![]() He was consistent in his approach, and did not sacrifice his theological convictions for ecclesial expediency. It was this solid doctrine that guided his irenicism and acted as a foundation for entering into discussions with Catholics between 15. Central to this theology was his understanding of the doctrine of justification an understanding that I argue has an integrity of its own and has been imprecisely represented as Vermittlungstheologie. Bucer was an ecclesial diplomat and he was a pragmatic pastor, yet his ecclesial and practical approaches to reforming the church were guided by coherent theological convictions. These representations have influenced the view that Bucer was a theological light-weight, a Vermittlungstheologe, rightly placed in the shadow of Luther and Calvin. Martin Bucer has been predominantly portrayed as a diplomat, who attempted to reconcile divergent theological views, sometimes at any costs, or as a pragmatic pastor, who was more concerned with ethics than theology. It also demonstrates the farreaching effect of Philip Melanchthon's exegetical method in shaping that response among his own students. The commentary represents part of Wittenberg's response to failed discussions over the nature of the church and its authority which began in 1520, nearly halted in 1541 at the Colloquy of Regensburg which Cruciger attended, and collapsed with the outbreak of hostilities during the Smalcald War of 1547. Unlike later Protestant commentaries, which often roll ponderously from one unrelated locus in theology to the next, Cruciger's work, though massive, focuses almost singlemindedly on the doctrine of the church. ![]() However, when set into the context of continued sharp debate over ecclesiology, Cruciger's commentary on John provides a critical reshaping of Philip Melanchthon's exegetical method to meet the continuing challenge of defining the church in line with an emerging Lutheran orthodoxy and against Roman Catholicism. The works on John by Calvin and Bullinger have attracted more attention in our own day. The exposition of the four Gospels by Cologne's Franciscan theologian, von Konigstein, underwent far more printings. ![]() To be sure, this work has few of the characteristics of other treatments of the fourth Gospel produced near the same time. ![]() Cruciger's Enarratio provides an excellent angle from which scholars may examine an important shift in Wittenberg's exegesis and theology during the crucial decade of the 1540s. Only months after Luther's death in 1546, a colleague, Caspar Cruciger, Sr., published his magnum opus, an 879-page commentary on the Gospel of John, In Evangelium Iohannis Apostoli Enarratio. This is supported by examining these parts of the Preface in the light of a selection of the relevant documents. ![]() In view of the main thesis, Copernicus's apparent dedication of the work to the Pope merits additional explanation, and the second thesis is that components of explanations for several aspects of those parts of the Preface that relate to the Papacy and to theologians can be provided via comparisons with previous diplomacy between Warmia and the Papacy which occurred or was being referred to during Copernicus's time. This is supported by examining Rheticus's first letter to Paul Eber in conjunction with the documents on the Regensburg colloquy and on censorship in Nuremberg, as well as with the existing literature on Copernicus and his context. ArgumentThe main thesis of this paper is that Copernicus's avoidance of all admission that scripture was contravened inDe revolutionibusand his composition of its new Preface in 1542, as well as the non-publication of Rheticus'sTreatise on Holy Scripture and the Motion of the Earth, were influenced by the early information they received on the failure of the 1541 Regensburg Protestant-Catholic colloquy, among the major consequences of which were significant increases in the problems concerning publishing works which contravened scripture. ![]()
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