Flensburg disputation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title page of the Acta of the Disputation in Flensburg , written by Johannes Bugenhagen
Introduction of the Bugenhagen Acta
Melchior Hofmann's travel routes

The Flensburg Disputation (more rarely also called the Flensburg Colloquium ) is the name of a dispute that took place on Thursday, April 8, 1529 in the St. Catherine's Monastery in Flensburg between Melchior Hofmann and representatives of the Lutheran clergy. The disputation is now an important milestone in the development of the Reformation. This was followed by the consistent implementation of the Lutheran Reformation in Denmark and the Denmark-related duchies of Schleswig and Holstein .

For Hofmann, the outcome of the Flensburg disputation marked the decisive turning point in his life: the preacher appointed by the king in Kiel became an unsteady traveling apostle in the geographical triangle Emden - Strasbourg - Amsterdam and the "Lutheran messenger" became "a prophet of the Anabaptists". His later followers, the Melchiorites named after him , became the root of both the violent representatives of the Anabaptist Empire of Munster and the non-violent Mennonite movement .

prehistory

Christian II , King of Denmark from 1513 to 1523, had been trying to push through the Reformation in his domain since 1521 . When the nobility rose against him in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Christian II first fled to Wittenberg , where he lived in Lucas Cranach's house. Meanwhile, Luther's translation of the New Testament had appeared. Christian II decided that a Danish translation of the New Testament should also be made. In 1524 the so-called Christian II's Bible appeared , in which Leipzig was given as the place of origin, but it was actually made in Wittenberg.

Frederick I , after the deposition of his nephew Christian II, the Danish King from 1523 to 1533, had to swear in his feast to protect the Catholic Church. So he only unofficially promoted the spread of Lutheran teachings in his territory. These "support measures" included an invitation to the from Schwäbisch Hall originating furrier Melchior Hoffman . Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen provided this with a letter of credentials in May 1525 on the occasion of a first stay in Wittenberg and was initially considered a Lutheran messenger. On his way, which led him to the Baltic States and Sweden, he distanced himself more and more from the Lutheran doctrine. This is proven above all by two of his publications in Stockholm . In them he still professed the Lutheran doctrine of justification , but deviated significantly from the teachings of the Wittenberg Reformation in his views on the end of the world and in his conception of the Lord's Supper.

In the spring of 1527 Melchior Hofmann came to Kiel because of the aforementioned royal invitation . He was given permission to work as a preacher everywhere in Holstein and, with some pride, called himself “Koeninglicher becomes established preacher in the Kyll ym Landt zu Holstein”. But soon there were violent arguments with the Magdeburg pastor Nikolaus von Amsdorf and his friend Marquard Schuldorp , who had been the first Protestant preacher at the Nikolaikirche in Kiel since 1526 . The subject of the disputes, which were also carried out in writing, were initially Hofmann's apocalyptic sermons. Only a little later, the dispute also spread to the doctrine of the sacrament . Hofmann had developed his own conception of the Lord's Supper, which turned not only against the compulsory understanding of the Lord's Supper, but above all against the Lutheran teaching of Christ's real presence in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.

Hofmann opened the Lord's Supper discussion in 1528 with two writings that have unfortunately been lost. The title of the first scripture was: Contents and Confession of the Sacrament and Testaments of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ . The second writing was entitled Sendebrief, dat he [Melchior Hofmann] could not confess that dat een stuck livlikes Brodes syn God sy . Schuldorp's answers were not long in coming. In his first reply, he denied Hofmann qualification to teach, as he was only concerned with apocalyptic subtleties. In the second letter of reply, Schuldorp attacked Hofmann's doctrine of the Lord's Supper and referred to him as a "sacramental heretic". Hofmann replied with the document Proof, also published in 1528 , that Marquard Schuldorp wrote heretically and seductively in his contents of the sacraments and testaments of Christ . It caused a storm of indignation (not least because of piquant details from the married life of the Schuldorps that were made public), so that Luther and Amsdorf felt compelled to intervene in these disputes through letters. The king, who had backed his preacher in Kiel up to this point, came under pressure and finally set the date of the disputation for the second week after Easter 1529.

Disputation

The place of the disputation was the Katharinenkloster in Flensburg, which was secularized in 1528. Around 400 people took part in the theological debate, including the most important clergy in the country and representatives of the nobility. The chairmanship of the disputation, which took place on April 8, was held by Crown Prince Duke Christian, who later became King Christian III. , accepted. King Friedrich did not take part in the negotiations because of his promise to support the Old Believers. The main item on the agenda was the sacrament controversy . The essential parts of the conversation were recorded by six notaries.

Attendees

Melchior Hofmann, who had given the decisive cause for this disputation through his sermons and writings, was relatively alone during the negotiations. According to an anonymous letter to Martin Bucer dated June 9, 1529, he tried to invite Andreas Karlstadt , a former teacher of Luther, as assistance, but the Duke of Holstein had refused his entry permit. Only the former Catholic priest Jacob Hegge , who had given the first Protestant sermon in Danzig, and the former monk brother and otherwise largely unknown Johann von Kampen spoke for Hofmann . Friedrich Otto zur Linden calls the former "fickle" because he later revoked the views he had expressed during the disputation. Zur Linden described the latter as "opaque".

Johannes Bugenhagen, who a few years earlier had been involved in the posting of Hofmann to the Baltic States, now faced him as the most prominent theologian during the disputation. Luther himself had ordered him to Flensburg , who had been involved in the introduction of the Reformation in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg since 1526 . With Bugenhagen came Stephan Kempe , a former Franciscan who had made a contribution to the beginnings of the Reformation in Hamburg. The spokesman for Hofmann's opponents was the Husum reformer Hermann Tast , who appeared in Flensburg with Johannes Pistorius. Among the discussants who occasionally intervened in the disputes were, in addition to other Lutheran preachers, Claus Boie , the reformer Dithmarschens , the well-traveled court master Johann Rantzau and the Holstein duke Christian.

To the course

"Two detailed original reports" provide information about the course of the disputation. The report is a few months older and comes from the pen of Hofmann and was published as Dialogus in Strasbourg in early summer 1529 at the latest . As its title suggests, it is dressed in the form of a conversation. Johannes Bugenhagen wrote the second report at the earliest after June 24, 1529 in Wittenberg and published it as Acta of the disputation in Flensburg . While Hofmann described the events in Flensburg from his memory, Bugenhagen orientated himself on the notarized disputation protocols.

Zur Linden based his presentation of the Flensburg Disputation primarily on the Bugenhagen report, but supplemented it in some important places with Hofmann's Dialogus . Then Hofmann tried to influence Duke Christian the day before the disputation and to convince him that he was thoroughly Lutheran in terms of his understanding of the Lord's Supper. He therefore sent him a Luther pamphlet written in 1523, “in which he describes the reason for the kürssner [= Kürschners; what is meant is Hofmann] clear and bright gschrift hett that one received the man's bread with a seal and symbol in the bodily mouth and with the bodily mouth and the word in the oren, in the heart and conscience ”. In the evening of the same day the Duke and Hofmann had a conversation in this connection, in which Christian tried in vain to get the furrier to give in.

This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Hofmann argued:

“The bread that we receive is figuratively and sacramentally the body of Christ, not true, but I do not consider it bad bread and wine, but it is a memory to me and it is a seal, so that the promise is made to me is that Christ gave himself to death for me. That is why I do not respect it than any other bread, because Saint Paul calls it the Lord's bread. "

Hofmann thus adhered to his spiritualistic interpretation of the Lord's Supper. Tast opposed the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, as represented by Luther . Hofmann was not convinced, however, and did not deviate from his previously formulated theses. His position as the accused was thus definitively established. Participants in the disputation regarded his remarks as a riot . They called for the death penalty by burning at the stake. The judgment on Hofmann was announced on April 11, 1529: he was expelled from the country. After his return to Wittenberg, Bugenhagen published the Acta of the Disputation in Flensburg [...] , for which he used the notaries' notes.

reverberation

Hofmann's break with Luther's teaching was final. Together with his wife and children, he fled Schleswig-Holstein in the direction of East Frisia within a few days and traveled on to Strasbourg , where in 1529 - before Bugenhagen's Acta - he published his so-called Dialogus , in which he presented his view of the Flensburg disputation. In 1530 Hofmann returned to East Friesland and founded an Anabaptist congregation in Emden , which still exists as a Mennonite congregation today. Hofmann's turn to Anabaptism cannot be precisely dated. It lay between his escape from Schleswig-Holstein and his second stay in East Friesland. Hofmann probably died in a Strasbourg dungeon in 1543.

consequences

The disputation promoted the acquaintance and dissemination of Luther's teaching in Schleswig-Holstein. During the Flensburg Disputation, it was decided to introduce the Reformation in Denmark and the duchies. With the accession to the throne in 1534, Christian III began to implement the resolution. The church order for Denmark, in which seven clergymen, including Hermann Tast, from the Duchy of Schleswig were involved, was passed in 1537. It was originally supposed to be introduced in Schleswig and Holstein as well, but this was prevented due to the resistance of the early church there. Only after the death of the last Catholic bishop Gottschalk von Ahlefeldt in 1542 was the Lutheran church ordinance introduced for Schleswig and Holstein, which established the Schleswig-Holstein regional church .

Six months after the disputation in Flensburg, another religious discussion took place in Marburg that again dealt with the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The goal of the Marburg Religious Discussion was to resolve the dispute between the reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli regarding the Lord's Supper.

literature

  • Ernst Feddersen: Church history of Schleswig-Holstein . Volume 2 in the series of writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History. 1517-1521. Kiel 1938.
  • Johannes Schilling : Schleswig-Holstein . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (in community with H. Balz et al .; edited by G. Müller). Vol. 30. Berlin 1999. pp. 201-214.
  • Wolfgang Seegrün: Schleswig-Holstein . In: The Territories of the Empire in the Age of Reformation and Confessionalization. Country and denomination 1500-1650. Vol. 2: The Northeast . Münster 1990, pp. 140-164.
  • Albert Panten : Who was Husum's reformer? . In: Festschrift "Harmen Tast: 1490 to 1990" (series of contributions to Husum town history ; publisher: Society for Husum town history ). Husum 1991, pp. 130-136.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For example with Wilhelm Jensen: Christian III . In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957), p. 233 [pnd119217120.html Online]
  2. ↑ So the title of the Hofmann biography Friedrich Otto zur Linden.
  3. ↑ Hans Volz : Martin Luther's German Bible. Hamburg 1978, p. 244.
  4. ↑ Friedrich Otto zur Linden : Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. S. 61f
  5. ↑ (1) The Book of the Last Day and (2) an interpretation of the 12th chapter of the book of Daniel : Das XII. Chapter of the prophet Danielis expounded, and of the evangelion of the other special day, fallen in Advent, and of the zeychen of the last judgment [...] MDXXVI ; see Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. P. 81 ff
  6. ↑ From the author's statement on Melchior Hofmann's first writing against Nikolaus von Amsdorf: That Niclas Amssdorf, the Magdeburg pastor, is a lying, false nasal spirit, publicly proven by Melchior Hoffman, Koeninglicher wirden set preacher to Kyll ym Landt zu Holstein (1528); Printed by Gerhard Ficker (ed.): Writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History , special issue 4. Preetz 1926
  7. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation. Göttingen 1979; P. 90.
  8. ↑ Quoted from, among others, Barthold Nicolaus Krohn: History of the Fanatical and Enthusiastic Anabaptists, primarily in Lower Germany. Melchior Hofmann and the sect of the Hofmannians. Leipzig 1758. p. 140 (also available online at Google Books ) .
  9. ↑ Quoted from Wilhelm Isaak Leendertz, among others: Melchior Hofmann . Publisher De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1883. p. 114
  10. ^ Wilhelm Isaak Leendertz: Melchior Hofmann . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1883. S. 115f
  11. ↑ This work has also been lost, but is quoted from Barthold Nicolaus Krohn: History of the Fanatical and Enthusiastic Anabaptists, mainly in Lower Germany. Melchior Hofmann and the sect of the Hofmannians . Leipzig 1758. p. 140; Wilhelm Isaak Leendertz: Melchior Hofmann . Publisher De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1883. p. 115
  12. ↑ Schuldorp was married to one of his nieces with Luther's approval; see Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. pp. 130f
  13. ↑ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Hospital and Monastery to the Holy Spirit. Flensburg 1995, p. 49
  14. ^ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Flensburg in history and present. Flensburg 1972, p. 389.
  15. ↑ "Carolstadius relinquens Saxoniam disputationem interesst cupiebat, vocatus a Melchiore cum suis, sed a duce Holsatiae indictum illi erat, ne urbem disputationi ordinatam intraret." - Quoted from Carl Adolph Cornelius : History of the Münntzerischen Aufruhrs in three volumes . Volume II: The Baptism . Leipzig 1860. p. 292
  16. ↑ Zedler-Lexikon.de: Hegge, Jakob ; accessed on April 15, 2018
  17. ↑ Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. pp. 145ff; 157
  18. ↑ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman's way from Luther to the Anabaptists . In: Controversial Anabaptism. 1525-1975. New research (Ed. Hans-Jürgen Goertz). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen 1975. pp. 173-205; here: p. 188
  19. ↑ Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Verlag De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. pp. 134-157
  20. ↑ See Barthold Nikolaus Krohn: History of the Fanatical and Enthusiastic Anabaptists, primarily in Lower Germany. Melchior Hofmann and the sect of the Hofmannians . Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf: Leipzig 1758. p. 204; Note (B).
  21. ↑ The full title of the text reads: Dialogus and green report of the disputation held in the Land zu Holstein underm künig von Denmarck from the noble sacrament or night time of the Lord. In the present kü. ma. sun hertzog Kersten sampt kü. councils, vilen corn nobility and grand priesthood meeting. Now recently happened the other Thursday after Easter in the Jar of Christ when it was 1529
  22. ↑ According to Zur Linden, this is Luther's letter On Abuse of Masses , which he wrote at the Wartburg in 1523 and sent from there to the Augustinians in Wittenberg . It can be found in the Erlangen edition of Luther's Collected Works, Volume 28, pp. 27ff
  23. ↑ Quoted from: Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists . Publisher De Erven F. Bohm: Haarlem 1885. p. 135
  24. ↑ Barthold Nikolaus Krohn: History of the fanatical and enthusiastic Anabaptists mainly in Lower Germany. Melchior Hofmann and the sect of the Hofmannians . Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf: Leipzig 1758. p. 165
  25. ^ Society for Schleswig-Holstein History: Reformation ; accessed on: January 20, 2018
  26. ^ Barthold Nicolaus Krohn: History of the Anabaptists: Melchior Hofmann and the sect of the Hofmannians §23 M. Hofm. begiet from etc . , Leipzig 1758, p. 204.
  27. ↑ The full title of the text reads: Dialogus and green report of the disputation held in the Land zu Holstein underm künig von Denmarck from the noble sacrament or night time of the Lord. In the present kü. ma. sun hertzog Kersten sampt kü. councils, vilen corn nobility and grand priesthood meeting. Now recently happened the other Thursday after Easter in the Jar of Christ when it was 1529.
  28. ↑ Dieter Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in history in the present. From the Anabaptist movement to the worldwide free church. Großburgwedel 2004 (2nd significantly changed and expanded edition), ISBN 3-88744-402-7 , p. 68.
  29. ↑ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Hospital and Monastery to the Holy Spirit . Flensburg 1995, p. 49
  30. ^ Andreas Oeding, Broder Schwensen, Michael Sturm: Flexikon. 725 aha experiences from Flensburg! , Flensburg 2009, article: Lutherpark
  31. ↑ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Hospital and Monastery to the Holy Spirit. Flensburg 1995, p. 46