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Kenneth Stevenson, Eucharistic Sacrifice and Patristic Tradition in the Theology of Martin Bucer 1534–1546. By Nicholas Thompson. Pp. xvi + 315. (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, 119.) Leiden: Brill, 2005. isbn 90 04 14138 3. €109/$147, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 372–376, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flj050
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Martin Bucer was one of the central figures of the early European Reformation. Sadly, he has tended to be overshadowed by Luther (whom he knew) and Calvin (on whom he had a direct influence). More to the point, he tends to suffer from a limited repute in England, which was the place of his exile and death following the capitulation of Strasbourg in 1549 after the Schmalkaldic War. In this important monograph, Nicholas Thompson, who teaches church history at Aberdeen University, places under the microscope Bucer's significant role in the debate in Germany between what we might call moderate Reformers and moderate Catholics on eucharistic sacrifice between 1534 and 1546; in this he takes much further the recent work of such scholars as Augustijn, Hazlett, and Greschat. The particular time in question coincided with a series of treatises and controversial works by Bucer himself, from his Defensio adversus Axioma catholicorum in 1534 to his masterpiece, the De vera et falsa Caenae Dominicae Administratione in 1546. Central to Thompson's study is Bucer's role in the Colloquy of Regensburg (1541), which was really the last chance for any lasting accord.
