Bucer

Bucer, or BUTZER, MARTIN, reformer, was born in 1491 at Schlettstadt, in Alsace. At the age of fourteen he entered the Dominican order, and went to Heidelberg to study theology, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1521 he quitted the order, and was appointed chaplain to the Elector-Palatine, an acquaintance with the works of Erasmus having already inclined him towards Protestantism. He married a former nun in 1522, and next year settled in Strasburg. In the disputes between Luther and Zwingli, Bucer adopted a middle course, and endeavoured to reconcile them; but his view of the sacraments, which approached that of Zwingli, exposed him to Luther's harsh reprobation. At the Diet of Augsburg, where he conducted himself with great circumspection and moderation, he generally accorded with the Lutheran views, but, along with other Strasburg theologians, declined to subscribe to the proposed confession of faith, and afterwards drew up the Confessio Tetrapolitana (1530). At Wittenberg, however, an agreement was in 1536 entered into between Bucer and the Lutherans. In consequence of his refusal to sign the Interim (q.v.) in 1548, Bucer found his situation irksome in Germany, and therefore accepted Cranmer's invitation (1549), and came to England to teach theology at Cambridge, and assist in forwarding the Reformation. His modesty, blameless life, and great learning gained many friends in England; but his labours were soon terminated by death, February 27, 1551. His remains were interred in St Mary's, Cambridge, with great solemnity, but during Mary's reign were exhumed and burned in the market-place. Bucer's constant attempts to express himself in language agreeable both to Luther and Zwingli, induced in him at times an obscure and ambiguous style, and Bossuet stigmatised Bucer as 'the great architect of subtleties.' His work, a translation and exposition of the Psalms, he published under the pseudonym Aretinus Felinus (1529). Lenz has edited (1880) his correspondence with the Landgrave of Hesse, whose 'second' marriage Bucer defended. See Banm, Capito und Bucer (1860); Tollin, Servet und Bucer (1880); and a long article by Professor Ward in the Dictionary of National Biography (vol. vii. 1886).