Johann Gerhard - Biography

Biography

He was born in the German city of Quedlinburg. At the age of fourteen, during a dangerous illness, he came under the personal influence of Johann Arndt, author of Das wahre Christenthum, and resolved to study for the church. He entered the University of Wittenberg in 1599, and studied philosophy and theology. A relative then persuaded him to change his subject, and he studied medicine for two years. In 1603, he resumed his theological reading at Jena, and in the following year received a new impulse from J.W. Winckelmann and Balthasar Mentzer at Marburg. He graduated in 1605 and began to give lectures at Jena, then in 1606 he accepted the invitation of John Casimir, Duke of Coburg, to the superintendency of Heldburg and mastership of the gymnasium; soon afterwards he became general superintendent of the duchy, in which capacity he was engaged in the practical work of ecclesiastical organization until 1616, when he became the senior theological professor at Jena, where the remainder of his life was spent.

Here, with Johann Major and Johann Himmel, he formed the "Trias Johannea." Though still comparatively young, Gerhard was already regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany; in the "disputations" of the period he was always protagonist, and his advice was sought on all public and domestic questions touching on religion or morals. During his lifetime he received repeated calls to almost every university in Germany (e.g. Giessen, Altdorf, Helmstedt, Jena, Wittenberg), as well as to Uppsala in Sweden. He died in Jena.

Read more about this topic:  Johann Gerhard

Famous quotes containing the word biography:

    As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    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 (1892–1983)

    The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)