WESSEL, GANSFORT. - Theologian, born in Groningen c. 1419, died there on 4 Oct. 1489.
Trained in the school of the Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle, in 1449 he went to the University of Cologne and then to that of Heidelberg, where, having become magister artium (16 June 1456), he learned Greek and Hebrew and showed himself faithful to Thomistic realism. Moving in 1457 to Paris, he adhered to Scotism and then to nominalism; whence he later returned to Groningen, certainly because of the law of Louis XI against nominalism (1473).
Among his writings are: De causis incarnationis; De Sacramento Eucharistiae; Farrago rerum theologicarum; Epistolae in quibus praesertim de Purgatorio et Indulgentiis (Groningen 1614, ed. A. Hardenberg).
Wessel Gansfort’s posthumous fame is due to the persuasion that spread in the 16th century that he was a precursor of Luther: “Doctor Wesselus multa habet cum Luthero communia” (Erasmus, Opera omnia, Leiden 1706, col. 1622). In his pamphlets there are indeed doctrines that anticipate Lutheran ones in advance (e.g., the denial of the Church’s infallibility, the exaggerated exaltation of the opus operantis to the detriment of the opus operatum of the Sacraments, the non-judicial nature of the sacrament of Penance, and the uselessness of Indulgences), but it is also certain that there are many assertions that contrast with what later became Luther’s theological system. More noteworthy, however, is his Eucharistic doctrine, which, despite the flourishing of a style steeped in mysticism, seems truly to approach what became the “sacramentarian” error of Zwingli and Œcolampadius; indeed, it is proven that the celebrated letter of Oen (Honius), which so influenced Zwingli, was written with elements drawn from Wessel Gansfort’s Eucharistic works.
BIBL. M. Van Rhijn, W. G., s’Gravenhage 1917; E. W. Miller, W. G. Life and writings. Principal works translated by J. W. Scudder, 2 vols., New York 1917; L. Cristiani, s. V. in DThC, XV, cols. 3531-36 (favorable judgment); J. Nebesni, De doctrina eucharistica W. G. deque eius habitudine ad Honium et Sacramentarios, Rome 1948 (unpublished thesis of the Ateneo of Propaganda Fide).