Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven Defeat The Schmalkaldic War Antagonisms Get Worse The long-awaited council was solemnly inaugurated in the 'Tirolean city of Trent in the southernmost tip of the Holy Roman Empire on December 13, 1545. Pope Paul III had called the council, and he also kept close control over it by means of his legates Giovanni del Monte, Marcello
Cervini, and Reginald Pole. No Protestants were present. Only after solving difficult preliminary problems could actual theological discussions begin on February 7, 1546—mostly discussions over the significance of the Bible and church tradition as well as over their relationship to one another. Ten days later, on February 18, 1546, Luther passed away in Eisleben, the city of his birth.
Seen together, both events symbolize the end of an era. Protestantism was no longer the decisive theological and religious power; the Catholic Church assumed a new vigor, self-assertiveness, and clear contours of its own. The antagonism between both camps grew accordingly. 'The theological and political altercations between them became more uncompromising, ruder, and harsher. Reconciliation and the settlement of differences counted less and less. The new priorities were to confront opponents, to persevere doggedly in the struggle against them, and, if possible, to defeat them.
Upon hearing of Luther's death, Bucer wrote the following to Albert Hardenberg, his former companion-in-arms during the failed Cologne reformation attempt: "I know how many people hate Luther. And yet the fact remains: God loved him very much and never gave us a holier and more effective instrument of the Gospel. Luther had shortcomings, in fact
Martin Bucer serious ones. But God bore them and put up with them, never granting another mortal a mightier spirit and such divine power to proclaim His
Son and strike down the Antichrist. If God so accepted him and drew him near to Himself in spite of his being a sinner—a sinner, of course, who abhorred evil like no other—who am I, a wretched servant and miserable sinner who shows so little zeal in pursuing justice, to reject him and turn him down on account of his failings, which we, of course, should not condone? Do we not often ask others to tolerate even greater failings in ourselves?"! Few obituaries written in the immediate aftermath of Luther's death approach this conciseness and profundity. The nobility of feeling manifest in this appraisal is all the more noteworthy considering how harsh and unjust Luther had often been to Bucer.
The incipient Council of Trent elicited an entirely different response from Bucer, namely, one of sharp condemnation. In his two books On the True and False Administration of the Lord's Supper (De vera et falsa caenae dominicae),' he asked the theologians assembled in Trent whether they were not aware that self-righteousness, immorality, and crude ignorance of the fundamentals of Christian doctrine reigned in their midst—and not the Holy Spirit to which they laid claim. How could the true church of Jesus Christ be in Trent if the council simply disregarded Jesus' and the Bible's clear teachings on the cup for the laity in the Lord's Supper and refused to correct the false understanding of this sacrament as a sacrifice — with no other argument than the supposed right of the church and the pope to do so? This attitude on the part of the council outraged Bucer.
The actual course of deliberations in Trent confirmed his worst fears. In the early summer of 1546 he edited Tio Decrees of the Council of Trent (Zwei
Decret des Trientischen Concili)' with an accompanying commentary. These were the decrees of April 8, 1546, that promulgated dogmas on the authentic canon and the significance of the Bible, the tradition of the church, and their relationship to one another. Bucer wrote: "There you have it, my dear Christians: the lovely, free, Christian Council of Trent and its fruits—namely, that from now on you may neither read the Holy
Scriptures in the original nor in translations; that no one may present it and explain it to you in a way that does not ratify the Pope's most abominable abominations, these being his assumption that he is a lord over divine Scripture, over the laws, peoples and goods of the entire world, that he has all rights in the shrine of his heart, that his entire idolatry constitutes the only true worship of God as well as a means—that, additionally, must be bought from him—to get to heaven; thus are souls surrendered to the depths of hell, and bodies and goods are given to infamy and the
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persecution of God. Lord Jesus, resist and ward off your enemy! And preserve us in your saving kingdom! Amen."*
Bucer was already back in Strasbourg by the time he had written the lines above. He had spent the three-month period from December 1545 to the middle of March 1546 in Regensburg, taking part in one last religious colloquium convoked by the emperor prior to the imperial diet that would begin on June 5.° It was clear from the very beginning that no settlement would be reached. Accordingly, the Catholic representatives refused to go beyond the agreement already reached in the same city five years before. Bucer's antagonist at Regensburg, the imperial court theologian Pedro Malvenda from Spain, went one step further and asserted that it was only up to the council meeting in Trent to take decisions on points of doctrinal disagreement. The Protestant representatives, on their part, demanded written records, certified by notaries, of the statements of all parties, since it was clear they were dealing not with people of goodwill but rather with outright adversaries. The debate soon centered on the topic of justification. Bucer later published the documents that emerged from this discussion. Bucer appraised the situation quite soberly: "We may be able to have a disputation with these opponents and defend
Christ's truth against their fallacies. However, we cannot have a Christian and friendly conversation with them, because they are neither friends nor Christians, and besides they condemn us publicly as their worst enemies and as unchristians."'
These being the circumstances, was one even justified in taking part in such a colloquy in the first place? Bucer certainly thought so. Once again, he contemplated the laborious and often unnerving negotiations in Regensburg in February 1546 from a European perspective. The pope's supporters were looking for arguments that would justify their going ahead in Trent without—and against—the Protestants, and the emperor was eager for public evidence that the Protestants were unwilling to come to any real agreement. Bucer worked against these interests loudly and resolutely, not only through personal letters but also by means of a small treatise in which he described the course of this Regensburg colloquy. In all of these he asserted unmistakably that the evangelicals had done all they could to reach an accord, but the Catholics had been unwilling.
Bucer's success is demonstrated by the fact that his Report (Bericht) went through six printings in the course of one year.
The hostility with which both confessional camps now confronted each other was made gruesomely evident when Alfonso Diaz arranged for the murder of his brother Juan, a convert to Protestantism, in Neuburg on
Martin Bucer the Danube. Bucer had last spoken with Juan Diaz on March 25.' Two days later the Spanish evangelical was killed by an assassin's hatchet. Juan's brother, traveling at the time in the entourage of Emperor Charles V, had hired the murderer. Understandably, Bucer perceived this as further proof for the unfathomable depravity and wickedness of the papists, as well as an admonition on fellow evangelicals to follow the suffering Christ and carry his cross."
Resort to Arms 'The Regensburg diet began its sessions on June 5, 1546, as we mentioned above. 'There were no members of the Schmalkaldic League present. The atmosphere at the diet was eerie, almost unreal. Parties were being celebrated, royal weddings held, and yet almost everybody knew that a war was Imminent—a terrible and merciless war that would pit the emperor and his allies against the Protestants. At the same time, Emperor Charles
V was scoring one victory after another on the diplomatic front. He concluded a treaty with Bavaria on June 7 and reached an agreement with Duke Moritz of Albertine Saxony on June 18, promising him the affluent bishoprics of Magdeburg and Halberstadt as protectorates in exchange for military assistance in attacking Elector John Frederick of Ernestine Saxony, Moritz's own cousin. An auxiliary army formed by the pope set out for Germany on July 4, richly endowed with letters of indulgence and apostolic blessings. The Schmalkaldic League mobilized its own troops on the very same day.
The Protestants proved incapable of exploiting their initial victories.
Schertlin von Burtenbach managed to conquer the southern city of Fiissen on July 10. Soon after, he occupied the Ehrenberg mountain pass, the gateway to Tirol. Instead of pushing forward to fend off the approaching papal forces and break up the council in nearby 'Trent, the army retreated at the request of the southern German cities, Ulm in particular, who demanded protection against Charles V. He, however, had practically no troops at his disposal and was sojourning in Regensburg, where he signed the decree placing the Saxon elector and the Hessian Landgrave under the imperial ban on account of breach of the peace and rebellion against the emperor.
The coming weeks were taken up with large-scale army movements on both sides of the Danube. But while the number of the emperor's troops increased continually, first through reinforcements from Italy, then from the Spanish Low Countries, the number of Schmalkaldic troops remained
Defeat 21) unchanged. What proved ultimately decisive, though, was Duke Moritz's attack on his cousin's territory on October 30. He had demanded—and obtained—from Charles V the title "Saxon Elector" as well as the electoral domains including Wittenberg in exchange for this action. Now, in the middle of November, Elector John Frederick set out with the greater part of the Schmalkaldic army to defend his territory. The remaining
Protestant army fell apart in the coming months. This enabled Charles V to move effortlessly through southern Germany as a victor in the spring of 1547. Strasbourg surrendered on March 21. Jacob Sturm rendered homage to the emperor in Nordlingen, falling prostrate at his feet in symbolic submission. The once proud Alsatian imperial city officially broke its ties with the Schmalkaldic League and gave Charles V renewed assurances of its loyalty. As a penalty, Strasbourg had to hand over all its cannon and pay the stately sum of 30,000 Rhenish guldens.
This first defeat of the Schmalkaldic League was soon followed by the second and definitive one. On the morning of April 24, 1547, the troops of the emperor crossed the Elbe at Miihlberg, hardly encountering any resistance. Fully concentrated on his worship service, and equally preoccupied with the sumptuous meal that would follow it, Elector John
Frederick had given little attention to protecting his encampment. As a consequence, his army was soundly defeated at the Lochau heath, and by the end of the day he had become Charles V's prisoner. During all of this,
Philip of Hesse brooded in Kassel, crippled by indecision. He finally surrendered to Charles V on June 19 in Halle on the river Saale and was promptly arrested. For all appearances, the Habsburg emperor had become the uncontested ruler of Germany.
Christian Fellowship Two theological convictions began crystallizing in Bucer's reflections and statements already during the Schmalkaldic war, and assumed concrete forms especially after the League's disastrous defeat. The first view amounted to a theological interpretation of recent events. It explained the Protestants' failures and defeats as a punishment that God had inflicted on them because of their ingratitude toward God's revealed truth, their absence of faith, and, in particular, their lacking the ethical fruits of faith, that is to say, a new life of austere discipline and moral integrity.!" Bucer asserted that God would continue to smite and humiliate the Protestants— and this also meant the city of Strasbourg and its citizens—if they did not repent, turn to God, and truly mend their ways. Bucer thus passionately
Martin Bucer and devotedly championed a point of view one encounters in large portions of the Old Testament and that is usually described as the Deuteronomic theology of history: Whenever Israel did not obey God, God punished it with domestic and international crises. But if Israel repented, turned once again to God's commandments and ordinances, and did its utmost to obey these, it was blessed accordingly with internal and external fortune and success. Bucer was convinced of the truth of this last statement.
For if the Protestants, especially in Strasbourg, would constitute a true Christian fellowship in terms of their faith, and particularly in terms of the life they were leading, then they could expect the biblical promise to hold true that God "would turn away his harsh wrath from the entire people and instead impart his grace and his blessings in a wonderful way."!!
The second viewpoint that gained an increasingly strong foothold in Bucer's mind concerned the responsibility of individual Christians. Convincing the people to repent and to convert was neither the sole responsibility of government nor the exclusive duty of the pastors. It was rather the task of the entire Christian fellowship, and for Bucer this included the laity in particular. Of course, this was no new emphasis on Bucer's part.
He had already been fighting for this for some twenty years, as he wrote in November 1547.'? But the vehemence with which Bucer made this demand and, more important, the actual steps he took to see it fulfilled increased immensely in the previous months.
At the beginning of April 1547, Bucer, along with his colleagues Matthew Zell, Paul Fagius, and Johannes Marbach, submitted the major treatise Regarding the Abolishment of Crude Vices and the Establishment of Good
Order and Discipline (Wegen Abschaffung grober Laster und Aufrichtun ge guter Ordnung und Disziplin)'> to the city council. This work proves how obviously necessary it was for the Strasbourg reformer to take a two-pronged approach: civil authorities were to issue public mandates enforcing discipline and morality on the one hand, and individual congregations were to carry out practical systems of penance and church discipline on the other,'4
Some steps were taken even before all this began. For example, with the onset of the Schmalkaldic War, the pastors began holding "days of repentance" once a month; soon after, they introduced weekly "repentance sermons," which were preached every Tuesday in the cathedral. But there were also setbacks: on January 6, 1546, the city council rejected the pastors' formal request that they be allowed to convoke or summon their parishioners in order to question them on their faith and their moral conduct. That is the task of church wardens, replied the council—even though it was an open secret that this institution simply did not function, among
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other reasons because of the councilmen's own misgivings! 'lo justify his and his colleagues' measures, Bucer then called attention to the danger of Anabaptists and other sectarians infiltrating the congregations.'? By the time the Strasbourg city council debated this topic once again, about a year later, small groups had arisen in the parishes of St. Thomas and Young St.
Peter, consisting of church members who discussed their faith with one another and taught, admonished, and comforted one another. 'They also submitted to a voluntary church discipline and spoke of themselves as a christliche Gemeinschaft, a Christian fellowship.'©
The treatise Regarding the Abolishment of Crude Vices presented its arguments against this backdrop. It primarily emphasized the duties and responsibilities of civil authorities in the light of the requirements God makes on his people, and it mercilessly condemned the resounding failure of the city's inhabitants to fulfill the Ten Commandments. It was nota matter of proclaiming lofty aims and issuing new, stricter ordinances, wrote
Bucer. Much more important was to finally enforce the laws already existing. That would amount to "a true Christian Reformation!"'' At the same time, the pastors enlisted the council's support in allowing congregations the freedom to organize themselves independently and establish their own structures. For how could one be Christian other than by a personal decision and commitment? It was an established fact that the latter were necessary in order to become the citizen of a city: "The right to become a member in an artisan guild is one that one must desire personally; one can only receive it personally and it requires promising obedience to the guild; the names of all the members are recorded individually; and at appointed times, the guild members come together to hear their articles and ordinances and to swear an oath by them. They also have their own courts and their own penalties."!® A life in covenant with God could not possibly be had for less! It was not enough for the civil authorities to enforce morality on the entire population under threat of punishment. Convinced
Christians had to begin setting up their own autonomous congregational structures as well, including a system of voluntary church discipline. 'The fact that this had not happened yet constituted in Bucer's opinion "the worst flaw and defect" of the Strasbourg church. Because of this, pastoral care—which in Bucer's opinion also represented an effort to educate the entire people—was prevented from "bringing all the baptized, young as well as old, to true communion with, and obedience to Jesus Christ:24?
The council responded positively to the requests that the authorities impose harsher punishments. The council members were also apparently influenced by the traditional view that misfortune and military defeat were
Martin Bucer divine punishments that one could alleviate or even avert through contrition and penitence. Old disciplinary mandates were once again enforced, and soon after the city even issued a new disciplinary ordinance. On January 25, 1548, after many postponements and interruptions, it was finally approved by the council, printed thereafter, and read out loud in the assembly halls of the guilds.
The council, however, responded negatively to the pastors' insistence that the church be granted more autonomy and the congregations especially have the freedom to organize themselves anew. Initially, the council simply refused to give its consent to these plans. Then, on October 31,
1547, it forbade the pastors to take any measures leading to the establishment of a congregational church discipline. But the parishes of St. Thomas and Young St. Peter, and later St. William and St. Nicholas as well, had already come a long way in developing such disciplinary structures and organizing "Christian fellowships." A document of August 1547 illustrates well how these groups understood themselves."° This text describes the life of the Christian as one in which everyone must assume individual responsibility for learning the teachings of the church and following Christ in discipleship. Christians need help, admonishment, discernment, and warning in both areas—they thus need a fellowship of like-minded, equally committed fellow Christians. At the same time, the text dispels notions that this fellowship is a particularly "pious" affair. It is not a matter of religious top performance but of living a Christian life in accordance with the Ten Commandments and enforcing church discipline upon this foundation—and of committing oneself voluntarily to this form of life by entering one's name into a book and notifying the ecclesiastical and political representatives of the respective parish. The central role of civil government was therefore to be left untouched. But Bucer certainly wanted to deal the moral and religious abuses in the city a mighty blow by means of these christliche Gemeinschaften. 'Vhey were to function as crystallization points, aiming at winning over no less than the entire population—including the city's rulers.
Strasbourg's ruling class, however, was certainly not going to tolerate an encroachment on its political authority, which, after all, also extended over the church. The council therefore issued a renewed order on November 7, 1547, for the christliche Gemeinschaften to cease their activities. This measure unleashed a flurry of oral and written negotiations on the part of Bucer, Fagius, and their associates during the rest of the month of November, attempting, on the one hand, to win over the council after all for this project and seeking, on the other, to heal the division that this issue had caused among the city's pastors.
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Bucer played an important role, but not the decisive one, in all of this.
Paul Fagius, pastor of Young St. Peter and professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at the Strasbourg academy, became the leading figure of this initiative.?! He had already invested much effort into the organization of a system of church discipline during his ministry in the southern German city of Isny from 1537 to 1542.** In Strasbourg, Fagius continued advocating the same cause with unfading enthusiasm. It is a sign of Bucer's nobility of character and pliancy of disposition that he was willing to learn from and get swept away by his younger colleague, and later even placed his own name and disputational ability at Fagius's disposal, thus assuming the risk for the latter's resoluteness and intrepid rush forward.
On November 9, 1547, Bucer, Fagius, and their colleagues Johannes Lenglin and Johannes Marbach submitted a Short Report (Kurzer Bericht) to the council dealing with the essence and purpose of a Christian fellowship in a fundamental and exhaustive way.'? Every Christian, they asserted, lives in communion with Christ and therefore also in communion with other Christians, for whose salvation and welfare each Christian should care and provide. Hence, a sense of personal responsibility and the possibility of fulfilling this responsibility in the sphere of the fellowship are essential marks of the church. Or, stated more precisely, they are the ecclesiastical offices through whose service the church lives. They went on to place extraordinary emphasis on the necessary diversity of these church offices. Preachers and carers of souls cannot do everything; they need people to assist them in teaching, admonishing, and disciplining. Only in passing is it mentioned that these "ministers of pastoral care"
(Seelsorgediener) are to be elected from among the members of the Christian fellowship. The authors of the memorandum go into greater detail when describing the work of these ministers, which is to teach and admonish according to the Ten Commandments. They also explained the procedure for receiving new voluntary members into these fellowships, a procedure that even included a special ceremony for women. Greatest importance was attached to determining how church discipline as described in Matthew 18 should be exercised concretely. Much tact and sensitivity are necessary in all of this, asserted the authors: "At all times and in all things we must consider how we can win over people's hearts and awaken true acknowledgment of, and repentance for sins 4
There can be no doubt that this statement was aimed at assuaging governmental mistrust over an autonomous ecclesiastical order of discipline.
In fact, the submitted memorandum can be characterized on the whole as an attempt to enlist the authorities' sympathy and support. The authors
Martin Bucer reassured the council that neither it nor its organs would be excluded or passed over. Altogether, "the honorable council" would "consistently retain the upper hand. It can also readily oppose whatever damages or is detrimental to its rule."*? Could the civil authorities ultimately oppose efforts to improve piety? Did not government have a special interest in supporting people who shared this concern? And as far as the accusation that this church discipline erected a new papacy was concerned, it was manifestly evident to all that the pope and antichrist "had little by little expelled and driven out laypeople from all church tasks and institutions."2°
Strasbourg's rulers, however, did not allow themselves to be convinced.
Worse yet: some pastoral colleagues began expressing their criticism.
Bucer and his friends did their very best to convince Zell, Hedio, Nigri, and Steinlin of the need to proceed in this way. Interestingly enough, it was the companions of long standing who proved to be particularly hesitant.
This was probably due not only to disagreement over the issues themselves but to personal disillusionment as well. Theobald Nigri, for instance, wrote: "If only 'the Pillars' had spent more time in the past with actual church work than with so many other things!"?' Others disliked the way in which these fellowships were being created: by inviting all the citizens of a certain neighborhood to their respective parish church "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—and of the church wardens" (as it was expressed in some parishes, in the hope of getting the wardens to finally cooperate).78
Finally, many considered it too risky to take action without the approval, perhaps even against the will, of the civil authorities. This is what Caspar Hedio felt when he concluded: "The ship may sail more slowly if one proceeds in consonance with the authorities as well as with the knowledge, the agreement, and the counsel of the church wardens appointed by the authorities, but at least it sails more safely. Besides, those who have an aversion to certain pastors are then less likely to thwart the work that needs to get done.""?
These tensions did not lead to an open quarrel between the Strasbourg pastors. One of the main reasons for this was that all of them, especially
Bucer, were strictly opposed to any plans to establish an autonomous church disciplinary ordinance that included ban and excommunication by the city council. Bucer's reflections on this issue reached a mature form in his work On the Church's Defects and Failings (Von der kirchen mengel und fabl), which was probably written at this time? Bucer begins by differentiating between temporal and spiritual rule, that is, state and church power. It was not his intention to separate them in an absolute way, but rather to ensure "that temporal authority limits itself to its sphere and
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does not arrogate to itself more power than God granted and entrusted to it, in other words, that it does not seek to interfere with the matters of the church."3! After drawing this clear boundary, Bucer closely examined the activities of the church such as preaching, administering the sacraments, granting absolution, banning and excommunicating, as well as the church's external ordinances and ceremonies. To be sure, much had been reached and significant improvements had taken place everywhere since the introduction of the Reformation; however, there had been no authentic building of congregations in Strasbourg. And now it was a matter of carrying through with this.
Bucer developed a model that called for the voluntary coming together of those who took their Christian faith seriously and aimed toward winning over the entire city population little by little. The members of each
"Christian fellowship" (christliche Gemeinschaft) were to select representatives from each parish who would work together with the pastors and the church wardens, helping them counsel, teach, and supervise. In this way,
Bucer was apparently hoping to prevent the smaller fellowship circles from becoming estranged and drifting away from the larger, more impersonal congregations to which they belonged. 'There was no doubt for Bucer, however, that it was the small groups that bore the greatest importance; it was they who would ultimately set the tone of and determine the greater church. In practical terms, this implied that all church work boiled down to two things: first of all, inviting people to join these fellowships; second, and as a consequence of the first, neglecting those Christians who were simply not willing "to commit themselves to the right, true obedience of the church."32 Bucer recognized this as a problem, but he considered it an insignificant one. And he certainly did not give credence to the dire claims of those who warned that these plans represented the victory of a new popery or of Anabaptist ideas. "We are far from excommunicating and banning. All we want is to fulfill our duty and obligation as ministers of the church so that all those who want to be true Christians can finally commit themselves to true church obedience, openly and voluntarily confessing what they think of the Gospel that we have been preaching to them for such a long time by the grace of @hristyine
Bucer's plans for Strasbourg did not come true. Things took an even crueler turn for him: on December 24, 1547, the council refused definitively to allow him to publish his book On the Fellowship of Churches (Von gemeinschaft der kirchen). The fight over the Interim was approaching its climax and drowning out all other matters, including the conflict over the Christian fellowships. This latter issue was far from resolved, however.
Martin Bucer The Interim The Political Situation Parallel to these events, the imperial diet of Augsburg solemnly initiated its sessions on September 1, 1547. It was clearly dominated by the victorious Charles V, who for the very first time not only had carte blanche to do whatever he wished in Germany but also was not pressed by any political problems in the broader European arena.*+ Henry VIII of England had died on January 28, 1547, and Charles's other major enemy, Francis
I of France, had passed away on March 31. In June of the same year, Charles concluded a five-year armistice with the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
Charles V was eager finally to fulfill his political goals of reorganizing the German empire and settling the religious schism. He was sober enough regarding his first objective not to aim toward a centralized government of the kind he exercised in Spain. Yet his proposal to rule the empire by means of a robust federation subject to his command was foiled by the strong resistance put up especially by Bavaria. Charles had to content himself with curtailing a few rights of the imperial estates: from now on, the imperial chamber court would be directly subordinate to the emperor, and only he would be entitled to impose the imperial ban.
The second issue to be resolved, the confessional division of the empire, was significantly more complicated. Paradoxically, the more
Charles V triumphed over the Schmalkaldic League, the more he became estranged from the pope. Among other reasons, it was fear of becoming too dependent on the German emperor that led the Council of Trent to push on with its proclamation of the Roman Catholic teachings on original sin and on justification as dogmas in June 1546 and January 1547, respectively. At the same time, the pope withdrew his supporting army from Germany. On March 3, 1547, the council issued the decree on the sacraments, thus dogmatizing traditional Roman Catholic teaching that retained all seven sacraments. On March 11, the council relocated from Trent to Bologna in the Church States, thus shifting from imperial to papal territory. Charles V was now deprived of any possibility of directly influencing the settlement of the religious question.
But Charles was forced to undertake something in this issue if he entertained any hopes of settling the confessional division of the German empire. It was more than improbable that the Protestants would voluntarily submit to the decrees of Trent. He therefore needed to find a theological formula that did justice to evangelical concerns without distancing
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itself too much from normative Catholic doctrine as defined so narrowly in Trent. It remains to be seen whether Charles V actually intended to make his "provisional settlement" (thus the name Interim) binding for both Protestants and Catholics. In any case, he would soon learn that the inmost core of Catholic supporters, who by now had become extremely vigorous and self-confident, flatly rejected the emperor's procedure.
Charles was incapable of reaching a political deal with this extreme group that demanded an unconditional re-Catholicization of the German empire. There were two other options at his disposal. Strasbourg's magistrate and senior statesman Jacob Sturm not only formulated the first of these options but also represented it with incredible skill, obstinacy, and flexibility, successfully combining unwavering resoluteness with supple evasiveness. In the course of only a few months, the militarily defeated
Sturm proved himself to be an opponent almost equal to the victorious emperor, and certainly more influential than his fellow citizen and old comrade-in-arms Martin Bucer. Sturm called for letting theological difterences simply be for the time being, entrusting their settlement to a future
German national council in which both parties could debate with one another openly and on equal footing. What the two confessions needed to do first was find a means of peaceful political coexistence in the empire.
The emperor, though, was not willing to go down the path outlined by Sturm. Instead, he opted for the concept of Michael Helding, suffragan bishop of Mainz, who believed that a religious and theological settlement should take precedence. Many details of the Interim text that Helding coauthored are no longer accessible. The other author was the impressive humanist, scholar, and bishop Julius Pflug. The text was revised a number of times, and the Protestant theologian Johannes Agricola from Brandenburg went over it as well. The final document, completed by the end of February 1548, essentially represented a traditional Catholic response to the controversial theological questions of the day in the form of twenty-six articles. While much of it was kept deliberately vague, it was all the more evident in the discussion of rites and ceremonies that the text was fundamentally oriented toward the Catholic side. It would therefore require cunning and force to impose the Interim on Germany. The force would be provided by Spanish troops lingering in Germany, especially in its southern regions, which were now completely vulnerable to the emperor's attacks. It was more opportunism than cunning that led the electors of Brandenburg and the Palatinate to comply with Charles V's wishes: after already having secretly agreed to the Interim on March 15, 1548, they now submitted this text to the emperor as a Protestant proposal. 'Io maintain
Martin Bucer credibility, they needed the consent of a convincing public figure. And that person was Martin Bucer—who also happened to have connections with the Brandenburg elector.?> InA ugsburg Bucer departed from Strasbourg on January 27, 1548—not before having made his last will and testament?*—and headed for Ulm. It had been
Sturm's wish that he stand ready to come to Augsburg, some fifty miles away, in case he was needed for consultations. Bucer remained in Ulm for seven weeks, staying in close touch with Bernhard Besserer, the grand old man of this imperial city who providéd Bucer with the latest news and much more. On March 30, Bucer arrived in Augsburg. He had come on his own initiative, without any political guarantees. The elector of Brandenburg accommodated him in his quarters—and immediately took measures preventing Bucer from getting in touch with anybody else, hoping obviously to wring an endorsement of the Interim from the Strasbourg reformer. At the same time, Bucer was told to imagine the tremendous ascendancy the gospel would gain, not only in the Catholic territories of the empire but in France, Italy, England, Denmark, Hungary, and Poland as well, should the Interim be ratified. Much emphasis was placed on the claim that the Interim text was a formula for religious unity to which all parties could consent.
Initially, Bucer felt fairly positive about the Interim.3" He read its theological statements against the background of the religious colloquies of recent years in which he had invested so much time and energy. Of course, he saw the need for making big changes and improvements in the text.
There were, however, sections that could be interpreted in a Protestant way. One thing that Bucer did find troubling was the fact that the Interim called for all Catholic rites and ceremonies to be reintroduced. He knew how much power such external patterns could exert on people, and not just on the simple-minded. Yet he was willing to give his consent to the project in order to finally make some progress along the long path toward church unity. Bucer therefore declared on April 2 that he was willing to ratify the text of the Interim, but could do so only with significant reservations. Furthermore, this was only his personal opinion. And the important thing anyhow was to get as many experts as possible from both sides together to discuss this draft. Bucer stuck to essentially this position during the entire month of April 1548. Unlike Sturm, he had not yet realized that the time for religious colloquies had passed.
The electors of the Palatinate and of Brandenburg both heard what they wanted to hear and informed the emperor accordingly. This made
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them all the more disappointed and angry when Bucer began to expound his fundamental misgivings and his criticism in greater detail. 'he emperor was absolutely insistent on obtaining Bucer's signature under the Interim. On April 10, however, Bucer refused to sign his name under the official minutes of the previous day's discussions. He would do his utmost to attain church union, wrote Bucer to the electors, but signing this document could only damage that greater project. "For there is very much I am able to tolerate and to do with a good conscience in these matters that I would not dare advise others to tolerate or to do who do not feel the same way."38 And what good would it have been to sign the document if once again, as in 1541 during—and especially after—the Regensburg colloquy, his fellow Protestants would pounce upon him? For the time being, Bucer could not offer more than his express readiness to work intensely toward church unity. "And if I were to give more, | would only make my own efforts to help the church towards unity entirely useless.">"
Bucer was firmly convinced of this. But questions remained. After all, the kind of church unity that Bucer had in mind had long ceased to be an option. On April 13 he was placed under house arrest in the quarters of the elector of Brandenburg, and on April 17, at the orders of the emperor, he was put in close confinement."" Finally, on April 20, Bucer signed the Interim. He was freed, and he left Augsburg the very same day. By April
25 he was back in Strasbourg.
Resistance The Interim was published on May 15, 1548, going into effect only for Protestants, as had been explicitly noted. Accordingly, the disappointment within the Protestant camp was great. On May 26, 1548, the text, which had become known in Strasbourg only a day earlier, was read to the imperial diet. The Strasbourg city representatives, Jacob Sturm and Hans von
Odratzheim, who were still in Augsburg, immediately requested that a formal theological opinion against the Interim be drafted.*! Bucer, the statement's main author, found himself now in a completely new situation.
It was no longer a matter of two parties working together to reestablish church unity but rather to oppose the dictate of a single camp that, to make matters worse, was dominated by the papists. The only possible response was to unashamedly confess one's allegiance to evangelical truth.
Bucer also took the opportunity once again to attack the reestablishment of Catholic ceremonies and rites sharply.
A shorter version of Bucer's statement, boiled down to a call to conversion and repentance as well as to perseverance in the central articles of
2) Martin Bucer the Christian faith, which Bucer went on to list, was proclaimed out loud from all Strasbourg pulpits on June 3. It did not take long, however, for an anonymous counterstatement, Consideration and Reminder of the Sermons (Bedenken und Erinnerung auf die Predigten), to begin circulating, probably in handwritten form. It was well received, particularly among the ruling elite. The stage was thus set for a conflict that would become virulent in the following weeks.
The anonymous author of the Consideration—Bucer labeled him an Epicurean—accused the Strasbourg preachers of being animated by the same irresponsible spirit as the Miinster Anabaptists of yore. Just like those radicals, the Strasbourg pastors were teaching fanatical and absolute obedience to the Word of God alone, even if it meant noncompliance with the government's commands. The pastors were also leading the people to believe that God would certainly not let them down if they only trusted in God. Such reasoning would lead the city to ruin, argued the Consideration. Bucer hastened to demonstrate the fundamental theological difference between what the local pastors and what the Miinster Anabaptists had preached. He did so in a Concise Summary of Christian Doctrine and Religion (Ein Summarischer vergriff der Christlichen Lehre und Religion), published on July 2, 1548, which included a shortened version of his admonition of June 3 as well an exposition of evangelical teaching in twentynine articles. Emperor Charles V ordered all copies of the book to be destroyed.** Bucer may have defended and pled the cause of the Protestant faith with unrivaled courage in this vernacular treatise, but he was essentially unable to convince his opponents that he was not a religious fanatic about to plunge the city into a disaster.
This was partly because Bucer insisted on making statements that could be misinterpreted in this way, gruffly claiming that the people of Strasbourg had sinned and had therefore been punished by God with military defeat. Help and salvation could result only from repentance and conversion. Any form of acquiescence to the Interim meant continuing to forsake God and would consequently bring about even more punishment and calamities. Over and over again Bucer demanded of the people of Strasbourg that they place their trust in no one but God and God's Word.
"Why worry about what may befall us externally? One cannot fare badly when obeying God, for all misfortune arises from placing our own human thoughts and interests before God's Word and counsel or from our mixing the two." That was the epitome of Bucer's theological memorandum for the council; he and Fagius said much the same in the sermons they preached during these months.
Defeat
A climate of unrest and growing tension ensued, exploding into an open civic crisis in August 1548, as not only wealthy merchants but even members of the council began renouncing their citizenship and leaving town in wagons jam-packed with their entire possessions. The situation had become, in fact, quite threatening. The incorporation of the Interim into the closing decree of the imperial diet of June 30 had given it the status of imperial law. On August 6, Charles V "outlawed" Constance, imposing the imperial ban on it after it had refused to implement the law. 'Three days later he rejected making any concessions to Strasbourg, allowing the city only one more month to decide. He approached the city once again, however, as early as August 24, since nothing had taken place. In desperation, the magistrates asked the Schéffen (leading guild officials) whether the council should not begin negotations with the bishop over the appropriate way of introducing the Interim. On August 27, while 132 Schoffen gave their consent, 134 of them wished to allow the entire citizenry to vote on this issue. Doubtless such an action would have split the city irreparably—and caused the downfall of the ruling council. 'The magistrates tried frantically to assuage boiling tempers and, reminding the Schoffen that there was no legal basis for submitting the question to a general referendum, called on these three hundred guild representatives to vote once again on August 30, 1548. This time 204 Schdffen voted in favor of the council's policy, only four against. This was a decisive defeat for Bucer— and a major success for the politics of Jacob Sturm.
Bucer's unceasing insistence on an autonomous system of church discipline had long earned him the dislike of the magistrates; his reputation in the council was demolished even more thoroughly by his efforts to set up
"Christian fellowships," as we saw previously. It did not help Bucer's popularity in merchant circles when he insulted the one hundred or so traders fleeing Strasbourg to save their goods and commercial relationships from imperial outlawry, calling them shirkers of social duty and unpatriotic servants of mammon. To be sure, they were in favor of peace and conciliation.
But that is also what, besides the Schéffen, countless other craftsmen and simple people also wished. Perhaps the term honorable peace describes most accurately what rich and poor alike sought at this point. They wanted to rescue the city's liberties and rights—which certainly included those of their own social class—and preserve religion, in other words, the faith of the Reformation. The more areas of life the city of Strasbourg covered in every respect, that is, the more civic community and ecclesiastical community became co-extensive, the more sense the sermons calling for only penance and military resistance made. These were also the circles in which
Martin Bucer the Christian fellowships had their roots. And we hear an echo of this piety when, during the consultation of the Schéffen, the "Gardener" and former member of the Council of Fifteen, Lorenz Graff, proclaims: "Each must transform his own life and the sins must be punished, just as in Nineveh— otherwise all is in vain."** But even these groups must have begun getting their doubts when they heard Bucer declare after October 15, 1548—-when Constance surrendered to the emperor, losing all its rights and privileges as an imperial free city—that all this could and should not lead Strasbourg to waver in its unconditional rejection of the Interim. "And even if the entire world would abandon Christ, not a single person abandons Him without being eternally damned."* Bucer stuck to this position stubbornly and uncompromisingly in the coming months. Under no circumstances would he give his consent to the plan negotiated mainly by Jacob Sturm, calling for the cathedral and the churches of Old St. Peter and Young St. Peter to be handed over to the Catholics, with Protestant worship services continuing to be held in the remaining parish churches. Negotiations were wrong, asserted Bucer, calling instead for days of penance and prayer to be imposed on the entire city.
In this way, Strasbourg would finally give God due glory and rightly do away with all misled efforts at reaching a compromise. Bucer could still count on a small core of preachers, among them Fagius and Marbach, who supported his position courageously and resolutely. They even refused to tone down their bitter attacks on the Interim after the city began discussions with the bishop in January 1549 on the possible terms under which a compromise could be reached. Bucer flatly rejected the arguments that the council was now wielding and that Sturm had probably formulated, such as that one would never run out of areas in which one could morally improve the people of Strasbourg, so that ecclesiastical politics (as pursued by Bucer) could be laid aside, for the time being at least; or that congregations were more than well informed about the imperfections of the papacy and the errors of the Interim. Bucer replied by arguing that the compromise proposed by the magistrates constituted a theologically and therefore politically extremely questionable means of safeguarding the civic and religious liberties of the city. "On the other hand, we do know from all of Holy
Scripture that the means I just mentioned—collective penance, conversion and prayer—serve those goals with certainty."*
Later, in a letter written from his English exile, Bucer would bitterly accuse his one-time companion and now successful antagonist of having led the church of Strasbourg to its ruin.4" Several personal, even affectionate remarks notwithstanding, Bucer gravely censured Sturm as a states-
Defeat
man for not having placed his unconditional trust in the Word of God.
Bucer failed once again to differentiate carefully between his own decision of conscience and the decisions taken by magistrates in fulfillment of their governmental duties—in spite of the fact that he had occasionally made such distinctions in his last Strasbourg statements. It is difficult to understand and do justice fully to the claims to absolute theological and political truth that Bucer makes in this letter. His earlier flexibility and dexterity, his instinctive feel for power structures and political necessities, are completely absent here. But then again, never before had Bucer found himselfin such an extreme situation. Is it enough to assume that, after having suffered so many defeats and disappointments, all Bucer wished to do now was to stand up for God's manifest truth? Was he reacting to the failure of April 20, 1548, in Augsburg? Or had he simply become old, unyielding, and rigid in his views?
In February 1549, Bucer drafted one last memorandum that was eventually signed by the majority of the Strasbourg pastors.*® It addressed the question of how the Protestant faith could be preserved in the city in spite of the Interim. After passing bitter theological judgment, once again, on the whole chain of developments that had led to the introduction of the Interim, he submitted a number of very interesting suggestions: the reduced groups of confessing Christians were to be encouraged and strengthened by means of public morning prayers, congregational singing, catechetical instruction, and, not least, house visits by the pastors. We thus once again encounter central elements of Bucer's original plan for establishing Christian fellowships.
The rapprochement between city council and bishop led to Bucer's and Fagius's dismissal on March 1, 1549. Whether the decisive factor was the council, the bishop, or even the emperor is a moot issue.'" In any case,
Bucer no longer had any number of supporters worth mention in Strasbourg. Jacob Sturm, of all people, was charged with informing Bucer of his dismissal. Bucer and Fagius held brief farewell sermons on March 3.
They gave lessons in the Strasbourg academy for the last time on March 23. They went in hiding for a brief period in the house of the indomitable
Katharina Zell, widow of their comrade-in-arms Matthew Zell, in order to shake off pursuers. Finally, on the night of April 5/6, 15 49, Bucer, along with Fagius and some companions, left Strasbourg as he had arrived some twenty-five years previously—as a refugee.
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ye Pe re i hm a Jyyn~ / Kp) : a Fe oe Se MS In his final weeks in Strasbourg, Bucer vigorously attacked the city council for succumbing to military pressure to re-Catholicize and called instead for the unflinching proclamation of the Word of God, for "whom every knee should bend and whom every tongue should confess as Lord over all things with the highest freedom and fervor." The photographed sample of Bucer's handwriting
(Archives Municipales de Strasbourg, AST 39, no. 15, p. 355) corresponds to the passage edited in BDS 17, pp. 589,23-590,4.