Inventing Authority: The Use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist

6 Use of the Fathers at the Colloquy of Montb

121 Use of the Fathers at the Colloquy of Montbéliard (1586) Theodore Beza versus Jacob Andreae Z Chapter 6 By the time of the Colloquy of Montbéliard in 1586, Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Westphal were deceased and a new generation of Lutheran and Reformed leaders had emerged. By 1580 German Lutherans had published and disseminated the Formula of Concord in a large-scale attempt to promote confessional unity. In the midst of defining boundaries, both national and theological, Theodore Beza and Jacob Andreae debated their theological differences concerning the Eucharist. When Beza and Andreae met early on in their careers as representatives of Reformed and Lutheran sides, respectively, they were both amenable to drawing up the Göppingen document to establish common ground and reach a compromise between the adherents of Zürich and Wittenberg theology.1 When other leaders on both sides rejected this compromise document, however, Beza and Andreae identified their loyalties to their respective groups. By the time the two men faced each other at the Colloquy of Montbéliard, they were mature theologians who had become spokespersons for their doctrinal stances. They delineated their views by incorporating their understanding of the fathers, since the consent of the ancients meant belonging to the proper tradition. Introduction to the Authors Theodore Beza Theodore Beza (1519–1605), known as Calvin’s successor and head of the Genevan church, was born into a Catholic family of Vézelay in Burgundy. 122 Inventing Authority In 1548 Beza officially renounced the Catholic religion and in 1549 became a professor of Greek at Lausanne. In 1558 Calvin offered him a professorship at the newly founded academy in Geneva, a post that Beza held until 1595. Regarding Beza’s life, Paul Geisendorf’s monumental work was the first modern endeavor to chronicle a complete biography of Beza, a culmination of previous partial studies of the man and his work.2 With the sources available to him, Geisendorf established the early influence exerted by Melchior Wolmar on Beza, traced Beza’s development in the Evangelical cause, and portrayed his leadership role from an ecumenical viewpoint, including his part in the religious discussion at Poissy.3 Since Geisendorf, other studies on Beza have continued to fill out the portrait of this church leader.4 In her essay, Jill Raitt describes Beza’s frustrated attempts at cross-confessional relations and credits his work among the Reformed for avoiding the internal conflict experience by the Lutherans.5 In addition to his academic duties, his publications, and his involvement with France and its refugees, Beza undertook diplomatic journeys to gain support among German princes for the French Protestants. From the late 1550s to the late 1580s, Beza’s efforts at diplomacy would be frustrated by differences between Lutheran and Reformed theologians concerning the Lord’s Supper.6 When Calvin’s ill health limited his duties, including his ability to write against Gnesio-Lutherans such as Joachim Westphal and Tilemann Hesshusen, it was Beza who picked up the debates with them. In defending the view that the Holy Spirit makes Christ’s divine nature present to the faithful in the Eucharist, Beza produced a series of writings between 1559 and 1593 against the proponents of the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity—notably Brenz, Westphal, and Andreae. In the 1560s, Beza was summoned to Poissy, where Catherine de Medecis hoped to unite her fractured kingdom by means of a colloquy between Roman Catholics and the Reformed. The conciliatory sentiments at the Colloquy of Poissy, however, soon soured because of disagreements over the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. On that occasion, the French Catholic Claude de Sainctes (later bishop of Évreux) accused Beza of incorrectly reading Tertullian, Chrysostom, and other fathers of the church whom Beza had cited to support his statements.7 References to the fathers had been part of the Reformed line of argumentation since the beginning of the sixteenth century against the Catholics and the Lutherans. Following the publication of the Formula of Concord in 1577, the French Reformed refugees in the lands of Lutheran princes were in varying degrees subjected to increasing pressure to conform to Lutheran church practice and discipline. In 1586 the Colloquy of Montbéliard was called to settle this Use of the Fathers at the Colloquy of Montbéliard (1586) 123 problem in the duchy of Württemberg. The principal disputants were Beza and Jacob Andreae, the latter...