WITZEL, vit'sel, GEORG: German Roman Catholic theologian; b. at Vacha-on-the-Werra (30 m. s.w. of Gotha) 1501; d. at Mainz Feb. 16, 1573. He studied at the University of Erfurt 1516-18, then interrupted his studies and became parish schoolmaster in Vacha; after that he continued work at the University of Wittenberg for twenty-eight weeks under Luther, Carlstadt, and Melanchthon. In the same year he was consecrated priest and served as vicar and also a part of the time as town-clerk in his native city until his twenty-fourth year. In 1523 he petitioned the abbot of Fulda for permission to marry, and in the silence of the abbot married without dispensation the daughter of a citizen in Eisenach. In 1524 he lost his clerical position. In Eisenach he became acquainted with Jakob Strauss (q.v.), in conjunction with whom he preached sermons against princes and bishops, against Roman abuses, picturing also the heavy burdens of the peasantry. Strauss made him preacher of Wenigen-Lupnitz, where he zealously began his work when the excitement among the peasants had already reached an alarming height. However much he may have been influenced by the social ideas of Strauss, his later assurance is to be received that he tried to subdue the rebellious spirit. In consequence of the Peasants' War he lost his position and was in great need until at the recommendation of Luther he became preacher at the small town of Niemegk. His leisure at that place he employed in comprehensive studies, especially of the Church Fathers, while the works of Erasmus influenced his views of the Church. What had led him to the Evangelical cause had not been assent to Luther's doctrine of justification or personal longing for certainty of faith, but a desire for the purification of the Church from abuses in worship and discipline, partly also in doctrine, but principally in life. Seeing in Lutheranism disagreement between doctrine and life, he at a later time returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Lutherans mistakenly accused Witzel of the Antitrinitarianism of Campanus, so that in Mar., 1530, he was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Belzig. His innocence was soon proved and he returned, sick, to Niemegk, greatly disappointed and dissatisfied with Luther and his associates. In 1531 he left Niemegk, and began his open contest with the "Lutheran sect." Two years he spent in Vacha, trying in vain to find a new position, his mariage naturally proving an obstacle. But he was at this time diligently engaged in literary work. In 1533 Count Hoyer of Mansfeld called him as minister to St. Andrew's in Eisleben, where he as preacher and pastor of a small number of Roman Catholics experienced five years of bitter struggle with Johann Agricola, Güttel, Cordatus, Coelius, Kymaeus, Balthasar Raidt, and especially with Jonas. He also tried to put into practise his program of a renewal of the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with the principles of the primitive Church. On Aug. 30,1538, he was still in Eisleben, when he accepted a call from Duke George to Dresden or Leipsic, where he attempted to reconcile the two religious parties by leading them back to the doctrine and custom of the apostolic and early Church. Duke George laid no obstacles in his way, but under Duke Henry, his successor, Witzel was compelled to flee into the mountains of Bohemia. Thence he went to Berlin to Joachim II., who at first seemed to be inclined to adopt the Catholicism of Witzel, whom soon the sentiment of the country compelled to introduce the Reformation. Berlin was therefore no longer open to Witzel, who began to lead a migratory life, trying to find a receptive soil for his ideas in Lusatia, Silesia, Bamberg, and in 1540 in Würzburg. In 1541 he found

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a place of refuge with Abbot John of Fulda, who by concessions attempted to stem the tide of Evangelical ideas, and with his successor Philip Schenck of Schweinsberg. Bishop Nausea of Vienna recommended him to Ferdinand, with whom he thenceforth remained in connection. He was present at the religious discussions in Regensburg. In the Schmalkald War he fled from Fulda to Würzburg, but returned again. In 1553 he removed to Mainz, where he passed the remainder of his life. His most prominent works are Methodus concordice ecclesiasticte (written 1532, printed 1537), and Via regia (1564). In the former work he demanded the convocation of a council, at which both parties should be heard; the basis of agreement was to be the doctrine of the apostles as found in Holy Scripture and the earlier Church Fathers; in all questions of the salvation of the soul Holy Scripture is sufficient, but the right of the Church to make valid and binding ordinances in other questions is to be acknowledged; the institution of the mass was to be reformed, especially its performance for money; communion in both kinds should be restored and compulsory clerical celibacy abolished; the number of monasteries was to be reduced; those that were allowed to remain were to be reformed. In Via regia, the program essentially agrees with that of 1532; only criticism deals more relentlessly with Roman Catholic conditions. Reconciliation is not possible without a thorough reform of that church. In the system which came to rule in the CounterReformation he saw the burial of his own plans of church reform after the Erasmian pattern.

(G. Kawerau.)

Bibliography: C. L. Callidius, Germanic; scriptorum catalogue, Mainz, 1582; G. T. Strobel, Beiträge zur Literatur . des IB. Jahrhunderts, ii. 2, Nuremberg, 1787; F. W. P. van Amman, Gallerie der denkwardigsten Personen, pp. 1 sqq., Erlangen, 1833; J. Neander, Commentatio de Georgio Vicelio, Berlin, 1839; J. J. I. van Döllinger, Die Reformation, i. 21 sqq., Regensburg, 1848; W. Kampachulte, De Georgio Vicelio eiusque studiis et acripdis, Bonn, 1856; G. Schmidt, Georg Wilzel, ein Allkatholik des 16. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1876; A. Rass, Die Konvertiten, i. 122 sqq., Freiburg, 1866; C. Schlottmann, Erasmus redivivus, pp. 342 sqq., Halle, 1883; Archia für Reformationageschichte, vi (1909), 234 sqq.; ADB, xliii. 657 sqq.; KL, xii. 1726 sqq.