WESSEL, GANSFORT. - Theologian, b. at Groningen c. 1419 and d. there on 4 October 1489.
Educated at the school of the Brothers 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 (1 June 1456), he learned Greek and Hebrew and showed himself faithful to Thomist realism. Having moved 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).
He wrote, among other things: De causis incarnationis; De Sacramento Eucharistiae; Farrago rerum theologicarum; Epistolae in quibus praesertim de Purgatorio et Indulgentiis (Groningen 1614, edited by A. Hardenberg).
The posthumous fame of W. G. is due to the conviction that spread in the 16th century that he was a precursor of Luther: «Doctor Wesselus multa habet cum Luthero communis» (Erasmus, Opera omnia, Leiden 1706, col. 1622). In reality, in his opuscules there are found doctrines that in advance resemble the Lutheran ones (for example, the denial of the infallibility of the Church, the exaggerated exaltation of the opus operantis to the detriment of the opus operatum of the Sacraments, the non-judicial character of the sacrament of Penance and the uselessness of Indulgences), but it is likewise certain that there are many statements that conflict with what was later the theological system of Luther. His eucharistic doctrine, on the other hand, is noteworthy, for, despite the fluctuation of a style suffused with mysticism, it seems truly to approach what became the "sacramentarian" error of Zwingli and Oecolampadius; indeed it is proved that the famous letter of Oen (Honius), which so greatly influenced Zwingli, was written with elements drawn from the eucharistic works of W. G.
Bibliography4 works
Antonio Piolanti