By Mr. Andy Underhile
Zacharias Ursinus & Caspar Olevianus: Authors of the Heidelberg Catechism
Zacharias Ursinus & Caspar Olevianus: Authors of the Heidelberg Catechism
Without question the Heidelberg Catechism is one of the most, if not the most, beloved Confession of all time. Those who cherish the heritage of the truth and turn to the Confessions of the church to learn it will rejoice in the Heidelberger as a precious gift of God through the Spirit of Truth Whom Christ promised the church.
Not only those who belong to churches which have made the Catechism their theological basis, but God's people from any tradition and from all ecclesiastical backgrounds, love and cherish this glorious creed.
Its attractiveness lies in two characteristics. The first is its warm and personal style. It speaks to the experience of the child of God. It tells him what the truth means to him personally in his own life and calling in the world. The second is its dominating theme of comfort. The personal and experiential aspect of the Catechism looks at the truth in all our life as a truth which brings comfort. It echoes the words of God in Isaiah 40:1: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."
In the last chapter we described the role that Frederick the Pious played in the writing of the Heidelberg Catechism. In this chapter we will let the authors themselves step out of the obscure past and take their place momentarily on the stage of history to tell us of what God worked in them.
Zacharias Ursinus
Ursinus's Early Life
Zacharius Ursinus was born on July 18, 1534 in the town of Breslau of Silesia, a province of Austria. He was born of a family by the name of Baer, or Bear. Those who know the Big Dipper as Ursa Major will also know that Ursinus is only the Latin word for bear.
His parents were poor, for the wages of a tutor were meager and his father was a tutor. Two advantages, however, were his, brought up as he was in a tutor's home. The first was that he was surrounded from infancy with learning, and the second was that he had an opportunity to meet many of the rich and famous in the course of his early years.
Ursinus studied in Breslau until his 15th year, when he went to Wittenberg. Four years after Luther's body had been laid to rest in the cathedral of Wittenberg, and while Philip Melanchthon, Luther's colleague and close friend, was still teaching, Ursinus came to this notable and famous school. Because his parents could not support him, his expenses were underwritten by the Senate of Breslau, with the understanding that he would return to his native town to teach after he had completed his education.
Although he was a very able and gifted student, Ursinus was shy and retiring, tending somewhat to be moody, and not at all inclined to participate in the intellectual rough and tumble of classroom life in a university. Nor did he eagerly seek the companionship of his fellow students who, oftentimes with excessive gaiety, would celebrate the freedom of an academic life. He preferred to compose Greek and Latin verses in the solitude of his study.
He would probably have passed through the halls of the university scarcely noticed if it were not for the fact that Melanchthon observed his ability, took Ursinus into his own home, and became a friend and companion as well as teacher to the shy student. It was a strange but rich friendship, a 53 year old gifted theologian with a poor student of 16.
The Lutheran Reformation had penetrated Breslau prior to Ursinus's birth and had influenced his parents. Wittenberg was the center of Lutheran studies. It is not surprising that Ursinus became an ardent Lutheran. But already Melanchthon was having second thoughts about Luther's view of the Lord's Supper and was more inclined to agree with the Swiss theologians on the presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Ursinus was influenced by Melanchthon and developed his own views, which were more like those of his mentor.
Ursinus spent seven years with Melanchthon and even accompanied him to Worms and Heidelberg in 1557. Heidelberg was the city in which Ursinus would do his most important work. He saw it for the first time in the golden autumn of October. On the hillside covered with trees stood the imposing castle in which the Elector lived. The city was in the narrow valley of the Neckar River which flowed through the Black Forest to the Rhine just a few miles away. The Church of the Holy Spirit dominated the city with its spires soaring above the roofs of the houses. Almost at the feet of the spires was the most famous and oldest university in Germany, the University of Heidelberg. It had been Roman Catholic; it was now Protestant. Whether it would be Lutheran or Reformed had yet to be decided. It was Melanchthon's home, the land for which he longed. But Melanchthon had not come to stay; his life's work was on the sandy and dusty soil of Wittenberg.
After traveling together to Heidelberg, Ursinus and Melanchthon parted ways, Ursinus to travel for a year throughout Europe visiting the Protestant centers of learning in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He could read the Hebrew lectures of Jean Mercier in Paris, sit at the feet of Bullinger in Zurich, and talk with Calvin in Geneva. In fact, Calvin presented him with a gift of a complete set of Calvin's works, signed by their illustrious author.
For a few short years he fulfilled his obligations to Breslau by teaching there. But the Lutherans suspected him of being more Reformed than Lutheran in his views of the Lord's Supper. They were right; but it was a whispering campaign against him, finally exploding into public debate, which persuaded Ursinus to resign his position and leave the city. He never did enjoy controversy, and the bitterness of the hatred in Breslau was more than he could bear.
From Breslau Ursinus went to Zurich for a short time of peace and quietness in which he became a close friend of Peter Martyr, the Reformer from Italy who had made such a notable contribution to the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper. His decision to go to Zurich was a difficult one. He told his uncle:
Not unwillingly do I leave my fatherland, since it does not permit the confession of the truth, which I can not with good conscience give up. If my teacher Melanchthon still lived, I would go nowhere else but to him. But as he is dead, I will go to Zurich where there are pious, great and learned men. As for the rest, God will care.
Ursinus found companionship and fellowship here with men with whom he was in complete agreement.
Frederick the Pious wanted a Reformed professor in Heidelberg and called Peter Martyr. Martyr declined the call on the grounds of old age, but recommended Ursinus. When Ursinus received the call from Frederick, he was most reluctant to go. He as well as anyone knew the tensions and controversies which were tearing apart that city. To a friend he wrote: "Oh that I could remain hidden in a corner. I would give anything for shelter in some quiet village."
But God has a way of calling a person to a work from which he shrinks. So it was with Moses. So it was when Calvin, at the threats of the fiery Farel, was persuaded to stay in Geneva. So God called Ursinus, shy and retiring, to the swirling ecclesiastical and doctrinal hubbub of Heidelberg.
Years In Heidelberg
Times in Heidelberg were trying. Although through the wise and godly rule of Frederick the Pious Roman Catholicism had been pretty much rooted out of the city, Lutheranism and the Reformed faith were vying for dominance. The differences were almost exclusively over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but violent and radical Lutherans were doing everything they could to rid the city of any men who disagreed with their position.
Ursinus was appointed head of the Collegium Sapientiae, the College of Wisdom, as it was called. But it was not long after, that he was appointed to occupy the chair of Dogmatics. And every imaginable chore and obligation were thrust upon him, as Frederick and others sought to make use of his enormous abilities and clear understanding of the truth.
It was not as a joke that Ursinus put a sign on the door to his office in the University which contained on it a bit of Latin doggerel which translated read: "Friend who enters here: be quick, or go; or help me with my work."
Yet his work for which he is renowned is his authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism. With Caspar Olevianus, he was instructed to draw up a confession which could be used for the instruction of the people of the Palatinate and could serve as a basis of unity.
Ursinus had earlier written a small Catechism in Latin, which also had proceeded from the idea of comfort. It had suggested to Ursinus the theme of this Catechism, and much of this earlier work was absorbed into the Heidelberger. It is hard for us to believe that Ursinus was only 28 years old at the time, but he had been steeped from infancy in Reformational theology and he was a man of brilliant gifts with which God had endowed him. The work began in 1562 and took nearly a year. It was a great time for Confessions: the Thirty-Nine Articles had been adopted by the Church of England; Bullinger had written his beautiful Second Helvetic Confession; and Spanish persecutors in the Lowlands were hunting the author of the Belgic Confession, Guido de Brès.
Frederick pressed the work forward at the swiftest possible rate. When the Catechism was nearly ready in early 1563, he summoned a large company of ministers and teachers from throughout the Palatinate to meet in solemn assembly to discuss and, if possible, approve the work. After solemn worship services and lengthy discussion, the assembled group was so moved by the genius of the work that they unanimously recommended to Frederick that it be adopted without change. And so it was.
In the second edition, Frederick ordered Q. & A. 80 to be added, though without the sharp language concerning the mass; but when the attacks of Roman Catholics increased in bitterness and intensity, Frederick made another change in this same question and answer which included the words which have ever afterward vexed the souls of Roman Catholics, words which branded the mass as "an accursed idolatry." Frederick also ordered that it be divided into 52 sections, or Lord's Days, so that it could be preached from beginning to end in one year.
It quickly ran through many editions and was soon translated into different languages, including the Dutch, where it became a treasured confession of the Dutch Reformed Churches.
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