RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bruce Brugmann
as the secretary and representative of the jurist Hennig Gode that princes and critics sought his advice. Frederick the Wise invited him to his court, and after the death of the electoral councilor Degenhard Pfeffinger (1519), Bruck seems to have taken his place. He was soon interested in Luther, and it was not without significance that he accompanied the elector to Cologne and Worms. Having returned to Wittenberg, Bruck received the degree of doctor of law, and soon afterward was appointed chancellor. His tact and ability greatly helped the cause of the Reformation, and the development of the Evangelical Church. He was instrumental in bringing about the Torgau-Magdeburg confederations; he advised the elector at the diets held at Speyer in 1526 and 1529, and it was due to him, next to Luther, that the Pack-disturbances did not lead to a general war. But his greatest services were rendered at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. He not only gave the first impulse to the composition of the Augsburg Confession, but he took part in the preparation of its details, wrote the introduction to it, caused it to be read in public, and gave to the emperor the Latin copy in the name of the Evangelical estates. He would not be intimidated, but, on the contrary, encouraged the timid, and acted as spokesman in all public debates, so that his eloquence and ability were even recognized by his opponents. Cochlaeus, well aware of the importance of Bruck, vainly tried to induce him to abandon the Lutherans by an "Admonition to Peace and Unity." Bruck's reply is unknown, for at the time he was engaged in writing a true account of events at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, which was first printed in Forstemann's Archiv fur die Geschichte der kirchlichen Reformation (Halle, 1831). Bruck attended all diets held during his lifetime, and he also strove for the consolidation of the Church, finally succeeding in 1542 in forming a permanent consistory. For a time he resided at Wittenberg, but after the disastrous end of the Schmalkald War, which he had consistently opposed, he followed the sons of the Elector to Weimar, remaining a loyal friend of the imprisoned Frederick. Still later Bnick retired to Jena, where he died.
(T. Kolde.)
Bibliography: CR, xii. 351 contains the Oratio de Gregorio Pontano (by Melanchthon); J. A. Wimmer, Vita Gregorii Pontani, Altenburg, 1730; T. Kolde, in ZHT, 1874, pp. 34 sqq.
BRUECKNER, brtik'ner, BENNO BRUNO:
German Protestant; b. at Rosswein (23 m. w. of Dresden) May 9, 1824. He was educated at the University of Leipsic, and after serving as pastor at Hohburg from 1850 to 1853 was appointed associate professor and second university preacher at Leipsic. Two years later he was made full professor, and in the following year was appointed university preacher and director of the seminary for practical theology. He became canon of Meissen and consistorial councilor in 1860, and nine years later went to Berlin as provost of St. Nicholas and St. Mary, honorary professor, university preacher, and member of the high consistory, of which he became clerical vice-president in 1877 In 1872 he
was chosen general superintendent of Berlin, and in the following year was appointed canon of Brandenburg. He became high consistorial councilor in 1880, a member of the Prussian council of state in 1884, and president of the united synods of the district of Berlin in 1889. His works include Epistola ad Philippenses Paulo auctori vindicata contra Baurium (Leipsic, 1848); Betrachtungen iiber die Agende der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche in Sachsen (1865); and numerous sermons, both individual and collected, many of which ran through several editions. He also edited the second and third editions of W M. L. De Wette's commentary on the Catholic Epistles (Leipsic, 1853-67) and the fifth edition of his commentary on the Gospel of John (1863).
BRUEGGLERS. See Kohler, Christian and
HlERONYMUS.
BRUGMANN, brug'man, JAN: A theologian and reformer of the Franciscan order in the Netherlands and Germany. The date of his birth is unknown, but from the way in which he speaks of his age in 1473, the year of his death, he was probably born about 1400, at Kempen. He was educated and admitted to the clerical state in a monastery of the northwestern Netherlands, perhaps Groningen. He joined the Franciscans at Saint- Omer in Artois, where the community was full of the spirit of St. Bernardin of Sienna, the founder of the strict or Observant Franciscans. Here he taught theology, until in 1439 he was charged, at the request of the town council of Gouda, with the erection of an Observantine house there, and later took part in a similar work at Stuis, Leyden, and Alkmaar. Learning to know the moral and spiritual condition of the people while discharging these missions, he set himself to elevate it by popular preaching, at the same time effecting a reform in the convents of Gronigen, Gorinchem, Haarlem, Warnsveld, and Nymwegen between 1450 and 1455. At Amsterdam he founded a house in 1462, and composed a bitter factional strife among the citizens. He brought about the foundation of the Observantine province of Cologne, of which he was provincial for several years. Feeling his end approaching, he retired to Nymwegen, where he died. His influence went far beyond the reform of the Franciscan houses; he ranks with the great popular preachers of the Netherlands at that time, such as Groote and Florentius Radewyns, with whom he was in close alliance. A few of his sermons have been printed (see below). He wrote also a life of Christ, which in some particulars resembles those of Bonaventura and Ludolf of Saxony, though adhering more closely to the Gospel narrative. In spite of its frequently erroneous exegesis and its arbitrary mystical interpretations, it is so full of simple piety and warm devotion that it awakens respect. He wrote also, in three different versions, the life of Lidwina of Schiedam, a mystical ascetic considered a saint in the Netherlands (1350-1443); it has recently been discovered that he was a vernacular spiritual poet of no slight importance.
L. Schulze.
Brolly Bruno