had finally succeeded in getting the Saxon elector and the Wittenberg theologians to agree to begin unification negotiations once again over the Lord's Supper. Melanchthon and Bucer discussed not only eucharistic issues but also other theological topics intensely with one another from December 27 to 29. They got on very well and were pleased to note that they agreed extensively on the issues that had been controversial up to that point. Of course, they both realized this was not enough—it was winning Luther over that was going to be crucial. The latter had given Melanchthon a written instruction rigidly expressing his own uncompromising views. But Melanchthon's position had changed in the meantime.* He now believed that Christ was present in the Lord's Supper to the extent that he gave himself to the communicants when the elements of bread and wine were administered. 'This cautious dissociation from the idea that Christ's body and blood were tied up with the elements of bread and wine coincided exactly with Bucer's concern. It is therefore not surprising that both could agree in Kassel that Christ is certainly present in the Lord's Supper inasmuch as he is united to the bread and the wine "ina sacramental way" (auf sakramentliche Weise).
Bucer and Melanchthon were ready to leave it at that, not delving further into how this union took place and refraining from proposing new consensus formulations. Luther's drastic wording—namely, that in the
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 135 Lord's Supper one held Christ in one's hand and in one's mouth—was left untouched as an extreme statement, but at the same time it was emphasized strongly "that the body of the Lord as such can neither be reached nor understood by reason, but faith must rather be active here."° Finally,
Bucer drafted a friendly response to Luther's harsh instruction, informing the Wittenberg theologian that he misjudged the Strasbourg Reformers' understanding of the Lord's Supper, since in reality they agreed with Luther completely.
Bucer was overjoyed and full of optimism when he returned to Strasbourg in the first days of the new year 1535. Capito took off for Zurich soon after in order to pass on the promising news to Bullinger and attempt once again to woo the Swiss. Bullinger, however, remained skeptical. Doubts and reservations also came to the fore elsewhere in Switzerland. Was it not better to wait first and examine carefully how matters would develop? After all, all parties to this dispute had experienced enough disappointments in the past. In this situation, Bucer was able to achieve significant progress toward creating a climate of rapprochement with Wittenberg by convincing the Augsburg theologians to endorse ten articles he had drafted. Luther was pleased by these theses, which—as mentioned previously—were a summary of Reformation doctrine, beginning with the Trinity, continuing with justification by faith, dealing thereafter with the sacraments and the obligation of government to work at establishing a Christian commonwealth, and concluding with attacks on Anabaptists and spiritualists. The Wittenberg Reformer realized that his opponents could not simply be labeled
"fanatics" (Schwarmer) or hypocrites.
Of course, this did not mean an end to all misunderstandings and disagreements. In April 1535, Luther's friend Nikolaus von Amsdorf published a biting piece against "Zwinglians and Anabaptists," among whom he decided to include the Strasbourg theologians. Bucer was outraged and embittered by the accusation that he and his colleagues were only feigning concord with the Lutherans and in reality held quite different views.
This insinuation hit the very nerve of his union efforts. Nevertheless, he managed to tame his anger, in part through Melanchthon's coaxing, and responded to Amsdorf clearly and resolutely, but without any acrimony, in a series of "Axioms" (Axiomata apologetica). Bucer definitely wanted unity. He could do without any additional difficulties on the path toward this unity.
Further developments proved him right. In October 1535, Luther suggested to the southern German theologians that the two sides conduct verbal negotiations over all issues of doctrine, particularly the Lord's Supper.
Martin Bucer The encounter was to take place in Eisenach on May 14, 1536. Bucer did his utmost to convince the Swiss and the southern German theologians to participate, refusing to accept skepticism and doubt over the outcome as excuses. "Truly, I would not be able to desist from it any longer with a clear conscience," he wrote in April 1536, "for I have already come so far in this matter with a clear conscience, with true grounds in Scripture, and with the consent and the encouragement of my superiors and brethren."°
However, doing away with the last reservations and the remaining resistance turned out to be no easy task. To be sure, on December 1, 1535,
Swiss theologians meeting in Aarau agreed on a formula asserting the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. In addition, the First Helvetic
Confession (Confessio Helvetica prior)'/—which an assembly of theologians in Basel drafted on February 4, 1536, with a view to the coming council convened by Pope Paul III, to take place in Mantua—certainly left enough leeway for rapprochement between Protestants. Capito and Bucer, both of whom were present in Basel, brought to bear all the influence at their disposal, especially upon the formulation of the eucharistic article. On the other hand, the Swiss put just as much effort into emphasizing their independence and repelling all foreign influence. It is with this in mind that Bibliander decided to publish the correspondence between Zwingli and Oecolampadius in March 1536. Bucer wanted to make sure that this did not create new difficulties and therefore wrote a brief preface to the publication. What he accomplished was exactly the opposite of what he intended. The Swiss were not persuaded by his claim that it was primarily in opposition to the traditional Catholic interpretation that Zwingli had attached utmost importance to faith in the Lord's Supper. Ultimately, the Swiss refused to participate in the colloquium with Luther. Furthermore, this publication once again aroused deep mistrust among Luther and his supporters. What was Bucer really up to? Was he still imagining he could simply put Luther's and Zwingli's views together? No question about it—the negotiations were going to be difficult.
The Agreement The southern German church representatives and theologians departed for Eisenach in separate groups in the final days of April. Bucer came from Augsburg by way of Frankfurt. Luther, however, was not able to attend.
He had been frequently ill in the past months, tormented by lithiasis and plagued by sleeplessness and severe depressions. Unfazed, the delegation
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 137 left Eisenach without a moment's hesitation and headed directly for Wittenberg. It arrived on Sunday, May 21, 1536.°
On Monday morning the southern Germans presented letters to Luther that he was to read before negotiations began. At three in the afternoon of that very same day, all assembled at Luther's house in the former
Augustinian monastery to conduct the first deliberations. 'he atmosphere was icy. Luther attacked his guests immediately, expressly including Bucer, and asserted that meaningful talks could take place only if the southern Germans first publicly recanted their false understanding of the Lord's Supper and henceforth taught that unbelievers as well as believers actually received the body and the blood of Christ in their mouths with the Lord's Supper.
This opening left Bucer obviously bewildered. Capito stepped in skillfully and started explaining the Strasbourg theologians' understanding of the Lord's Supper. Bucer then regained his accustomed eloquence and took the initiative once again, remaining the central spokesman of the southern German delegation until the end of the negotiations. He resolutely confronted Luther with the fact that just repeating old insults and preconceptions would make the long trip to Wittenberg a waste of time.
What the Strasbourg preachers and the theologians in other cities actually taught could be discerned quite clearly from their writings. Did it not make more sense to believe them, rather than the usual slanderers and squabblers, of which there would always be more than enough? And as far as the recantation demanded by Luther was concerned, the Strasbourg delegation would certainly not be afraid of admitting errors publicly.
But never would they recant what they had not proclaimed in the first place: that supposedly only bread and wine are given to the congregation in the Lord's Supper. Bucer also described Luther's statement that the body and blood of Christ are received with the mouth in the Lord's Supper as extremely misleading. He emphasized that unbelievers certainly only received bread and wine.
The deliberations were then suspended because Luther felt ill. At his request they were not continued until the afternoon of the following day. The controversial point in question was now whether unbelievers
(impii) receive Christ—something that Luther affirmed and Bucer denied.
Johannes Bugenhagen found a way out of the impasse by once again bringing up a formula suggested by Bucer in 1535 that distinguished between unbelievers (ipii) and the unworthy (éndigni). 'The important thing was to make sure that Christ's real presence in the Lord's Supper did
Martin Bucer not depend on the faith and the worthiness of participants. Whether or not Christ was also present for those who did not believe anything at all, that is to say, for unbelievers, was ultimately left undecided. 'The wording chosen did justice both to Luther's insistence on the comforting certainty that Christ truly gives himself to the conscience-stricken and to Bucer's interest in emphasizing the fellowship of humankind with God and the new life resulting from this fellowship that enables believers to build the church and reshape the world.
Following this, Luther asked every one of those present personally if he believed what had been stated at this meeting: that the congregation did not just receive bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. All affirmed this and emphasized that they agreed with Luther's remarks. After that,
Luther and his supporters left the room to confer with one another briefly.
Upon returning, Luther declared: "Worthy lords and brethren, we have now heard every one of you answer and confess that you believe and teach that the true body and the true blood of the Lord are given and received in the Holy Supper, and not just bread and wine. .
. You take exception to including unbelievers, but you do confess, as Saint Paul does, that the unworthy receive the body of the Lord. ... We do not want to quarrel over this. Since this is how matters stand with you, we are in agreement, we recognize and accept you as our dear brethren in the Lord, as far as these articles are concerned."? Melanchthon was then charged with putting this agreement into writing.
It was a moving occasion, especially for Bucer. This was the moment he had been working toward for years, overcoming countless setbacks, disappointments, vituperations, and his own feelings of hopelessness. 'Io be sure, it was not an unqualified success. Further points of doctrine had not been discussed yet, and the settlement just attained had to win recognition back home, in the southern German cities and particularly in Switzerland.
But the first significant breakthrough had been achieved: Luther and his supporters had been won over. Bucer had made concessions to Luther without having betrayed his own theological standpoint—which can be described as that of an exhibitive real spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Bucer had thus neither simply acquiesced to Luther nor glossed over real differences. 'The result was a concord in the true sense of the word—an agreement on fundamentals that still left enough leeway for differing emphases.
Negotiations continued on May 24, with discussions over infant baptism and church discipline. 'Chis agreement as well was fixed in writing.
The atmosphere had become much more relaxed by now. The meetings
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 139 took on the character of an exchange of views and no longer sounded like an interrogation. In the afternoon, schooling and education were discussed. On the following day—it was the Ascension of Christ—a worship service was held in which Luther preached. The southern Germans took offense at the candles, the Mass vestments, and the elevation of the elements during the Lord's Supper—all practices they had done away with long ago. On May 26 and 27 the talks continued, this time on the right and duty of the civil authorities to carry out church reforms. Both sides remained at odds on this issue. Bucer was not able to persuade the assembly to consent to his far-reaching ideas on this topic. The Lutherans drafted and signed a separate statement.
On May 27, Bucer also gave a detailed account of the confession of the Swiss Protestants (Confessio Helvetica prior). His comments were received sympathetically. Even before the departure of the southern Germans,
Luther encouraged Bucer to continue negotiations with the Swiss cities on the basis of the concord just reached. On May 28 all the delegates endorsed the text of the Wittenberg Concord with their signature— except for Johannes Zwick from Constance, who had no authorization by his city council to do so. Before having the Concord published it was agreed that both sides should first drum support for it among their respective constituencies, "so that no one should find fault with our action and say we wanted to rule over the church and pass resolutions on behalf of others without asking them first."!° The southern Germans departed from Wittenberg on May 29.
They stopped over in Frankfurt from June 2 to 5, where Bucer wrote down his report on the conference.!! His aim was to summarize what had been accomplished and at the same time plot out the future course of action. The Concord was only the beginning. The point now was to win support for it in all of southern Germany, but especially in Switzerland.
Results Getting the Wittenberg Concord approved was understandably easiest in Strasbourg itself. On June 22, Capito and Bucer drafted a lengthy statement, addressed to their colleagues, in which they set forth and justified the eucharistic settlement. The official presentation of the Concord took place a week later, on June 29, in the chapter house of the former Domuinican monastery before the assembled larger council (grosser Rat), pastors, teachers, and church wardens. It was followed by a brief discussion and ultimately by the signing of the Concord by the clergymen present. Only
Martin Bucer Paul Volz, Wolfgang Schultheiss, and Anton Engelbrecht—all of whom had practically become outcasts since the synod in 1533—refused to affix their signatures to the settlement. It was probably on the following Sunday, July 2, that the congregations of Strasbourg were officially informed about the agreement.
Getting the southern German imperial cities to endorse the Concord proved to be more difficult. Almost all of them ultimately gave their assent to the treaty, but only after Bucer had coaxed and urged them unceasingly.
His efforts to convince the city of Constance, however, did not avail in the least. Not only the council, on which Johannes Zwick's brother Konrad sat, but even old friends such as Ambrosius and Thomas Blarer resisted the Concord. A number of different ideas and interests played a role here.
For one thing, the city looked increasingly to Switzerland for political orientation and support. Second, it was exceedingly mistrustful of Bucer, ever since he had written the aforementioned memorandum for the French king permitting bishops to retain their traditional political and legal rights. 'The city of Constance had freed itself precisely from the yoke of the bishop, after much struggle, as a consequence of the Reformation!
They therefore obstructed Bucer's attempts at union now and also urged the Swiss, especially Zurich, not to embark on such negotiations.
It was naturally the Swiss Protestant cities that put up the stiffest resistance. Bucer pursued two courses in order to overcome this opposition.
In the first place, when expounding the Lord's Supper to the Swiss, he asserted the fundamental agreement between the Wittenberg Concord, on the one side, and the eucharistic ideas of Zwingli and Oecolampadius as well as the First Helvetic Confession (Confessio Helvetica prior), on the other. Second, he attempted to win over individual cities, particularly Basel and Bern, on the strength of his charismatic personality, his undisputed theological authority, and his lucid ability to debate. He achieved significant results on both courses but failed to make a decisive breakthrough.
Any talk of Christ binding himself to the elements of bread and wine was rejected immediately and emotionally by the Swiss, allergic to anything only mildly suggestive of a natural union. But that was precisely what he did not mean, asserted Bucer over and over again. It was a "kind of" union, a "sacramental" union, an ultimately inexplicable union. And it was definitely not a union in which—Bucer now resorted to images drawn from Alsatian cuisine—Christ was present "like wine in a jug or meat ina pastry shell."'* It was now of crucial importance that the Swiss declare unmistakably that not only bread and wine were distributed in the Lord's
Supper, that they stop accusing the Lutherans of perniciously mingling
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 141 the glory of the risen Christ with the earthly elements, and that they finally leave the bitter conflicts of the past at rest. Bucer had his mind set on the future, and he was therefore urging the Swiss to hold a national synod on the topic. This could be an opportunity for opposing camps to clash, wrestle with one another, and—Bucer was convinced of the outcome—emerge from the debate united.
Bucer formulated these ideas in the spring of 1537 ina letter addressed to the Zurich theologians in particular and the Swiss in general. His own situation was extremely difficult at the time, for the Swiss had gotten wind of a letter he had written to Luther on January 19, 1537,'° in which he all too candidly expressed his irritation over the indecision and smug selfsatisfaction of the Swiss. The latter were irked additionally by Bucer's
"Retractions" (Retractationes)—a text he inserted into the section discussing Matthew 26:26 and John 6:63 in the third edition of his commentary on the Gospels (1536), self-critically recanting earlier statements on the Lord's Supper. This especially outraged the Bernese theologians, for they understood these retractions to be a falsification of the results of their very own disputation of 1528. To be sure, Bucer succeeded splendidly in explaining himself in Bern in September 1537. Ultimately, however, his appearance did not dissipate unexpressed indignation over the fact that an outsider—'"this Strasbourger!"—had attempted to lead them and their church by the nose in such a patronizing way.
The facile claim that Bucer was on Luther's side certainly does not do justice to this dispute. It is true, however, that Bucer's encounter with the seriously ill Wittenberg reformer in Gotha on March 1, 1537, left a lasting impression on him. Luther downright implored Bucer to continue his mediation efforts. Understandably, this filled Bucer with renewed strength of purpose. After his personal success in Bern, he thus drafted an enlarged German version of his retractions under the title Corrections
(Verbesserungen). This text impressively documents Martin Bucer's character, revealing his ability to admit and renounce mistakes ("The righteous accuses himself first, then others"),!* his innermost conviction that the controversy over the Lord's Supper could be solved if both sides
(which at this moment meant the Swiss in particular) sincerely wished to solve it, and his unselfish and unflagging work for concord and understanding, work that he undertook without sparing his own energies. Bucer knew what he was talking about when he wrote to Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer of Canterbury at this time in reference to Simon Grynaeus of Basel: "He has yet to experience how difficult it is convincing even openminded people of something that is truly good—indeed, people without
Martin Bucer the slightest mistrust towards things good and just."!> Most significant,
Bucer's ecclesiastical and political frame of reference once again proved to be much more far-reaching than that of most of his contemporaries. Particularisms and parochialisms of any kind went against his grain. It was during these years at the very latest that Bucer developed a Europe-wide consciousness. He was not only acutely aware of the situation of Protestants in other countries, he also had a clear sense of the most significant ecclesiastical and political powers and movements of his day. Bucer was convinced that Protestants had to become active in this wider arena, joining forces and purposefully engaging in these broader conflicts. He strugeled for this tenaciously and unremittingly.
But this was something the Swiss Protestant cities were precisely not interested in. They were self-contented. And Bucer was not able to pry a single city out of this complacence, not even Bern or Basel. 'Io be sure, both cities made some effort to accommodate to the wishes of the Strasbourg theologians at the Zurich conference from April 28 to May 4, 1538; the cities even responded to Luther in friendly terms. But Bucer was not able to elicit more from them. They neither accepted nor rejected the Wittenberg Concord. Especially Bullinger and the Zurich theologians stubbornly and doggedly opposed any concessions. What he and those in his camp really thought can be deduced from a caricature circulating at the time: it displays Bucer and Capito holding a weir-basket in which Luther is sitting. The Pope drives the fish toward Luther while a clownlike figure makes fun of this perverted cooperation. In the satirical verses accompanying the drawing, "Truth" has the last word: der gloubig wirt stiff an mir blyben und tich blinden lan butzwerck tryben.'°
(the believer will firmly stay at my side and leave you blind people to your silly games)
The Alemannic word butzwerck (play, mockery, humbug)—with connotations such as sich putzen or aufputzen (to smarten oneself, spruce oneself up, put on a show)—unmistakably aimed at insulting Bucer. He never abandoned his hope, however, of one day winning over the Swiss for a eucharistic concord after all. But new and more ambitious projects of union laid claim to his time and energy for the coming years. From now on, Bucer would be engaged in a daring attempt to reach a rapprochement and a settlement with the Catholics of the Holy Roman Empire.
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 143 Organizing the Church in Strasbourg Morality and Church Discipline At the same time that Bucer and the Strasbourg pastors were doing all they could to convince the civil authorities to take stricter measures against immorality in Strasbourg and enforce church discipline, the council found time to discuss the enlargement of the city brothel in great detail. "After all, we have to let the world be the world a bit," jotted down the civic secretary wryly.'' This incident is exemplary for the practical limits constraining Bucer's and his colleagues' lofty goals. Issues perceived by the preachers as simply crucial for setting up Christ's reign in Strasbourg were appraised by the council from a strictly pragmatic viewpoint. Doubtless the preachers were radical and uncompromising in pursuing their goals— as could be expected of them. Those in power were forced indeed to come to terms with this, but they were still determined not to allow the preachers' position to have the slightest influence on Strasbourg's fate.
Accordingly, from 1535 onward, the city council turned down all requests coming from the preachers for it to clamp down on moral misconduct, and especially for it to enforce church discipline. The utter failure of the pastors' entire efforts became evident. Progress was made neither on the personal nor on the institutional level. The church wardens (Kirchenpfleger) did not even come close to carrying out what Bucer and his colleagues expected of them. It did not help much that Bucer defined their function as a ministry essential to the church. 'Uhese men saw themselves ultimately as city officials and not as church servants, not least because of their appointment by the city council. Incapable of grasping Bucer's aim of creating an independent, self-assured church, they perceived their task within the traditional framework of political and moral surveillance by the civil authorities. Consequently, they did absolutely nothing. At the same time, Anabaptist groups started growing once again in Strasbourg. They attracted a lot of followers not only on account of their pious lifestyle but particularly because of the strict discipline they practiced.!® Bucer did not waver from his earlier goal of establishing "the rule of Christ" in Strasbourg, but from the late 1530s onward he began working at it with somewhat different tactics. He continued to place his full confidence in cooperating with the city council, as we shall see shortly. At the same time, however, Bucer began encouraging individual congregations to become more self-reliant and to take responsibility into their own hands—a topic to be discussed further below. It is important to note that
Martin Bucer Bucer did not see these two thrusts as mutually exclusive. Bucer believed that his goal, the establishment of Christ's rule in society, could become reality only if church and magistrate worked together. He was skeptical enough, however, to realize that this cooperation would work effectively only if the actual power of the civil authorities was countered by a truly independent church.
The second synod of the Strasbourg church, which met in the former Dominican monastery May 26-28, 1539,!? made even the greatest of optimists realize that they could expect precious little help from the council in setting up Christ's reign in the city. Decisions on matters deemed urgent by the pastors were ultimately dragged out until the summer of 1544. The synod did adopt a confession of faith essentially in agreement with the first version of Bucer's sixteen articles (1533). It additionally brought about a greater standardization of liturgy. Both church and state agreed to give infant baptism a prominent place in the worship service.
Differences arose, however, as soon as the subject changed to church discipline. Now as ever, the council remained unwilling to make fundamental concessions of any kind. Even the formal adoption of confirmation was rejected on May 18, 1540. Confirmation had actually already been carried out in several parishes from 1538 onward by means of a ceremony in which the pastor laid his hands on the heads of children, blessing them after they had completed the catechism, successfully passed an exam, and given a personal confession of faith.
Ever since the late 1530s, Bucer took great pains to awaken and foster feelings of individual accountability and self-reliance among Strasbourg's
Christians. The magistrate saw this as an attempt to split the local church into two classes of Christians, and it obstructed Bucer's plans accordingly.
Of course, Bucer was not seeking such a division. But, for him, clearly the worse option was for the church to become a mere object of civic and political administration, lacking an independent spiritual life and a discipline of its own. Bucer was convinced that in this area fundamental changes had to be introduced. He thus worked at this comprehensively— from an academic and from a pastoral perspective. We will analyze both in this order.
Scholarship and Education The individual Christian should be able to give account of his faith to himself and to others. Bucer made this demand early on, as did the other
Reformers. But Bucer also worked at putting this principle into practice
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 145 from the very beginning. Clearest proof of this was his successive exegesis of the Bible, carried out continuously from year to year—not just for theologians but also for all educated and interested laypeople. In 1536 two ponderous Latin tomes appeared in print, the product of some of the lectures Bucer had been giving for the past years. One of them was the third edition of his commentary on the Gospels; the other was his commentary on the book of Romans.?° Already Bucer's contemporaries perceived the Romans commentary as his most important exegetical work, and they heaped their praise upon it.
It deals with the central topic of the Reformation: faith in Christ and the justification of sinners. But Bucer was quick to add that it also dealt with "the precepts surrounding the true duties" of the Christian.*! The book thus intended to inform and educate from a theological and an ethical point of view, especially pastors and teachers lacking formal education but charged with "passing on the philosophy of Christ to the common folk."*
Bucer's frame of reference in all this was not limited to Strasbourg and the Upper Rhine Valley. As the dedication of the Romans commentary to Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, indicates, Bucer had all of Europe in view.
The same sweeping vantage point brought itself to bear on Bucer's understanding of theological tradition. He described not only how Paul and other biblical witnesses, particularly John the Evangelist, were in agreement with the Reformation message. He went to great pains to convince his readers that this had also been the traditional teaching of the church for many centuries. Bucer thus got a conversation going between the apostle Paul and the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam; he got the church fathers of the east, including the beloved John Chrysostom, and the west, Augustine at the fore, talking with the Reformers and the "better scholastics," with Thomas Aquinas in the lead. Admittedly, this was not possible without occasionally doing injustice to one or the other or without at times playing down differences too extensively. Bucer was certainly aware of this. But his vision of the church compelled him to endure these contradictions. It was manifestly clear that at the present, a living, personal faith could not be reduced to a single form of expression, and this made dialogue necessary between dissenting parties (a dialogue, of course, that assumed obedience to the words and commandments of Christ as Lord of the church). Bucer was convinced that the debate with past theological tradition and with one's opponents had to take place in exactly the same way. Polemic was not enough, for it did not take this understanding of the church into account. But the same was also true for set-
Martin Bucer tlements reached at any price. What was necessary was something much more difficult: demonstrating that differing assertions could harmonize if one set one's mind on the edification of the church and of all of Christendom, thus contributing to the furthering of salvation and of a truly
Christian life in the church. Faith in Christ and the justification of sinners remained the foundation for all this. But by placing not these doctrinal statements but rather their ethical consequences in the forefront, that ts, by developing piety as the concretion of the gift of justification, Bucer could remain open to the rich heritage of theological tradition and use it convincingly in his efforts to reach unity. Bucer followed this line of thinking assiduously in his theological and ecclesiastical work of the following years and decades.
Bucer's commentaries aimed to teach, train, and cultivate in a comprehensive fashion. 'They did not only make theological statements—they also educated in the broadest sense. 'These commentaries had grown out of lectures and were indeed a summary of what the schools in Strasbourg were capable of achieving. Bucer had put a lot of energy into the development of schools quite early, as we saw above. Now, in the 1530s, the educational system in Strasbourg experienced a huge improvement. This was largely due to Bucer.'* He had always been convinced that all young people should be sent to school, girls as well as boys, the gifted as well as the less gifted. In 1535 there were eight schools in Strasbourg with instruction in German, two for girls and six for boys. In addition, there were three Latin schools. In 1534, Bucer was able to create a boarding school in Strasbourg for the tuition-free training of future pastors.
Instrumental in making this possible was the support of Ambrosius Blarer in Constance but especially the financial backing offered by the patricians
Peter and Jost Buffler from the free imperial city of Isny. The Buffler foundation thrived in no time. Soon there were some thirty youth from all of southern Germany and Switzerland living and studying in the boarding school on a regular basis.
At the same time, Bucer worked at simplifying and standardizing the instruction given to these youth, which took place in the former Dominican monastery of Strasbourg, and coordinated it as well with other courses taught in Strasbourg, such as his biblical lectures at St. Thomas. Efforts to turn the school into a university, however, were obstructed by the city council, which deemed it too expensive and, after the recuperation of Wiirttemberg for the Reformation, superfluous, for the university at Tubingen could now reassume this training function. Bucer succeeded nevertheless in 1539 in merging all the Latin schools of the city into one
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 147 major educational establishment that met on the premises of the former
Dominican monastery. Jean Sturm became the rector of this new academy. Sturm came from Schleiden in the county of Manderscheid in the Eifel region, where he had been born in 1507, and had been trained superbly in the Netherlands and in Paris. 'The academy, which opened in Easter 1539, soon flourished under his leadership. In 1544 it already had
644 schoolboys and students, who were taught in ten different classes.
There was one teacher for every age-class and, in addition, just as many professors. Outstanding scholars were won over as teachers from among the religious refugees arriving in Strasbourg. Besides theology, the subjects taught included law, some medicine, rhetoric, dialectic, poetry, and, of course, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The school's pedagogical goal was to cultivate and promote languages, the humanistic study of classical antiquity, and a Christian piety anchored in the church. Bucer and Jean
Sturm agreed fully on this goal, which corresponded with the latter's motto of a "learned and eloquent piety." Bucer contributed significantly to the rise and successful development of this academy. He drafted its statutes, worked hard at finding excellent teachers, and, most important, secured long-term funding for the project through a contract with the chapter of the collegiate church of St. Thomas. The relationship between Bucer and Sturm deepened in the course of the years. Jean Sturm turned from a mere supporter of Bucer into a very close friend, even while preserving his independence of judgment from the respected Reformer who was sixteen years his senior.
The same is true for another foreigner whom Bucer attracted to Strasbourg in 1538, but whom he could not convince to stay for more than three years: John Calvin.'* The obviously gifted Frenchman, only twentynine years old and already renowned, lived first in Bucer's house and then with other refugees in a larger building in its immediate vicinity. 'The backyards of both houses abutted, giving the two the opportunity to get together frequently and become more closely acquainted with each other.
At the time, Calvin was the pastor and organizer of the French refugee congregation that met at St. Nicholas. In addition, he taught at Sturm's academy. Finally, he accompanied the Strasbourg delegation to the religious colloquies in Hagenau, Worms, and Regensburg convoked by the emperor. (These will be the object of our thorough attention later on.)
The Strasbourg preachers were impressed at the way in which Calvin built his congregation. He placed great importance on fostering the independence of individual members, on kindling and promoting faith in each of them, and on having them assume their individual responsibility for the
Martin Bucer congregation. Intensive Bible study and a strict church discipline were the means he used to reach these goals. Calvin also succeeded in winning back a remarkable number of Anabaptists to the Protestant fold. It is no coincidence that he entered his name in the membership list of the tailors' guild on July 29, 1539—a guild known for the many Anabaptists and their sympathizers in its midst. The woman whom Calvin married in Strasbourg, Idelette de Bure, was the widow of an Anabaptist he himself had converted.
Calvin and Bucer not only had a good rapport with one another, they also had much in common theologically. They both emphasized the gift of the Holy Spirit, called for a life characterized by love of one's fellow man, and insisted on church discipline. The young Calvin found in Bucer a trustworthy counselor and a friend who was almost like a father. In the following years, this relationship of mutual trust survived in spite of tensions and many crises. For Calvin certainly did not hesitate to criticize
Bucer severely, for example, for his willingness to make generous concessions to the Catholics, or for the vagueness of his statements on the Lord's
Supper. But Calvin also could find remarkable words of praise for his senior and mentor. For instance, in 1539 he applauded the Strasbourg reformer as biblical exegete: Bucer is a man, wrote Calvin, "who on account of his profound scholarship, his bounteous knowledge about a wide range of subjects, his keen mind, his wide reading, and many other different virtues, remains unsurpassed today by anyone, can be compared with only a few, and excels the vast majority.""? The extent to which Bucer and the Strasbourg church influenced Calvin and thus the Reformation in Geneva cannot be determined with final certainty. It is worth noting that much of what we encounter in Geneva was developed and tried out first in the Alsatian imperial city: the liturgical order, the singing of psalms, the multiplicity of ecclesiastical offices, the weekly meeting of pastors, and the school of higher education. Geneva also succeeded at something that Bucer had attempted in Strasbourg untiringly but ultimately in vain: building a congregation equipped with a strict discipline that did not shrink back from ban and excommunication.
Piety and Fellowship A congregation like the one described could only result from education and training. 'his meant encouraging individual Christians and instilling a sense of responsibility for the congregation in them. But it was just as important that the congregation as a whole develop into a closer-knit fel-
A Champion of Protestant Unity
lowship and learn to see itself as capable of acting on its own. From the mid-1530s onward Bucer unmistakably concentrated his efforts at reforming the church in these areas. This did not necessarily mean opposing the secular powers. Bucer was just as insistent now on the duties of the civic authorities toward the church as he had ever been before. But it was evident to him that action on the part of the magistrate was not enough.
"Appreciation and a sense of concern for what the 'fellowship of saints' is supposed to be are disintegrating from day to day," wrote Bucer to Ambrosius Blarer on April 4, 1538. "Even the pastors appear to understand less and less what true pastoral care is."?° Bucer was intent on doing something about this.
A new, revised version of his catechism appeared in November 1537.7'
This new catechism not only was significantly shorter, it was also more practice-oriented and included sections "for the very young and the simpleminded." The most interesting thing about it, however, is that it commits young people to accept church disciplinary measures: "I will gladly let myself be admonished and punished, I will also gladly admonish my fellow man, and I want to cherish church discipline and consolation highly and make assiduous use of them."'® Bucer thus succeeded in making a slight dent in the indestructible hull of governmental opposition to his plans.
Even if the authorities would continue to obstruct any attempts at carrying through a sweeping church discipline in the city, here at least was a means of pursuing this same discipline with methods voluntary and pedagogical.
A demand that Bucer made in a memorandum from the early summer 1538—that every Christian should be willing and able to confess his or her faith personally—pointed in the same direction.'? This was also the central focus, but on a much larger scale, of his major work On True Pastoral Care (Von der wahren Seelsorge), published at about the same time.*"
The church, wrote Bucer, ensues when individual people who believe in Christ and trust him alone grow together, forming a fellowship. Not only leadership and teaching are necessary for the growth of such a fellowship but many other offices as well, especially pastoral care and ministering to the needy. These ecclesiastical offices were to be filled by elders, that is, people who had proven themselves to be convinced Christians, regardless of social standing.
Bucer thus did not formulate a sophisticated doctrine of ecclesiastical offices as Calvin did later. He did not define the specific tasks of the different offices and meticulously differentiate between them. Bucer's aim, instead, was twofold. To begin with, he affirmed that the Holy Spirit was at work in a fellowship of believing Christians—something he stressed
Martin Bucer over and over again. This implied that members of such a fellowship would be vigorously active, assuming responsibility for their fellow human beings and for the entire church. Aside from this effort to foment the readiness of Christian fellowships to act on their own initiative, Bucer pursued a second goal: to afford the church a measure of codetermination through the ecclesiastical office of elders, who were to be chosen from among church members and then solemnly installed in this function.
These elders were to guard over church interests when dealing with the civil authorities, and also to help church discipline be truly enforced in the entire Christian fellowship. "From this follows, first of all, that Christians must serve the Lord above all things and with the greatest diligence. For they are members and tools of Christ, and Christ must live in all of them, and not just they for themselves. Everyone is to do this according to his own calling and capacity, by the measure in which Christ lives in him.
Christians must serve the Lord above all things and with the greatest diligence, so that all His lost sheep are sought faithfully, led to Him, and brought back into the fellowship of His church."*! Bucer took pains to refute in great detail theological, political, and ethical objections to his plans. Essential to his understanding of the church as a fellowship of believing Christians created by the Holy Spirit was not only that it was to be an active and diverse fellowship willing to take its organization into its own hands. Even more important was its earnest determination to practice church discipline. Hesitating or being cautious in this matter was for Bucer tantamount to indecision regarding the central question of faith and trust in Christ. "We must make up our minds whether we are really willing to be Christians or not."
It goes without saying that the city council did not take kindly to Bucer's treatise. Hardly a work of the Strasbourg reformer, who by this time had attained great fame far and wide, was ignored more deliberately than this one. His book struck the council at a sore spot, for its own interests lay in preventing the rise of a church that was independent from the state and had its own ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Bucer went through the same experience again two years later, when the council obstructed his efforts to turn the ecclesiastical court of pre-Reformation days into an autonomous church disciplinary court.
Bucer pursued goals that he perceived as theologically fundamental with a tenacity and versatility that are fascinating. Among these were the renewal of Christian life and church discipline as the outgrowth of a truly
Christian fellowship. Alas, these evidently could not be realized in Strasbourg. 'Therefore, his hopes and expectations were all the greater when
A Champion of Protestant Unity
chances of carrying them out elsewhere seemed to loom on the horizon.
It was with this anticipation that he traveled to Hesse at the end of 1538, responding to Landgrave Philip's invitation.
Hesse The Landgraviate The Landeraviate of Hesse'? was a territory without natural geographical boundaries, extending from the rivers Werra and Weser in the northeast to the Odenwald Mountains and the Rhine River in the southwest. It was not only completely surrounded by numerous other dominions; these also cut deep into the Landgraviate, severing its territorial integrity at many places. It bordered on the Electorate of Mainz to the south and on the Electorates of Trier and Cologne to the west. 'Io the north it abutted on the bishopric of Paderborn and the Duchy of Brunswick. 'Toward the east it faced the Duchy of Saxony. In other words, the Landgraviate of Hesse, at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, accurately reflected the empire's own territorial compartmentalization and political disunity inasmuch as the Landgrave participated in the countless local and regional conflicts in the attempt to increase his influence and might.
When Philip of Hesse came to power in 1518—he was not quite fourteen at the time, making it necessary for Emperor Maximilian I to declare him prematurely to be "of age"—the Landgraviate was far from being a political unity. Philip found himself at the head of a cluster of extremely diverse territories, many of which had not come under the domination of Hesse until one or two decades before. At bottom, the Landgraviate consisted of four discontinuous regions, separated from each other by other territories and themselves riddled with a smattering of enclaves. 'To begin with, there were the Lower and the Upper Principalities of Hesse. The former included Kassel as well as the Werra, Fulda, and Eder river regions; the latter comprised Marburg and the areas surrounding the rivers Lahn and Ohm. Both principalities were not reunited until 1500. Only half a century earlier Hesse had achieved a certain degree of cohesion through | the acquisition of the counties of Ziegenhain (in the region of the Schwalm
River) and of Nidda (in the Vogelsberg region), which closed the gap between Lower and Upper Hesse. The rich county of Katzenelnbogen became a part of Hesse in 1479. It consisted of the lower county of St. Goar on the Rhine and the upper county, to the east of Oppenheim, with Darmstadt at its center. There was no land corridor connecting these two parts of the county with one another or with the rest of Hesse.
Martin Bucer This constellation of facts allows only one conclusion: at the time of the rise of the early modern state, any ruler who found himself at the head of such a territorial hodgepodge and cherished even the slightest political ambitions faced the urgent task of consolidating and making uniform his territory from a political and administrative viewpoint, and, not least, in terms of the beliefs and the attitudes of its inhabitants. Philip of Hesse pursued such a policy with dogged determination.
Circumstances were particularly favorable to his endeavor. Hesse had succeeded in prevailing against its external enemies, especially against the Electorate of Mainz. Internally, resistance by the nobility was declining.
A well-trained and efficient civil administration consisting of councillors and secretaries supported Philip unconditionally—since they depended upon him entirely. Finally, Philip was financially strong and autonomous enough to achieve his goals against the will of the nobility and the representatives of the cities. Significant sources of revenue were at his disposal: the customhouse on the Rhine at St. Goar collected duties for him and, most important, he profited immensely from the "guilder wine tariff"
(Guldenweinzoll), which Emperor Maximilian I conceded to him in 1505.
It stipulated the payment of one golden guilder for every Fuder (cartload, equivalent to some 250 gallons) of wine that went through Hesse. 'This included Alsatian wine transported on the international trade route heading east through Frankfurt am Main.
Still another factor worked to Philip's advantage: the Reformation movement. Of course it was preceded by authentic efforts at reform, and there can be no doubt as to the sincerity of Philip's own personal embracing of Luther's teaching and the cause of the Reformation around 1524.
But it is just as evident that Philip did not hesitate to translate his religious convictions into pragmatic political measures. For him, the official endorsement of the Reformation clearly would help strengthen the political and spiritual cohesion of the Landgraviate.
The first steps taken in this direction, however, were vacillating and irresolute. An assembly of theologians as well as representatives of the nobility and the cities met in Homberg an der Efze in October 1526. It was not a church synod in the pure sense of the term, but neither could it be simply called a provincial diet.** In any case, it became clear that the Landgrave was eager to introduce the Reformation in his territory. The first Reformation blueprint, however, failed immediately, not least of all because Luther himself vetoed it. It was the work of the French evangelical refugee Francois Lambert d'Avignon, who had wanted to create a
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 153 church made up of congregations whose members were wholehearted
Christians and were willing to submit to a strict church discipline. From 1527 on, Philip followed a second model that was much more realistic and thus much more successful. It was primarily Adam Krafft who put it into practice, justifying his later fame as the "Reformer of Hesse." Krafft, whom Philip appointed as his court chaplain in 1525, followed the Reformation model of Electoral Saxony. 'Therefore, beginning in 1527 monastic property in Hesse was inventoried and placed under the control of the Landgrave. The latter also appointed pastors, ordered the inspection of congregations, and organized poor relief. The Mass was abolished and church ceremonies were renewed—with Wittenberg once again serving as model. Finally, it was also in the year 1527 that Philip founded his own academy of higher studies in Marburg, the city in which he had his residence. It was the first Protestant university.
Organizing the Church By the early 1530s, the territorial church of Hesse had become well organized from an administrative point of view—and the Landgrave was firmly in control of it. The church was divided into six superintendencies: Marburg, Kassel, Rotenburg, Alsfeld, Darmstadt, and St. Goar. Synods were in charge of discussing and deciding all issues concerning the church as a whole, though their decisions had to be approved by the Landgrave. A state law regulated all matters concerning the pastorate. All pastors of Hesse were on the official payroll of the Landgraviate, receiving uniform salaries. These circumstance and the types of tasks that the Landgrave assigned the church quickly led the pastors to see themselves—and to be seen by others—as a part of the civil administration of Hesse. They cooperated closely with those state employees who were in charge of poor relief or schools, and their task could be defined as one of Christian and moral education of the populace.
There was no lack of rules for the enforcement of church discipline, some of which even provided for expulsion of noncomplying members from the congregation. This matter, however, was seen as pertaining exclusively to the church; the state refused to endorse church measures or to support them in any way. In consequence, church discipline in Hesse existed only on paper. Only if there had been autonomous congregations with a vibrant spiritual life of their own would such a church discipline have been able to function without state support. The territorial church
Martin Bucer of Hesse may have been well organized and efficiently integrated into governmental structures, but it did not have such congregations, nor were the circumstances described above conducive to their development.
The situation in other princely territories that had joined the Reformation was not much different. In all these territories, as in Hesse,
Anabaptists constituted an attractive alternative because of the emphasis they placed on personal conversion, the strict discipline they practiced in their congregations, and their conspicuous disapproval of, indeed outright disdain for, the state church, which they saw as immoral and spiritually bankrupt. Anabaptism was particularly attractive in Hesse because
Landgrave Philip remained fundamentally opposed to the death penalty for heretics. On the other hand, the authorities of Hesse were deeply concerned about the challenge the Anabaptists represented by separating themselves religiously and socially from the established order, especially since the territory of the Landgraviate was splintered and lacking political cohesion to begin with. If Anabaptism was a marginal problem elsewhere, here it challenged the very foundations of the state. On September
1, 1536, the chancellor of Hesse, Johannes Feige, informed Philip in no uncertain terms that it was high time the Landgrave himself attend to this grave problem "and postpone all other issues, for difficult decisions must be taken in this matter—decisions that either mean taking action that is benign or action that causes suffering. Otherwise great evil threatens all of us."*°
This was no exaggeration. Io be sure, Hesse had been successful in curtailing the growth of Anabaptist congregations after 1533. But from 1537 on, all efforts in this direction were useless.*° Officials and pastors in the border regions between Hesse and Thuringia, that is to say, in the ecclesiastical territories of Fulda and Hersfeld, as well as in Upper Hesse, observed that particularly the common people displayed growing sympathy for the Anabaptists and were eager to join their movement. Furthermore, all governmental organs were forced to admit their helplessness. It was in the midst of this situation that Philip asked the Strasbourg city council to send Bucer. There were two qualifications that made him just the right person for this task: first, his untiring and unwavering insistence—not to be swayed by opposition or obstruction of any kind—on church discipline; second, his unmistakably clear protest against any kind of division or separation from the church. And Bucer brought both points home in a long discussion with several Anabaptist leaders from October
30 to November 1, 1538, in Marburg. The result was a huge success for the Strasbourg reformer.
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 155 Bucer proceeded in Marburg in exactly the same way as he had done in Strasbourg years ago during the first synod: he carried out disputations in public; he vigorously emphasized that not a pious life but the merits of Christ and love constitute the foundation of the church; but he stressed just as vehemently that the church could not exist without discipline and the ban. He used careful logic in his arguments and was demanding on his listeners, but he also was inviting while exhorting them. Most important of all, he tried eloquently to win the Anabaptists back to the Protestant fold.
Bucer did, in fact, set them thinking. He achieved a major breakthrough on November 2 in the course of a prolonged conversation with Peter
Tesch, an Anabaptist leader known and respected in Hesse and beyond.
Tesch declared himself and his supporters willing to return to the mainstream church if it would truly exercise discipline—and if the Anabaptists were given plenty of time to readjust to its pastors and congregations.
Bucer guaranteed the fulfillment of both requests, having been given full powers by Philip.
On November 25, 1538, a synod that met in Ziegenhain, some six miles east of Treysa, resolved to reorganize church discipline. At the same time,
Tesch and other former Anabaptists traveled through Hesse trying to convert their earlier partisans—with considerable success. All this was about more than just improving morals and enforcing church discipline. In the Ziegenhain disciplinary ordinance,*' Bucer once again formulated his traditional ideal of a self-reliant congregation pulsating with life. Church discipline was an essential component of such a congregation. Just as essential were church members who assumed responsibility for the congregation, 1n other words, elders. Finally, it was important that church members and especially the youth be cared for from an educational, pedagogical standpoint, which is why Bucer also introduced confirmation here. He knew all too well that education and discipline only had a future in active congregations whose members were committed Christians. But did not a state church that was run like an organ of government and administered by civil servants stand precisely in the way of such a development?
The Ziegenhain disciplinary ordinance was published in January 1539, along with a new church ordinance and an excerpt from Bucer's catechism of 1537. Bucer had already left Hesse in December 1538. While his vision of the church certainly left an imprint, his ordinances did not meet with any success. Bucer admonished Philip again and again to finally put the Ziegenhain resolutions into practice. Philip gave the corresponding orders—and everything stayed the way it was. Living congregations were not going to result from administrative decrees and indifferent
Martin Bucer bureaucrats—in a letter to Philip in 1540, Bucer described the majority of the Landgrave's civil servants as "crude people of the flesh" and his pastors as "very negligent.">®
The fews As territorial states in Germany developed and took on more definite contours, and as the Reformation movement became institutionalized through doctrinal formulations and church ordinances, awareness of groups that did not conform with the strived-for ideal grew. This was particularly the case for the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire.*" Many princes began drafting ordinances regulating the affairs of Jews in their respective territories (fudenordnungen). 'Vhey did this in order to standardize the different regulations already in existence and to bring them all under princely control. Furthermore, the princes sought to glean benefits from the protection of Jews by assigning them functions in the administration of the state's finances. 'Uhird, they pursued the goal of bolstering their own subjects against Jewish economic competition. The primary aim of the Protestant pastors and theologians, for their part, was to imbue the entire population with Christian doctrine and to educate it along these lines.
Therefore, while some saw the Jews as the object of Christian mission, other sought at the same time to single them out on account of their persistent nonconformity. The respective goals of church and state could thus be brought into at least partial agreement with one another. This was particularly the case for a territorial lord who saw himself as responsible for not only the physical well-being but also the salvation of his subjects, and who was influenced by a theology that emphasized the religious duties of civil authority and aimed at establishing a truly Christian society. This was precisely the background of the 1539 ordinance for the Jews of Hesse.
The Landgrave's warrant protecting the Jews of his territory (Schutzbrief) expired in 1538. Philip thus commissioned Bucer with drafting a memorandum specifying under which conditions Jews should be allowed to remain in Hesse. He was given seven articles to start from, five of which provided extremely favorable economic incentives for them to remain in Hesse, while the remaining were more conventional in their goals, prohibiting Jews from discussing their faith with Christians and forcing them to attend sermons aimed at their conversion. Bucer vigorously rejected all these articles except for the last two. After formulating a statement of his own, he first sought the approval of the leading theologians of Hesse and after this sent his draft to the Landgrave in December 1538.
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 157 Bucer's recommendation of policy toward Jews (Judenratschlag) accurately reflects the direction his theology had taken from the early 1530s on. Accordingly, we find in it a summary of his thoughts—already developed in the Dialogues (Dialogi)—concerning the right and the duty of civil authority to set up a Christian social order in obedience to God's law. 'This had the following consequences for Jews"? in Hesse: they were allowed to hold their own worship services, but they were not to seek converts to their faith and especially were to refrain from "blaspheming Christ." 'The government had the duty to see to it that the gospel was preached to all subjects and was obliged to punish anybody who showed disdain for it.
Whereas the Dialogi of 1535 had spoken of committing manifest unbelievers to do useful work, and a further memorandum of the same period suggested punishing obstinate Anabaptists with forced labor, Bucer now translated this general idea into the specific recommendation that Jews be prohibited from performing any kind of trade and that the civil authorities should engage them "in the humblest, most arduous and most trying tasks"—such as burning coal, sweeping chimneys and sewers, or getting rid of animal carcasses.t! Bucer concludes the Judenratschlag with the appraisal that such harsh punishments would serve as a deterrent and as a corrective measure. New in this memorandum was Bucer's wholesale adoption of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Never before had the Strasbourg reformer uttered such biased and sweepingly negative judgments over Jews. He possibly was influenced in these statements by the attitudes of some of the leading theologians of Hesse, who at first advocated expelling all Jews from the Landgraviate. Bucer's vilifying declarations, as unacceptable as they are, are mild, however, when compared with Luther's later invectives seething with hatred against Jews.
Bucer was firmly convinced that the issue at stake was allowing God's strict but salutary law to rule everyday life—God's law that promoted what was good (that is, God's revelation) and stifled everything opposed to it
(in other words, evil). That is why he opposed expelling the Jews from Hesse. This would have implied for him that once again the civil authorities were not willing to take God's law and God's order seriously. But for the same reason, he did not allow himself to be impressed by the critical objections that Landgrave Philip, Jewish representative
Josel von Rosheim, and others made against his memorandum. On December 27, 1538, he wrote to Philip of Hesse: "Therefore, wherever a truly godfearing government exists, the members of the family of faith should always be given preference, and the despisers of faith treated disadvantageously. And civil authority, who, after all, must not carry through its own, but rather God's
Martin Bucer judgments, should consistently treat unbelief in such a way that it arouses contempt." This was hardly a humane guideline, and it certainly was not an enlightened opinion. But it does exemplify the fact that, for Bucer, state policy toward Jews was only one aspect of his broader vision of pushing ahead vigorously with the establishment of God's rule—a rule already prearranged in creation.
The major Judenordnung, or legal ordinance regulating the affairs of Jews in Hesse, that eventually appeared in the summer of 1539 did not conform with Bucer's goals. This does not mean that Bucer's ideas did not influence it in any way. [he text did, in fact, represent a compromise. The ordinance did not unequivocally legalize the presence of Jews in Hesse but made it dependent upon the goodwill of the Landgrave. Philip did allow the Jews to engage in trade and commerce (against Bucer's advice); he also permitted them to work as moneylenders in restricted circumstances and under strict supervision. Philip translated some of Bucer's religious demands into legal precepts: the abjuration of all "blasphemy" against Christ or against the Christian faith; the prohibition of the Talmud; a ban on the construction of any new synagogues; the prohibition of any religious dialogue between Jews and Christians; the obligation to attend sermons aimed at missionizing them; the death penalty for Jews and Christians living together. A third aspect is important: Bucer had demanded that the fee Jews paid in exchange for their protection be proportional to their respective wealth, in order that they not be exploited mercilessly. Philip's ordinance turned this precept into a tool for regulating the immigration of Jews or for arranging for their expulsion."
The Jews of Hesse were extremely unsettled by this Judenordnung, for it was entirely open at the outset which direction would carry the day: a policy of limited pragmatism or one strictly subordinate to the whims of the Protestant church. Quite a few Jews decided to leave Hesse at this point. 'his cannot be simplistically attributed to Bucer's theological and ecclesiastical activity in the Landgraviate. On the other hand, neither is it possible glibly to dissociate Bucer's thoughts and convictions from this ruinous development. Bucer must bear his share of blame for Christendom's calamitous sins against the Jewish people.
Philip's Bigamy From October 1538 on, Philip and Bucer began cooperating more and more closely. 'Vhey not only held similar ecclesiological views but also felt a strong personal affinity. Of course, this did not change the fact that
A Champion of Protestant Unity — 159 Philip remained a territorial prince, a "lord," and Bucer was consequently his "servant." But Bucer did not allow himself to be inhibited by this distinction. After all, he served a God who was Lord over the entire universe.
The fact that Bucer was on friendly terms with Philip but remained completely independent in his theological thinking may have induced the Landgrave to turn first to the Strasbourg theologian when seeking a way out of his marital quandary."
Gereon Sailer of Augsburg, an intimate associate of Philip and a friend of Bucer, arrived in Strasbourg on the evening of November 4, 1539, and informed Bucer about Philip's intention to incur a bigamous marriage.
Bucer was appalled. Such an action would cast doubt upon any attempts to enforce church discipline, renew the life of Christians, and create a new society. It would ruin the reputation of Protestantism and thus hinder its spread in Germany and Europe—not to mention bigamy being a capital offense. In spite of all of this, Sailer informed Philip that he would probably be able to count on Bucer's help. This was a complicated matter, with pastoral, political, and theological implications. It should be clear to modern readers, of course, that at the time it was not considered unusual for a person in power to have a mistress. And did not the Old 'Testament appear to sanction polygamy through countless examples? Could it therefore be prohibited in an absolute way? Was it not ultimately more upright to marry a mistress in addition to one's first wife than to have countless extramarital affairs? Matters were made more complicated by the fact that Philip of Hesse constituted the mainstay and pillar of the Schmalkaldic
League. For Bucer, however, this was not the dominant factor to be considered. Never—not at this time or later—did he let himself be guided primarily by political considerations. At the same time, however, he never lost sight of them completely.
In December 1539, Bucer drafted a detailed memorandum listing the "arguments in favor and against" (Argumenta Buceri pro et contra)" a bigamous marriage. The only truly Christian marriage, wrote Bucer, is a monogamous one. Only in exceptional situations, that is to say, in order to prevent fornication (1 Cor. 7:2), can a second marriage be allowed. 'The latter, however, must be kept secret, in other words, disguised as a concubinage in front of the public; this second "marriage" must also retain the legal status of a concubinage. Those involved in it, however, can be assured that in God's eyes they are not living in adultery and sexual immorality. This is what Bucer had also explained to Philip privately in November. Philip, however, apparently heard only what he wanted to hear: that Bucer considered bigamy a possible choice for the Landgrave
Martin Bucer and that he was going to try to convince Luther and Melanchthon of its legitimacy. Philip did not say a word to Bucer about the promises he, the Landgrave, had made to the mother of his mistress Margarethe von der
Sale. Philip had, in fact, promised her that the intended marriage would be a legal one in the full sense of the term, and that the Reformers would publicly support its legitimacy.
At the beginning of December, Luther and Melanchthon drafted statements of their own with conclusions similar to Bucer's. Even the elector of Saxony declared himself to be favorably disposed toward the plan. The wedding took place on March 5, 1540, in the castle chapel in Rotenburg on the Fulda River. Melanchthon and Bucer, who happened to be in the region because of a forthcoming assembly at Schmalkalden and were not told a thing beforehand by Philip, suddenly found themselves in the awkward situation of being unwitting wedding guests. Unsurprisingly, the matter did not stay secret for long. By June it was known even outside
Germany, dismaying the Protestant camp and filling Catholics with triumphant indignation ("so this is what the evangelicals are really up to!").
Of course, it would be cynical to deny that not few of those who raised their voices in accusation lived in concubinage themselves or held mistresses. 'Uhis does not change the fact, however, that the Reformers, and Bucer in particular, seriously compromised themselves. Even if we discard any moral narrow-mindedness when assessing the counsel they gave to Philip, their sophistic concession of bigamy for alleged pastoral reasons was, from an ethical standpoint, dubious at best.
Philip was definitely not into fine moral distinctions. If the Bible apparently allowed bigamy, and if bigamy did not contradict the will of God in Philip's particular situation (as the leading Protestant theologians had told him), why could he not speak openly and freely about it? The Landgrave was not prepared to conceal his action, and the von der Sale family was understandably even less willing to hush up the marriage. In this way, the disastrous affair took its course.
Luther and Bucer made it clear to Philip that they had permitted the bigamous marriage only on the condition that it be kept secret. Luther now called on the Landgrave to deny everything, while Bucer, for his part, gave him the advice to be ambiguous and vague! Philip felt cheated. And he especially felt double-crossed when none of his earlier allies stood by him after the matter became public—not even the Saxon elector or Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg. Philip was now forced to come to an agreement with the emperor. 'Uhis whole affair had a very unpleasant personal sequel for Bucer. A long-winded, anonymous "Dialogue" (Dialogus Neo-
A Champion of Protestant Unity
buli) defending Philip's bigamy appeared in the summer 1541. The author turned out to be pastor Johannes Lening of the town of Melsungen, in northern Hesse. But people everywhere—including in Strasbourg—were convinced it was Bucer who had really drafted the unsophisticated work.
Foul rumors and scornful rhymes ridiculing Strasbourg's reformer started circulating. The civic secretary of Strasbourg, Michael Han, and the vast number of his supporters taunted Bucer publicly with this matter through the spring of 1542. In the meantime—on June 13, 1541—Philip reached a secret settlement with Emperor Charles V. He thus ushered in the demise of the Schmalkaldic League and of German Protestantism.