THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
at Wittenberg (M.A., 1689; D.D., 1700); lectured with success on logic, ethics, and history in the philosophical faculty of that university; was transferred, in 1698, as professor extraordinary in the theological faculty, his thesis treating De auctoritate librorum symbolicorum; became regular professor in 1706; in 1710 was appointed provost at the residential church, and, shortly thereafter, general superintendent at Wittenberg. He became, notably in his later years, universally revered among his theological pupils, being affectionately known as “ Father Wernsdorf.”’ While his lectures were not always distinguished by depth, they were marked by clearness, excellence of form, and especially by great earnestness in the admonitory portions.
His Disputationes academice were published by Christian Heinrich Zeibich (2 vols., 1736). Special mention may be made of his De primordiis emendate per Lutherum religionis (new ed., 1735), and of his most extensive production, Grvindliche Reformationshistorie (Wittenberg, 1717), which comes down to the Diet of Augsburg, 1530.
Consistently with his theological position, he belonged to the advocates of the more lenient orthodoxy. His anti-Calvinistic arguments appear in the Demonstratio quod juxta Calvini doctrinam Reformati nec sint nec jure haberi possint socit Augustane Confessionis. He took part in the contemporary controversies with Pietists and Mystics, as with the leading philosophers of the time. If, on the one hand, he opposed the one-sided emphasis of emotion in religion, on the other hand he strongly emphasized the element of inspiration, which he held to be mediately operative even in the symbolical books of Lutheranism. Grora MUuuer. Brstiocraruy: C. Coler, De Wernsdorfii in rem sacram et
literartam meritis, Leipsic, 1719; J. A. Gleich, Annales eccle-
stastict, i. 369, ii. passim, Dresden, 1730; A. Tholuck,
Der Geist der lutherischen Theologen Wittenbergs, pp. 259
saq., Hamburg, 1852; ADB, xlii. 96-98.
WERNZ, FRANZ XAVER: General of the Jesuit order; b. at Rottweil (30 m. s.w. of Tiibingen) Dec. 4, 1842. On the completion of his education he became, in 1862, a teacher at the school of Stella Matutina in Feldkirch-im-Breisgau, whence he was later transferred to the seminary at Ditton Hall, Lancashire, as instructor in canon law. In 1883 he was appointed to the faculty of the Collegium Romanum, Rome, of which he was made rector in 1894, being at the same time a professor at the Gregorian University. He was chosen general of the Society of Jesus Apr. 18, 1906. He has written Jus decretalium ad usum prelectionum (4 vols., Rome, 1898-1904; 2d ed., 1905 sqq.).
WERTHEIM BIBLE. See Bistes, ANNOTATED, AND BIBLE SUMMARIES, I., § 4.
WESEL, vé’zel, JOHN OF: Reformer before the Reformation; b. at Ober-Wesel (26 m. w.n.w. of Mainz) in the early part of the fifteenth century; d. at Mainz after 1479. His family name is variously written Ruchrath or Richrath [Ruchard, Ruchrad, Rucherath], and the family itself was native to the immediate region where John was born. He first appears in history as matriculating at the University of Erfurt (1441-42), where he took the bachelor’s degree in 1442, the master’s in 1445,
became licentiate in 1456 and the same year doctor of theology. He was rector of the university in 1456-57, and at the end of 1457 was vice-rector for atime. In his work on the councils Luther declares that John ruled the university with his books, and these Luther himself used in preparing for his master’s degree. _Bartholomeus Arnoldi of Usingen reports in a work first printed in 1499 that John’s reputation still lived at Erfurt; he apologizes also for differing in opinion from John, whose statements, he declares, do not always square with the truth, professes to give an example of this from John’s commentary on the Aristotelian physics, and adds a cryptic remark to the effect that everything is not to be told to the public at large, though they may be clear to the learned. This can not be pressed so far as to mean that Arnoldi charged John with teachings contrary to those of the Church. Indeed, Johann von Lutter, many years a colleague of Wesel at Erfurt, reports that Wesel often said from his chair that he would maintain nothing which was dissonant from the teaching of the Roman Church or the doctrines of its approved doctors (N. Paulus, Der Augustiner Bartholoméius Arnoldi von Usingen, pp. 8 sqq., Strasburg, 1893). Yet Wesel may have given utterance to somewhat bold expressions regarding the early Fathers of the Church. Toward the end of 1460 Wesel was canon at Worms; and early in 1461 he became professor at Basel, though only after protracted negotiations. Here, too, his stay was brief, for in 1463 he was preacher at the cathedral at Worms. But his sermons caused offense, now by pedantic and confusing speculation, now by bold attacks upon the Church, its sacra- | ments, teachings, and tendencies. Bishop Reinhard was compelled to depose him, after warning him at Heidelberg in the presence of the theologians. Yet Diether von Isenberg, archbishop of Mainz, called him as pastor to the cathedral. Here, too, he aroused suspicions by relations with a Bohemian adventurer who had been accustomed to meet him at Worms and had followed him to Mainz, to whom he gave a little treatise for his companions in Bohemia. This came by a circuitous route into the hands of the archbishop, and, after it had been submitted to the professors of the university, brought punishment upon the Hussite and upon Wesel. The latter was put upon his defense before a board of theologians from Cologne and Heidelberg; he was then an old man of eighty, but it was reported that his answers before the inquisitors were indifferent, confused, suspicious, and evasive. On Sunday, Feb. 21, 1479, he recanted in the cathedral, his writings were burned, and he was himself condemned to lifelong repentance in the Augustinian monastery at Mainz, where soon afterward he died.
During the trial Wesel designated as his own four tracts: (1) Super modo obligationis legum humanarum ad quendam Nicolaum de Bohemia; (2) De potestate ecclesiastica; (3) De indulgentiis; and (4) De jejuniis. Of these only one can now be positively identified; the Disputatio adversus indulgentias is extant in a manuscript, in the royal library at Berlin, bearing the date 1478, and has been printed both by C. W. F. Walch in Monumenta medii evi, i. 1, pp. 111-156