RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Urlsperger Ursinus
ter, and when Valentinian deemed peace restored, he permitted Ursinus to return to Rome (Sept. 15, 367). On Nov. 16, however, the turbulent situation made it necessary to banish Ursinus again with his clergy, whereupon his adherents worshiped in the cemeteries without priests. On Jan. 12, 368, the emperor permitted the clergy of Ursinus to reside anywhere outside of Rome, but a few months later he was obliged to forbid them to approach within twenty miles of the city. Every effort was made, however, to avoid all unnecessary severity. In 378 a Roman synod thanked the emperor for recognizing the authority of Damasus, but at the same time expressed apprehension of the clergy of Ursinus, particularly of a converted but relapsed Jew named Isaac. In his reply the emperor declared that Ursinus had long been confined in Cologne and that his entreaties for release had been ignored, while all disturbers of the peace were forbidden to assemble within a hundred miles of Rome. Nevertheless, in 381 the Synod of Aquileia again complained of Ursinus, and even after the death of Damasus in Dec., 384, the banished antipope was still an object of apprehension. The two rivals, Damasus and Ursinus, seem to have been equally orthodox, the cause of the schism probably being ambition and its attendant passions. Ursinus died after 385.
Gennadius has the following: ‘‘ Ursinus the monk wrote against those who say that heretics should be rebaptized. . . . He considers that after the simple confession of the Holy Trinity and of Christ, the imposition of the hands of the Catholic priest is sufficient for salvation” (De vir. ill., xxvii., Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., iii. 391). This Ursinus is doubtless the antipope, and the polemic mentioned by Gennadius is probably the pseudo-Cyprianic De rebaptismate, which modern scholarship places in the third century. Whatever the authorship of the work in question, it is known that during the time of Ursinus a certain deacon named Hilarius demanded the rebaptism of all who had been baptized by Arians, and it is probable that Gennadius was rightly informed when he stated that Ursinus polemized against such tenets.
(G. A. JULICcHER.)
BrsuiocRapuy: Besides the literature under Damasus I. (q.v.), consult: Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, i. 212 sqq., Paris, 1886, and Mommsen, MGH, Gest. pont. Rom., i (1898), 37; Collectio Avellana, 1-13, ed. Giinther in CSEL, xxxy. 1; Rufinus, Hist. eccl., xi. 1; Ammianus Marcellinus, ‘‘ Roman Hist.,”” XXVII., iii. 11-18, ix. 9, Eng. transl. by G. D. Yonge, pp. 441, 457, London, 1887; DCB, iv. 1068-70.
URSINUS, ZACHARIAS: German Reformed; b. at Breslau July 18, 1534; d. at Neustadt-on- Hardt (21 m. s.s.w. of Worms) Mar. 6, 1583. He received his first training in the Elisabethschule at
Breslau, and was matriculated at Wit-
Educa- tenberg Apr. 30, 1550, where a munition and cipal allowance and some support by Early —_ well-to-do patrons, including Johann Career. Krafft (q.v.), afforded him his means of
subsistence. He studied here until 1557, and became closely associated with Melanchthon, the vindictive attacks to which the latter was exposed filling him with aversion for the quarrelsome disposition of many theologians. This antipathy
was increased when, in Sept., 1557, just as he was beginning an extensive academic journey, he witnessed the shameful contentions between the Protestants present at the religious conference in Worms. From Worms Ursinus went, by way of Strasburg, Basel, and Lausanne, to Geneva, where Calvin received him kindly, and he then remained for some time in Paris to study Hebrew under Jean Mercier. On his return Ursinus visited Zurich, after which he returned to Wittenberg, where, in Sept., 1558, he received a call from the Breslau Council to teach in the Elisabethschule. Here he gave open expression to his theological convictions, which ranged him, as he had discerned on his journey, on Calvin’s side in regard to the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper; and being attacked as a “‘ sacramentarian,” he made a clear exposition of his tenets in his Theses complectentes . . . summam vere doctrine de sacramentis (Breslau, 1559). The work was prohibited in Breslau, and Ursinus was dismissed. Provided with traveling expenses by Krafft, he started for Zurich toward the end of June, 1560, by way of Wittenberg, Heidelberg, and Basel, reaching his destination Oct. 3.
In the following year, when Elector Friedrich III., the Pious (q.v.), was seeking to obtain a capable Reformed theologian for the directorship of the Heidelberg Collegium Sapientie, which had been transformed into a sort of theological seminary, Peter Martyr Vermigli (q.v.) recommended Ursinus, who, after considerable wavering, accepted the call, taking office Oct. 13, 1561. Here, besides the guidance of the institution, he had to supply the chair of dogmatics from Aug., 1562, to 1568; and in addition to all this he was obliged, beginning with 1563, to deliver a catechetical sermon every Sunday and to collaborate in preparing the new Palatine liturgy. His part in the drafting of the Heidelberg Catechism and his preliminary works for this purpose (the Summa theologie and the Catechismus minor) have already been indicated in HnipELBERG CATECHISM, § 2. It was Ursinus who had to conduct the philo-
sophic vindication of the Catechism
At against the vehement attacks of Lu- Heidelberg. theran theologians, this constraining him, much against his inclination, to
engage in ever new theological feuds. It was Ursinus, in like manner, who was obliged to undertake the advocacy of the Palatinate party in connection with the embittered literary disputes at the Maulbronn colloquy (see MautBronn). In 1566, he sought to confute, in his Augsburger Konfession . . . mit thren eigenen Worten in Fragsttick gestellt, and in his Articul, in denen die evangelischen Kirchen im Handel des Abendmahls einig oder spénig sind, the assertion that the Palatines had fallen away from the Augsburg Confession, and were, therefore, to be excluded from the religious treaty of peace. It was with reluctance that Ursinus had become a contestant in this dispute, and he longed for the time when he could retire from the arena. His official position alone claimed his powers beyond rightful bounds, and, owing to the frequent lack of an assistant, he was often compelled to take sole charge of the seventy pupils. In Feb., 1568, he was relieved of his dogmatic lectures by the call of Zanchi (q.v.),
Ursinus Uruguay