He attained his early education in an excellent Latin school in his home town. In 1506 he was persuaded to enter the Dominican monastery, apparently against his wishes, and he remained there for eleven years.
In 1517 he went to Heidelberg University where he specialized in Greek, Hebrew, the humanities, and theology under the auspices of the
Dominican order. Here he became aware of Luther’s opinions as he heard that Reformer debate with the other university doctors. Luther’s
teachings, together with Erasmus’s ideas, caused Bucer to accept the doctrines of the Reformation, at least in theory, in the spring of 1518. And about this time a correspondence developed between him and Luther which increased his desire for liberation from the church.
His interest in Lutheranism, however, led to difficulties with his superiors, and in order to escape persecution he, along with many others, in 1519 took refuge at the castle of Franz von Sickingen, the Ebernberg, near Creuznach.
Once he had broken with the monastery, his learning soon won him
consideration among Luther’s followers. In 1520 he became the chaplain of Frederick, elector of the Palatine. The same year the archbishop of Speier released him from his Dominican vows on the basis that he had been but a mere boy when he joined the order. But his status as a priest apparently remained unaffected by this liberation.
His loyalty to Luther came to the forefront at the Diet of Worms, as he came from Sickingen’s estate to Worms to congratulate the Reformer upon his excellent bearing at the first hearing before the diet. From here on, Bucer’s Protestant activities increased in tempo.
In 1522 Sickingen offered him the pastorate at Landstuhl, but when Sickingen suffered defeat at the hands of the elector of Treves, Bucer went to Weissenberg in Lower Alsace. There he advocated Lutheran views and recommended the study of the German Bible, gaining thereby the support of the citizens and the council. His preaching brought forth sharp attacks from the Franciscans and excommunication by the bishop of Speier.
Shordy before this ouster he had married a former nun, Elizabeth Silbereisen; he was one of the first priests among the Reformers to renounce the vow of celibacy.
With his wife he escaped to Strasbourg and found a refuge with his father, a citizen of that city. The bishop asked that Bucer be surrendered, but the town council refused because his father’s citizenship provided safety for members of his family. Furthermore, the city was full of adherents of, and sympathizers with, the reform movement, a situation which offered additional protection.
Because of his marriage he was at first permitted to preach only in private homes, but erelong he began to lecture on the New Testament in the cathedral. Before the close of 1523 he obtained the appointment, with salary, to lecture daily on the Scriptures, and became one of the seven recognized Strasbourg preachers. Here he also began his long service as professor at the university, and laid the foundation of the Protestant educational system in that area.
In spite of his decisive boldness, he constantly endeavored to avoid divisions on theological issues; he attempted always to maintain a
conservative, middle-of-the-road policy between Luther and Zwingli, with the intent of reconciling their views.
During the opening months of 1524 his beliefs on the eucharist still coincided with those of Luther, namely that of consubstantiation, and his attitude toward the use of pictures and images had not yet crystallized. In October of that year he did, however, remove the images and close the miracle-producing grave at the church of St. Aurelia, where he remained pastor for seven years.
While at this post he wrote Ordnung und Inhalt deutscher Messe, a work typical of the order and content of worship in the reformed churches. He also attempted by personal interviews to calm the rebelling peasants during this period. In the interest of ecclesiastical discipline he vigorously opposed the Anabaptists and other so-called radical sects.
By 1525 he, along with the other Strasbourg preachers, seemed to place himself on Zwingli’s side in the eucharist controversy. They maintained that the Lord’s Supper should be stressed for its commemoration of the death of Christ rather than for the composition of its elements, although they agreed and taught that the wine is Christ’s blood and the bread His body. Luther, disregarding all efforts at appeasement, made violent attacks
on the Strasbourg theologians and maintained the bodily presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. It was his adamant attitude and harsh censure which caused the Strasbourg group ultimately to favor the Swiss view.
In his role as a peacemaker, Bucer kept on promoting the Befor-mation in Germany and beyond its borders as he wrote, traveled, corresponded, and visited with church and state officials. He had many fine talents — benevolence, understanding, dignity, zeal, and discernment, with a charming, captivating manner which made him the ideal person for the project he had selected. As his influence expanded and new situations arose, his organizing abilities also came into play. As one of several acts in the reorganization of religious services, he, through the cooperation of secular bodies, abolished the mass at Strasbourg.
At the disputation at Bern, in 1528, he had not yet given up hopes of effectlug a solution for the eucharist problem. Regardless of Luther’s attacks he still worked for an understanding, and in June of that year he suggested a personal interview between Zwingli and Luther, begging the former to be as conciliatory and lenient as possible. He greatly deplored that religion had become a matter of treaties between cities, and that both Catholic and Protestant disputants were fighting against, not for, God.
The next year came the Marburg Colloquy, arranged for by the landgrave Philip of Hesse in collaboration with Bucer, both of whom considered unity among Protestant groups essential to present a strong front against Rome. The main objective of the colloquy was to resolve the opposing views of the Lord’s Supper. The best theological talent appeared for both sides, Zwingli and Bucer for Strasbourg; Constance, Lindau, and
Memmingen on the Swiss side; and Luther and Melanchthon for the German. It is said that Bucer demonstrated such keenness of mind and subtleness of argument that he paralleled the ability of scholastic theologians.
Though the conference failed in its chief purpose, it did reveal that substantially the two groups were together, for out of fourteen of the fifteen issues raised, only one, the Lord’s Supper, remained unsettled. Had the theological terminology been more clearly defined, the results might have been more satisfactory, but at least a degree of agreement had been
accomplished. And Bucer automatically rose to the position of acknowledged leader in further possible negotiations.
As the hair-splitting arguments over the eucharist continued unabated, Bucer’s hopes and efforts for union never flagged. At the Diet of
Augsburg, 1530, where the proposed confession of faith, later known as the Augsburg Confession, took shape, he showed a spirit of moderation and, in general, agreed with the Lutheran views; although, with others, he did not accede to the confession.
Out of this situation came the Tetrapolitana, the confession of the four cities of Strasbourg, Lindau, Constance, and Memmingen, which Bucer and his associate Capito prepared and presented to the emperor in July of the same year. But this document pleased neither the Lutherans nor the inhabitants of Zurich and Basel. It did show, however, Bucer’s pacifying spirit, his intermediate position, in that he approached the Lutheran view of the Lord’s Supper as nearly as possible by tacitly omitting
contradictory statements. By August, expectations for conciliation had fled when Melanchthon, who at Marburg seemed agreeable to union, refused to speak to Bucer and his associates lest he compromise his statements in the Augsburg Confession.
But still Bucer was not discouraged in his efforts to bring about an agreement. In September he met Luther at Coburg, where the latter admitted his longing for union with those who disagreed with him on the sacrament. From this personal conference Bucer wished to draw up a covenant in such an adroit way as to have it appear that Luther had won the others to his own views.
The pressure of a common danger in the form of the emperor aided in drawing the two Protestant groups closer and led to another fruitless effort at Schmalkalden in December. This time, however, the greater share of the blame for failure seemed to rest with the Swiss Reformers.
With the deaths of Zwingli and Oecolampadius in 1531, Bucer became the recognized leader of the south German preachers, and he continued
conferences, interviews, and correspondence, all with varying degrees of failure; but by the close of 1534, although a greater feeling of cordiality existed, concurrence of belief became a gradually vanishing fantasy.
Two years later the Wittenberg Concord, aided by a more reasonable and friendly attitude, seemed to give assurance of harmony. It stands among the most successful meetings, having the least recriminations, held up to that time. Yet early in 1537, shortly before Bucer met Calvin at Bern to find themselves in agreement on matters of church discipline, the results of Bucer’s intense attempts had all but disintegrated.
In spite of all these discouraging setbacks, he continued making infrequent efforts at understanding, even venturing, between 1541 and 1546, to draw Catholics into the orbit. The most famous of these conferences took place at Regensburg (Ratisbon) in 1541 when Cardinal Contarini and other Catholic theologians appeared to discuss the situation with Bucer and Melanchthon. Bucer returned to Strasbourg from this convention to discover that his wife, three of his children, and his close collaborator, Capito, had died of the plague. Bucer later married Capito’s widow.
When the emperor’s forces defeated the armies of the Schmal-kaldic League at the Battle of Mfihlberg in April, 1547, the beginning of the end of all efforts at conciliation and union had arrived. The result of the emperor’s victory was the Augsburg Interim, Charles V’s “patchwork creed made from snippets from two confessions,” to fit Catholics and Protestants alike. It was proclaimed in May, 1548.
This mongrel confession settled nothing, and no one was satisfied, except Charles V perhaps; for it drove at least four hundred Protestant ministers from their homes, among them Bucer, who fled to England. There, by the invitation of Edward VI and Cranmer, he accepted the post of regius professor of divinity at Cambridge rather than a similar position offered him at Copenhagen.
His constant activity in promoting the Reformation and his anxiety to achieve unanimity of faith had begun to affect his health, and not long after his arrival in England his illness increased. Yet his services and counsel were in constant demand. He interested himself in the status of the French and German refugee congregations in London, he gave opinions regarding the ecclesiastical vestment discussion upon the request of Cranmer, and he suggested moderation to Hooper. He recommended revisions to the Book of Common Prayer to circumvent Romish doctrines, and by the wish of
Edward VI and Somerset he worked on a Latin version of the Scriptures to be translated into English.
The closing year of his life was one of constant activity, despite
increasingly poor health. His course of lectures on the Ephesian Epistle, which began in January, 1550, attracted many students who later exerted a worthy influence upon the Anglican Church. To halt the opposition of those English bishops who had not fully emerged from the chrysalis of Rome, he debated at length on the doctrine of justification by faith.
His last work, produced at the request of Edward VI and apparently published posthumously, was his De regno Christi, designed to portray the character of God’s kingdom and to demonstrate the means whereby it could be realized in a country like England.
His interest in the welfare of the English church, “lest for lack of discipline it be plagued by the same errors that had torn the church in Germany,”
caused him distress even in his last moments.
He died February 28, 1551, a few days after Cambridge had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of divinity, by order of a royal letter to the university. He was buried in Great St. Mary’s Church with high honors in the presence of the whole university and three thousand citizens.
Under Queen Mary his body was exhumed, and, according to the practice of the Inquisition, he was tried as a heretic, his bones burned, and his tomb razed. But under Queen Elizabeth, in 1560, the University of Cambridge reinstated all honors to him.