Background
He was was born at Groningen in 1420.
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book
Wessel Gansfort
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088NHFMM/?tag=2022091-20
Wessel Gansfort (v. 2)
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008QNMI12/?tag=2022091-20
Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
(The four-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Re...)
The four-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation may well revive interest in the precursors of the Reformers. The Protestant movement is no longer regarded as in the nature of a revolution, but as the product of tendencies long developing in the medieval Church and society. The intellectual ancestors of the Reformers have been discovered, and the roots of the political and social changes that accompanied the introduction of Protestantism have been traced far back into the preceding centuries. A mong those who unquestionably made important contribution to the preparation of the Rhine region for the acceptance of the Protestant doctrine was Wessel Gansfort who began and ended his life in the city of Groningen, in the northern Netherlands. He has been somewhat neglected by recent students of the origins of Protestantism, although Ullmann had honored him with the foremost place among his Reformers before the Reformation. That he has not attracted more attention may be due, as Luther suggests, to his quiet, uneventful career as a man of the schools. There were no dramatic episodes in his life, no clashes with the civil or ecclesiastical authority, no occasions for the display of heroic courage. Once for a little time he consciously faced the fire, but a powerful friend promptly intervened and saved him from the threatened ordeal. That he has not attracted the attention of American scholars may be explained, in part at least, by the fact that so few copies of his works are to be found in this country. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Car
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0096TLHR6/?tag=2022091-20
Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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Johan Wessel
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated at the famous school at Deventer, which was under the supervision of the Brothers of Common Life, and in close connexion with the convent of Mount St Agnes at Zwolle, where Thomas a Kempis was then living.
He learnt Greek from monks who had been driven out of Greece, and Hebrew from some Jews.
Career
At Deventer, where the best traditions of the 14th- century mysticism were still cultivated, Wessel imbibed that earnest devotional mysticism which was the basis of his theology and which drew him irresistibly, after a busy life, to spend his last days among the Friends of God in the Low Countries.
From Deventer he went to the Dominican school at Cologne to be taught the Thomist theology, and came in contact with humanism.
The Thomist theology sent him to study Augustine, and his Greek reading led him to Plato, sources which largely enriched his own theological system. Interest in the disputes between the realists and the nominalists in Paris induced him to go to that city, where he remained for sixteen years as scholar and teacher.
There he eventually took the nominalist side, prompted as much by his mystical anti-ecclesiastical tendencies as by any metaphysical insight; for the nominalists were then the anti-papal party.
It is said that Sixtus would have gladly made Wessel a bishop, but that he had no desire for any ecclesiastical preferment. From Rome he returned to Paris, and speedily became a famous teacher, gathering round him a band of enthusiastic young students, among whom was Reuchlin.
In 1475 he was at Basel and in 1476 at Heidelberg teaching philosophy in the university.
As old age approached he came to have a growing dislike to the wordy theological strife which surrounded him, and turned away from that university discipline, " non studia sacrarum litcrarum sed studiorum commixtae cor- ruptiones. "
After thirty years of academic life he went back to his native Groningen, and spent the rest of his life partly as director in a nuns' cloister there and partly in the convent of St Agnes at Zwolle.
His remaining years were spent amid a circle of warm admirers, friends and disciples, to whom he imparted the mystical theology, the zeal for higher learning and the deep devotional spirit which characterized his own life.
He died on the 4th of October 1489, with the confession on his lips, " I know only Jesus the crucified. "
He is buried in the middle of the choir of the church of the " Geestlichen Maegden, " whose director he had been.
Achievements
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He exerted unusual influence on the clergy of Friesland and Groningen, thus preparing the way for the Reformation in these parts. His heretical concept of communion he stated in a book, De coena Dei (The Lord's Supper). Two scholarly Dutch Humanists, Hinne Rode and Cornelis Hoen, acquainted Zwingli with Gansfort's ideas. From them Zwingli derived his doctrine on the communion. Thus the concept of the Dutch Mennonites concerning communion is not taken from Zwingli, but was taken directly from Gansfort by Frisian preachers.
Works
book
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Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
(The four-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Re...)
-
Wessel Gansfort
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
-
Wessel Gansfort (v. 2)
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
-
Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings
Views
From Deventer he went to the Dominican school at Cologne to be taught the Thomist theology, and came in contact with humanism.
Wessel has been called one of the "reformers before the Reformation, " and the title is justifiable if by it is meant a man of deeply spiritual life, who protested against the growing paganizing of the papacy, the superstitious and magical uses of the sacraments, the authority of ecclesiastical tradition, and that tendency in later scholastic theology to lay greater stress, in a doctrine of justification, upon the instrumentality of the human will than on the objective work of Christ for man's salvation. His own theology was, however, essentially medieval in type, and he never grasped that experimental thought of justification on which Reformation theology rests.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
He was welcomed as the most renowned scholar of his time, and it -was fabled that he had travelled through all lands, Egypt as well as Greece, gathering everywhere the fruits of all sciences-" a man of rare erudition, " says the title-page of the first edition of his collected works, " who in the shadow of papal darkness was called the light of the world. "
Connections
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Born
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Died
January 4, 1489 (aged 69) -
Nationality
Dutch -
Religion
Roman Catholic