12
November 1562 A.D. The
passing of the Reformer, Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Peter Vermigli
Peter Martyr Vermigli
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Engraving
by an unknown artist
Peter Martyr Vermigli (Italian: Pietro Martire Vermigli, born Piero Mariano, 8 September
1499 – 12 November 1562) was an Italian theologian of the Reformation period who converted from Roman Catholicism
to Protestantism.
He was a very influential figure in the early development of Reformed theology
and in the English Reformation. Born in Florence,
he entered the Canons
Regular of Saint Augustine religious order and was
influenced by reading Protestant theologians such as Martin Bucer and Ulrich Zwingli. To avoid
persecution he was forced to flee Catholic Italy for the Reformed safe haven of
Switzerland. Thomas Cranmer invited him to
assist in the nascent English Reformation and he was appointed to a
professorship at Oxford University where he was influential in the development of the theology of the Eucharist in Protestant England and
in modifications of the Book of Common Prayer. Vermigli was forced to leave England on the ascension of Queen Mary I. He was engaged in
several controversies with Lutherans and Reformed theologians over the
Eucharist and predestination
in Strasbourg and Zurich. He lived his final days
teaching theology in Zurich.
Contents
Life
Basilica of San Frediano, where
Vermigli was appointed prior in 1541
Vermigli was born in Florence to Stefano di Antonio
Vermigli, a wealthy shoemaker and admirer of Savanorola, and Maria Fumantina.[1][citation
needed] The young couple originally christened their child Piero Mariano, but he
took the name Peter Martyr when he entered the novitiate of the Order of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine after the 13th-century Dominican St. Peter Martyr.
It was a common practice to take the name of a saint on entering a religious
order. Educated in the Lateran Congregation of the Austin Canons cloister at Badia Fiesolana,[1] he was transferred
in 1518 to the convent of St. John of Verdara
in Padua to study theology. The University of Padua, with which St. John of Verdera was loosely affiliated, was a very
prestigious institution at the time.[2] At Padua, he
received a thorough training in Thomistic scholasticism and appreciation
for Augustine and Christian humanism. He graduated D.D. about 1526[3] and made the
acquaintance of prominent reform-minded theologians Pietro Bembo, Reginald Pole, and Marcantonio Flaminio.[4] From that year
onwards he was employed as a public preacher at Brescia, Pisa, Venice and Rome.[citation
needed] He lived in Bologna
from 1530 to 1533, where he learned Hebrew in order to undertake an intensive
study of the Bible.[5] In 1533 he was
elected prior of the Augustinian
monastery at Spoleto,[6] and in 1537 prior
at the monastery of St
Peter ad Aram in Naples.[7] He was probably
involved in the 1536 Consilium
de emendanda ecclesia, an internal report on
the abuses of the Catholic Church commissioned by Pope Paul III. He also
represented the Catholics at the 1540 Colloquy of Worms.[8]
Toward the end of his time in Naples,
he read Martin Bucer's
commentaries on the Gospels
and the Psalms and also Zwingli's De vera et falsa
religione.[9] This was an act of
ecclesiastical defiance, but not an uncommon one in reformist circles. Vermigli
seems to have slowly moved in a Protestant direction primarily through study of
the Bible and the Church fathers,
especially Augustine.
He probably read Protestant literature critically, and it was common for those
in reform-minded circles to read Protestant writers while remaining in the
Roman Catholic Church.[10] He also became
acquainted with Juan de Valdés, whose teaching,
especially his strong doctrine of justification
by faith, was very similar to that of contemporary Protestants,
though Valdés remained a Catholic. Evangelical oriented Catholics such as Bernardino Ochino
and Marcantonio Flaminio, along with Vermigli, gathered with Valdés. Vermigli embraced the
Protestant doctrine of justification
by faith alone during this time, and he had probably
rejected the traditional Roman
Catholic view of the sacraments.[11] He was accused of
erroneous doctrine, and the Spanish viceroy of Naples Don Pedro de Toledo
prohibited his preaching. The prohibition was removed on appeal to Rome with
the help of powerful friends such as Cardinal Pole. In 1541 Vermigli was
elected the important post of prior of Basilica
of San Frediano in Lucca.[7]
Vermigli had actively pursued a reform
agenda at each of his posts, and he was especially successful in Lucca. His
reforms may have angered papal conservatives and led to the reconstitution of
the Roman Inquisition as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal
Inquisition in 1542 in order to suppress Protestant heresy. Summoned
to appear before a chapter of his Order at Genoa,
and warned by highly placed friends, he faced a crisis of conscience.[8] He fled in 1542 to
Pisa, where he celebrated a Protestant form of the Eucharist[12] and thence to
Ochino, at Florence. Ochino escaped to Geneva,[citation
needed] and Vermigli to Zurich.
At Zurich he was questioned by initially suspicious Protestant leaders Heinrich Bullinger, Konrad Pellikan,
and Rudolph Gualther; and then by Oswald Myconius
and Boniface
Amerbach in Basel.
He was finally granted professor of Hebrew and Old Testament in Strasbourg with Martin Bucer's support,
succeeding Wolfgang Capito.[8] He was under close
scrutiny, as Italian theologians were not trusted by the Reformers.[11] Vermigli became a
close personal friend and ally of Martin Bucer.[13] There he also
married his first wife, Catherine Dammartin of Metz.[14]
Vermigli and Ochino were both invited
to England by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1547, and
Vermigli was appointed Regius
Professor of Divinity at Oxford and canon
of Christ
Church.[15][citation
needed] Richard
Smyth, whom Vermigli had succeeded as Professor, challenged
Vermigli to a disputation
on the Eucharist in 1548, but fled before it could take place. Three Catholic
divines, William
Tresham, William Chedsey and Morgan Phillips stepped forward to
take his place. The dispuation put Vermigli at the forefront of debate over the
nature of the Eucharist.[16] He had adopted the
doctrine of a Real Presence conditioned by the faith of the recipient standard
among Reformed theologians such as John Calvin.[17] Indeed, Vermigli,
along with Martin Bucer, who was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, appears to have profoundly affected the views of Cranmer and Nicholas
Ridley, and historians have proven definitively that Vermigli
had a great deal of influence in the modifications of the Book of Common Prayer in 1552, the formulation of the Forty-Two
Articles of Religion of 1553, and Cranmer's
revision of canon law from 1551–1553, the Reformatio
Legum Ecclesiasticarum.[18][citation
needed]
On the ascension of Catholic Mary I of England,
Vermigli was permitted to return to Strasbourg, where since his departure and
the death of Bucer in 1551 Lutheranism had gained influence under the
leadership of Johann Marbach.
He was asked to sign both the Augsburg Confession and the Wittenberg Concordat. He was willing to sign the Augsburg Confession, but not the Concordat.[19] He was retained
anyway and reappointed professor of theology, but controversy over the
Eucharist as well as Vermigli's strong doctrine of double predestination continued with the Lutherans. Another professor in Strasbourg, Girolamo Zanchi, who had converted
to Protestantism while under Vermigli in Lucca, shared Vermigli's convictions
regarding the Eucharist and predestination, and they became allies. Vermigli
also befriended a number of English exiles, including John Jewel. His increasing
alienation from the Lutheran establishment lead him in 1556 to accept an offer
from Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich to succeed Konrad Pellikan as professor. John
Jewel came along with him.[20]
In Zurich, Vermigli's Eucharistic
views were accepted, especially since the Consensus
Tigurinus of 1549. He ran into controversy, however, over his
strong doctrine of predestination. Bullinger tolerated his view, though he did
not share it, but his colleague Theodore Bibliander was less conciliatory. Vermigli attempted to avoid confrontation over the
issue, but Bibliander began to openly attack him in 1557, at one point
challenging him to a duel with a double-edged axe. Bibliander was dismissed in
1560.[21] Vermigli attended
the Colloquy at Poissy in 1561 with Theodore Beza,
a conference held in France with the intention of reconciling Catholics and
Protestants. The colloquy was not a success.[22] Vermigli became
entangled in predestinarian controversy again in 1561, when Zanchi, who had
remained in Strasbourg when Vermigli left for Zurich, was accused of heretical
teachings on the Eucharist and predestination by the Lutheran John Marbach.
Vermigli was selected to write the official judgement of the Zurich church on
the matter. His affirmation of a strong doctrine of predestination represented
the opinion of the Zurich church as a whole.[23] Vermigli was
invited to Geneva in 1557, and to England again in 1561, but declined both
invitations. He remained in Zurich until his death on 12 November 1562,
maintaining a constant correspondence with Bishop John Jewel and other English
prelates and reformers.[22][citation
needed]
Wives
His first wife, Catherine, a former
nun who died at Oxford on 17 February 1553, was disinterred in 1557 and tried
for heresy; legal evidence was not
forthcoming because witnesses had not understood her tongue; and instead of the
corpse being burnt, it was merely cast on a dunghill in the stable of the dean
of Christ Church. On the initiative of James Calfhill,[24] the remains were
identified after Elizabeth's accession, mingled with the supposed relics of St Frideswide to prevent future
desecration, and reburied in the cathedral. Vermigli's second wife, Caterina
Merenda, whom he married at Zurich, survived him, marrying a merchant of Locarno.
Works
Vermigli published over a score of
theological works, chiefly Biblical commentaries and treatises on the
Eucharist. His learning was striking and profound, and he served as an
important theological resource for both the Swiss[25] and English
Reformations.[26] John Calvin himself regarded
Peter Martyr as one of the greatest expounders of the doctrine of the Eucharist
in Protestantism.
Historical study
Vermigli's friend and colleague Josias Simler expanded
Vermigli's funeral oration and published it as his biography in 1563. It is
very accurate and is the basis of subsequent accounts of Vermigli, though it
has been amended somewhat by recent studies, especially by Philip McNair's
work, Peter Martyr in Italy.[27] Though he was
frequently cited as an authority in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
no book-length biography of him was written after Simler's until the nineteenth
century. Mcnair's 1967 work seems to have caused a revival of Vermigli studies.[28] Modern Vermigli
study focuses on his connection to the development of Reformed
scholasticism. Scholars are divided between those who believe Vermigli
and other Italian Aristotelians betrayed biblical Calvinist theology for
scholastic method, those who do not see much scholastic influence in Vermigli,
and those who do not see a conflict between scholastic theological method and
the theology of early Calvinists.[29]
Notes
24. Jump up ^ Usher, Brett. "Calfhill,
James". Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4390. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
25. Jump up ^ Bruce Gordon. 2002. The
Swiss Reformation. Manchester: Manchester University Press; p. xx.
26. Jump up ^ M. A. Overell, "Peter
Martyr in England 1547-1553: an alternative view." The Sixteenth
Century Journal; 15 (1984), pp. 87-104
This article incorporates text from a publication now in
the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press It has been edited to reflect recent findings by historians,
especially McNair.
Sources
- James, Frank A., III (1998). Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The Augustinian Inheritance of an Italian Reformer. Oxford: Clarendon Press – via Questia (subscription required). Retrieved 8 April 2013.
- Steinmetz, David C. (2001). Reformers in the Wings: From Geiler Von Kaysersberg to Theodore Beza (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press – via Questia (subscription required). Retrieved 8 April 2013.
Further reading
- Anderson, Marvin W. (1996) "Peter Martyr Vermigli." Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. (Oxford, 1996). vol. 4. pp. 229–31.
- Anderson, Marvin W. (1975) Peter Martyr Vermigli: a Reformer in Exile, 1542-1562; a chronology of Biblical writings in England and Europe. Nieuwkoup: B. de Graaf.
- Campi, Emidio, ed. (2002) Peter Martyr Vermigli: humanism, republicanism, reformation = Petrus Martyr Vermigli: Humanismus, Republikanismus, Reformation. Genève: Droz.
- Donnelly, John Patrick (1990) A Bibliography of the Works of Peter Martyr Vermigli; compiled by John Patrick Donnelly in collaboration with Robert M. Kingdon; with a register of Vermigli's correspondence by Marvin W. Anderson. Kirksville, Mo: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers ISBN 0-940474-14-X
- Donnelly, John Patrick (1976) Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermigli's Doctrine of Man and Grace. Leiden: Brill.
- James, Frank A. ed. (2004) Peter Martyr Vermigli аnd the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda, Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13914-1
- Kirby, W. J. Torrance; Campi, Emidio & James, Frank A. (2009) A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli. Leiden: Brill.
- McLelland, Joseph C. (1957) The Visible Words of God: An Exposition of the Sacramental Theology of Peter Martyr Vermigli A.D. 1500-1562. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- McNair, Philip. (1967) Peter Martyr in Italy: an anatomy of apostasy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Zuidema, Jason. (2008) Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562) and the Outward Instruments of Divine Grace. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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