Heinrich Bullinger

Heinrich Bullinger

Heinrich Bullinger (July 18, 1504 - September 17, 1575) was a Swiss reformer, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Zurich church and pastor at Grossmünster. A much less controversial figure than John Calvin or Martin Luther, his importance has long been underestimated; recent research shows that he was one of the most influential theologians of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

Life

The son of Heinrich Bullinger, dean of the capitular church, by Anna Wiederkehr, he was born at Bremgarten, Aargau. The bishop of Constance, who had clerical oversight over Aargau, had unofficially sanctioned clerical concubinage, having waived all penalties against the offense in exchange for an annual fee. As such, Heinrich and Anna were able to live as virtual husband and wife, and young Heinrich was the fifth son born to the couple.

At 12 years of age, Bullinger was sent to the distant but celebrated gymnasium of Emmerich in the Duchy of Cleves.

In 1519, at the age of 15, his parents, intending him to follow his father into the clergy, sent him to the University of Cologne, just as the Luther affair was on everyone's tongue. Bullinger felt that he needed to decide the issues for himself, and began a systematic program of reading that started with Peter Lombard's Sentences, then compared the Sentences with the church fathers that Lombard cited and with the Bible. In 1520, he moved on to a consideration of Luther's treatises and concluded that Luther was more faithful to the church fathers and the Bible than Lombard. In late 1521, he read Melanchthon's Commonplaces and was similarly impressed. Now a convicted "Martinian" (follower of Martin Luther), Bullinger renounced his previous intention of entering the Carthusian order.

In 1522, Bullinger returned home, accepting a post as head of the cloister school at Kappel, though only after negotiating special conditions that meant he didn't need to take monastic vows or attend mass. At the school, Bullinger initiated a systematic program of Bible reading and exegesis for the monks there. He heard Zwingli and Jud preach several times during this period. During this period, under the influence of the Waldensians, Bullinger moved to a more symbolic understanding of the Eucharist. He contacted Zwingli with his thoughts in September 1524. In 1527, he spent 5 months in Zurich studying ancient languages and regularly attending the Prophezei that Zwingli had set up there. While there, he impressed the Zurich authorities and they sent him with their delegation to the Berne Disputation - there he met Bucer, Blaurer, and Haller for the first time. In 1528, at the urging of the Zurich Synod, he left the Kappel cloister to become a regular parish minister.

In 1529 Bullinger's father announced that he had been preaching false doctrines for years and now renounced them in favour of Protestant doctrines. As a result, his congregation decided to remove him as their priest. Several candidates were invited to preach sermons as potential replacements, including the young Bullinger. His sermon was so powerful that it led to an immediate burst of iconoclasm in the church, and the congregation spontaneously stripped the images from their church and burned them.

In the same year, he married Anna Adlischweiler, a former nun. His marriage was happy and regarded as a shining example. His house was continually filled with fugitives, colleagues and people searching for advice or help. Bullinger was a caring father of his eleven children who liked to play with them and wrote verses to them for Christmas. All his sons became pastors themselves.

After the defeat at Battle of Kappel (October 11, 1531), where Zwingli fell, the Aargau region (including Bremgarten) had to return to the Catholic faith. Bullinger and two other pastors had to leave the town, though the people did not like to see them go. Having gained a reputation as a leading Protestant preacher, Bullinger quickly received offers to take up the position of pastor from Zurich, Basel, Berne, and Appenzell. During his negotiations with the civic leaders of Zurich, Bullinger refused to accept their terms - they had offered him the position with the condition that he shouldn't criticize government policy (they still blamed Zwingli for the disastrous defeat at Kappel). Bullinger insisted on his right to expound the Bible, even if it contradicted the position of the civic authorities. In a compromise, they agreed that Bullinger had the right to criticize the government privately in writing. Bullinger took up the post of minister of Zurich; he soon gained oversight over the other Zurich ministers, a position which would later be known as the Zurich Antistes.

Bullinger arrived with his wife and two little children in Zurich, where he already on the Sunday after his arrival stood in Zwingli's pulpit in the Grossmünster and, according to a contemporary description, "thundered a sermon from the pulpit that many thought Zwingli was not dead but resurrected like the phoenix". In December of the same year, he was, at the age of 27, elected to be the successor of Zwingli as antistes of the Zurich church. He accepted the election only after the council had assured him explicitly that he was in his preaching "free, unbound and without restriction" even if it necessitated critique of the government. He kept his office up to his death in 1575.

Bullinger quickly established himself as a staunch defender of the ecclesiological system developed by Zwingli. In 1532, when Jud proposed making ecclesiastical discipline entirely separate from the secular power, Bullinger argues that the need for a separate set of church courts ended when the magistrate became Christian, and that in a place with a Christian magistrate, the institutions of the Old Testament were appropriate. However, Bullinger did not believe the church should be entirely subservient to the state. Also in 1532, he was instrumental in creating a joint committee of magistrates and ministers to oversee the church.

A strong writer and thinker, his spirit was essentially unifying and sympathetic, in an age when these qualities won little sympathy.

Bullinger's hospitality and charity was exemplary and Zurich accepted many Protestant fugitives from northern Italy (Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a descendant of such fugitives) and after the death of Henry VIII also from England. When these returned to England after the death of Mary I of England, they took Bullinger's writings with them who found a broad distribution. From 1550 to 1560, there were in England 77 editions of Bullinger's Latin "Decades" and 137 editions of their vernacular translation "House Book", a treatise in pastoral theology (in comparison, Calvin's Institutes had two editions in England during the same time). Some historians count Bullinger together with Bucer as the most influential theologian of the Anglican reformation.

Though Bullinger did not leave Switzerland after becoming antistes of Zurich, he conducted an extended correspondence all over Europe and was so well informed that he edited a kind of newspaper about political developments.

His controversies on the Lord's Supper with Luther, and his correspondence with Lelio Sozzini, exhibit, in different connections, his admirable mixture of dignity and tenderness. With Calvin he concluded (1549) the Consensus Tigurinus on the Lord's Supper.

Bullinger played a crucial role in the drafting of the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566. What eventually became the Second Helvetic Confession originated in a personal statement of his faith which Bullinger intended to be presented to the Zurich Rat upon his death. In 1566, when the elector palatine introduced Reformed elements into the church in his region, Bullinger felt that this statement might be useful for the elector, so he had it circulated among the Protestant cities of Switzerland who signed to indicate their assent. Later, the Reformed churches of France, Scotland, and Hungary would do likewise.

He died at Zürich and was followed as antistes by Zwingli's son-in-law Rudolf Gwalther.

Among his descendants was the noted Biblical scholar E.W. Bullinger.

See Carl Pestalozzi, Leben (1858); Raget Christoffel, H. Bullinger (1875); Justus Heer, in Hauck's Realencyklopädie (1897).

Second Helvetic Confession

Sculpture of Bullinger on the Grossmünster, ironic in light of the reformers' iconoclastic ideology.

The Second Helvetic Confession (Latin: Confessio Helvetica posterior, or CHP) was mainly written by Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), pastor and the successor of Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich Switzerland. The Second Helvetic Confession was written in 1561 as a private exercise. It came to the notice of the elector palatine Frederick III, who had it translated into German and published in 1566. It gained a favourable hold on the Swiss churches in Berne, Zurich Schaffhausen St.Gallen, Chur, Geneva and other cities. The Second Helvetic Confession was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church. Slight variations of this confession existed in the French Confession de Foy (1559), the Scotish Confessio Fidei (1560) the Belfian Ecclasiarum Belgicarum Confessio (1561) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563).

Marian views

Mary is mentioned several times in the Second Helvetic Confession, which expounds Bullinger's mariology. Chapter Three quotes the angel’s message to the Virgin Mary, “ – the Holy Spirit will come over you “ - as an indication of the existence of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. The Latin text described Mary as diva, indicating her rank as a person, who dedicated herself to God. In Chapter Nine, the Virgin birth of Jesus is said to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born without the participation of any man. The Second Helvetic Confession accepted the “Ever Virgin” notion from John Calvin, which spead throughout much of Europe with the approbation of this document in the above mentioned countries.^[1]

The French Confession de Foy, the Scotish Confessio Fidei, the Belgian Ecclasiarum Belgicarum Confessio and the Heidelberg Catechism, all include references to the Virgin Birth, mentioning specifically, that Jesus was born without the participation of a man. ^[1] Invocations to Mary were not tolerated however, in light of Calvin’s position, that any prayer to saints in front of an altar is prohibited.

Works

Bullingers works comprise 127 titles. Already during his lifetime they were translated in several languages and counted among the best known theological works in Europe.

Theological works

His main work were the Decades", a treatise in pastoral theology, in the vernacular called "House Book".

The (second) Helvetic Confession (1566) adopted in Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia and elsewhere, was originally believed to beonly his work. However, this has been recently challenged, in that Peter Martyr Vermigli played a decisive role in this document as well. The volumes of the Zürich Letters, published by the Parker Society, testify to his influence on the English reformation in later stages.

Many of his sermons were translated into English (reprinted, 4 vols., 1849). His works, mainly expository and polemical, have not been collected.

• Table of Contents of the Decades
• Second decade, eighth sermon, The Magistrate
• Forth decade, forth sermon, Predestination
• An Answer Given To A Certain Scotsman, In Reply To Some Questions Concerning The Kingdom Of Scotland And England
• Microfiche collection of his original works
• Werke - Institut für schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, Universität Zürich

Historical

Besides theological works, Bullinger also wrote some historical works of value. The main of it, the "Tiguriner Chronik" is a history of Zurich from Roman times to the Reformation, others are a history of the Reformation and a history of the Swiss confederation. Bullinger also wrote in detail on Biblical chronology, working within the framework that was universal in the Christian theological tradition until the second half of the 17th century, namely that the Bible affords a faithful and normative reference for all ancient history.^[2]

Letters

There exist about 12,000 letters from and to Bullinger, the most extended correspondence preserved from Reformation times. He mainly wrote in Latin with some quotes in Hebrew and Greek, about 10 percent in Early New High German.

Bullinger was a personal friend and advisor of many leading personalities of the reformation era. He corresponded with Reformed, Anglican, Lutheran, and Baptist theologians, with Henry VIII of England, Edward VI of England, Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth I of England, Christian II of Denmark, Philipp I of Hesse and Frederick III, Elector Palatine.

• Geographical overview of Bullingers correspondence
• Database of Bullinger's Letters

Notes

External references

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Heinrich Bullinger

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bullinger, Heinrich.

• Heinrich Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, on-line
• Carl Pestalozzi: Heinrich Bullinger: Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, 1858 on-line
• The Successor, Magazine Reformierte Presse 2004
• Heinrich Bullinger and the Reformation. A comprehensive faith by Jean-Marc Berthoud
• The Civil Magistrate and the cura religionis: Heinrich Bullinger’s Prophetical Office and the English Reformation
• Heinrich Bullinger 1504-75: Man of Reconciliation
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.