Bucer

Bucer (Butzer), MARTIN, coadjutor of Luther, was born at Schlettstadt, in Alsace, in 1491. His real name was probably Butzer, but some say that it was Kuhhorn, for which, agreeably to the taste of his age, he substituted the Greek synonym Bucer (βοῦς, κέρας). He assumed the habit of the Dominicans when only fifteen years of age, and studied at Heidelberg for several years. The writings of Erasmus first shook his faith in Romanism, and afterward, falling in with some of Luther's writings, and hearing Luther himself disputing with the Heidelberg doctors, April 26,1518, he was so impressed as to adopt the doctrines of the Reformation. To escape persecution, he took refuge, in 1519, with Franz von Sickingen; and in 1520 the elector palatine Frederick made him his chaplain. In 1520 he was freed from the obligations of the Dominican order by the archbishop of Speyer on the ground that, joining at so early an age as fifteen, he had been per vim et metum compulsus. In 1522 he became pastor at Landstuhl, in Sickingen's domain, and in the same year married Elizabeth Pallast, thus, like Luther, condemning in his own practice the unscriptural Romanist notion of clerical celibacy. In 1524 he became pastor of St. Aurelia's, in Strasburg, and for twenty years he was one of the great leaders of the Reformation in that city, and indeed throughout Germany, as preacher and professor. His great object throughout life was to promote union among the different Protestant bodies. In 1529 he was deputed by the four towns of Strasburg, Memmingen, Landau, and Constance to the conferences appointed by Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to be held at Marburg. Here Bucer exhibited all the astonishing subtilty and fertility of his mind, equalling the most refined of the scholastic theologians in subtilty and ingenuity. He succeeded in effecting a kind of conciliation between the Lutherans and Zuinglians on the question of the real presence in the Lord's Supper. He afterward attended other conferences on the same subject, and drew up the concordat of Wittemberg in 1536, but endeavored in vain to bring over the Swiss churches. In 1548, at Augsburg, he refused to sign the celebrated Interim of Charles V. This act, exposing him to many difficulties and dangers, made him the more ready to accept the invitation sent to him by Cranmer of Canterbury to come over into England, where he was appointed divinity professor at Cambridge. When Hooper, although he had accepted the bishopric of Gloucester, refused to wear the vestments ordered for the episcopal order, Bucer wrote to him a wise and moderate letter, which incidentally gives a deplorable picture of the state of the Anglican Church at this period. The services, he says, were said in so cold and unintelligible a manner that they might as well have been said in the Indian tongue; neither baptism nor marriage were celebrated with decency and propriety; there were, he says, no catechetical instructions, no private admonitions, no public censures. In 1550 he wrote his Censura, or Animadversions on the Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer having desired to have his opinion of the book, which was for that purpose translated into Latin by Ales (q.v.). Although in the beginning of his work he declares that he found nothing in the book which was not either plainly taken out of Holy Writ, or at least agreeable to it, he urges pretty large alterations to avoid Romanist perversions, many of which were happily carried into effect. Bucer died Feb. 28, 1551, at Cambridge, and was followed to the grave by 3000 persons. Five years afterward (in Mary's time) his body was dug up and publicly burned as that of a heretic. He was a very prolific writer. A full list of his works is given by Haag, La France Prot. 3, 68. A bitterly prejudiced account of him is given by Hook, Eccl. Biog. 3, 190- 218. His Scripts Anglicana, published at Basel (1577, fol.), contains a Biog. of him. An edition of his works, which was to comprise 10 volumes, was commenced by K. Hubert (Basel, 1577), but only one volume appeared. The first good Biog. of Bucer was published by Baum, Capito und Bucer; Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften (Elberf. 1860). — Procter, On Common Prayer, p. 32, 41; Burnet, Hist. of Reformation, 2, 139, 247, 538; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 3, 162, 167; Herzog, Real-Encyklopadie, 2, 420; Landon, Eccl. Dictionary, 2, 432.