BULLINGER, HEINRICH. – Swiss Reformer, born at Bremgarten in the canton of Aargau (Switzerland) on 18 July 1504, died at Zurich on 17 September 1575. After his early elementary studies in his native town, his father sent him in 1516 to Emmerich, where he studied Latin grammar and felt called to become a Carthusian. In 1519 he moved to Cologne, where he studied the Latin classics and philosophy, and came into possession of some of Luther’s works (*De captivitate Babilonica*, *De Libertate christiana*, *De bonis operibus*). Seeing that Luther appealed to the Fathers of the Church, he devoted himself to their writings; and when he saw that they themselves appealed to Holy Scripture, he studied it with ardour. At the same time he took an interest in Melanchthon’s *Loci communes*, and these works, together with Luther’s, completed his break with the Catholic Church.
Returning to his homeland in 1523, he was invited to teach at the Cistercian monastery of Kappel, where Abbot Wolfgang Jener held sway, and by his teaching he induced the monks to abandon their vows and even the Catholic Church itself. In 1528 he moved to Zurich, embraced Zwingli’s doctrines, formed a close friendship with Zwingli, whom he accompanied to the disputations at Berne. Called by his native town, he went there as minister and disputed with the Anabaptists. There he married Anna Adlischweiler, a former nun, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Driven from Bremgarten, he took refuge in Zurich, where in 1532 he succeeded his master Zwingli—who had died the previous year in the battle of Kappel—in the office of *antistes*.
From 1532 until his death in 1575, Bullinger carried on an extraordinary activity almost entirely from Zurich. He revived the spirits of the Zurichers, still dismayed by the violent death of their leader Zwingli; he worked successfully for the union of Calvinists and Zwinglians, after abandoning all hope of doing the same with the Lutherans; he protected and encouraged the Italian heretics who took refuge at Chiavenna in the Grisons, and at Zurich he welcomed the persecuted and exiles from England (in the time of Queen Mary Tudor), from France (after the St Bartholomew’s Night), from Italy (those fleeing the Inquisition)—all drawn by the benevolent reception of the *antistes*. He maintained correspondence (about 12,000 of his letters are known) with the principal heretical leaders of his time—Calvin, Bucero, Melanchthon, Laski, Cranmer, Hooper, etc.; he published commentaries on the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, some Epistles of St Paul, the Apocalypse, the prophet Jeremiah, and five “Decades” of sermons, of which the third and fourth are dedicated to King Edward VI of England; he acted as counsellor to many heretics, intervened as peacemaker in the disputes between Geneva and Berne, and strove to prevent the Zurichers, and the Swiss in general, from enlisting as mercenary soldiers in foreign armies. All this earned him esteem among Protestants as a man of prudence, fairness and moderation. This moderation, however, failed him when it came to Catholics, anti-Trinitarians and Lutherans, especially on the question of the Lutheran Eucharist. He is also reproached for approving the condemnation of Servetus to the stake and for rejoicing at the death of Castellion.
Bullinger is chiefly famous for the *Consensus Tigurinus* of Zurich and for being the author of the Second Helvetic Confession, sometimes called the *posterior* (Confessio helvetica posterior), though the final Helvetic Confession was not compiled until a century later, in 1675.
As for the *Consensus Tigurinus* (1549): Calvin and Zwingli were agreed in rejecting both Lutheran consubstantiation and Catholic transubstantiation; but Zwingli, and Bullinger with him, reduced the celebration of the Lord’s Supper to a mere memorial of the Last Supper, while Calvin added something more, namely a kind of power or efficacy (*dynamis*) conveyed to the communicant by the Holy Spirit. In the 26 articles of the *Consensus Tigurinus*, agreement was reached by both sides making concessions in some doctrines, which displeased some rigid Calvinists and Zwinglians. In words they seemed to agree, and in fact this *Consensus* was accepted by all the Protestant churches of Switzerland and found favour also among French Calvinists, those of England and parts of Germany; but each interpreted it in the sense that suited them, as was seen at the Colloquy of Poissy. It may be said, however, that from that time onward, and especially after the Second Helvetic Confession, both Calvinists and Zwinglians came to be known simply as “Reformed.”
The Second Helvetic Confession was composed in 1562 by Bullinger alone for his own private use. During the plague of 1564, in which he lost his wife, three daughters, and himself lay gravely ill, he revised and added to his confession in his will. The Elector Palatine Frederick III, accused by Lutheran princes of adhering to Calvinist doctrines, in 1565 asked Bullinger for a full exposition of the Reformed Church to answer the charges against him. Bullinger sent him his Confession, which so pleased the Elector that he had it published before the meeting of the Imperial Diet at Augsburg in 1566. When it became known in Switzerland, all the Swiss Protestants wished to adopt II. Bullinger consented, made some corrections, and the Confession was published at Zurich on 15 March 1566. From Switzerland and the Palatinate it spread to France (Synod of La Rochelle 1571), Hungary (Synod of Debrecen 1567), Poland, Scotland and Holland. Theologically considered, it is the most important of the Reformed confessions, though for practical utility it is surpassed by the Heidelberg Catechism and the Shorter Westminster Catechism, and in logical clarity and precision by the latter. It consists of 30 long articles. In the second, Tradition is condemned; in the fourth and fifth, images and their veneration; in the sixth, free will is treated with some ambiguity and Pelagians are condemned; in the tenth, predestination is likewise treated ambiguously; in the fourteenth, indulgences are condemned; in the fifteenth, justification by faith alone is affirmed; in the sixteenth article, good works are admitted only after justification, but not as meritorious; in the seventeenth, the Pope is denied as head of the Church; in the eighteenth, ordination of ministers is recognized, but performed by “elders”; in the nineteenth, only two sacraments are admitted: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and Confirmation and Extreme Unction are rejected; of the other sacraments it is said that they are useful practices but not sacraments; in the twenty-first, transubstantiation and Luther’s doctrine (without naming him) are denied, and the Mass is condemned; in the twenty-sixth, the doctrine of Purgatory is rejected. In general it may be said that Catholic doctrines are clearly rejected, and that this confession is profoundly anti-Catholic; it proceeds cautiously in uncommon Protestant doctrines, Lutherans are not named, while clear condemnations are made of contemporary heretics, e.g. Anabaptists, and of ancient ones, though sometimes old names are used to denote dissenters from the doctrines of the Confession, e.g. Arians for Socinians, Pelagians for Catholics, etc.