Bader, Johannes

Bader, Johannes one of the German reformers of the 16th century, was born about 1490. He was the tutor of Duke Ludwig II of Zweibrucken, and subsequently (after 1518) pastor of Landau, a town in the Bavarian Palatinate. He adhered to the Reformation in 1521, and worked for its introduction into Landau with such zeal and success, that at the time of his death only a few canons and monks of the Augustine convent remained in connection with the Roman Catholic Church. Bader was one of the first reformers who published an outline of the doctrines held by the reformed churches (Ein Gesprach- Buchlein vom Anfange des christlichen Lebens, Strasburg, 1526) several years before the appearance of Luther's catechisms. In 1527 he wrote a pamphlet against the Anabaptists, and especially against the learned Denck. His views on the Lord's Supper were nearly the same as those of Zuinglius and Bucer, and a tabular summary of them (Summarium und Rechenschaft vom Abentmahl unseres Herrn J. C.) was printed in 1533 at Strasburg on one side of a folio sheet. He was, in general, like his friend Bucer, for a reconciliation of the reformatory parties. In later years Bader was on friendly terms with Schwenkfeld, who visited him at Landau, and most of his friends at Strasburg and Zweibrucken were on this account greatly displeased with him. Bader died in August, 1545. — Herzog, Real- Encyklopadie, Supplem. 1:160.