Peter Martyr Vermigli

Peter Martyr Vermigli is a figure we don't often hear a lot about, but he was a significant figure in the Reformation. He was born in 1499 in Florence, Italy, as Piero Mariano. When he became an Augustinian monk he took the name Peter Martyr in honor of the medieval figure of that name.

Before he became an Augustinian monk, he was educated at the prestigious University of Padua. He taught himself Greek and Hebrew, and he found himself at Naples as the prior of a monastery. While he was there in the late 1530s, he came into contact with the Reformers through their books. He was reading the commentaries on the Gospels and on the Psalms by Martin Bucer, the great exegete-theologian of Strasbourg under whom John Calvin had hoped to study. Vermigli also read a book by Ulrich Zwingli called On the True and False Religion. This book compared the thought of the Reformers to that of the Roman Catholic Church. Vermigli was convicted by these books and converted to Protestantism.

Soon, he found himself in significant trouble, and from 1540 to 1542, he was dodging the authorities. He eventually he fled to Zürich and then went on to Strasbourg. There, he was appointed a professor. In 1547, he was invited by Thomas Cranmer to go to Oxford and he was appointed the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. Vermigli flourished at Oxford, exerting a great influence on Cranmer. And then, Mary I (known as "Bloody Mary") came to the throne, ushering in a terrible time of persecution for Protestants. Vermigli was again forced to flee, so he returned to Strasbourg.

During this time, he made some significant contributions to two doctrines. The first is our understanding of the Lord's Supper. Vermigli initially sided with Martin Luther on this, supporting Luther's view that Christ is "in, with, and under" the elements. But he switched over to Calvin's view and began to support the real presence view of the Lord's Supper—that believers truly, but spiritually, feed upon and are nourished by the body and blood of Christ.

The other contribution he made is regarding our doctrine of Scripture. There's a lot of debate over the doctrine of Scripture, going all the way back to Genesis, where the serpent said to Eve, "Did God say?" Ever since then, there have been debates about how we are to, understand Scripture, the authority of Scripture, and the inerrancy of Scripture.

The issue for Vermigli was settled by two words: Dominus dixit, meaning "Thus says the Lord." For Vermigli, it was very simple: the doctrine of God leads us to the doctrine of Scripture. We start with the Lord—that's the doctrine of God—and then we move to "the Lord says"—that's the doctrine of Scripture. Vermigli called this the primum principium or the "first principle" of reading the Bible. We must recognize it as God's Word, which therefore has authority over us and which demands our submission.

And what is the end of all Scripture? Vermigli has something to say about that too: Scripture points us to Christ.