Martin Bucer

Reformer of Strasbourg, 1491–1551

Martin Bucer was the reformer of Strasbourg, the tireless peacemaker of the early Protestant churches, the pastor who sheltered John Calvin in exile, and the Cambridge professor whose counsel helped shape the English Reformation. He was born Martin Kuhorn. In time he signed himself Butzer, which means “cleanser,” and put it into Latin as Bucerus. Whether he chose the name or his friends gave it to him, it suited a man whose life was spent in the cleansing of the church.1, 2

From the Dominican Cloister to Luther

He was born at Schlettstadt (Sélestat) in Alsace, near Strasbourg, on November 11, 1491, of humble parents. As a boy he took the habit of St. Dominic, and at about fifteen he entered the Dominican house of his town. His superiors noticed his gift for study and his sonorous voice and sent him to Heidelberg to read philosophy, Greek, Hebrew, and theology, where he also devoured the works of Erasmus.1, 3

In April 1518 Martin Luther came to Heidelberg to defend his theology before the Augustinian chapter. Merle d’Aubigné says the young Dominican “seemed unwilling to lose a single word which fell from the doctor,” and came with paper, pens, and ink to write it all down. “The rays of the doctrine of grace beamed upon his soul on this memorable occasion.”4 Bucer was released from his monastic vows, served for a time as chaplain to the Elector Palatine, and in 1521 was at Worms, where he spent several days in close conversation with Luther and left “an ardent and avowed Protestant.”1, 3 In 1522 he married Elisabeth Silbereisen, a former nun, one of the first priests among the Reformers to marry. Excommunicated by the Bishop of Speyer for his preaching at Weissenburg, he fled with her to Strasbourg, where his father was a citizen and the council refused to give him up.3

The Reformer of Strasbourg

Before the end of 1523 Bucer was lecturing daily on the Scriptures and had been named one of the city’s preachers. With his colleague Wolfgang Capito he led Strasbourg out of Rome. He removed the images from his church of St. Aurelia, wrote a German order of worship, and saw the Mass abolished in the city. He took part in the Disputation of Bern in 1528, and in 1530 he and Capito drew up the Tetrapolitan Confession for Strasbourg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, which was presented to the emperor at Augsburg.3, 5

The Peacemaker

No one labored harder to heal the breach between Luther and Zwingli over the Lord’s Supper. Bucer helped Philip of Hesse arrange the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. There the Lutheran Justus Jonas saw only guile in him: “I find in Bucer the cunning of a fox, that knows how to give himself an air of sense and prudence.” Merle d’Aubigné answered fairly that “men of moderate sentiments often meet with worse treatment than those of the extreme parties,” and the poet Cordus, writing of the same assembly, called him “courageous Bucer.”6 His efforts helped bring about the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, the most hopeful of all the attempts at agreement, and in 1541 he sat with Melanchthon across the table from Cardinal Gasparo Contarini at the Colloquy of Regensburg. He came home from Regensburg to find that the plague had taken his wife, three of his children, and his colleague Capito. He later married Capito’s widow, Wibrandis Rosenblatt, who had first been the wife of Oecolampadius.3

The price of peacemaking was suspicion from both sides. Some on each side asked how a man could be a friend to both and still be firm in the faith.2 Yet his own mind on the Supper became the mind of the Reformed churches: the Supper is a real means of grace, against Zwingli, and its eating is spiritual, against Luther.2

Calvin at Strasbourg

When John Calvin was expelled from Geneva in 1538 and wanted only a quiet study, Bucer would not let him hide. Calvin remembered it nearly twenty years later:

Alarmed by the example of Jonas which he set before me, I still continued in the work of teaching.7 John Calvinpreface to the Commentary on the Psalms (1557)

For three years Calvin pastored the French refugee congregation in Strasbourg, enlarged his Institutes, and learned the life of a church from Bucer. Bucer even tried his hand as matchmaker before Calvin married Idelette de Bure.8 When Geneva begged for Calvin’s return in 1541, it was Bucer again who pressed him, and Beza records that Calvin would never have consented “had he not given warning of Divine judgment, and appealed to the example of Jonah.”9 Timothy George notes that Calvin’s treatment of prayer owed much to Bucer, and that the fourfold office of pastor, teacher, elder, and deacon in Geneva may have come from Bucer’s commentary on Matthew of 1536. Bucer, more than Calvin, pressed church discipline as a mark of the true church, and the Reformed tradition followed him.10

Exile in England

After the emperor’s victory over the Schmalkaldic League, Bucer refused to accept the Augsburg Interim of 1548, and Strasbourg could no longer keep him. At the invitation of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer he crossed to England in 1549 with Paul Fagius. Fagius was to teach Hebrew at Cambridge and Bucer theology, as Regius Professor of Divinity, while Peter Martyr went to Oxford.1, 3 He lectured on Ephesians, advised Cranmer on the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, urged moderation on John Hooper in the dispute over vestments, and wrote De Regno Christi (On the Kingdom of Christ) for the young king, a plan for the reform of the whole commonwealth by the Word of God.3, 2 The Cambridge damp tormented him, and Edward VI sent him a hundred crowns to buy a German stove.1

Death and Legacy

His strength failed early in 1551. When John Bradford, the future martyr, urged him to arm himself against the assaults of the devil, Bucer replied that he had nothing to do with the devil, because he was wholly in Christ. Told that the end was near, he said only:1

Ille, Ille regit, et moderatur omnia. He, He it is that ruleth, and governeth all things.1 Martin Bucerat Cambridge, February 1551

He was buried in Great St. Mary’s Church before the whole university and thousands of the townspeople. Under Queen Mary his body was dug up, tried for heresy, and burned, and his tomb was destroyed; in 1560, under Elizabeth, the university restored his honors.3 His De Regno Christi was published after his death, and his teaching on the church, the Spirit, discipline, and pastoral care passed into Calvin’s Geneva and, through his Cambridge hearers, into English Puritanism.2, 3

Other Reformers   John Calvin

Notes

  1. C. G. M’Crie, ed., Beza’s “Icones”: Contemporary Portraits of Reformers of Religion and Letters (London: Religious Tract Society, 1906), “Martin Bucer.” The biographical sketches in this edition are the editor’s; the portraits and epigrams are Beza’s. ↩
  2. Joel R. Beeke and Diana Kleyn, Reformation Heroes (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), chap. 8, “Martin Bucer.” Summarized. ↩
  3. Gideon and Hilda Hagstotz, Heroes of the Reformation (1951; repr., Champions of Truth Ministry), “Martin Bucer: He Sought Unity of the Faith.” Summarized. ↩
  4. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Henry Beveridge, vol. 1 (Glasgow: William Collins), bk. 3, ch. 11, on the Heidelberg Disputation of April 1518. ↩
  5. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., trans. H. White, vol. 4, bk. 14, on the Tetrapolitan Confession. ↩
  6. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., trans. H. White, vol. 4, bk. 13, on the Colloquy of Marburg, quoting Justus Jonas and the poet Euricius Cordus. ↩
  7. John Calvin, preface to Commentary on the Book of Psalms (1557), trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), as quoted in Steven J. Lawson, Pillars of Grace (AD 100–1564) (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust, 2011), chap. on Calvin. ↩
  8. Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. on Calvin, on Calvin at Strasbourg and his return to Geneva. Summarized. ↩
  9. Theodore Beza, The Life of John Calvin, in John Calvin, Tracts Relating to the Reformation, trans. Henry Beveridge, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844), on the year 1541. ↩
  10. Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. on Calvin, on the marks of the church and the fourfold office. Summarized. ↩