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SCHWENKFELD, KASPAR (149o-1561)
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See also:SCHWENKFELD, KASPAR (149o-1561) , of Ossing, See also:German theologian, was See also:born in 1490, and after studying at See also:Cologne and other See also:universities served in various See also:minor courts of See also:Silesia, finally entering the service of the See also:duke of See also:Liegnitz, over whom he had See also:great See also:influence. The writings of See also:Tauler and See also:Luther so impressed him, that in 1522 he visited See also:Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Andreas See also:Carlstadt and See also: The compromise was of only See also:short duration. His See also:theology took a more distinctly heterodox See also:form, and the publication (1539) of a See also:book in See also:proof of his most characteristic doctrine—the deification of the humanity of See also:Christ—led to his active persecution by the Lutherans and his See also:expulsion from the See also:city of See also:Ulm. The next See also:year (1540) he published a refutation of the attacks upon his doctrine with a more elaborate exposition of it, under the See also:title See also:Grosse See also:Confession. The book was very inconvenient to the Protestants, as it served to emphasize the Eucharistic See also:differences between the Lutherans and Zwinglians at a moment when efforts were being made to reconcile them. An See also:anathema was accordingly issued from Schmalkald against Schwenkfeld (together with See also:Sebastian See also:Franck) ; his books were placed on the Protestant " See also:index "; and he himself was made a religious outlaw. From that time he was hunted from See also:place to place, though his wide connexions with the See also:nobility and the friendship of his numerous followers provided for him secure hiding-places and for his books a large circulation. An See also:attempt in 1543 to approach Luther only in-creased the Reformer's hostility and rendered Schwenkfeld's situation still more See also:precarious. He and his followers withdrew from the Lutheran Church, declined its sacraments, and formed small See also:societies of kindred views. He and they were frequently condemned by Protestant ecclesiastical and See also:political authorities, especially by the See also:government of See also:Wurttemberg. His See also:personal safety was more and more imperilled, and he was unable tostay in any place for more than a short time. At last, in his seventy-second year, he died at Ulm, on the loth of See also:December 1561, surrounded by attached See also:friends and declaring undiminished faith in his views. Schwenkfeld, whose See also:gentle See also:birth and courtly See also:manners won him many friends in high circles, left behind him a See also:sect (who were called subsequently by others Schwenkfeldians, but who called themselves " Confessors of the See also:Glory of Christ ") and numerous writings to perpetuate his ideas. His writings were partially collected in four See also:folio volumes, the first of which was published in the year 1564, containing his See also:principal theological See also:works. Erbkam states that his unprinted writings would make more than another four folios. His adherents were to be found at his See also:death scattered throughout Germany. In Silesia they formed a distinct sect, which has lasted until the See also:present time. In the 17th See also:century they were associated with the followers of See also:Jacob Bohme, and were undisturbed until 1708, when an inquiry was made as to their doctrines. In 1720 a See also:commission of See also:Jesuits was despatched to Silesia to convert them by force. Most of them fled from Silesia into See also:Saxony, and thence to See also: He regarded as essential a See also:direct and immediate participation in the grace of the glorified Christ, and looked on religious ordinances as immaterial. He distinguished between an outward word of See also:God and an inward, the former being the Scriptures and perishable, the latter the divine spirit and eternal. In his Christology he departed from the Lutheran and Zwinglian doctrine of the two natures by insisting on what he called the Vergotterung See also:des Fleisches Christi, the deification or the glorification of the flesh of Christ. The doctrine was his protest against a separation of the human and the divine in Christ, and was intimately connected with his mystical view of the See also:work of Christ. He held that, though Christ was God and See also:man from his birth from the Virgin, he only attained his See also:complete deification and glorification by his See also:ascension, and that it is in the See also:estate of his See also:celestial Vergotterung or glorification that he is the dispenser of his divine life to those who by faith become one with him. This fellowship with the glorified Christ rather than a less spiritual See also:trust in his death and See also:atonement is with him the essential thing. His peculiar Christology was based upon profound theological and anthropological ideas, which contain the germs of some See also:recent theological and Christological speculations. See Arnoldt, Kirchen- and Ketzer-Historie (See also:Frankfort, ed. 1700) ; Salig, Historie der See also:Augsburg. Confession; W. H. Erbkam, Gesch. der prot. Sekten (1848); See also:Dorner, Gesch. d. prof. Theol. (1867); also R. H. Grutzmacher's See also:article in Hauck-See also:Herzog's Realencyklopadie; See also:Robert See also:Barclay's Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the See also:Common-See also:wealth (1876), and C. See also:Beard's Hibbert Lectures (1883), ch. vi. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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