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Friday, April 27, 2018

Bayle on Johannes Sturmius, Note D.

Note D from Bayle's Dictionary Entry on Johannes Sturmius [Link]:


It is said he abstained several years from the public exercises of religion.] Osiander laid it to his charge that he had never been at church for the twenty last years. Sturmius made him this answer[1]: If you should preach thirty years at Strasburgh I would never go to your sermons. During the last thirty years I would have constantly avoided to hear you preach, if I had been obliged to be silent, and to approve your invectives by my silence[2]. After I had been silent and kept off a long time from the sermons and disputes of your ministers, I was present at the last public disputation of Pappus; and because I said something, which might have removed the perplexity the opponent had reduced him to, I raised a storm against me, by which I have been almost overwhelmed: how then can you object to me that I have been twenty years without going to your sermons? Et mihi objicis viginti annorum neglectas condones i cum una disputatiuncula, cui vix interfui, me prope perdiderit? He mentions to him those, who in the primitive Church, put off receiving baptism till the last moment of their lives ; which shews that they were a long time without communicating. He alledges, James Sturmius, who had been several years without receiving the communion, and abstained from it, by reason of the dispute the ministers had raised about the Eucharist. 'Quis Jacobo Sturmio suit diligentior, in nostræ urbis religione, & Senatus autoritate defendenda? Quam multos annos ille vir ad mensam Domini non accessit? Quam quæso ob causam aliam, quam propter hoc Theologorum. diffidium? Id circone aut Ecclesiam, aut Senatus autoritatem contemsit[3].

[‘What man in this city was more active in supporting our religion, and the authority of the senate, than James Sturmius? Nevertheless he abstained many years from the holy communion, because of the difference of Divines upon this point. But did he for that despise either the Church, or the authority of the senate ?']

His other answers give ground to believe that Osiander accused him of hindering his wife, his servants, and his boarders, from going to church. He calls it a falsity, and defies his adversary to produce a witness of his accusation. ‘I married,’ says he, ‘my third wife seven years ago; I lived twenty years with the first[4], and as many years with the second[5]. No body can say that they have not constantly heard sermons, and received the communion, and been very careful to give alms. I shall set down in Latin what concerns his servants. 'Tot jam annos, tot scribas & famulos, tot ancillas, tantam familiam habui: ex his unum aliquem bonum compares, qui dicat, fe meo jam, aut me autore a concionibus, & a sacra mensa abfuisie[6].

[‘I have had for so many years such a numerous family of transcribers, footmen, and servant-maids. Now find one honest person among all these, who can say that he had my commands or authority, for not hearing sermons and receiving the sacrament.']


He names some of his boarders, and, among others, two grand-sons of a sister of Martin Luther, who, says he, will witness that I never reproved them for hearing sermons. Hitherto he has said nothing that contains a formal denial of what was objected to him, that he had been twenty years without hearing any sermon ; but afterwards he calls it a lie, as you may see in these words : 'At viginti jam annos nullas conciones audivisti: at si tu istud viginti annos affirmes, totos viginti annos mentieris, quod pace tua dictum velim. Quamobrem, inquis, non venis? tot jam annis. An non respondi? si tu tot annos conciones tales haberes, cujusmodi tu & Pappus sæpe habetis: tot ego te etiam deinceps, audire nequeam, & causam quaeris, quam tibi jam exposui[7]?

[‘But you say that I have heard no sermons for twenty years. If you insist upon its being twenty years, I must beg leave lo tell you that it is a gross falsehood. You ask why I have not come to church for so many years ? Have I not already answered you ? If you were to preach for so many years in the manner that you and Pappius do, just so long would I refuse to hear you, and yet you ask the reason, which I have already told you.']

To make this part of his answer coherent, we must suppose that he did not avoid all sorts of sermons in general; but only those of such rigid Lutherans as Pappus was.

Nevertheless it is certain that a Divine of the Confession of Augsburgh, has asserted that John Sturmius was above twenty years without going to church and receiving the sacrament, and that he used to play at chess in sermon-time. ‘Venerabile Ministerium Argentoratense non ignorat, Sturmium ultra 20 annos nec templum frequentasse, nec sacra coena usum. Retulit mihi M. Frideric. Rhodius, olim Superintendens Armstadi ens in Thuringia, gravis Theologus, quique multos per annos Sturmii fuerat domesticus convictor, sé illum vidisse nunquam in templo, sed plerumque ludo scachorum diebus Conradus Dominicis sub concionis tempus trivisse[8]. Mr Crenius, who affords me this curious passage, mentions another, which shews what John Pappus answered, being accused of never praying for the Reformed Churches of France. How could John Sturmius, says he, hear me pray for them I have served these ten years the church and university of Strasburgh, and he has never heard my lectures nor my sermons. Tu vero audiveris? Ecquam igitur scholam meam, aut concionem toto hoc decennió, quo in schola & Ecclesia jam ministro audivisii[9]? Afterwards Pappus tells him what he begs of God, not only for the Protestants of France, but also for all persecuted Churches. 1. That the errors which their miniſters teach them, be not imputed to them. 2. That God would be pleased to discover to them the truths they are ignorant of. 3. To strengthen them in their afflictions, and enable them to suffer them patiently, and not to relapse into Popish Idolatry. 4. To convert or restrain their persecutors. Atqui ego quotidie, & in Ecclesia, & domi Deum precor, non modo pro Gallicanis, sed pro omnibus afflictis & persecutionem patientibus Ecclesiis: & ne nescias, haec ipsis precor. 1. Ne Dominus ipsis errores, quibus inscientes imbuuntur a suis Doctoribus imputet, &c[10].

I must not forget that Sturmius was accused of flattering the Roman Catholics. If this accusation was grounded on his writing against them in a civil, and not in a passionate and injurious manner, it was very unjust. His moderation was very acceptable to his Popish adversaries; and Cardinal Sadolet, and John Cochlaeus writ very civilly against him[11]. He asked[12] whether they alledge as proof, a piece of poetry, wherein he had lately congratulated the Bishop of Strasburgh upon his coming to town, and his agreement with the magistrates; and he maintained that it would be a very wrong reason, seeing the friendship established between that prelate and the magistrates, was a very proper subject for a congratulation; and he adds a particular reason, grounded upon the family of that prelate. He was Count of Manderscheidt, related to those with whom our Sturmius had learned the Latin tongue.[13] He confessed that many illustrious persons of the Church of Rome had been his friends and his patrons, and he declared, that tho' we are displeased with the conduct of great men and princes in some respects, yet we ought to esteem their virtues and fine qualities[14]. ‘In magnis autem viris & in Principibus, etiami aliqua displiceant, tamen virtutes magnæ sunt confiderandae, ut in Sadoleto, Bembo, Julio Phlugio, aliis. que doćtissimis viris. In Carolo V pater tuus[15], si meministi, quid improbarit, nosti: non placebant in hoc Imperatore, ita non placebant, ut illi in ratione militari gloriam, & in victoriis aequitatem, & fortunam non adimeremus.

[‘Great men and princes, tho' they may displease us in some things, are nevertheless to be esteemed for their eminent virtues and good qualities; for example, Sadoletus, Bembo, Julius Phlugius, and other learned men. You remember, I suppose, what your father found fault with in Charles V: nevertheless; those things which did not please us in that emperor, displeased us in such a manner, that we did not seek to strip him of his glory in war, of his moderation in victory, and of his “good fortune.”’]

To this example of Charles V he adds that of the Guises, pretending that the French Protestants did not scruple to acknowledge their valour, their parts, &c. It must be confessed that those maxims are very reasonable; but they are little practised by men transported with zeal, or of a fiery temper.



[1] Sturmius, in IV Anti-Pappi, Part. iii, pag. 165.
[2] Id. ibid. pag. 166.
[3] Id. ibid.
[4] Joanna Ponderia. Id. ib. pag. 167. Melchior Adam, ubi supra, pag. 343 & 345, calls her Jubanna Pisonia which doubtless made Mr. Baillet, article lxxv, of the Anti call her Joanne le pois. Melchoir Adam, pag. 345, says she was a native of Paris, and that she died a few years after her husband had settled at Strasburgh. Which cannot be, since she lived twenty years with him.
[5] Margarita Wigandia: she was the daughter of the wife of John Sapidus, colleague of Sturmius: the only son she had by him died a child. Melch. Adam, ibid.
[6] Sturm. ubi supra, pag. 167.
[7] Id. ibid.
[8] Conradus Schlusseburg, in extrema, constant, christiana, necessaria, Responsione & Explicatione ad calumniosum Script. Christoph. Pelarei, apud Crenium, Animadvers. Philol. & Historic. Part. vi, pag. 142.
[9] Jo. Pappus, Defens. III, contra Sturmium, pag. 118, apud Crenium, ubi supra, pag. 140.
[10] Id. ibid. apud Crenium, ibid. pag. 141.
[11] Sturmius, in Part. iii, Anti-Pappi IV, pag. 150.
[12] Id. ibid. pag. 169.
[13] [Additional editor’s note]  Actually, Johannes’s father kept the accounts for the Count of Manderscheidt since before Johannes was born.  Bayle apparently was not aware of the fact. Schmidt, Charles. La vie et les travaux de Jean Sturm (1855).  “Jean Sturm était le fils de Guillaume Sturm, administrateur des revenus des comtes de Manderscheid, dont le magnifique château ruiné couronne encore aujourd'hui une des hauteurs de la vallée de l'Eifel.
[14] Sturmius, in Part. iii, Anti-Pappi IV, pag. 169.
[15] He speaks to Andrea Osiander, a divine of Tubingen.




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