SCHWENKFELD, KASPAR of Ossing, Ger man theologian, entered the service of the duke of Liegnitz, over whom he had great influence. In 1522 he visited Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Andreas Carlstadt and Thomas Mi.inzer. On his return to Liegnitz he helped to spread the prin ciples of the Reformation in the principality and in Silesia, while warning his colleagues against the abuse of the doctrine of justifi cation by faith. The controversy on the Eucharist (1524) re vealed his disagreement with Luther on that critical point. He sought to establish a via media between the doctrines of Luther and Zwingli, and vainly hoped to obtain for it Luther's acceptance. He as vainly sought to secure Luther's adoption of a strict rule of church discipline, after the manner of the Moravian Brethren. Meanwhile the Anabaptists obtained a footing in Silesia, and suspicions of Schwenkfeld's sympathy with them were aroused. Letters and writings of his own proved him to hold strongly anti-Lutheran views, and both Catholics and Lutherans urged the duke of Liegnitz to dismiss him. He voluntarily left Liegnitz in 1529, and lived at Strasbourg for five years amongst the Reformed clergy there. In 1533, in an important synod, he defended against Martin Bucer the principles of religious free dom as well as his own doctrine and life. But the heads of the church carried the day, and Schwenkfeld left Strasbourg for a time. The publication (1539) of a book in proof of his most characteristic doctrine—the deification of the humanity of Christ —led to active persecution by the Lutherans and his expulsion from the city of Ulm. The next year (154o) he published a refutation of the attacks upon his doctrine with a more elaborate exposition of it, under the title Grosse Confession. The book emphasized the differences between the Lutherans and Zwinglians on the doctrine of the Eucharist at a moment when efforts were being made to reconcile them. An anathema was accordingly issued from Schmalkald against Schwenkfeld (together with Sebas tian Franck) ; his books were placed on the Protestant "index"; and he himself was made a religious outlaw. Schwenkfeld went into hiding. He and his followers withdrew from the Lutheran Church, declined its sacraments, and formed small societies of kindred views. He died at Ulm, on Dec. io, 1561.
Schwenkfeld left behind him a sect (who were called subse quently by others Schwenkfeldians, but who called themselves "Confessors of the Glory of Christ") and numerous writings to perpetuate his ideas. His writings were partially collected in four
folio volumes, the first of which was published in the year containing his principal theological works. His adherents were to be found at his death scattered throughout Germany. In Silesia they formed a distinct sect, which persisted. In the 17th century they were associated with the followers of Jacob &Arne, and were undisturbed until 1708, when an inquiry was made as to their doctrines. In 1720 a commission of Jesuits was despatched to Silesia to convert them by force. Most of them fled from Silesia into Saxony, and thence to Holland, England and North America. Frederick the Great of Prussia, when he seized Silesia, extended his protection to those who remained in that province. Those who had fled to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania formed a small community under the name of Schwenkfelders; and Zinzendorf and Spangenberg, when they visited the United States, en deavoured, but with little success, to convert them to their views. This community still exists in Pennsylvania and their views appear to be substantially those of the Quakers.
Schwenkfeld distinguished between an outward word of God and an inward, the former being the Scriptures and perishable, the latter the divine spirit and eternal. In his Christology he de parted from the Lutheran and Zwinglian doctrine of the two natures by insisting on what he called the Vergotterung des Fleisches Christi, the deification or the glorification of the flesh of Christ. His peculiar Christology was based upon profound theological and anthropological ideas, which contain the germs of some recent theological and Christological speculations.
See Arnoldt, Kirchen- and Ketzer-Historie (Frankfort, ed. 1700) ; Salig, Historie der Augsburg. Confession; W. H. Erbkam, Gesch. der prot. Sekten (5848) ; Dorner, Gesch. d. prot. Theol. (1867) ; also R. H. Griitzmacher's article in Hauck-Herzog's Realencyklopiidie ; Robert Barclay's Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (1876) ; C. Beard's Hibbert Lectures (1883) ; H. W. Kriebel, "The Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania," Pa.-German Soc. and Addresses, vol. xiii. (19o4) ; and S. K. Brecht, The Geneological Record of the Schwenkfelder Families (1923).