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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 …

[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 con…

[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. Acon…

[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 Pia desideria, initially in his writings, though without embracing its specific innovations (conventicles, hop…

[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 th…

[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 nadere reformatie occurs in reform proposals of the Utrecht Consistory of 1665, influenced by…

[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 Königsberg were …

[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 historicism, from L. v. Ranke. Having passed the qualifying exam for theology in Bavaria (1868), Hauck entered into church service. On the basis of a monogra…

[German Version] (Mar 3, 1589, Heusden, Holland –Nov 1, 1676, Utrecht). Born to a noble family impoverished by war, Voetius began to study theology at Leiden in 1604; as a student of F. Gomarus, he was deeply involved in the debates between the Remonstrants (Arminians) and Contraremonstrants. In 1611 he was appointed pastor in Vlijmen, in 1617 in Heusden, his home town, and in 1629 in ’s-Hertogenbosch. In 1618/1619 he took part in the Synod of Dort, agreeing with the Contraremonstrants’ doctrine o…

[German Version] (May 28, 1674, Gevezin near New Brandenburg – May 2, 1732, Greifswald). After studying in Rostock, Copenhagen, and Leipzig, Krakevitz was appointed professor of Near Eastern languages and professor of catechetics in Rostock in 1699. From 1713 onward, as professor of theology, councilor of the consistory, and superintendent of ¶ the Mecklenburg district, Krakevitz became one of the most important representatives of late Rostock orthodoxy (II, 2) together with J. Fecht, J. Quistorp, and Zacharias Grapius (1671–1713). Appointed gene…

[German Version] The so-called Colloquium Charitativum, which convened at the invitation of the Polish king Wladyslav IV (1632–1648) and was opened on Aug 28, 1645 by the Polish chancellor Georg of Teschen in the town hall of the Royal Prussian city of Thorn, was officially meant to promote the interconfessional dialogue between the (also) politically opposed confessional parties in the Kingdom of Poland; in actual fact, however, the conference was part of a Counter-Reformation policy of recatholi…

[German Version] 1. Johann, the Elder (Aug 18, 1587, Rostock – May 2, 1648, Doberan), son of a Rostock tawer and founder of a Mecklenburg scholarly dynasty whose influence lasted into the second half of the 18th century. After schooling in Rostock (Nathan Chytraeus; P. Tarnow) and Berlin, he began his studies in 1603 in Frankfurt an der Oder but returned to Rostock in 1604 (M.A. 1613). In 1615 he took over one of the municipal chairs of theology at the University of Rostock; in 1616 he was also app…

[German Version] (Guy de Brès/de Bray; 1522, Bergen/Mons – May 31, 1567, Valenciennes) was the definitive reformer of the southern Low Countries. Under unknown circumstances, the learned glass painter was won to the Reformation cause in the 1540s. In 1548 he fled into exile in London for religious reasons; he returned in 1552 to preach in Rijssel/Lille. He use…

[German Version] (1531/1532, Cassel near Hazebrouck, Flanders (now France) – Mar 17, 1588, Elbląg [Elbing], Poland) joined the Reformation as a young Carmelite monk (Ypres) and fled to England in 1550. In 1555, he became the leader of the Dutch exile community in Frankfurt am Main. After the eucharistic controversy between Calvin and J. Westphal, Dathenus and some 60 families took refuge in the monastery of ¶ Frankenthal. He moved to the Netherlands in 1566, but fled once again to the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz) in 1567 …