Heinrich Bullinger

Life

Early life and studies (1504–1522)

Heinrich Bullinger was born to Heinrich Bullinger Sr., a priest, and Anna Wiederkehr, at Bremgarten, Aargau, Switzerland. Heinrich and Anna were able to live as husband and wife, even though not legally married, because the bishop of Constance, who had clerical oversight over Aargau, had unofficially sanctioned clerical concubinage by waiving penalties against the offense in exchange for an annual fee, called a cradle tax. Heinrich was the fifth son and youngest of seven children born to the couple. The family was relatively affluent, and often hosted guests. As a small child, Bullinger survived the plague and a potentially fatal accident.

At age 11, Bullinger was sent to the St. Martin's Latin school in Emmerich in the Duchy of Cleves. Though the family was wealthy by standards of the day, Bullinger's father refused to provide the boy money for food. He encouraged his son to beg for bread for three years, as he had done, and by doing so increase the boy's empathy for the poor. At St. Martin's Latin school, Bullinger studied classic texts, including Jerome, Horace, and Virgil. He was also influenced by the Brethren of the Common Life and their adoption of the Devotio moderna, which emphasized Christian living and the reading of the Bible. Due to this influence, he expressed an interest in becoming a Carthusian monk.

In 1519, at 14, he went to the University of Cologne, where it was supposed he would prepare to follow his father into the clergy. Although there is no evidence that Bullinger was initially aware of Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses or the Leipzig Disputation of 1519, a year later, he had definitely been exposed to Reformation teaching. He read Peter Lombard's Sentences and the Decretum Gratiani, which led him to the church fathers. Bullinger discovered that the Fathers relied more on Scripture than did Lombard and Gratian, and this discovery encouraged Bullinger to read both the Bible and Luther, including The Babylonian Captivity of the Church and The Freedom of a Christian. He also read works by other Reformers, such as Philip Melanchthon's Loci communes. Now believing that salvation came through God's grace rather than through man's good works, Bullinger was converted to Protestantism. Later in life, he wrote that he had also been encouraged to embrace the Reformation because of the humanist influence of two of his teachers, Johannes Pfrissemius and Arnold von Wesel. Other intellectual influences on Bullinger included the humanism of Erasmus and Rodolphus Agricola, the theology of the church fathers Cyprian, Lactantius, Hilary, Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine, and the theology of Thomas Aquinas.

In 1522, as a follower of Martin Luther, Bullinger earned his Master of Arts degree but ceased receiving the Eucharist. He also abandoned his previous intention of entering the Carthusian order. When he returned to Bremgarten, his family accepted his new theological views. Though Bullinger was called to lead an abbey in the Black Forest, he found its monks worldly and licentious and so returned home again and spent some months reading history, the church fathers, and Reformation theology.

Kappel Abbey and the early Swiss Reformation (1523–1531)

Kappel Abbey (1523–1528)

In 1523, he accepted a post as a teacher at a Cistercian monastery, Kappel Abbey, though only under the condition that he would not take monastic vows nor attend mass. At Kappel Abbey, Bullinger initiated a systematic program of Bible reading and exegesis. He also tried to reform its Trivium curriculum in a more humanist and Protestant direction. Bullinger discovered that the monks barely understood Latin, and so he preached to them in Swiss-German. By 1525, the abbey had abolished mass, and the next year all the monks renounced their vows as they participated in their first Reformed Eucharist.

During this period, during the Reformation in Zürich, Bullinger heard Huldrych Zwingli and Leo Jud preach; and in 1523, he met them. Bullinger became a friend and ally of Zwingli and was present at the Zürich disputation of 1525. Under the influence of Zwingli and the Waldensians, Bullinger moved to a more symbolic understanding of the Eucharist. In 1527, he spent five months in Zürich studying Greek and Hebrew while regularly attending the Prophezei that Zwingli had established there. Zürich authorities sent Bullinger with the city delegation to assist Zwingli at the Bern Disputation, an occasion where he met Martin Bucer, Ambrosius Blaurer, and Berthold Haller. In 1528, at the urging of the Zürich Synod, Bullinger left Kappel Abbey and was ordained as a parish minister in the new Reformed church of Zürich.

Meanwhile, Bullinger wrote theological treatises on the Eucharist, covenants, images, and the relationship of the church to society, important topics he continued to develop in his later writings. He sent these treatises to neighboring cities, attempting to win them to the Reformed position; and these treatises were attacked by Roman Catholics defending papal infallibility and transubstantiation. Bullinger's humanism was also evident in his writings about the church fathers, his belief in the study of liberal arts as preparatory for the study of Scriptures, and even a play he wrote about the classical story of Lucretia.

Marriage to Anna Adlischweiler (1529)

In the summer of 1527, Bullinger met Anna Adlischweiler, a former nun, in Zurich. Contrary to contemporary practice, he sent her a direct proposal of marriage and was betrothed four weeks later. Anna's mother objected because she wanted her daughter to marry a wealthier man and because she wanted Anna to stay by her side until her death. When the engagement became publicly known, she tried to legally break it. Though she failed in this effort, Anna did stay with her mother until her death two years later. Anna then married Bullinger on 17 August 1529. The couple had five daughters and six sons, all of the latter except one becoming Protestant ministers. The couple also adopted other children.

Hausen and Bremgarten (1528–31)

In June 1528, Bullinger took up a part-time preaching position in Hausen. Shortly thereafter, in February 1529, Bullinger's father renounced Roman Catholicism. Though most of his congregation approved, city officials were wary because of the threat of Roman Catholic protests. Nevertheless, after a few months of debate, those sympathetic to the Reformation prevailed, and Bullinger was chosen to replace his father. Within a week of his first sermon, the images and church altar were removed from the church. Bullinger's father also officially married his mother on 31 December in a Reformed ceremony. In Bremgarten, Bullinger preached four times a week and held a well-attended Bible study every day at 3 in the afternoon.

Ministry at Zürich (1531–1575)

Installed at Zürich (1531)

While Zwingli viewed war as an appropriate way of spreading the Reformation, Bullinger did not. When Zwingli called the cantons of Zürich and Bern to war against the Catholic cantons, Bullinger opposed him, even preaching against it. Bullinger argued that religious reform came only through the preaching of the gospel, not through war. Despite a period of peace following the First Kappel War, Zwingli once again sought military victory over the Roman Catholics. His bellicosity led to the Second Kappel War, after Roman Catholics attacked Bremgarten, where Bullinger was ministering. Zwingli's supposed reinforcements turned out to be Roman Catholic and deserted him, and Zwingli was killed. Although the Peace of Kappel allowed each canton to choose its own religion, Bremgarten was excluded from the agreement and re-catholicized. Bullinger and his family lost almost all their possessions and fled to Zürich.

As a leading Protestant preacher, Bullinger was immediately called as pastor by Bern, Basel, and Appenzell. Only three days after fleeing from Bremgarten, Bullinger stood in the pulpit of the Grossmünster. Oswald Myconius said Bullinger so "thundered a sermon from the pulpit that many thought Zwingli was not dead but resurrected like the phoenix". On 9 December, Zürich also officially asked him to be Zwingli's successor as antistes. In part out of loyalty to Zürich, Bullinger chose to succeed Zwingli there. He retained the office until his death in 1575. Bullinger regularly preached 12 sermons a week in the Grossmünster for the first ten years of his ministry until Kaspar Megander was appointed to assume the majority of his preaching duties. Bullinger preached an estimated 28,000 sermons in the Grossmünster pulpit.

Zürich church government (1531–32)

Bullinger's most important task was to rebuild the Zürich church, even as he continued to defend Zwingli's character and theology. When the Zürich council initially asked Bullinger to be antistes, they listed seven articles as conditions for the position. The fourth article required Bullinger to be peaceful and not interfere in secular affairs. Bullinger agreed that ministers should not take civic roles, but he also stressed that the minister should retain the freedom to preach the Word of God, even if that message varied from the position of civil authorities. Bullinger's rebuilding of the church also included defending it against the Roman Catholics, who were once again poised to invade Zürich. Bullinger persuaded them that he endorsed the Peace of Kappel and did not seek political controversy as Zwingli had done. Finally, in 1532 Bullinger negotiated a compromise peace that guaranteed the freedom of Protestants in exchange for the independence of Roman Catholics in Protestant cantons.

In 1532, Bullinger and Leo Jud engaged in a controversy over church discipline that developed into a debate about the proper relationship between church and state. Jud viewed the church and state as two separate institutions established by God, while Bullinger held a more traditional view. Following Johannes Oecolampadius, Jud proposed exercising church discipline separately from the secular power, while Bullinger argued that separating church and state courts was necessary only if the government were not Christian. In a July sermon, Jud not only sharply criticized Bullinger's view of church discipline, he also accused Bullinger of abandoning the Reformation. Later in the year, a synod settled the debate by siding with Bullinger. The church would be overseen by both a civil council and the ministers of the church, each with its own president. In matters of civil discipline, the council would take precedence over the ministers, but the ministers could disagree with and criticize the council.

Through the arrangements of this synod, Bullinger was able to implement his own synodal order, which became a model for other Reformed churches in German-speaking areas. Bullinger freed the Zürich church from civil authorities by assuming direct personal oversight of the other clergy. He ensured that political and clerical controversies were discussed and resolved behind closed doors; and by carefully informing himself about the 120 parishes under his supervision, he was able to direct their clerical appointments and ordinations. Jud's 1534 Catechism demonstrates that he eventually accepted Bullinger's views on church discipline.

Additional responsibilities

In addition to his responsibilities as antistes, Bullinger also served as Schulherr, or school principal, charged with organizing Latin schools and theological education in Zürich. He transformed Zwingli's Prophezei into the Lectorium, or Carolinium, to provide theological higher education. Although he helped run the Carolinium, he never held professorship in it, leaving the teaching to a notable faculty, which included Konrad Pellikan, Theodor Bibliander, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Conrad Gesner, and Bullinger's son-in-law Rudolf Gwalther.

Interactions with Anabaptists (1531–60)

Bullinger sortied against the Anabaptists in his 1531 work, Four Books to Warn the Faithful of the Shameless Disturbance, Offensive Confusion, and False Teachings of the Anabaptists. Although Bullinger regarded Anabaptists as unstable citizens who encouraged a society of chaos and superstition, in practice he allowed them to follow their consciences and refused to forbid their freedom of worship in Zurich. Bullinger upheld this principle of quasi-toleration for the rest of his life. During Bullinger's leadership of Zürich from 1531 to 1575, not a single Anabaptist was executed for his faith. By comparison, four Anabaptists were executed under Zwingli and forty in Bern. Nevertheless, when the Anabaptist Munster fell in 1534, he wrote, on behalf of the whole Zürich synod, a defense of the death penalty for Anabaptists who had offended the public peace. Bullinger eventually wrote a long history of the Anabaptists called On the Origins of Anabaptism (1560), which detailed their origin and spread in Europe. The book was widely disseminated and is still reflected in recent histories of Anabaptists.

Interactions with Lutherans (1536–45)

In 1536, Bullinger and other Protestant reformers, including Jud and Martin Bucer, drafted the First Helvetic Confession, an attempt to reach a consensus of Protestant belief. The confession, a combination of Zwinglian and Lutheran theology, was adopted by a number of Protestant churches, but Bullinger distrusted Bucer, and by 1538, negotiations to unite the Swiss and Lutheran churches broke down. During the last years of his life, Luther denounced the Swiss Zwinglians in his Short Confession of the Lord's Supper (1543), and Bullinger responded in 1545 with his own True Confession.

Cooperation with Geneva

By the 1540s, Bullinger had drawn closer to John Calvin of Geneva. Together they wrote a response to the Council of Trent, and then, in 1549, they jointly drafted the Consensus Tigurinus, an agreement between Calvinists and Zwinglians about the doctrine of the Eucharist.

In the early 1550s, Bullinger published his most significant work, Decades, a series of fifty sermons, written in Latin and published from 1548 to 1551, a series that effectively served as a systematic theology. The sermons were widely distributed, and Bullinger became even better known as a Reformer. Nevertheless, Bullinger's Zurich suffered bad weather, poor harvests, the bane of Swiss politics, and the plague. Bullinger's wife and daughter both died of the plague during the early 1560s, when the disease swept across central and western Europe.

Bullinger played a crucial role in drafting the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566. Bullinger had written the first draft in 1562 as a personal statement of faith, which in a 1564 revision, he intended to be presented to the Zürich Rathaus after his death. In 1566, after Frederick III the Pious, elector palatine, introduced Reformed elements into churches in his region, Bullinger had this statement of faith circulated among the Protestant cities of Switzerland; and it gained a favorable response in many Swiss cities, including Bern, Zürich, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Chur, and Geneva. The statement was also adopted by Reformed churches in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), and Poland (1578). Only the Heidelberg Catechism was better known as a Reformed confession. The Second Helvetic Confession was also slightly modified to become the French Confession de Foy (1559), the Scottish Confessio Fidei (1560) the Belgian Ecclasiarum Belgicarum Confessio (1561) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) itself.

Death

Bullinger died at Zürich in 1575 and was followed as antistes by Zwingli's adopted son Rudolf Gwalther.