THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
marvelous gifts of healing. (3) Erasmus (Ital. Elmo), whose death is dated by tradition in 303, is said, after being unharmed by burning pitch and brimstone in Lebanon, to have come to Formiae in Campania, where he converted many heathen and worked miracles by his prayers. (4) Margaret, a Christian virgin, beheaded after incredible tortures at Antioch in Pisidia during the Diocletian persecution, is said to have prayed in prison especially for women in childbirth and for the amelioration of their pangs. (5) Pantaleon is said to have been Diocletian's physician in Nicomedia, and, after marvelous deeds of self-sacrificing devotion during the first two years of this monarch's persecution, is supposed to have been tortured and beheaded. (6) Vitus (Ital. Guido) is said, at the age of seven or twelve, to have converted his nurse, St. Crescentia, and her husband, Modestus, and to have performed miracles, healing the emperor's son of demoniac possession. He refused to sacrifice to idols, and after terrible tortures was drowned in the Lucanian river Silarus. Each of these saints is invoked in special forms of danger, as Margaret in difficult delivery, Vitus in possession by demons and cramps, iEgidius in pestilence, and Barbara in fever.
The formation of this group of fourteen saints may date back to 610, when Boniface IV. converted the Pantheon at Rome into the Christian Church of the Virgin and the Martyrs, replacing the fourteen idols in it with an equal number of altars with relics of martyrs. At all events, the origin of the cult of this group is far prior to the vision, in 1446, in which the Upper Franconian shepherd Hermann Leicht beheld the Christ-child surrounded by the helpers in need, thus leading to the foundation of the famous pilgrim shrine of the Vierzehnheiligen-Kirche near Staffelstein. (O. ZocKLERf.)
Bibliography: Uhrig, in TQ, lxx (1888), 72-128; G. Ott, Die 14 Nothelfer, Steyl, 1882; H. Weber, Die Verehrung der 14 heiligen Nothelfer, Kempten, 1886; F. Posl, Legende von den 14 heiligen Nothelfern, Regensburg, 1891; J. Kieffer, Die heiligen 14 Nothelfer, Dulmen, 1900; KL, ix. 515-522.
HELVETIC CONFESSIONS.
I. The First Helvetic Con- Its Acceptance by the
fession, 1536. Swiss (§ 3).
Origin of the Confession II. The Second Helvetic Con-
(§ 1). fession, 1566.
Its Content (§ 2). Origin and History (§1).
Content (§ 2).
I. The First Helvetic Confession, 1536 (Confessio Helvetica prior, also called Second Confession of Basel, Confessio Basiliensis posterior, 1. Origin in distinction from the Basel Confesof the sion of 1534; see Basel, Confession Confes- of): The reformatory movement of sion. Switzerland was for a long time without a uniform formula of confession, each city having its own confession. It was only in 1536 that the necessity for uniformity was felt, when Pope Paul III. (q.v.) convened a general council, to meet in Mantua in the following year. The desirability of a union between the Reformed and the Lutherans was recognized, and Capito of Augsburg and Butzer of Strasburg especially tried to influence the Swiss Reformed in the direction of
union. Luther expressed a longing for peace in several letters to Upper German cities. The chief task of the mediators was to have a Swiss formula of the Lord's Supper prepared which would meet the approval of Luther. At the end of 1534 Butzer held a convention of Swabian cities on the question of the Lord's Supper at Constance, to which the Zurich Reformers sent a Confessio super eucharislia with the approval of Basel, Schaffhausen, and St. Gall. It acknowledged that the true body and the true blood of Christ are really present in the Lord's Supper, and are offered to the believers who eat the true body by faith. All ideas of substance were guarded against, but the people of Bern refused their signature. Even a more moderate formula drawn up by theologians of Zurich and Basel in 1535 at Aarau, did not satisfy the people of Bern. They desired a general meeting, and this was convened by the magistrates of Zurich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Muhlhausen, and Biel, on Jan. 30, 1536, at Basel. A general confession was here drawn up by Bullinger of Zurich, Myconius and Grynseus of Basel, and others. They were joined later by Leo Jud of Zurich and Megander of Bern, and still later by Butzer and Capito.
The confession declared emphatically that the Lord's Supper is not merely a human act of confession, but that the bread and wine 2. Its are food and nourishment of spiritual Content, and eternal life. Nevertheless, the confession did not go beyond the statement of the spiritual partaking of the person of the crucified Christ. Speaking generally, it removed the peculiarities of Zwinglian theology most offensive to the Lutherans in the spirit of the Zwinglian Reformation. This spirit finds expression in the arrangement of the whole — the Scripture, its interpretation and "purpose" forms the basis (arts. i. -v.), upon which the doctrines of salvation (vi.-xiii.) and then, with characteristic minuteness of detail, the doctrines of the Church, the Word, the sacraments, and church ordinances (xiv.-xxvii.) are discussed. In particular points the Reformed spirit is recognizable from the still intact union of the new life with the faith of salvation (art. xiii.); also from the doctrine of the Church, which places the invisible congregation of the exalted Christ in the foreground, and emphasizes as the sign of the visible congregation " common, public, and orderly discipline " (art. xiv.).
The confession was written in Latin, and translated into German by Leo Judae. After the completion of the theological work, the 3. Its Ac- secular and spiritual delegates asceptance by sembled on Feb. 4 for a final session. the Swiss. The Strasburg party once more emphasized the necessity of Christian harmony with the German estates, but the delegates claimed to possess no authority in that matter. On Mar. 27 the delegates of the town councils assembled again at Basel, without theologians, and unanimously accepted the confession. Then the delegates of Strasburg and Constance were called before the assembly, but they refused their signature; the Strasburg delegate especially, who \yas accompanied by Capito — the only theologian