RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Brent Brenz
turned Jan. 4, 1547. The new Interim of the emperor (see Interim), which Brenz called interitus ("ruin"); recalled him to the scene of action, and he earnestly opposed its adoption. The imperial chancellor, Granvella, demanded his surrender, and Brenz, warned by a note reading: " Flee, Brenz, quickly, more quickly, most quickly!" escaped on the evening of his forty-ninth birthday, June 24, 1548. He hastened to Duke Ulrich, who concealed him in the castle of Hohenwittlingen near Urach, where, under the pseudonym of Joannes Witlingius, he prepared an exposition of Ps. xciii and cxxx. As the emperor was everywhere searching for him, Ulrich sent him by way of Strasburg to Basel, where he was kindly received and found time to write an exposition of the prophecy of Isaiah. Duke Christopher called him to Mompelgard, where, in Jan., 1549, Brenz was notified of the death of his wife. The condition of his children induced him to go to Swabia, but owing to the pursuit of the emperor, he was often in great danger, and the duke sheltered him in the castle of Romberg near Gutach. There he spent eighteen months under the name of Huldrich Engster (Encaustius), always active for the welfare of the Church, both by his advice to the duke and his theological labors. He declined calls to Magdeburg, Konigsberg, and England. In Aug., 1549, he ventured to go to Urach, where his friend Isenmann was now minister, in order to take counsel with the duke, his advisers, and Matthaeus Alber (q.v.) regarding the restoration of the evangelical divine service. In the autumn of 1550 he married for his second wife Catharine, the oldest daughter of Isenmann.
After Ulrich's death Brenz was asked to prepare the confessio Wirtembergica for the Council of Trent, and with three other Wittenberg theologians and Johann Marbach of Strasburg, he went to Trent, Mar., 1552, to defend his creed (see 4. Activity, Beurlin, Jakob). Great was the
I55°-53- surprise of the fathers of the council, but they refused to be instructed by those who were to obey them. The Interim was abolished. Brenz who had thus far lived at Stuttgart, Tubingen, Ehningen, and Sindelfingen as counselor of the duke, was made provost of the Cathedral of Stuttgart, Sept. 24, 1554, and appointed ducal counselor for life. He was now the right hand of the duke in the reorganization of ecclesiastical and educational affairs in Wurttemberg. The great church order of 1553-59, containing also the confessio Wirtembergica, in spite of its dogmatism, is distinguished by clearness, mildness, and consideration. In like manner, his Catechismus pia et utile explicatione illustratus (Frankfort, 1551) became a rich source of instruction for many generations and countries. The proposition made by Kaspar Leyser and Jakob Andrea in 1554 to introduce a form of discipline after a Calvimstic model was opposed by Brenz, since he held that the minister should have charge of the preaching, the exhortation to repentance, and dissuasion from the Lord's Supper, whereas excommunication belonged to the whole church. At the instance of the duke, Brenz moved in 1553 to Neuburg, to arrange the church affairs of the Palatinate.
The Osiandric controversy about the doctrine of justification in 1551 and the following years, which caused a scandalous schism in Prussia, was a cause
of much annoyance and defamation
5. Contro- to Brenz, who saw in this controversy
versies. nothing but a war of words. In 1554-
1555 the question of the Religious Peace of Augsburg occupied his mind; in 1556 the conference with Johannes a Lasco, in 1557 the Frankenthal conference with the Anabaptists and the Worms Colloquy; in 1558 the edict against Schwenckfeld and the Anabaptists, and the Frankfort Recess; in 1559 the plan for a synod of those who were related to the Augsburg Confession and the Stuttgart Synod, to protect Brenz's doctrine of the Lord's Supper against Calvinistic tendencies; in 1563 and 1569 the struggle against Calvinism in the Palatinate (Maulbronn Colloquy) and the crypto- Calvinistic controversies. The attack of the Dominican Peter a Soto upon the Wurttemberg Confession in his Assertio fidei (Cologne, 1562) led Bren;: to reply with his Apologia confessionis (Frankfort, 1555). In 1558 he was engaged in a controversy with Bishop Hosius of Ermland. The development of the Reformation in the Palatinate led the aged man to a vehement renewal of his negotiation with Bullinger, with whom he had been forced into close relation through the Interim. The question concerned the doctrine of the Lord's Supper and also involved a peculiar development of Christology, which was opposed by the Lutheran theologians outside of Wurttemberg, since Brenz carried to its logical conclusion the concept of " personal union," thus favoring an absolute omnipresence (ubiquity) of the body of Christ, which did not begin with the ascension but with the incarnation.
Brenz took a lively interest in the Waldensians and the French Protestants. But all efforts in behalf of the latter, the journey of the Wurttemberg
theologians to Paris to advise King
6. Later Antony of Navarre in 1561 (see Beur-
Years. lin, Jakob), the meeting of the duke
and Brenz with Cardinal Guise of Lorraine at Zabern, the correspondence and the sending of writings, all ended in bitter disappointment. The Protestants of Bavaria, who had to suffer under Albert, also had his full sympathy. To the citizens of Strasburg Brenz expressed his doubts as to the advisability of following the procession with the monstrance and advised them not to attend mass. He was also deeply interested in the Protestants in Austria, for whom the first Slavic books were then printed at Urach. His last Reformatory activity was the correspondence with Duke William of Jiilich and Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel (1568-69). In addition to this he continued his exposition of the Psalms and other Biblical books, which he had commenced at Stuttgart. In 1569 he was paralyzed, and his strength was broken. He was buried beneath the pulpit of the cathedral; but the Jesuits demolished his grave.