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Three 16th-Century Truth Seekers—What Did They Find?The Watchtower—2014 | June 1
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“LET THE BIBLE . . . ALWAYS RULE SUPREME”
Wolfgang Capito was a young man with deep religious convictions. A student of medicine, law, and theology, Capito became a parish priest in 1512 and then chaplain to the archbishop of Mainz.
At first, Capito tried to soften the zeal of Reformers who preached a message contrary to Catholic dogma. Soon, however, Capito himself began to advocate reform. What did he do? When confronted with various teachings, Capito believed that “the best source with which to judge their preaching was the Bible, for only it was certain,” writes historian James M. Kittelson. Capito thus concluded that the church teachings on transubstantiation and the veneration of saints were unscriptural. (See the box “See Whether These Things Were So.”) Abandoning his prominent post with the archbishop in 1523, Capito settled in the city of Strasbourg, a center of religious reform at the time.
The Capito home in Strasbourg became a place where religious dissenters met and no doubt discussed many religious matters and Bible teachings. Though some Reformers still promoted the Trinity doctrine, Capito’s writings, according to the book The Radical Reformation, reflect “reticence on the doctrine of the Trinity.” Why? Capito was impressed by the way that Spanish theologian Michael Servetus appealed to Bible texts to disprove the Trinity.b
Denial of the Trinity could bring fatal consequences, so Capito was cautious about declaring his feelings openly. However, his writings suggest that he had privately questioned the Trinity doctrine even before he met Servetus. A Catholic priest later wrote that Capito and his associates “proceeded to discuss in their private capacity, and without appeal,—the profoundest mysteries of religion; [and] rejected that of the most Holy Trinity.” A century later, Capito was listed first among prominent anti-Trinitarian writers.
Wolfgang Capito believed that “neglect of the Scriptures” was the chief failing of the church
Capito believed that the Bible was the source of truth. “Let the Bible and the law of Christ always rule supreme in theology,” he stated. According to Dr. Kittelson, Capito “insisted that the chief failing of the scholastic theologians lay in their neglect of the Scriptures.”
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