Johann Arndt was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Lutheran theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 who wrote several influential books of devotional Christianity. Although reflective of the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy

Lutheran Orthodoxy

Lutheran orthodoxy was an era in the history of Lutheranism, which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord and ended at the Age of Enlightenment. Lutheran orthodoxy was paralleled by similar eras in Calvinism and tridentine Roman Catholicism after the...

, he is seen as a forerunner of pietism

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

, a movement within Lutheranism that gained strength in the late 17th century.

Biography

He was born at Ballenstedt

Ballenstedt

Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the northern rim of the Harz mountain range, about 10 km southeast of Quedlinburg. The municipality includes the villages of Badeborn and Oppenrode...

, in Anhalt

Anhalt

Anhalt was a sovereign county in Germany, located between the Harz Mountains and the river Elbe in Middle Germany. It now forms part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.- Dukes of Anhalt :...

, and studied in several universities.
He was at Helmstedt

University of Helmstedt

The University of Helmstedt, official Latin name: Academia Julia , was a university in Helmstedt in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel that existed from 1576 until 1810....

 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

Philipp Melanchthon

Philipp Melanchthon , born Philipp Schwartzerdt, was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems...

 and the crypto-Calvinists. He continued his studies in Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

, under the professor of Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, Johannes Pappus (1549–1610), a zealous Lutheran, the crown of whose life's work was the forcible suppression of Calvinistic

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

 preaching and worship in the day, and who had great influence over him.

In Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, again, he studied theology under Simon Sulzer

Simon Sulzer

Simon Sulzer was a Reformed theologian, Reformer, and Antistes of the Basel church.- Life :Sulzer was born in Schattenhalb, the child of a priest. He was educated in Bern and Lucerne. The sudden death of his father, the provost of Interlaken, forced him to turn to manual labor to support himself...

 (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

Reformed churches

The Reformed churches are a group of Protestant denominations characterized by Calvinist doctrines. They are descended from the Swiss Reformation inaugurated by Huldrych Zwingli but developed more coherently by Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger and especially John Calvin...

.
Consequently, in 1590 he was deposed for refusing to remove the pictures from his church and discontinue the use of exorcism

Exorcism

Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...

 at baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

. (Anhalt would become Calvinist in 1596.) He found an asylum in Quedlinburg

Quedlinburg

Quedlinburg is a town located north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. In 1994 the medieval court and the old town was set on the UNESCO world heritage list....

 (1590), and afterwards was transferred to St Martin's church at Brunswick in 1599. He later worked in Eisleben

Eisleben

Eisleben is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is famous as the hometown of Martin Luther, hence its official name is Lutherstadt Eisleben. As of 2005, Eisleben had a population of 24,552...

, and until 1621 as Generalsuperintendent in Celle

Celle

Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser and has a population of about 71,000...

.

Arndt's fame rests on his writings. These were mainly of a mystical and devotional kind, and were inspired by St Bernard

Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...

, Johannes Tauler

Johannes Tauler

Johannes Tauler was a German mystic theologian.- Life :He was born about the year 1300 in Strasbourg, and was educated at the Dominican convent in that city, where Meister Eckhart, who greatly influenced him, was professor of theology in the monastery school...

 and Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis was a late Medieval Catholic monk and the probable author of The Imitation of Christ, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion. His name means, "Thomas of Kempen", his home town and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen...

.
His principal work, Wahres Christentum (book 1: 1605; books 1-4: 1606-1610), 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

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

, Arndt was very fond of the little anonymous book, Theologia Germanica

Theologia Germanica

Theologia Germanica, also known as Theologia Deutsch or Teutsch, is a mystical treatise believed to have been written in the mid 14th century by an anonymous author, usually associated with the Friends of God. According to the introduction of the Theologia the author was a priest and a member of...

. 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

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

. The founder of Pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener

Philipp Jakob Spener

Philipp Jakob Spener was a German Christian theologian known as the "Father of Pietism."...

, repeatedly called attention to him and his writings, and even went so far as to compare him with Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

.

External links

• Online works by Johann Arndt
  • True Christianity trans. Peter C. Erb, 1979
  • True Christianity trans. Anton Wilhelm Böhm, 1809