Francis Lambert (theologian)

Francis Lambert of Avignon ( also Francis Lambert, Avignon * 1487, † April 18, 1530 in Frankenberg ( Eder) ) was a Protestant theologian and was instrumental in the reformation of the country county of Hesse.

Life

Lambert, whose father came from Orgelet ( Franche -Comté ) and probably worked as a lawyer, joined with 15 years in the Minorit. Then he took too seriously the rules of the order, he summed up the plan to switch to the Carthusian order, which he did not finally did. Instead, he began to pull through the country as an itinerant preacher. In this position, he was very successful, so that he was awarded the title of Praedicator apostolicus 1517. On one of these trips he published in Lyon - probably in 1520 - the treatise de la corone nostre Saulveur Jesus Christ, a first attempt to Jesus - instead of Mary - to put back into the center of Christian piety.

In June 1522 he left Avignon to go to his idol Martin Luther to Wittenberg. On the way he met popular reformers like Zwingli and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, in which he is said to have even lived. For unknown reasons, he left the order during his trip. Presumably, he could no longer identify with the old values ​​to. In November, Lambert arrived in Eisenach and sought contact with Luther. He sent him the following month a manuscript with 139 theses to make Luther known with his thoughts. This showed little interest in Lambert's work, but let him come to Wittenberg.

Here Lambert found at the Theological Faculty of the University of Wittenberg a job as a high school teacher and had the minores Prophetae taught. He was literarily productive: apologetic to defend his conversion from the religious life of the Reformation, and biblical exegesis. He had wrought among other things, under the synonym John Seranus. Just a year before Luther, he married on July 30, 1523 issue in the services of Augustin Schurff daughter of a baker Herzberger and left on February 14, 1524 Wittenberg.

He then went to Nicholas Gerbel to Strasbourg. First received quite positively by the City Council, took this Lambert later but with a publication ban. In Strasbourg, without perspective, he accepted the offer of the Hessian Landgrave Philip to work on a defense to a new church order. This disputation took place from 21 to 23 October 1526 Homberg / Efze place and was known under the name Homberger Synod. Lambert's theses, the so-called paradoxes, formed their basis. Both of the leaders of the Catholics, Nicholas Ferber, the Franciscan Guardian of Marburg, as well as Luther stood Lamberts theses distances opposite; the one because he does the right of this synod denied to reform, the other because he " eyn Hauffen law " in the new church order saw. The order was not published in the 16th century, however, many of its provisions were put into practice, the establishment of a Protestant university. From 1527 Lambert taught at the newly founded University of Marburg.

In addition to lectures on works of the Holy Scriptures, he also held a disputation on the thesis of Scots Patrick Hamilton, who was burned as a heretic in 1528 in St Andrews. Appeared in 1529 in honor of Charles V. His main work Somme chretienne. Lambert appeared in Marburg no longer to feel comfortable, so he sent a letter begged the reformer Martin Bucer, to give him a place in the French-speaking Switzerland. To this end, it has not issued, since Lambert was snatched away in Frankenberg, where the University was moved because of a plague epidemic, together with his family from the disease.

Objectives and significance

Lambert had his life attempted the guiding principles of the Reformation enforce. As a basis he saw the confrontation with the writings of the Bible and their interpretation in sermons. In addition to his spiritual closeness to Luther but show particularly his works paradoxes and Farrago his very own ideas of the reorganization of the Church. It always four priorities could be identified:

• The sermon and the confrontation with Selbiger
• The bishop as a preacher and administrator of the sacraments
• The state violence, which is to give the appropriate legal form
• The autonomy of municipalities

Apparently Lamberts thoughts were too radical, as that they could become a reality, which is why Luther moderate variation established in the German Reich at least. Although Lamberts had ideas for further developments and the spread of the Reformation no longer relevant, but they show the struggle of the early years to an organizational form of the Reformation, which is particularly important for today's research.