Wessel, JOHANN — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Wessel, JOHANN (also known as Gansfort), a reformer before the Reformation (1420-89), was born at Groningen, educated amongst the Brethren of the Common Life, and taught philosophy at Cologne, Louvain, Heidelberg, and Paris. A humanist by training, he based his theology on the Bible directly, and was revered by his disciples as Lux Mundi. See monographs by Ullmann (embodied in Reformatoren vor der Reformation, 1866), Friedrich (1862), Dödes (in Studien u. Kritiken, 1870).