29
July 1579 A.D. Lutheran
Niels Hemmingsen—Stripped of Position at Copenhagen University for Reformed
Views of the Table
Hutchinson,
E.J. “July 29, 1579.” Calvinistic International. 29 Jul 2014. http://calvinistinternational.com/2014/07/29/july-29-1579/.
Accessed 29 Jul 2014.
July 29, 1579
Today is an important day in the history of the
Church.
Ok, I suppose that’s not entirely accurate; but
it’s important to me, so I’m going to post about it
anyway.
July 29 is the anniversary of the day on which
the Lutheran Niels Hemmingsen, at the time Denmark’s most famous intellectual
and academic and held in high esteem by King Frederick II, was stripped of his
position at the University of Copenhagen for espousing increasingly “Calvinist”
views of the Lord’s Supper in a couple of theological works. Hemmingsen
probably would not have had a problem if it had not been for the complaints of
German agitators in Saxony, which happened to be governed by Frederick’s
brother-in-law Augustus, Elector of Saxony.
Trygve Skarsten explains what happened:
It is clear…that in 1571 Hemmingsen attacked
the Gnesio-Lutherans and the doctrine of ubiquity in his Demonstratio
indubitatae veritatis de Domino Jesu. The following year an
extended visit from some Saxon crypto-Calvinist teachers laid the groundwork
for the impending crisis. In 1574, in a large dogmatic work entitled Syntagma
institutionum Christianarum, Hemmingsen openly hailed the Calvinist
doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.
So strong was his support and following in
Denmark that nothing would have come of all this had it not been for complaints
from abroad. About this time the ardent Lutheran Elector Augustus of Saxony
(brother-in-law of King Frederick of Denmark) was seeking to rid his territory
of crypto-Calvinism only to have the Wittenberg Philippist theologians invoke
the writings of Hemmingsen. A plot to import Calvinism into Saxony was also
uncovered by the elector. When the defendants were questioned, they cited the
views of Hemmingsen, whom they had recently visited in Copenhagen. A complaint
was immediately lodged with Frederick II who called upon Hemmingsen to renounce
his position on the Lord’s Supper. Although it was very difficult for
Hemmingsen, he finally conceded in 1576 so that the Danish Church could be free
of any suspicion of false teaching. It was clear that he still held to
the Variata Augustana, the altered Augsburg Confession as
modified by Melanchthon in 1540 and 1542. Continued accusations came from
Germany regarding Hemmingsen’s ongoing teaching career. Finally on July 29,
1579, the king dismissed him from his position as professor, and recommended
that he leave Copenhagen and take up residence in Roskilde.
But that wasn’t quite the end of the story;
Hemmingsen neither burned out nor faded away:
Far from fading away, Hemmingsen’s works
continued to come off the printing presses, and his fame only increased,
especially in Calvinist sections of Europe where he was looked upon as a kind
of martyr. The king continued to seek him out for counsel and guidance on
difficult questions. (Trygve R. Skarsten, “The Reaction in Scandinavia,”
in Discord, Dialogue, and Concord, ed. Lewis W.
Spitz and Wenzel Lohff [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977], 139-40).
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