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Born July 10, 1509, at Noyon in northern France, John Calvin became one of the most influential of the second generation of Reformers. His work was of significance throughout Europe and beyond. His theological development, confessional importance, ecclesiastical consolidation, and international training of reformers were lasting impulses throughout his life and for ages to come. The son of a notary in the bishop’s secretarial service who was excommunicated for financial conflicts with the church in 1528, Calvin was at first destined for a career in …

Modern research has rightly come to see in Martin Bucer (1491–1551) one of the main leaders of the Reformation. Educated at the famous Schlettstadt grammar school, he became the reformer of the imperial city of Strasbourg. Having first made an intensive, Thomistically oriented study of Scholastic theology, he then came under the lasting influence of the humanism of D. Erasmus (1469?-1536). His crucial experience, however, was his encounter with M. Luther (1483–1546) at the Heidelberg Disputation…

Ulrich (Huldrych, Huldreich) Zwingli (1484–1531), a Zurich reformer, was perhaps the most important figure in German Switzerland and southwest Germany for the initial phase of the early Reformation. His theology, distinctively formed above all in the theological argument with Martin Luther and related particularly to the urban experience, represents a specific interpretation of the Reformation message and forms an essential theological-historical element of the development of the Reformed confession, which had been evolving since the late 1520s. Zwingli was born on Janua…

Little is known about the early life of the radical reformer and theologian Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1489–1525), who was born in Stolberg, Thuringia. The first reliable witness to his life is his 1506 matriculation entry at the University of Leipzig. He was definitely enrolled in the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1512, from which he probably graduated. After ordination in the Halberstadt Diocese, he was active as a minister in Brunswick, though he also had a sinecure in Aschersleben. He apparently studied…

Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) was the most significant German reformer after Martin Luther. Melanchthon was born in Bretten, Palatinate, as the son of the armorer George Schwarzerdt. After attending the distinguished Pforzheim Latin School, he matriculated in Heidelberg in 1509 at the early age of 12. (That year also his surname was changed from Schwarzerdt to the Greek equivalent, Melanchthon [black earth].) He received his bachelor of arts in 1511 and from 1512 studied in Tübingen, where he …

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[English Version] I. Entstehung Als W.F. bez. man die Vertragsdokumente, die den Dreißigjährigen Krieg am 24.10.1648 beendeten und eine pax universalis unter den christl. Staaten Europas aufzurichten beanspruchten. Der W.F. umfaßt zwei Einzelverträge: Das zw. dem Kaiser, Schweden und den dt. Reichsständen in Osnabrück ausgehandelte Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugense (IPO) und das zw. dem Reichsoberhaupt und Frankreich in Münster abgeschlossene Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriense (IPM), beides Ergebnisse …

[English Version] . Der t.S. entzündete sich an der im luth. Protestantismus im Anschluß an CA 12 (Augsburger Bekenntnis) üblichen Praxis, im Angesicht des Todes durch Beichte und Abendmahl den Zuspruch der Seligkeit unabhängig von einer identifizierbar christl.-sittlichen Lebensführung zu gewähren. Demgegenüber w…

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[English Version] Voetius, Gisbert (3.3.1589 Heusden, Holland – 1.11.1676 Utrecht). Einem im Krieg verarmten Rittergeschlecht entstammend, studierte V. seit 1604 Theol. in Leiden, wo er als Schüler des F. Gomarus mit den Auseinandersetzungen zw. Remonstranten (Arminianer) und Contraremonstranten intensiv vertraut wurde; 1611 Pfarrer in Vlijmen, 1617 in seiner Heimatstadt Heusden, 1629 in 's-Hertogenbosch. 1618/19 nahm er an der Dordrechter Synode teil, deren contraremonstrantischer Prädestin…

[German Version] (Dec 25, 1636, Sulzburg – May 5, 1716, Rostock) gained his most important and long-lasting theological experiences from 1655 on in Straßburg (J.K. Dannhauer). He studied in Tübingen, Heidelberg, Jena, Wittenberg and Leipzig, and received the Lic.theol. in Gießen in 1666. In the same year, he became pastor in his home town (Langendenzlingen) and, in 1668, professor of Hebrew and metaphysics at the Gymnasium in Durlach; in 1669, he became court preacher, and in 1688, superintendent in Durlach. He fled to Calw as a consequence of the French occupation (1689) and was appointed professor of theology and superintendent in Rostock (1690) through the mediation of P.J. Spener (in 1691, prince's councilor of the consistory). After initial sympathies for “good pietism” in the Spener fashion, his position changed following the latter's death (1705), notably “because of the many secondary doctrines” in which he saw the cause of all the “indifferentism” that was undermining the Lutheran religion from within. The historically, dogmatically, and exegetically trained representative of a late, theologically polemic Lutheran orthodoxy (Orthodoxy: II, 2.a) opposed this in numerous controversial theological publicat…

[German Version] The terministic controversy in Lutheran Protestantism was sparked by a common practice based on CA 12 (Augsburg Confession): at death’s door, after confession and communion (Eucharist) eternal bliss (Blessedness) was promised regardless of whether the person dying had lived a recognizably Christian life. In response Pietist theologians –especially P.J. Spener, appealing to J.K. Dannhauer – cited Heb 3:7–11 in support of the view that God has determined a set period of grace for repentance ¶ ( tempus peremtorius gratiae); at its end, the sinner is cut off fr…

[German Version] (Etienne de Courcelle; May 2, 1586, Geneva – May 20, 1659, Amsterdam) was, alongside S. Episcopius, J. Clericus and P. van Limborch, one of the most important representatives of 17th century Arminian theology (Arminians). He studied in Zürich, Basel, Heidelberg, and was pastor in Fontainebleau, Amiens and Vitry from 1614; he moved to Amsterdam, where he was professor of theology in the Arminian Seminary after 1643. His position, following J. Acontius, that only concepts attested in the Bible are theologically legitimate brought him under suspicion of Socinianism (Socinians/Socinianism). The requirement of tolerance among Christians represented in the Arminian tradition was based on a concentration of the “essence” of Christian faith in God's merciful rule of the world, a concentration bound to the Christian ethic of love, the divine sonship of Christ, which requires no dogmatic precision, and obedience…

[German Version] (Jan 15, 1633, Burg on Fehmarn Island – Apr 1, 1694, Kiel) studied theology in Rostock, Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg, was awarded a Dr.theol. and appointed professor of Greek in Rostock (1665), then professor of theology in Kiel (1665; pro-chancellor in 1666). Kortholt is regarded as the pioneer of Pietism in Schleswig-Holstein. Strongly influenced by the devotional theology of J. Arndt, J. Lütkemann, and H. Müller, he supported P. Spener's …

[German Version] August Friedrich Immanuel (Aug 19, 1885, Heldrungen/Thüringen – Nov 21, 1954, Erlangen), one of the most prominent and controversial theologians of the 20th century, studied theology, history and philosophy from 1906 to 1910 in Breslau, Erlangen, and Leipzig. After service in World War I as a field chaplain, Elert became director of the Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-(…

[German Version] The term nadere reformatie denotes a movement in the Netherlands Reformed tradition (Reformed churches), under personal (W. Ames) or literary Puritan influence, tending toward a “second Reformation,” “reaching further” and “more closely” into believers' personal way of life. Its aim was to deepen and take further the renewal of doctrine achieved in the “first Reformation,” in the direction of ethically binding devotional practice of ascetic stamp. The term …

[German Version] I. Introduction Already referred to as the “Thirty Years War” by contemporary witnesses, the military conflicts subsumed under this name were waged between 1618 and 1648 in Central Europe and especially on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. They represent a historically new phenomenon on the threshold to European modern times, notably in terms of the length and geographical scope of the military engagements, of the magnitude of material expenditures, of technological and strate…

[German Version] Founded by Duke Albert of Prussia (the elder) on Oct 24, 1541 and opened on Aug 17, 1544, with four faculties and eleven chairs, the University of Königsberg followed Marburg (1527) as the second newly founded university in the century of the Reformation. As the most easterly German Protestant university before the founding of Dorpat (1632; Tartu), Königsberg fulfilled a central cultural mediating function for Poland and the Baltics. Experts from the University of K…

[German Version] (Dec 9, 1845, Wassertrüdingen, – Apr 7, 1918, Leipzig), the most important Protestant church historian of Wilhelmine Germany besides A. v. Harnack, studied Protestant theology in Erlangen and Berlin. He experienced formative impulses of Erlangen Lutheranism from J.C. von Hofmann and Gustav Leopold Plitt, and, in the spirit of histor…