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Jake MeadorDr. Amy BurnettHistory 494Research Paper

The Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer has been called many names

throughout history. Martin Luther once labeled him a “chatterbox,”1 while some of

his opponents called him, “a false Christian, a sophist, a hypocrite and an insincere

scribe.”2 Paradoxically however, the most recurring labels for Bucer throughout

history have centered around his tireless work for church unity. Biographer Martin

Greschat refers to him as a “champion for Protestant unity,” and historian James

Kittelson has called him a, “fanatic for unity.”3 Peter Matheson, another historian,

called him an “ecumaniac.”4 Indeed, given Bucer’s remarkable work as a unifier,

leading the effort to resolve the first eucharistic controversy and his attempt to

unify the German church, such titles are understandable.

The difficulty facing historians in understanding Bucer’s ecumenical efforts,

however, is to portray him rightly. While it may be easy to caricature a leader

known for unifying diverse groups as a weak-kneed milquetoast politician devoid of

conviction, such an image could not be further from the truth in the case of Martin

Bucer. Bucer’s convictions were strong and thoroughly evangelical, sometimes

pushing him toward greater unity and sometimes pushing him toward division.

1 Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004). p. 190.2 ibid, p. 204.3 James Kittelson, "Martin Bucer and the ministry of the church," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). p. 83.4 Peter Matheson, "Martin Bucer and the Old Church," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community, 5-16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). p. 7.

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What distinguished Bucer from the other early reformers was two-fold: First, his

understanding of Christianity as centering around faith in Christ and love for others

naturally led to ecumenical tendencies. Second, his theology centered around his

understanding that Christianity was inescapably a public faith. Bucer was quite

willing to have strong, robust disagreement, and even at times to divide from other

Christians when the issue at hand struck at the heart of his theology. Bucer did not

lack conviction. Rather, Martin Bucer was a convinced evangelical with a theology

that necessitated Christian unity, but who was quite willing to divide when the issue

at hand struck at the vitals of his theology. To prove this, we will examine his break

with the Roman church, his relationship with Luther, and his frequent disputations

with the Anabaptists of Strasbourg.

Before we can examine how Bucer’s theology shaped his interactions with

the three groups mentioned above, we need to define Bucer’s theology broadly

speaking and his ecclesiology specifically. Bucer’s theology was simple, publicly-

oriented, and dialogical. For those reasons – and particularly the final two – the

social aspects of Christianity was at the center of Bucer’s theology in much the same

way that personal assurance of salvation was at the center of Luther’s theology.

The simplicity of Bucer’s theology is largely a product of his humanistic

background, both in his hometown of Selestat and in his extensive study of Erasmus

of Rotterdam. Selestat, an Alsatian city in the southwestern corner of the Holy

Roman Empire, was known for producing two things – wine and humanists. It was

home to a major Latin school where Bucer studied until he turned 15 in 1506.

During his time there he would’ve learned Latin and been introduced to a uniquely

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Selestatian humanism that combined humanistic learning with a conservative sort

of piety that was fiercely loyal to the Catholic church.

Though his time at the Latin school came to an end in 1507 when he joined

the Dominican order, his interest in and indebtedness to the humanist movement

would continue. He continued to read the Paris humanist Jacque Lefevre d’Etaples,

as well as Scholastic texts, such as Peter Lombard’s Sentences which was the de facto

textbook of medieval scholasticism. A catalog Bucer kept of his own books indicates

that he also read extensively in Erasmus and began to study Greek and Hebrew at

this time as well.5

When he moved to Heidelberg to continue his education, he was immersed in

two very distinct authors. First, he was well-versed in Aquinas, the preeminent

theologian of the Dominican tradition who would help Bucer formulate his

understanding of the centrality of love of others to the Christian life. Second, he

became increasingly fascinated with the writings of Erasmus. Erasmus presented

the ideal blending of robust intellectualism with devout Christian piety. Indeed, it

was a blending similar to what Bucer witnessed while growing up in Selestat.

Erasmus also emphasized the simplicity of the Christian faith, advocating the

philosophia Christi that emphasized faith and love, while deemphasizing external

behaviors. Bucer adopted this simplicity in his own theology and it actually became

one of his cornerstones. Indeed, he later wrote in a dialogue, “What is there that is

useful or necessary for the Christian person to know that Erasmus Roterodamus did

5 ibid, p. 19.

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not fully teach almost excessively long before Luther?”6 Moreover, in the 1510s and

20s, Erasmus was one of the foremost champions of church unity, making him a

wonderful example for the future “fanatic for unity.”

Where Bucer would differ slightly from Erasmus is that in his emphasis on

the simplicity of the Christian faith centered around faith and love, Bucer would

come to see that love as inescapably public in nature. However, Bucer’s ethical

religion should be distinguished from the external religion of the late medieval

church. Bucer’s ethical Christianity was about loving neighbors and treating them

well – a completely different emphasis from the externalized religion of the late

medieval church that emphasized the ceremonial. The public nature of Bucer’s basic

theology will also become a defining aspect of his theology. Bucer’s first and last

published works were both dedicated to addressing the question of how Christian

faith applies to relations with other people, something which by nature will define

how Christian faith relates to the public sphere.

In his first book, Instructions in Christian Love published in 1523 he writes,

“The most perfect and blessed condition on earth is that in which a man can most

usefully and profitably serve his neighbor.”7 Though much changed in the next 27

years of Bucer’s life, his fundamental conviction that the Christian life was

inescapably public did not. In his final book, De Regno Christi, published in 1550, he

emphasized the centrality of the Kingdom, and by implication the public

consequences of Christian confession, in the preface. In explaining why he wrote the

6 Friedhelm Kruger, “Bucer and Erasmus.” Mennonite Quarterly Review, Volume 68, Issue 1, January 1994. p. 11.7 Martin Bucer, Instructions in Christian Love. John Knox Press, Richmond: 1952. p. 28

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text he says, “Thus it may be better understood how salutary and necessary it is

both for Your Majesty and all classes of men in his realm, thoughtfully, consistently,

carefully, and tenaciously to work toward this goal, that Christ’s Kingdom may as

fully as possible be accepted and hold sway over us.”8

As an outworking of this emphasis, Bucer saw not only the church as a

central means of advancing the kingdom, but also the state. Bucer saw both church

and state as working toward the end of enacting the Kingdom of Christ. This

conviction came from both practical and theological reasoning. On a purely practical

level, the reformation was never formally established in a city until the magistrate

there banned the Catholic Mass. Therefore, on a very real level, the reformation’s

effectiveness was limited by the state’s willingness to support it. Steven Ozment

sums it up well, “The first and most important measure of a reform’s success is its

ability to become law… To enshrine reform in law obviously requires political

support.”9 As a result, Bucer “struggled, out of profound theological conviction, for a

harmonization, as far-reaching as possible, of the Christian and civil communities.”10

In another text, also cited by Greschat, Bucer describes his understanding of the

relationship between the church and the civil community in no uncertain terms.

“The civil authorities, who exercise the sword and the highest outward power, are servants of God; they ought, therefore, to direct all their abilities, as God in his law has commanded and as the Spirit of Christ himself teaches and urges in all whom he leads,

8 Martin Bucer, Library of Christian Classics, Melanchthon and Bucer, ed. Wilhelm Pauck, Vol. 19 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969). p. 175-6.9 Steven Ozment, Protestants, the Birth of a Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1991). p. 89.10 Martin Greschat, "The relation between church and civil community in Bucer's reforming work," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). p. 26.

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to the end that through their subjects God’s name be hallowed, his kingdom extended and his will fulfilled – so far as they can serve thereto by virtue of their office alone.”11

In Bucer’s understanding of the Christian life as inescapably public, the

church was entrusted to care for the spiritual well-being of its subjects, through the

preaching of the Gospel, giving of the sacrament, and through church discipline.

Meanwhile, the state was responsible for governing in a way that enacted Christian

principles in the public sphere. Indeed, if the state failed in this, then the spread of

the gospel was hindered. It was for this reason that Bucer was able to later support

the banishing of certain Anabaptist leaders from Strasbourg. Also factoring into

Bucer’s understanding of the state’s role in advancing the Kingdom of Christ was

Bucer’s understanding of God’s law as being, “implanted in all creation as the order

of all being.”12 Bucer understood the law as a rough statement of the Gospel in that it

explained to people how the Christian life was to be lived, which of course was a

central concern of Bucer’s. Bucer understood God’s law as giving Christians

instructions in how to love others. Therefore, this understanding of the law was

central to Bucer’s Christian theology.

Finally, because the center of Bucer’s theology is love for others, all other

theological questions must take place within that context. This led to his theology

becoming dialogical, meaning it was not crafted solely in isolated study, as was often

the case with other reformers, but rather it was molded through conversation with

other Christians, especially his fellow Strasbourg pastors Matthew Zell and

11 ibid, p. 17.12 Martin Greschat, "The relation between church and civil community in Bucer's reforming work," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. p. 18.

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Wolfgang Capito as well as the Wittenberg reformer Philip Melanchthon and the

Genevan reformer, John Calvin, who was mentored by Bucer for three years in

Strasbourg. Greschat captures the dialogical nature of Bucer’s theology well, saying

“Dialogue played a central role in Bucer’s thought and work, not only as a literary

form but almost as a principle: in this way, the rights and the elements of truth in

different positions, groups and convictions within the church, and also in society in

general, could find appropriate expression.”13

As a result of these convictions, Bucer was generally the most ecumenically-

minded of the reformers. His emphasis on love and dialogue made him an ideal

“champion for protestant unity,” and motivated him to work tirelessly to unify the

evangelical movement as a whole. His ecumenism also led him to work to unify with

more Erasmian-minded Catholics in hopes of creating a state-wide German church,

much like the Anglican church in terms of its relation to the state, but more

evangelical in its doctrine. This ecumenical bent also manifested itself in a more

irenic disposition toward those with whom he disagreed. This side of him will be

seen as we now examine the nature and handling of his disagreements with the

Roman church, with Luther himself, and with the Anabaptists.

As a young man hailing from Selestat and steeped in Erasmian humanism, it

should be no surprise that Bucer was critical of the institutional abuses of the

church. Yet as he grew, his polemics directed at the church in Rome heightened,

becoming far more severe than anything ever used by Erasmus or any of his

teachers in Selestat. While “antichrist” was his preferred epithet, he elsewhere

13 Martin Greschat, "The relation between church and civil community in Bucer's reforming work," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. p. 31.

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called the church a, “mob of priests,” “the religion of the pope,” and “the false

church.”14 What were the grounds for Bucer’s break? Much of it can be traced back

to his understanding of the Christian faith as in essence a simple matter of faith in

Christ and love for others. While his emphasis on love of others sometimes

distanced him from Luther’s unapologetic emphasis on grace alone with no place for

works, Bucer was still an evangelical at the end of the day. And he saw many of the

late medieval rituals of Catholicism as an undermining of the simplicity of Christian

faith granted by the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, the laity was often steamrolled by the church’s emphasis on

external ritualistic piety. “The Roman clergy had trampled on the rights of the laity,

deceived and patronized and seduced them. It encouraged a false piety based on

externals, dressing up stone and wooden images in costly garments while the living

members of Christ suffered hunger and poverty.”15 Thus, not only did late medieval

piety undermine the nature of saving faith by encouraging people to trust their

salvation to the church, it also caused the church to lose sight of Christianity’s most

basic teaching, that “everyone should live not for himself but for others.”16 In this

way, the late medieval church came to undermine Christianity in its most essential

form, making unity impossible.

This is where Bucer’s ecumenism must be distinguished from that of

Erasmus, who was also a strong voice for reconciliation in the German church at this

time. Erasmus’ critique of the church was focused purely on externals and did not

14 Matheson, p. 5.15 Matheson, p. 9.16 Bucer, Instructions in Christian Love, p. 19.

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have the complexity of Bucer’s, causing Erasmus to see unification as a possibility.

But Bucer could not agree with him on this. While it was true that the church’s

problems were largely external in Bucer’s eyes, the nature of those external

problems cut at the very foundation of the Christian faith. In light of this, “Erasmus’

increasingly desperate calls for moderation and tolerance and unity at the end of the

1520s were based on a total misreading of a crisis.”17 For Bucer, the larger issue at

stake was the Gospel, and tangential to that the question of authority in the church.

Implicit in Bucer’s argument that the Roman church had abandoned the

Gospel was the idea that Scripture stood alone as the supreme authority in the

church. Of course, Bucer was not alone in advancing this argument. The question of

authority in the church was foundational to the Reformation itself. Indeed, one of

the most oft-quoted speeches of the Reformation is Martin Luther’s “Here I Stand”

speech given at Worms in which Luther explained why he could not recant.

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason—for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen.”18

This speech accurately captures the Protestant understanding of church

authority, an understanding just as fundamental to Bucer’s theology (and eventual

departure from the Roman church ) as it was to Luther’s. The Bible was the final

17 Matheson, p. 10.18 Elesha Coffman, "Christianity Today," Christianity Today, April 1, 2002, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/aprilweb-only/4-8-52.0.html (accessed April 24, 2009).

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authority on questions of Christian teaching. While Bucer respected the church

fathers19, he did not consider them to be equally authoritative. More interesting, this

was an issue on which Bucer’s opinion would remain generally unchanged for the

duration of his career. In the early 1540s when he began working for reform in

Cologne he and the Catholic theologian Johannes Gropper. The fundamental point of

disagreement was still the question of authority. Though Bucer presented his view

in different form – he allowed for the authority of “apostolic” traditions, at the end of

the day he still essentially affirmed sola scriptura, “For a tradition to be accepted it

must truly stem from the apostles… and in every case the legitimacy of those

traditions had to be confirmed by referring them back to Scripture.”20 While it may

be a more sophisticated way of saying it than Luther’s relatively black and white

declaration at Worms, at the end of the day, he and Luther are still very much in

agreement on this point.

Further complicating matters was Bucer’s slightly different understanding of

the relation between love of God and love of others. The understanding espoused by

Aquinas, the greatest Dominican theologian, had been that love of others was the

only appropriate response to the love God has for man. Bucer agreed. Where they

conflicted was that Thomas held that love of others and acceptance of self was a

form of loving God. Bucer was not comfortable with this statement because he felt

that it neglected the issue of human sinfulness. Bucer instead said that humans must

be forgetful of self because their sinfulness meant they would invariably pervert

19 Amy Burnett, "Martin Bucer and the Church Fathers in the Cologne Reformation," Reformation and Renaissance Review, 2001: 108-124.20 Ibid, p. 120.

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self-love.21 While this may seem a small point, it was an issue where Bucer disagreed

with the greatest Dominican theologian, and at a time when religious conflict was

already brewing in Germany, that was no small thing. For all those reasons, Bucer’s

theology compelled him to break from the Roman church.

Turning now to Luther, we’ll look at how Bucer’s understanding of essential

Christian teaching affected his interactions with the Wittenberg reformer. Luther

came to the town of Heidelberg where Bucer was studying in 1518 to participate in

a disputation that would allow him to defend his ideas and assail the Aristotelian

foundations of scholasticism. In a letter to his friend Beatus Rhenanus following the

event, Bucer described Luther by saying he was, “the one who’s been battering away

at the indulgences, a problem we’ve dealt with too little.”22 Luther had prepared 28

theological theses to be presented at the disputation, however the essential

argument hinged on theses 1 and 25. Theses 1 said that, “God’s law, that most

salutary, life-giving teaching, is incapable of advancing man towards justice; on the

contrary it hinders him.” Theses 25 continues, “Not he is just who does many works,

but rather he who without works believes much in Christ.”23 Bucer’s analysis of

these two theses emphasized the first thesis and reformulated the 25th with an

emphasis on trusting in faith rather than works to save, while still affirming the

importance of works.24

It is here where we see the first example of Bucer’s ecclesiology creating

division between him and Luther. For Luther, his theology orbited around the idea

21 Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 30-31.22 ibid, p. 27.23 ibid24 ibid

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of personal assurance of salvation. For Bucer it orbited around the Erasmian notion

that true Christian faith was principally about simple love and faith. Bucer’s

summed this up in his first published work Instructions in Christian Love, “The most

perfect and blessed condition on earth is that in which a man can most usefully and

profitably serve his neighbor.”25 The way this related to Bucer’s strong emphasis on

the church can be seen in his description of Christian duty, “All Christians, because

they are members and instruments of Christ, and Christ must live in them all and

not they themselves (each appropriately according to his vocation and abilities, as

Christ lives in each one), all should serve the Lord above all else and with the utmost

diligence, to such effect that all his lost sheep are faithfully sought after, led back to

him and brought into the community of the church.”26

Another way to put it would be to say that Bucer’s understanding of the law

was much broader than Luther’s. Luther defined it narrowly as the standard by

which God judged men. In a typically-Lutheran formulation of the relationship,

Luther wrote in his Preface to the German New Testament.

“See to it, therefore, that you do not make a Moses out of Christ, or a book of laws and doctrines out of the gospel, as has been done heretofore and as certain prefaces put it, even those of St. Jerome. For the gospel does not expressly demand works of our own by which we become righteous and are saved; indeed it condemns such works. Rather the gospel demands faith in Christ: that He has overcome for us sin, death, and hell, and thus gives us righteousness, life, and salvation not through our works, but through His own works, death, and suffering, in order that we may avail ourselves of His death and victory as though we had done it ourselves.”27

25 Martin Bucer, Instructions in Christian Love. p. 2826 Bucer, Martin. Excerpted from David F. Wright, Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1994. p. 22.

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Bucer’s understanding was much broader, seeing the law as the standard by

which God judges but then upon believing the gospel, it also becomes Entelechia,

which Greschat defines as “an active and effective energy.” In his letter to Rhenanus

Bucer describes the law as the means by which the Holy Spirit rules in the lives of

Christians. Further it is the means by which God’s grace is active, producing works

of grace and faith that push toward life and renewal.28 Bucer understood the law as

defining and explaining a Christian ethic. These are obviously two wildly different

conceptions of the law, yet as far as Bucer was concerned, this was their most

significant point of disagreement.

For Luther, the chief question was how could individuals be assured of their

acceptance by God? Therefore, the emphasis was on the Gospel alone, with the law

standing in antithesis to it as that which condemned. Bucer on the other hand

expressed his view by saying, “The Word of God, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,

is the law of God, only much more developed and clearer.”29 This distinction, which

at first seems insignificant, was profoundly important in explaining the difference

between Bucer and Luther. For Bucer, the Law teaches Christians how to live ethical

lives in harmonious community, which is what rests at the center of his theology as

described above. In other words, this issue that is seemingly unrelated to the

question of ecclesiology actually points to the very core of Bucer’s view of the

church and guides us toward his understanding of how the Christian life was

27 Luther, Martin. Exceprted in Hans J. Hillerbrand, The Protestant Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968). p. 40-41.28 Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 28.29 Bucer, Martin. Excerpted from Friedhelm Kruger, "Bucer and Erasmus," Mennonite Quarterly Review 68, no. 1 (January 1994): p. 16

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essentially about the public life. On this question, Bucer was willing to argue with

Luther because Luther’s view could conceivably undermine Bucer’s understanding

of love as the center of the Christian faith and the key to church unity.

In coming years, the two would also develop conflicting views on the

Eucharist, yet interestingly, Bucer did not see this issue as being nearly as significant

as their disagreement on the role of law and gospel. The reason for Bucer’s relative

ambivalence on the issue is that for Bucer the question of whether or not Christ was

physically present in the Eucharist did not strike at the vitals of religion in the same

way that the question of the law did. Yet in Luther’s view it was of the utmost

importance. Indeed, Luther believed that those who denied the physical corporeal

presence of Christ made Christ a liar since he had said, “This is my body.” “When one

blasphemously gives the lie to God in a single word, or says it is a minor matter if

God is blasphemed or called a liar, one blasphemes the entire God and makes light of

all blasphemy.”30 For this reason, he would go on to say of Zwingli, “I testify that I

regard Zwingli as unchristian, with all his teaching, for he holds and teaches no part

of the Christian faith rightly. He is seven times worse than when he was a papist. I

make this testimony in order that I may stand blameless before God and the world

as one who never partook of Zwingli’s teaching, nor will I ever do so.”31

While Bucer’s view was not identical to Zwingli’s, it was not identical with

Luther’s either, presenting a difficult problem to the Strasbourg reformer, made

more difficult by the fact that not only did Luther disagree with Bucer’s stated view

30 Olaf Roynesdal, "Luther's Polemics," Lutheran Quarterly Review 6, no. 3 (1992): 235-255. p. 24131 ibid, p. 242.

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on the Eucharist, finding Bucer’s view to be blasphemous, he also disapproved of the

weight which Bucer ascribed to the issue, seeing his ambivalence on the issue as

being just as blasphemous as his actual view. Bucer remained undaunted, however.

His understanding of love as the center of the Christian faith and the necessity of

Christian unity drove him to great lengths to mediate the dispute. Over a seven year

period he rode over 7,500 miles on horseback, riding from city to city, mediating

between the Swiss and the Wittenbergers as he tried to bring the two sides to a

consensus.32

In time, the two sides were able to come to an agreement leading to the

formation of the Wittenberg Concord, which presented a view of the Eucharist that

could be accepted by both the Lutherans and the moderate Swiss and south German

evangelicals. It was a great triumph for Bucer and his work for unity amongst the

Protestants. Moreover, it represented a triumph for Bucer’s theological approach

which saw love and faith as the center of Christian faith. This simple approach to the

Christian faith enabled Bucer to enter into these meaty theological disputes and

mediate a resolution that both sides found acceptable. Bucer’s ability to this was not

a product of lack of theological conviction, but precisely the opposite. It was only

because of the strength of Bucer’s convictions that he was able to accomplish so

much in the cause for Protestant unity. Further, the nature of Bucer’s theology that

saw love as being central to Christianity enabled him to have a much more positive

view of Luther throughout his life. Indeed, after the Wittenberg reformer died in

32 Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 130.

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1546, Bucer was one of the view to speak well of him. Yet Bucer spoke exceedingly

well of him.

“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, 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?”33

While Bucer disagreed strongly with Luther on the matter of how to

understand the difference between law and gospel as well as on the issue of the

Lord’s Supper, Bucer’s theology enabled him to assume a gracious, irenic posture

toward the Wittenberger, even in the face of excessively harsh criticism like that

described above.

Finally, the last place we’ll look at how Bucer’s theology of faith and love

dictated his approach to a Christian group is in his relations with the Anabaptists of

south Germany. In the late 1520s, Strasbourg had become a refuge for Anabaptist

refugees who had fled other less friendly parts of the Holy Roman Empire. A high-

ranking official in Strasbourg, Jacob Sturm, was more sympathetic to their cause, as

were leading reformers in the city, such as Wolfgang Capito. Indeed, Capito even

offered housing to itinerant Anabaptist leaders.34

33 Ibid, p. 207-8.34 John S. Oyer, "Bucer Opposes the Anabaptists," Mennonite Quarterly Review 68, no. 1 (January 1994): p. 27.

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Moreover, there were many issues on which Bucer and the Anabaptists were

able to agree. Their understandings of the sacraments was quite similar. Both

groups could agree that the sacraments were not salvific, and Bucer was not even

opposed to the Anabaptists’ view on baptism initially, which saw it as something

reserved only for adults. While Bucer didn’t share their conviction that infant

baptism was wrong, it was not a matter that particularly concerned him in his

earlier years. His greater concern was a pastoral concern for his congregation and

because his congregants wanted infant baptism, he baptized their children.35 In the

1530s, his views on the matter would become more entrenched as a result of his

belief that baptism was the New Covenant equivalent to circumcision.

However, even as his view on baptism moved further from the Anabaptists, it

still was not his primary area of concern. Even in 1539, well after his views on

baptism had become more rigid, the conditions of an agreement he reached with the

Anabaptists of Hesse were somewhat generous on this point: “In return for

accepting a confirmation ceremony and the more conscientious exercise of church

discipline, the Hessian Melchiorites agreed not to criticize infant baptism, although

they did not endorse its practice. This concession satisfied Bucer, whose chief

criticism of the Anabaptists arose from the separatistic consequences of

rebaptism.”36

Moreover, they were able to agree on the centrality of the Holy Spirit in the

salvation of Christians. Finally, they shared a strong belief that Christian

35 Ibid, p. 29.36 Amy Burnett, "Martin Bucer and the Anabaptist Context of Evangelical Confirmation," Mennonite Quarterly Review, 1994: 95-122. p. 115.

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communities should be morally-distinguishable from the communities that

surround them. The Anabaptists emphasized the need for the church to exist as a

voluntary community to insure that its members live pure, disciplined lives of

Christian piety.37 While Bucer would disagree with them on the question of the

church as a voluntary community, he too shared their desire for an ethical,

disciplined church.

Like Bucer, the Anabaptists strongly emphasized love for others, making

theirs an invariably public faith, much like Bucer’s own. In fact, Heinrich Vogtherr

the Elder, a resident of Strasbourg and, at the least, Anabaptist sympathizer wrote in

1525 that, “Love should be the only watchword for clearly identifying Christians.

Now everybody goes his own way, to the detriment of the whole community.”38 All

of these things would suggest that the Anabaptists and Bucer should get along

splendidly. In fact, Bucer himself called the Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler, “a

dear friend of God.”39 However, there was a complicating factor in the relationship

that struck at the very heart of Bucer’s understanding of “love,” and it’s outworking

in the public sphere.

Central to Bucer’s understanding of Christian faith in the public sphere was

the notion that the church and state were twin powers working toward the same

goal – the creation of a truly Christian society. He saw political involvement as a

natural outgrowth of Christian love. If one truly loves one’s neighbors, then one way

to demonstrate that is to serve in the realm of politics because the state is able to

37 Ibid.38 Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 68. 39 Amy Burnett, "Martin Bucer and the Anabaptist Context of Evangelical Confirmation," Mennonite Quarterly Review, 1994: 95-122. p. 99.

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pass legislation that protects and encourages the external forms of religion – church

attendance, participation in the Sacrament, and the like – that are good for one’s

soul. This was Bucer’s understanding of how Christian love manifested itself in the

public sphere. He saw the state as being in a unique position to enact Christian

principles, working for the good of their citizens’ souls. So he wrote in De Regno

Christi:

“Further, as the Kingdom of Christ subjects itself to the kingdoms and powers of this world, so in turn every true kingdom of the world subjects itself to the Kingdom of Christ, and the kings themselves are among the first to do this, for they are eager to develop piety not for themselves alone, but they also seek to lead their subjects to it.”40

In another text, Bucer describes the state as having a parental role in

protecting its citizens. “Thus, because the authorities are a father, they must truly

and even zealously ward off every trouble from their community, just as a

particularly conscientious father is duty bound to keep all trouble away from his

house, because the authorities are subject to a higher command and in a wider sense

are fathers of the fatherland. They should therefore take responsibility for what

individual fathers neglect or are unable to accomplish by way of Christian discipline

and urgings toward piety.”41

Put concisely, this understanding of the state was central to Bucer’s theology.

As described above, this emerged for partly practical and partly theological reasons,

yet in looking at his writings, one cannot deny the importance Bucer ascribed to this

40 Martin Bucer, Library of Christian Classics, Melanchthon and Bucer. p. 186-7.41 Martin Greschat, "The relation between church and civil community in Bucer's reforming work," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. p. 22.

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particular issue. In fact, he goes so far as to say, “The spirit of those who want the

authorities not to concern themselves at all with Christian activity, is a spirit

directed against Christ our Lord, and a destroyer of all good.”42

On this point, the Anabaptists could not disagree more. The issue began to

emerge in 1526 when Bucer and Capito held a public disputation in Strasbourg with

Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler. Whereas the Strasbourg theologians emphasized

that love of one’s fellow humans had to express itself in the assumption of political

responsibility for the common good, Sattler gave utmost importance to the Sermon

on the Mount, whose commandments Christians were called to obey

unreservedly.”43 Oyer describes the Anabaptist view, saying, “They asked for a

sharper distinction between what they viewed as two organisms, church and state,

necessarily separated from each other.”44 The Anabaptists – and those of a similar

mindset – resisted any blending of the church and state on the grounds that it

sacrificed the purity of the church. “For them this meant the handing the church of

Christ over to an alien force.”45

Bucer’s objection to this view was two-fold. First, to say that the state should

not be involved in advancing Christian affairs was, to Bucer, an unbiblical limitation

of the Lordship of Christ. In Bucer’s thinking, if Christ was Lord of all, that must

include the state. Secondly, Bucer objected that such an attitude was deeply-

sectarian and hindered the broader cause of church unity. In an ironic twist, Bucer

42 Ibid, p. 17.43 Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 69.44 John S. Oyer, "Bucer Opposes the Anabaptists," Mennonite Quarterly Review 68, no. 1 (January 1994): 31.45 Martin Greschat, "The relation between church and civil community in Bucer's reforming work," in Martin Bucer, Reforming Church and Community. p. 22-3.

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separated from a group because he saw them as being sectarian. It is for that reason

that Bucer would later in life call the Anabaptists “those most impious heretics.”46

However, despite his strong objections to their views, Bucer was quite moved by the

piety of several Anabaptists, going so far as to describe Sattler as a “martyr for

Christ” after the leader’s execution in 1526.47

In all three cases discussed, that of Bucer’s early relations with the Roman

church, his ongoing relationship with Luther, and his relationship with the

Anabaptists, it has been demonstrated that Bucer was not a theologian who lacked

conviction or who would sacrifice his own beliefs if it could create unity. Bucer’s

theological backbone was rigid, every bit as inflexible as Luther’s on matters that

struck at the foundational principles of his theology. However, while we have seen a

willingness to divide on essentials in Bucer, we’ve also seen that Bucer’s emphasis

on love for others as foundational to Christian religion did create in him a more

irenic spirit that was willing to grant a tremendous amount of ground on non-

essential matters. This was seen most clearly in his broad-mindedness on

sacramental issues, in both the Eucharistic Controversy with Luther and in his

disputations with the Anabaptists on the matter of baptism. In both cases, Bucer was

willing to agree to disagree, understanding theology as being essentially a dialogue

and understanding love as the greatest Christian virtue. As a result, the view of

Bucer that emerges is not that of an overly-rigid pugnacious reformer as one might

describe Luther, nor that of an excessively-indulgent theologian willing to adapt his

theological views to advance ecumenical causes, as one might describe

46 Oyer, p. 30.47 Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer, a Reformer and His Times. p. 69.

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Melanchthon. Rather, Bucer is seen to be a leader of deep theological conviction

whose theology – unlike Luther’s – enabled him to mediate where others could only

fight. It is only this understanding of Bucer as “ecumaniac,” “Champion of Protestant

Unity,” and “fanatic for unity,” that will survive a thorough reading of Bucer.

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