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Stephen Eccher Phd Thesis THE BERNESE DISPUTATIONS OF 1532 AND 1538: A HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Stephen Brett Eccher A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2011 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2566 This item is protected by original copyright The Bernese Disputations of 1532 and 1538: A Historical and Theological Analysis By: Stephen Brett Eccher Dissertation In Fulfillment of the Requirements for Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Professor F. Bruce Gordon St. Andrews University Reformation Studies Institute St. Andrews, Fife 18 April 2011 Table of Contents Declarations vii Abstract ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Gespräch 18 2 Hermeneutics 58 3 Die Rechte Kirche 101 4 Vom Bann 149 Conclusion 193 Appendix A: Map 202 Doctor of Philosophy Declarations I, Stephen Brett Eccher, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 78,500 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in October 2006 and as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in June 2011; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2006 and 2011. Date Signature of candidate I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of supervisor In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Access to printed copy and electronic publication of thesis through the University of St Andrews. Date Signature of candidate Date Signature of supervisor Abstract The Bernese Disputations of 1532 and 1538: A Historical and Theological Analysis Given the relative paucity of treatments relating to both the 1532 and 1538 Bern Gespräche, alongside a growing historiography which has offered a clearer understanding of the backdrop around which these two debates were held, the focus of this research project will be to provide a comparative analysis of the recorded dialogues from the debates at Bern. This ecclesiologically focused comparison aims to discern whether the debate relating to the nature of the church at the 1538 session was merely a redundant exercise and continuation of the earlier 1532 disputation or whether the latter debate offered anything substantively new to the ongoing religious dialogue between these two groups. Furthermore, all of the respective views on the nature of the church manifest in these debates will be examined in light of the preceding Anabaptist/Reformed dialogue of the period to determine their place contextually. Having embarked upon the aforementioned goals several conclusions may be definitively drawn. First, the major ecclesiological suppositions expressed by both the Anabaptist and Reformed participants at the 1538 debate were, in fact, retained using the same core theological elements employed by their predecessors at the 1532 debate. Yet, despite this striking similarity, the independent nature of these debates must also be acknowledged. This may primarily be found in that both groups expressed their retained ecclesiologies with notable variation in things such as language, argumentative content, biblical corroboration, and illustrative evidence. Finally, both the similar and independent nature of these events will be shown to have been largely derived from the Anabaptist/Reformed dialogue already begun as the Swiss Brethren movement emerged from under Zwingli’s reform efforts in Zürich. Each of these conclusions should help to paint a more accurate portrait of not only what was accomplished through these debates, but where each stands contextually during the period. ix List of Abbreviations ABRS Yoder, John H. Anabaptism and Reformation in Switzerland: An Historical and Theological Analysis of the Dialogues Between Anabaptists and Reformers. Translated by David Carl Stassen and C. Arnold Snyder. Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, Number 4; Kitchener, 2004. CH Church History ELENCHUS Zwingli, Ulrich. ‘Refutation of the Tricks of the Catabaptists.’ In Selected Works of Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531): The Reformer of German Switzerland. Edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson and translated by Henry Preble and George W. Gilmore. Philadelphia, 1901. LVM Quellen zur Geschichte der Täufer in der Schweiz, Band I. Edited by Leonhard von Muralt. Zurich, 1952. MQR Mennonite Quarterly Review. Z Huldreich Zwinglis Sämtliche Werke. Multiple Volumes. Edited by Emil Egli. Berlin, Leipzig, and Zürich. 1905ff. xi INTRODUCTION Historiography Despite its more inauspicious standing in relation to the other more dominant areas of Reformation scholarship, such as Zwingli’s Zürich and Calvin’s Geneva, Bern’s place in the overall scheme of the Swiss Reformation has not been entirely neglected; still, it remains a place ripe for further scholarship.1 This is especially true when it comes to the relationship between the Anabaptists in Bern and both the civil magistrates and Reformed preachers. Outside of those few scant details preserved directly from the Swiss Magisterial Reformers themselves, alongside the mention of events relating to Bern recorded in Stumpf’s famous history of the Swiss Confederation during the Reformation, little consideration was given to the Reformed/Anabaptist relations in Bern for centuries following the Reformation.2 However, beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a small handful of historians offered helpful accounts that considered not only the introduction of Reformation to the area, but also, more specifically, sought out the origin and role of Anabaptism in Bernese lands during this same time.3 1 Bruening has described Bern as ‘the most significant forgotten city of the Reformation.’ He believes one primary reason it has received little consideration in Swiss Reformation scholarship is largely due to the fact that it developed without the leadership of the strong personality figures that carried similar events in places like Zürich and Geneva. Michael Bruening, Calvinism’s First Battleground: Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528-1559 (The Netherlands, 2005), p.61. 2 Stumpf primarily tells of Bern’s political role in the events leading up to the Protestant/Catholic conflict during the late 1520s and early 1530s, which resulted in the fall of both the Protestant forces and Zwingli at Kappel. Johannes Stumpf, Schweizer und Reformationschronik, Band II, ed. by Ernst Gagliardi, Hans Müller, and Fritz Büsser (Basel, 1955), pp. 136ff and 292ff. 3 An account of the contextual backdrop of several aspects relating to the introduction of the Reformation to Bern was provided by Theodore de Quervain, Kirchliche und soziale Zustände in Bern unmittelbar nach der Einführung der Reformation, 1528-1536 (Bern, 1906). For treatments dealing explicitly with the emergence and place of the Anabaptist radicals amid the shift in Bern’s religious allegiance away from Catholicism see Ernst Müller, Geschichte der Bernischen Täufer (Frauenfeld, 1895), William McGlothlin, Die Berner Täufer bis 1532 (University of Berlin Ph.D. Dissertation; Berlin, 1912), and Samuel Geiser, Die Taufgesinnten-Gemeinden: Eine kurzgefasste Darstellung der wichtigsten Ereignisse des Täufertums (Karlsruhe, 1931). 1 Theodore de Quervain’s 1906 piece centering on the events at Bern during this time offered two important insights which helped to shape the early historiography of the late 1520s Bern. First, through his work on the 1528 disputation, which included a replicated copy of the mandate formally ushering in the Reformation to Bern, he verified that the ecclesiastical measures instituted via Berchtold Haller, the city’s principal Reformer, were thoroughly Zwinglian in their originating form.4 With this, the initial questions relating to the influence of Zwingli on the events surrounding the impetus for the Bernese Reformation were given a specific direction quite early. Quervain also made some pioneering inroads into just how tense the situation was with the Anabaptists during this time period. His recording of the Bernese authorities’ stance against Anabaptism through a 1527 mandate against the group and the subsequent decision for both exile and execution all show the great concern religious radicalism was given during the early years of reform in Bernese territories.5 On the other hand, a specialized study by Ernst Müller served as the first attempt at an academic historical account of the Anabaptists’ presence in Bern from a more sympathetic perspective and devoid of the pejorative characterizations the radicals had received beginning with the Reformers’ pens.6 From this piece Müller set in place an early supposition regarding the radicals’ first documented appearance in Bern. Here, the origin of Bernese Anabaptism was deemed to have been largely derived from the Waldensians and, therefore, had its 4 Quervain, pp.
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