Nicodemism

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Under Nikodemismus means the only feigned affiliation to Catholicism or any other official Church at the time of the Reformation .

The term goes back to the biblical person of the Pharisee Jew and member of the Sanhedrin named Nicodemus , who is said to have visited Jesus Christ during the night in order to be able to talk to him and hear his teaching without being recognized by his own people.

The Geneva reformer Johannes Calvin , in one of his 1543 tracts , directed himself against those Protestant Christians who would practice their faith in secret and at the same time attend Catholic mass , as if one could separate outward cult from inner conviction. He denounced this type of Christian as "Nicodemites" because they acted hypocritically out of fear, cowardice, indifference, profit-seeking or the urge to gain recognition. For reasons of faith and out of solidarity with the persecuted, he only recognized martyrdom or exile as sincere solutions .

Examples

In the village of Arth , which is in the Catholic canton of Schwyz in Switzerland , there have been supporters of the Reformation since 1520, thanks to the evangelically-minded pastor Balthasar Trachsel, the von Hospenthal family is known by name. They could exist as nicodemites or crypto protesters until 1655 and were also called bumblebees. At night, there were secret evangelical word services with communion in private houses. Because of political uncertainties and after peasant revolts, only the Catholic religion was accepted afterwards. Now they were forced to flee or to renounce. 37 Evangelicals fled to Zurich, around 25 were arrested, four people stood firm and were executed. This provoked the reformed Zurich and led to the first Villmerger War in 1656 .

See also

literature

  • Jean Calvin: Petit traicté monstrant que c'est que doit faire unhomme fidele, cognoissant la verité de l'Evangile quand il estentre les papistes , 1543.
  • Christian Link : The confrontation with the "Nicodemites" , in: Johannes Calvin: Humanist, Reformer, Teacher of the Church , Theological Publishing House Zurich, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-29017-510-8 , pp. 31–34.
  • Andreas Pangritz : The masked Christ. Nicodemism and anti-nicodemism in the Italian Reformation , Evangelical Theology, 54th year, Volume 1, 1994, pp. 8–22.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brief explanation of Nicodemism in the Musée Virtuel du Protestantisme
  2. ↑ Joh 3,1  EU
  3. ↑ Jean Calvin: Petit traicté monstrant que c'est que doit faire unhomme fidele, cognoissant la verité de l'Evangile quand il estentre les papistes , 1543
  4. ↑ Gabor Almasi and Paolo Molino: Nicodemism and denominationalization at the court of Maximilian II. , Early Modern Information 22, 2011, pp. 112–128
  5. ↑ Christian Link: The confrontation with the "Nicodemites" , in: Johannes Calvin: Humanist, Reformer, Teacher of the Church , Theological Publishing House Zurich, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-29017-510-8 , pp. 31–34.
  6. ↑ Urs Heiniger: Nicodemites - Arther early history with reference to the Reformation , website ref-arth-goldau.ch, July 5, 2017
  7. ↑ Kulturspur Oberarth, O 12 Hummelhof, on the arth.ch website