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[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…

[German Version] (1568, Antwerp – Dec 17, 1621, Helmstedt) studied in Rostock under D. Chyträus and J. Caselius. In 1592 Martini became professor of logic in Helmstedt; he took part in the Regensburg Consultation on Religion (Disputations, Religious) in 1601. Presumed to be the first to teach Aristotelian metaphysics at a Protestant university, he is considered the founder of Protestant academic metaphysics ( Disputationes metaphysicae, 1604–1606), and had a decisive influence on the late-humanist shaping of the University of Helmstedt, which was not tied to…

[German Version] (Sep 22, 1662, Leipzig – Aug 24, 1732, Frankfurt am Main). After studying in Leipzig, Pritius became Saturday preacher at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig (1690), minister and professor at the Gymnasium in Zerbst (1698), and superintendent in Schleiz (1701). In 1705 he traveled to Holland and England; in 1708 he became pastor at the Marienkirche, Greifswald, and professor of theology there; in 1711, senior of the Lutheran Ministry of Preachers in Frankfurt am Main. At an early age he …

[German Version] (bapized Jan 6, 1617, Lampertheimin Elsaß [Alsace] – Jan 9, 1696, Straßburg [Strasbourg]). After studying theology in Straßburg, Wittenberg, and elsewhere, and Near Eastern languages in Basel with J. Buxtorf the Younger, he held ecclesiastical and educational appointments in Elsaß and southern Germany. In 1653 he was appointed professor of theology and preacher in Straßburg, where he also served as church president from 1666 until his death. A shy scholar, he was the most thorough…

[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] I. Church History 1. Germany and Europe a. Definition. Pietism was a religious revival movement in late 17th- and 18th-century Protestantism (I, 1), alongside Anglo-Saxon Puritanism (Puritans) the most significant post-Reformation religious movement. Emerging within both the Lutheran and the Reformed churches, Pietism broke with orthodox Protestantism regulated by the authorities, which it perceived as a moribund Christianity of habit, pressed for an individualized and spiritualized rel…

[German Version] 1. Andreas (Dec 14 or 19, 1496 or 1498, Gunzhausen – Oct 17, 1552, Königsberg [today Kaliningrad, Russia]), Reformer of Nuremberg (Nürnberg) and center of a violent controversy over his doctrine of justification. Osiander matriculated at Ingolstadt in 1515, where he learned Greek and Hebrew and was influenced by Humanism and especially by J. Reuchlin and the Kabbalah. In 1520 he was ordained to the priesthood; in the same year, he was employed to teach Hebrew by the Augustinian Herm…

[German Version] (Jun 15, 1635, Duisburg – Jan 1, 1693, Bremen). After studying from 1654 to 1658 in Utrecht (with G. Voetius), Duisburg (with Johannes Clauberg [1622–1665]), and Leiden (with ¶ J. Coccejus), Undereyck set out on an extensive study tour, visiting Switzerland, France, and England. His piety was shaped by Dutch precisianism (J. van Lodenstein). As a pastor in Mühlheim an der Ruhr from 1660 to 1668, Undereyck pressed for conversion and rebirth (Regeneration), called on people at home, and engaged in catechesis. F…

[German Version] (Mar 27, 1588, Kutten near Angerburg, East Prussia – Apr 30, 1653, Königsberg). Born into the Polish nobility, Myslenta learned German only in adult life. He studied theology in Königsberg, Wittenberg and Giessen (1619 Dr.theol. in Gießen). Then he studied oriental languages under T. Erpenius in Leiden and J. Buxtorf senior in Basel. For six months he pursued rabbinic and talmudic studies in the ghetto in Frankfurt am Main. From 1619 he was professor of Hebrew language and profess…

[German Version] (Jul 15, 1636, Alt-Raudten, Silesia – May 4, 1689, near Sulzbach, Upper Palatinate). After studies in Leipzig, Knorr von Rosenroth traveled to the Netherlands and to England. From 1668, he was councilor, and from 1687 chancellery director in Sulzbach. He was the main authority in spiritual matters at the supra-denominational court of Count Christian August von Pfalz-Sulzbach, which attracted scholars and artists. He became friends with F.M. van Helmont, J. Schütz, and the Quaker B…

[German Version] (Feb 13, 1610, Bourg, near Bordeaux – Feb 12, 1674, Altona, near Hamburg). Labadie entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1625; in 1639, after theological studies (1636–1639) at Bordeaux and ordination to the priesthood, he obtained permission to leave the Jesuits and become a secular priest. He founded devotional communities in Paris and southern France, for a time showing some attraction to Jansenism. Soon he was struck by the idea of reforming the church after the model of the earlies…