Bullinger, Heinrich
BULLINGER, HEINRICH (1504-1575), Swiss reformer, son of Dean Heinrich Bullinger by his wife Anna (Wiederkehr), was born at Bremgarten, Aargau, on the 18th of July 1504. He studied at Emmerich and Cologne, where the teaching of Peter Lombard led him, through Augustine and Chrysostom, to first-hand study of the Bible. Next the writings of Luther and Melanchthon appealed to him. Appointed teacher (1522) in the cloister school of Cappel, he lectured on Melanchthon's Loci Communes (1521). He heard Zwingli at Zürich in 1527, and next year accompanied him to the disputation at Berne. He was made pastor of Bremgarten in 1529, and married Anna Adlischweiler, a nun, by whom he had eleven children. After the battle of Cappel (11th of October 1531), in which Zwingli fell, he left Bremgarten. On the 9th of December 1531 he was chosen to succeed Zwingli as chief pastor of Zürich. A strong writer and thinker, his spirit was essentially unifying and sympathetic, in an age when these qualities won little sympathy. His controversies on the Lord's Supper with Luther, and his correspondence with Lelio Sozini (see Socinus), exhibit, in different connexions, his admirable mixture of dignity and tenderness. With Calvin he concluded (1549) the Consensus Tigurinus on the Lord's Supper. The (second) Helvetic Confession (1566) adopted in Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia and elsewhere, was his work. The volumes of the Zurich Letters, published by the Parker Society, testify to his influence on the English reformation in later stages. Many of his sermons were translated into English (reprinted, 4 vols., 1849). His works, mainly expository and polemical, have not been collected. He died at Zürich on the 17th of September 1575.
See Carl Pestalozzi, Leben (1858); Raget Christoffel, H. Bullinger (1875); Justus Heer, in Hauck's Realencyklopadie (1897).
(A. Go.*)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
