Johannes Brenz

Johann (Johannes) Brenz (24 June 1499 – 11 September 1570) was a German Lutheran theologian and the Protestant Reformer of the Duchy of Württemberg. Early advocacy of the Reformation Brenz was born in the then Imperial City of Weil der Stadt, 20 miles west of Stuttgart. He received his education at Heidelberg, where, shortly after becoming magister and regent of the Realistenbursa in 1518, he delivered philological and philosophical lectures. He also lectured on the Gospel of Matthew, only to be prohibited on account of his popularity and his novel exegesis, especially as he had already been won over to the side of Luther, not only through his ninety-five theses, but still more by personal acquaintance with him at the disputation at Heidelberg in April 1518. In 1522 Brenz was threatened with a trial for heresy, but escaped through a call to the pastorate of Schwäbisch Hall. In the spring of 1524 he received a strong ally in his activity as a Reformer in Johann Isenmann, who became pastor of the parish-church at Hall. The feast of corpus Christi was the first to be discarded, and in 1524 the monastery of the Discalced Friars was transformed into a school. In the German Peasants' War, on the other hand, Brenz deprecated the abuse of evangelical liberty by the peasants, pleading for mercy to the conquered and warning the magistracy of their duties. At Christmas the Lord's Supper was administered in both kinds, and at Easter of the following year the first regulations were framed for the church and the school. Brenz himself prepared in 1528 a larger and a smaller catechism for the young, both characterized by simplicity, warmth, and a childlike spirit. Activity on behalf of the New Movement He first attained wider recognition, however, when he published his Syngramma Suevicum on 21 October 1525, attacking Œcolampadius, and finding the explanation of the creative power of the word of Christ in the theory that the body and blood of Christ are actually present in the Sacrament. Henceforth Brenz took part in all the important conferences on the religious situation. In October 1529 he attended the Colloquy of Marburg, and in the following year, at the request of the Margrave George of Brandenburg, he was present at the diet in Augsburg, where he seconded Melanchthon in his efforts to reach an agreement with the adherents of the ancient faith, but refused all association with the followers of Zwingli.