WESSEL, JOHAN (c. 1420-1489), Dutch theologian, whose real name was Wessel (Basil) Harmens Gansfort, was born at Groningen. He was educated at the famous school at Deventer, which was under the supervision of the Brothers of Common Life, and in close connection with the convent of Mount St. Agnes at Zwolle, where Thomas a Kempis was then living. At Deventer Wessel imbibed that earnest devotional mysticism which was the basis of his theology and which drew him irresistibly, after a busy life, to spend his last days among the Friends of God in the Low Countries. From Deventer he went to Cologne and then to Paris to pursue his studies. After a visit to Rome, where he was in contact with the leading humanists he returned to Paris where he gathered round him a band of enthusiastic young stu dents, among whom was Reuchlin. In 1475 he was at Basel and in 1476 at Heidelberg teaching philosophy in the university. After thirty years of academic life he went back to his native Groningen, and spent the rest of his life partly as director in a nuns' cloister there and partly in the convent of St. Agnes at Zwolle. His re
maining years were spent amid a circle of warm admirers, friends and disciples, to whom he imparted the mystical theology, the zeal for higher learning and the deep devotional spirit which charac terized his own life. He died on Oct. 4, 1489, with the confession on his lips, "I know only Jesus the crucified." See Vita Wesseli Groningensis, by Albert Hardenberg, published in an incomplete form in the preface to Wessel's collected works (Amsterdam, 1614 ; this preface also contains extracts from the works of several writers who have given facts about the life of Wessel) ; K. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation—the second volume of the German edition is a second and enlarged edition of a previous work entitled Johann Wessel, ein V orgiinger Luthers (1834) ; A. Ritschl, History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh, 1872) ; E. W. Miller, Wessel Gansfort; Life and Writings. Principal Works translated by J. W. Scudder (2 vols., New York, 1917).