Biography
He was born at Ballenstedt, in Anhalt, and studied in several universities. He was at Helmstedt in 1576 and at Wittenberg in 1577. At Wittenberg the crypto-Calvinist controversy was then at its height, and he took the side of Melanchthon and the crypto-Calvinists. He continued his studies in Strasbourg, under the professor of Hebrew, Johannes Pappus (1549–1610), a zealous Lutheran, the crown of whose life's work was the forcible suppression of Calvinistic preaching and worship in the day, and who had great influence over him.
In Basel, again, he studied theology under Simon Sulzer (1508–1585), a broad-minded divine of Lutheran sympathies, whose aim was to reconcile the churches of the Helvetic and Wittenberg confessions. In 1581 he went back to Ballenstedt, but was soon recalled to active life by his appointment to the pastorate at Badeborn in 1583.
After some time his Lutheran tendencies aroused the anger of the authorities, who were of the Reformed Church. Consequently, in 1590 he was deposed for refusing to remove the pictures from his church and discontinue the use of exorcism at baptism. (Anhalt would become Calvinist in 1596.) He found an asylum in Quedlinburg (1590), and afterwards was transferred to St Martin's church at Brunswick in 1599. He later worked in Eisleben, and until 1621 as Generalsuperintendent in Celle.
Arndt's fame rests on his writings. These were mainly of a mystical and devotional kind, and were inspired by St Bernard, Johannes Tauler and Thomas à Kempis. His principal work, Wahres Christentum (book 1: 1605; books 1-4: 1606-1610) i.e. "True Christianity", which has been translated into most European languages, has served as the foundation of many books of devotion, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Arndt here dwells upon the mystical union between the believer and Christ, and endeavours, by drawing attention to Christ's life in His people, to correct the purely forensic side of the reformation theology, which paid almost exclusive attention to Christ's death for His people. Like Luther, Arndt was very fond of the little anonymous book, Theologia Germanica. He published an edition of it and called attention to its merits in a special preface. After Wahres Christentum, his best-known work is Paradiesgärtlein aller christlichen Tugenden, which was published in 1612. Both these books have been translated into English: Paradiesgärtlein with the title the Garden of Paradise, and Wahres Christentum as True Christianity. Several of his sermons are published in R. Nesselmann's Buch der Predigten (1858).
Arndt has always been held in very high repute by the German Pietists. The founder of Pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener, repeatedly called attention to him and his writings, and even went so far as to compare him with Plato.
Read more about this topic: Johann Arndt
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)