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[German Version] (Jun 20, 1594, Bautzen – Aug 27, 1658, Straßburg [Strasbourg]). Forced by the plague to leave Halle for Speyer in 1611, in 1612 Schmidt moved permanently to Straßburg, where he studied philosophy (M.A. in 1615) and theology. In 1617 he traveled to France and England. In 1623 he received his Dr.theol. from Straßburg and was appointed professor of theology, then church president in 1629. He led the Lutheran Church of Elsaß in the Thirty Years War. His personal example and published …

[German Version] (Mar 4, 1579, Riga – Dec 16, 1643, Riga). After studying at Wittenberg (with L. Hütter) and Rostock, he was appointed preacher at St. Petri in Riga as well as superintendent of schools; later he was appointed cathedral preacher. He published attacks on the Jesuit Counter-Reformation (Baltic countries: III, 1.b). After the Swedish conquest in 1622, King Gustav II Adolf appointed him superintendent over Livonia. He strove to restore the Lutheran church and school system, turned the …

[German Version] is the name given to the drawn-out controversies in the second half of the 17th century between high Lutheran orthodoxy (II, 2.a.β) and the union efforts of G. Calixtus and the University of Helmstedt, suspected of religious “syncretism.” Repelled by the horrors of the Thirty Years War, Calixtus shifted from polemics to irenics, calling for toleration and ecclesiastical peace between the confessions on the basis of a shared doctrinal foundation from the Early Church ( consensus antiquitatis). When the Jesuits rejected his plans for a reunion of the univer…

[German Version] (Oct 27, 1640, Lauenburg – Nov 1, 1698, Lübeck). Initially a supporter of the millenarianism of C. Hoburg from his school days in Lauenberg, Pfeiffer studied in Wittenberg (1659, M.A.) under A. Sennert, J. Deutschmann, and A. Calov; the latter cured him of his chiliastic leanings. Pfeiffer was a learned orientalist who could understand 70 oriental languages. In 1668 he became assistant professor of oriental languages in Wittenberg (1677, Dr.theol.). He held church offices in Siles…

[German Version] (Jan 13, 1666, Kühndorf, near Meiningen – Jul 25, 1698, Berlin). While studying in Leipzig, Schade became a follower of A.H. Francke; he joined the Leipzig Collegium Philobiblicum and soon became a spokesman for the Pietist movement in Leipzig. Forced to leave Leipzig, in 1691 he became a deacon at Sankt Nikolai in Berlin, alongside P.J. Spener. There he preached revivalist sermons and led collegia pietatis. His polemic against perfunctory absolution as part of traditional penitential practice (“Beichtstuhl, Satansstuhl, Feuerpfuhl,” linking th…

[German Version] ( Jan 13, 1635, Rappoltsweiler, Elsass [Ribeauvillé, Alsace] – Feb 5, 1705, Berlin), father of Lutheran Pietism (I, 1). Son of a devout middle-class family with connections at court, he was brought up on edifying Puritan literature and J. Arndt’s Wahres Christentum. At the age of 16, he entered the University of Strasbourg (II); after foundation courses in philosophy (1653 master’s disserta-¶ tion against T. Hobbes), he studied the system of Lutheran orthodoxy (II, 2.a) under J.K. Dannhauer, a theology he remained faithful to throughout his…

[German Version] (Jul 17, 1627, Schotten, Upper Hesse – Sep 15, 1690, Gießen), studied in Marburg and then (after the university was relocated) in Gießen, where he taught in the boarding school after 1650. In 1659 he was appointed professor of ethics at Gießen; logic and metaphysics were added in 1661. In 1675 he became professor of theology. In 1677 he was also appointed superintendent of the Alsfeld diocese and in 1683 the Marburg diocese as well in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt. Rudrauff made outstanding contributions to catechetics. He criticized P.J. Spener’s Pia desideria an…

[German Version] (Dec 15, 1608, Demmin, Hither Pomerania – Oct 18, 1655, Wolfenbüttel). During his time as a student in Straßburg (Strasbourg), Lütkemann was influenced decisively by Johann Schmidt. After travels in Italy and France, he received his master's degree from the philosophical faculty at Rostock, where he was appointed professor of metaphysics and physics in 1643. Appointed deacon in the church of Sankt Jacobi in 1648, he gained a reputation as an outstanding preacher. Forced to leave M…

[German Version] (Feb 3, 1640, Rothenburg ob der Tauber – Aug 18, 1680, Rothenburg ob der Tauber). After studying at Wittenberg under A. Calovius, in 1660 Hartmann became pastor in Spielbach, in 1661 rector of the gymnasium in Rothenburg, and in 1666 pastor of Sankt Jakobi and superintendent. After receiving his doctorate from Tübingen in 1670, he published several volumes of sermons (including Das wahre Christenthum… in einer Hertz Postill, 1671), a Biblischer Catechismus (1678), and numerous works of popular edification ( Fluchspiegel, 1673; Spielteufel, 1678; Lästerteufel, 167…

[German Version] (Feb 21, 1632, Wittenberg – Feb 13, 1682, Danzig [Gdansk]). After studying in Leipzig and Wittenberg (with A. Calovius), he was appointed professor of philosophy in Wittenberg, receiving his Dr.theol. in 1664. In the Syncretistic Controversy, he vigorously opposed the Helmstedt theologians. In 1669 he was appointed rector of the Gymnasium in Danzig and pastor of Sankt Trinitatis. In 1673 he was removed from office on account of his anti-Catholic sermons; his removal produced an up…

[German Version] (Feb 18, 1683, Detmold – Dec 8, 1729, Bremen) was the most influential German Reformed theologian of the 18th century. Educated at the academic Gymnasium in Bremen under C. de Hase in the spirit of Reformed Precisism (G. Voetius), Lampe completed his theological studies in Franeker under C. Vitringa, who acquainted him with the chiliastically transformed covenant theology of J. Cocceius. In 1703, he became preacher in Weeze ¶ near Kleve, in 1706 parish priest in Duisburg, and from 1709 parish priest at St. Stephani in Bremen. In 1720, he became pro…

[German Version] (Jul 20, 1635, Ulm – Feb 23, 1706, Ulm). After studying in Straßburg (Strasbourg) and the Saxon universities, he was appointed preacher at the Ulm Minster in 1662 and professor of theology at the Ulm Gymnasium in 1663. In 1664 he received his Dr.theol. in Straßburg with a disputation against chiliasm under J.K. Dannhauer. In 1671 he was appointed director of the Gymnasium in Ulm and in 1678 superintendent in Ulm. He published numerous volumes of sermons and theological works. In 1…

[German Version] (Nov 25, 1642, Vaihingen an der Enz – summer 1693, Rotterdam) began his studies at Tübingen in 1661, receiving his M.A. in 1664. In 1666 he was appointed lecturer at the Tübingen Stift, and in 1671 he became a deacon in Bietigheim, where he became an adherent of J. Böhme under the influence of L. Brunnquell, a neighboring pastor. He was valued at the Stuttgart court as a mathematician and astronomer; in his Cometo-Scopia (1681) he prophesied the rapidly approaching end of the world and the coming of the millennial kingdom. Suspended from office in 1686…

[German Version] (Oct 10, 1570, Langenstein near Halberstadt – May 30, 1649, Wittenberg). Studied in Helmstedt and Wittenberg; 1597, rector in Norden, East Friesland; 1602, professor of logic and metaphysics in Wittenberg; 1613, also of ethics; 1623, professor of theology. Jakob Martini followed C. Martini in the reestablishment of metaphysics, to which he devoted three works. In his Vernunft-Spiegel (1619; Mirror of reason), one of the first philosophical works in the German language, he combatted Ramist and anti- philosophical tendencies in Lutherani…

[German Version] (Avenarius; Oct 8, 1516, Cheb [Ger. Eder], Czech Republic – Dec 5, 1590, Zeitz), who became a Lutheran between 1540 and 1542, served as pastor in several towns of Electoral Saxony (1564–1571 Falkenau, near Cheb). He was briefly a professor of theology (1571 Jena, 1576 Wittenberg); from 1576 to his death, he served as superintendent of the Stift in Zeitz. Known to his contemporaries as a Hebraist (Hebrew grammar 1571, Hebrew dictionary 1588), ¶ he was remembered by later generations as the author of a Lutheran prayer book equal in popularity to the Paradiesgärtlein of Joha…

[German Version] (Dec 6, 1650, Leipzig – Mar 30, 1712, Stettin). After his studies in Leipzig and Strasbourg, he became Saturday preacher in Leipzig in 1672, superintendent in Leisnig in 1673, superintendent in Grimma in 1678, and fourth professor of theology in Wittenberg in 1684. From 1686, he was ¶ principal pastor at St. Jakobi in Hamburg, and at the same time professor in Kiel; in 1701, he was appointed professor in Greifswald and Swedish general superintendent of Western Pomerania. Even if posterity remembers him only as the “hammerer of heretics and pietists” ( malleus haereticoru…

[German Version] (Dec 29, 1673, Sondershausen – Feb 12, 1749, Dresden). As the son of the Wittenberg professor of theology Caspar Löscher (1636–1718), Valentin Löscher also studied in Wittenberg. After a study tour (extending as far as Holland and Denmark), he received a master's degree and became an adjunct to the faculty of philosophy in 1692. He was appointed pastor and superintendent in Jüterbog (1699), superintendent in Delitzsch (1702), professor of theology in Wittenberg (1707), pastor of t…

[German Version] (Nov 24, 1627, Ilmenau – Jul 8, 1661, Rostock). After studying in Rostock (M.A. in 1650) Großgebauer was deacon of St. Jacobi in Rostock from 1653 onward. Imbued with the reform zeal of the Rostock orthodoxy (II, 2) and influenced by the edifying literature of England, he fought against unbelief ( Praeservativ wider die Pest der heutigen Atheisten, 1661), lamented the futility of many sermons, and devised a radical church reform agenda in his Wächterstimme aus dem verwüsteten Zion (1661). His proposals: precedence of the pastoral ministry over the preaching…

[German Version] (Johann: Jul 1, 1649, Osnabrück – Jan 31, 1727, Gut Thymer bei Zerbst, Anhalt; Johanna, née Merlau, Apr 25, 1644, Frankfurt am Main – Mar 19, 1724, Gut ¶ Thymer), a couple widely read in Pietist circles (Pietism). Their views on eschatology (millenarianism, apocatastasis) define them as radical Pietists. As a student at Rostock and Gießen, Johann became a polyhistor of the Baroque and an expert on orthodox confessional polemic; in Frankfurt am Main, he was won to Pietism by P.J. Spener and J.J. Schütz. There …

[German Version] (May 3, 1536, Salzwedel – May 4, 1603, Salzwedel), author of Lutheran devotional books. After studying at Rostock (with D. Chyträus and Simon Pauli), he became a deacon in Salzwedel and later pastor of the Neustädische Kirche there. Despite calls from other places, he remained faithful to his home town until his death. In his view, Christians should eschew penance and asceticism, knowing only the treasures of God’s grace received in baptism ( Freudenchristentum, “joyful Christianity”). A collection of his writings was published by J. Arndt ( Von der güldenen Zeit, 1622…