§ 56. OSWALD MYCONIUS. 217
(1541). He took special interest in the higher and lower schools. He showed hospitality to the numei-ous Protestants from France who, like Farel and Calvin, sought a temporary refuge in Basel. The English martyrologist, John Foxe, fled from the Marian persecution to Basel, finished and published there the first edition of his Book of Martyrs (1554).
On the doctrine of the Eucharist, Myconius, like Calvin after him, occupied a middle ground between Zwingli and Luther. He aided Bucer in his union movement which resulted in the adoption of the Wittenberg Concordia and a temporary conciliation of Luther with the Swiss (1536). He was suspected by the Zilrichers of leaning too much to the Lutheran side, but he never admitted the corporal presence and oral manducation ; he simply emphasized more than Zwingli the spiritual real presence and fruition of the body and blood of Christ. He thoue^ht that Luther and Zwinofli had misunderstood each other. ^
Myconius matured, on the basis of a draft of CEcolampadius, the First Basel Confession of Faith, which was adopted by the magistracy, Jan. 21, 1534, and also by the neighboring city of Miihlhausen.2 It is very simple, and consists of twelve Articles, on God (the trinity), man, providence, Christ, the Church and sacraments, the Lord's Supper, the ban, the civil government, faith and good works, the last judgment, feasts, fasts, and celibacy, and the Anabaptists (condemning their
1 Hagenbach (359) : " Was Zwingli verneint hatte, das verneinte auch er {Mi/conius'] fortwdhrend. Nie hdtte er zugegehen, dass Leib und Blut Christi ihrer leiblichen Substanz nach in den Elementen des Abendmahls vorhanden seien ; nie zugegeben, dass sie auch von den Ungldubigen genossen werden. Was dagegen Zwingli mehr zugegehen, als in den Vordergrund gestellt hatte, den geistlichen Genuss durch den Glauben, das hob er mit Nachdruck hervor. Mit gutern Geivissen glaubte er in den Fusstapfen seines Meisters fortzuwandeln, der so redlich und tapfer in Marburg die Hand sum Frieden geboten hatte."
2 Bekanthnuss unseres keyl, christenlichen Gloubens, wie es die Kylch von Basel haldt; also called Confessio Miihlhusana. In Niemeyer's Collectio Confess., 78-84; and in Hagenbach's biography at the end, pp. 465-476. Comp. also his History of that Confession, and Schaff, Creeds, I. 387 sq.
218 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
views on infant baptism, the oath, and civil government). It is written in Swiss-German, with marginal Scripture references and notes. It claims no infallibility or binding authority, and concludes with the words : " We submit this our confession to the judgment of the divine Scriptures, and are always ready, if we can be better informed from them, very thankfully to obey God and his holy Word."
This Confession was superseded by maturer statements of the Reformed faith, but retained a semi-symbolical authority in the Church of Basel, as a venerable historical document.
Myconius wrote the first biography of Zwingli in twelve short chapters (1532).^ His other writings are not important.^
One of his most influential successors was Lukas Gernler, who presided as Antistes over the Church of Basel from 1656 to 1675. He formulated the scholastic system of Calvinism, with many subtle definitions and distinctions, in a Syllabus of 588 Theses. In connection with John Henry Heidegger of Ziirich and the elder Turretin of Geneva, he prepared the Helvetic Consensus P^ormula, the last and the most rigid of Calvinistic symbols (1675). He was the last representative of strict Calvinistic orthodoxy in Basel. He combined with an intolerant creed a benevolent heart, and induced the magistracy of Basel to found an orphan asylum. The famous Hebrew and Talmudic scholars, John Buxtorf (1564-1629), his son, John (1599-1664), and his grandson, John Jacob (1645-1704), who adorned the university of Basel in the seventeenth century, fully agreed with the doctrinal position of Gernler, and defended even the rabbinical tradition of the literal inspkation of the Masoretic text against Louis Cappel, who attacked it with great learning (1650). ^
1 It was reprinted at Berlin, 1841, in Vitce Quatuor Beformatorum, with a Preface of Neander.
- See extracts in Hagenbach's biography, pp. .387-462. 8 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 477 sqq.