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[German Version] (May 1, 1661, Mörz, near Belzig – Sep 5, 1709, Wittenberg). Neumann grew up in Zittau, where he studied in the Gymnasium with the influential polyhistor Christian Weise, to whom he remained attached throughout his life. After studies at Wittenberg, he was appointed adjunct on the philosophical faculty in 1681 and professor of poetics and university librarian in 1690. In 1692 he was appointed professor of theology, synodal assessor, and provost of the castle church in Wittenberg. N…

[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] The Book of Concord is the most widely circulated collection of Lutheran articles of faith (I). It was published (in German) under the title Concordia. Christian, Reiterated, Unanimous Confession of the Undersigned Electors, Princes, and Estates who Embrace the Augsburg Confession and of the Theologians of the Same Doctrine and Faith on Jun 25, 1580, the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the Augsburg Confession. It contains the three major creeds (Apostles' Creed, Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, …

[German Version] (Sep 7, 1642, Leipsdorf, Saxony – Oct 22, 1721, Leipzig). After studying philosophy, history, and theology, Rechenberg began teaching in 1665 at the University of Leipzig; in 1677 he was appointed professor of philology and history. Through his fourth marriage (1686), to P.J. Spener’s eldest daughter Susann Catharina, he had close ties with Pietism. His appointment to succeed J.B. Carpzov (2) as professor of theology in 1699 effected a reversal in the attitude of the Leipzig theological faculty, which had been hostile to Pietism. His 1700 disputation De gratiae revo…

[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…

[German Version] (Jun 11, 1645, Colmar – Jan 26, 1695, Schlems near Hamburg). A disciple of J.K. Dannhauer, Horb initially devoted himself to controversial theology, but became a reform-zealous Pietist under the influence of P.J. Spener, whose sister he married in 1671. Involved in conflicts with Protestant orthodoxy (II, 2) throughout his entire life, Horb was removed from office in Trarbach, where he had officiated as pastor and inspector from 1671 to 1678. From Windsheim in Franconia (superinte…

[German Version] (Apr 10, 1579, Dannenberg – Sep 17, 1666, Wolfenbüttel). After studying in Rostock, Tübingen, and Strasbourg, and journeying to Italy, France, and England, August led a withdrawn, scholar's life from 1604 to 1634 in Hitzacker, where he collected books and art treasures, and corresponded with, for example, J.V. Andreae. His court preacher Heinrich Varenius lent his …