WESSEL GANSFORT'S THEOLOGY OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT*

by Dr. MARGARET H. OGILVIE Oxford

The details of Wessel Gansfort's life can be briefly summarized. I He was born about 1419 in and attended one of the two parish schools there before proceeding to the town school at at the age of twelve or thirteen in 1432 or 1433, financed by Oda Jargis. On reaching the first class, he probably taught in the lower forms of the school, while living in a domus pauperum of the Brethren of the Common Life in the Begijnenstraat. Wessel taught in this school for the next fifteen years and was noted for his piety. Leaving Zwolle in 1449, he enrolled the following year in the arts faculty at Cologne, listed on 1 December 1450 as a baccalaureus artium and in March 1452 as magister artium. From Cologne, he went to Louvain and , which universities together with Cologne taught the via antiqua. From 1455 to 1458 he taught in the arts facul- ties at Cologne and , before returning to Paris in 1459 when he went over to the via moderna. He remained in Paris for about fifteen years acquiring a considerable reputation for his scholarship. In 1471 he journeyed to , returned to Paris by 1473 and was back in Rome the following year. Possibly these journeys were connected with the via antiqua - via moderna dispute; Gansfort may halve felt himself able to exploit his friendship with the in the via moder- na cause. About 1475-6, he returned to Zwolle, living under the protection of David of Burgundy and providing medical services in

* I wish to thank the Canada Council for making this research possible during the two years (1972-4)when I held their Doctoral Fellowship. 1 The details are from R.R. Post, The Modern Devotion, Studies in Medieval and Thought, III. Leiden, 1968, 476-480;see also C. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, (Edinburgh, 1855). II.263-615; O. Fizely, WesselGansfort, eine dogmengeschichliche Untersuchung, (Leva, 1911), 11-21; M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, (Groningen, 1917), 23-155. 126 return because by this time Gansfort's opinions were sufficiently liberal to interest the Inquisition. During the last years of his life he lived in Groningen, lodging in the convent of the Poor Clares and paying frequent visits to the monastery at Aduard until his death on 4 October 1489. Gansfort has left a number of treatises which R.R. Post has con- veniently categorized into the ascetical and theological.2 Needless to say, theology enters the ascetical works and vice versa, but for the purposes of this paper, the theological works shall be used as we have found nothing new or different in the ascetical works not con- tained or implied in the theological works. Made apparent by a reading of the theological works is the over- whelming significance of questions of authority and church govern- ment to Gansfort. This is not to say that this theology takes authori- ty as its jumping-off point but that from his views of the nature of God at work in the world, Gansfort constructs views on the right relationship between the people and their prelates and the right governance of the church.

I. The Theological Presuppositions

Quoting Proclus, Gansfort notes the necessary existence of a first cause in the form of the divine will.3 Nature is the divine will working regularly and miracles, the divine will working irregularly.4 God does not change in Himself in creating therefore creation should be compared with a work of art which is not produced by a change in the artist.5 The divine will operates in all natural events, even the fall of a sparrow or a leaf (Luke 17.6).6 Concurrent causes are only apparently so for God both operates and co-operates.7 Other causes 2 Post, op. cit., 481-2. 3 De benignissima dei providemtia, Opera Omnia, (Groningen, 1614),(Afterwards De ben. dei; all references to this edition), 711 ... facile inveniemus propositionem Procli, dicentis, Primam causam non solum plus influere in effectum quam quam- cumque secundam; sed etiam ceteras causas contingentes tantum esse, et ad consti- tuendum effectum solam primam esse necessariam. 4 De ben dei, 711: ... naturam nihil aliud esse quam voluntatem Dei regulariter volentem; et miraculum opus divinae voluntatis non regulariter ita volentis. Also De ben dei, 715. 5 De ben dei, 712: ... absque ulla sui mutatione; De ben dei, 712. 6 De ben dei, 716. 7 De ben dei, 712: Unde aliae concausae non totales causae sunt neque cardinales. Deus autem totaliter, cardinaliter, causaliter, dominatur. De ben dei, 711: Ita ut omnis causa operans nihil aliud sit, quam vel Deus operans, vel operanti Deo cooperans.