8 That is, baptized.
TO MY BENEFACTORS, FRIENDS, COMPATRIOTS, COUNTRYMEN,
AND KINSMEN MOST HONORABLE AND BELOVED, I PRAY ETERNAL PEACE.
O men most distinguished, most experienced, most proved in virtue, erudition, prudence, authority and most celebrated in the practice of affairs, lords benefactor, friends, compatriots, countrymen, and kinsmen most honorable and beloved! Although the love of the heavenly country is in all truly devout people and is the special desire of their attention and heart (surely it ought to be)—since their own country “is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20), and they are just “strangers and sojourners in the world” (Lev. 25:23; Ps. 119:19; Heb. 11:13), for which reason David very often calls to God in his prayers: “I am a stranger before You and a sojourner, like all my fathers” (Ps 39:[12]), “I am a stranger to the world and a citizen of heaven”—nevertheless that love of the spiritual, heavenly country in no way excludes natural affection, by which people are drawn toward their own country on this earth. Jerome writes of this in his commentary on the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, specifically on the words “Make straight the highways,” etc., and so he writes, “It is natural that each one love his native soil and hold nothing more sweet than his native country.” An example of this is seen in Euripides’ Phoenissae: “Of necessity all men love their country; he who says otherwise delights in arguments, but his thoughts are still there”; or from Ovid’s verses: “I do not understand how the native land with sweetness takes hold of all and does not allow anyone to forget it.”
For in the way in which a wayfarer, if he obtains a suitable lodging while he is not able to enjoy the native hearth toward which he aspires with his whole heart, still uses the lodging’s accommodations with a thankful heart, so on the journey of this life, which is nothing other than a road toward the true life in heaven, we ought to acknowledge it with grateful hearts if the most kind God has assigned to us such a place to be born and raised that easily commends itself to us by its benefits bestowed by God, which birthright a great many men wish for themselves. I very often recall, not without a silent thanksgiving and a sense of satisfaction, that I also have received this happiness as a mark of divine kindness.
For I was born in Quedlinburg, Saxony (in that very city, of course, whose government has been committed to your trust and prudence, conscript fathers1), in the year 1582, on the seventeenth day of October, to my father, Lord Bartholomew Gerhard—a man of your order, who, in the year 1598, on the very day of the Ascension of our Lord, left human life, whose integrity and kindnesses toward the ministers of the churches and schools are still spoken of by all today—of my mother, Margaret Berndes, daughter of Lord Johann Berndes of blessed memory, juror of the republic of Halberstadt. She died last year, on the twenty-seventh day of January, 1624, and the pattern of her maternal virtues earned a public hearing.
The extant opinions of the historians concerning how this very city obtained its name are diverse. Although some judge it so named from the small chain [catella] at the summit of the mountain where Emperor Henry the Fowler2 was said to have found his wife, called Quedella, they are moved by this conjecture somewhat to fancy that they would see the customary chain [catella] drawn on the insignia of the senate. Others think that it is named from the springs of water with which that place abounds, and that at first it was called Quellenburg [i.e., Spring castle]. But others, whose opinion is more likely, think the name is left over from the old district3 that furnished the origin of the city. For the composers of the annals testify that there was once a district called Quintilingum situated in the region of the city where the parish4 of St. Blasius is today. In the same neighborhood there was another district called Nortingav, which was situated in the place where the parish of St. Egidius is today. In the midst of those districts, where the market [forum] and senate hall [curia] are now, there used to be the houses of certain rich men, houses in which those called the courtiers and satraps of the emperor dwelt. These houses were customarily called the Quintilinguan courts.5 In memory of this and as a sign of [their] antiquity, to this very day one may catch notice of a small, nude mannequin, painted and engraved in stone, on the frontispiece of some homes. Thus from Quintlinburg, which was the ancient name of the city, Quedlinburg was afterward formed. As for those who think the city is named for the Quadi because of their incursions into these lands (known from the chronicles of the histories), I would think they should scarcely be listened to, since those men, unworthy of the name of a people, are not mentioned as ever having fixed their abode anywhere.
This city is situated for the most part on a plain at the base of the Harz Mountains [silva Hercynia], and it is nourished by that most fertile and clear river called the Bode, whose source on Mount Brocken is about four miles from the city. The air in the neighborhood of the mountains and forests is also healthful for a sound temperature. The soil is fertile for raising crops; thus it is impossible for the inhabitants to be without an abundance of lumber, crops, fish, or any of the other things necessary for sustaining life. Because of this opportunity for good auspices, the Imperial Assembly of Emperor Conrad III was held in this city in 1139. Already around the year 930, the frequently aforementioned emperor [Henry I, the Fowler] placed a collegium of illustrious and noble virgins in this city and appointed Matilda, his daughter, the first abbess of the same. When the emperor could not put the last hand upon the quite magnificent structure of the convent, being prevented by his death (for he died in the year 936 at Memleben, near Wernigerode, in the sixtieth year of his life, in the seventeenth year of his reign, when he had again moved from Goslar, where his seat of government had been, back to Rome and was taken with a critical illness on the journey), the widowed Augusta Matilda6 and his daughter, the abbess, processed to the heart of that structure and there reposed the arms of that most praised emperor in an honorific tomb in the Monastery of the Citadel, as it was called.
From that time, the abbesses who ruled this place were from a long line of daughters of emperors, kings, electors, princes, and counts—women conspicuous in their devotion to piety and in their praise of the other virtues. With such honor and graciousness, with the greatest good of her subjects in mind, that most revered and illustrious princess and lady, the Lady Dorothea Sophia, duchess of Saxony, countess of the province of Thuringia, marquise of Meissen, a woman most worthy of the love of all good people and public praise, today performs this office.
Now, if we should turn our eyes away from the external situation of the city and its buildings toward its interior beauty—to the condition of the ecclesiastical and political government—then the benefactions, generously conceded by divine grace to this city more than to many others, will appear all the more clearly. If we should enter the temples, which are numbered in that city at eight—that is, the Temple of the Citadel (consecrated to St. Servatius long ago by Bernhard, bishop of Halberstadt), of St. Benedict, of St. Nicolaus, of St. Blaise, of St. Egidius, of St. Wipert, to the Holy Spirit, and of St. John—in each and every one of these, by the blessing of God, the true doctrine of the Gospel, purged from the corruption of all Papists, Calvinists, and other heretics, can be heard sounding forth.
More than a hundred years ago, when the light of evangelical doctrine had begun to shine forth in the deep darkness of the papacy, the rays of it, at just the right time, illumined the minds of certain citizens in this city. For it says in the memoirs of Joannes Winnistadius, once the pastor of St. Blaise, and in the report of Marcus Schultetus, pastor of the Neustadt [Temple] [Neapolitani], that Vincent, a certain Augustinian monk, not only embraced the purified doctrine of blessed Luther at the very start but also propounded it in the monastery of the Augustinians to great applause. However, he was poisoned to death by the rest of the monks. And when the free course of the Gospel was impeded in this city by the magistrate and sacrificing-priests,7 the Quedlinburgers, Halberstadters, and others in companies rushed into the neighboring district of Westerhausen, where Henningus Radeken was teaching the Gospel of Christ purely and where the Holy Supper was administered according to Christ’s institution “under both kinds,” as the saying goes.
Not long afterward, in the church of St. Blaise, Johannes Sturke began to preach the Gospel truth publicly. While he was devoutly occupied with conducting Palm Sunday services in the public assembly and distributing the body and blood of the Lord in the Sacrament, Captain Philipp Mosebucus saw to it that he was carried away from the altar itself by his deputy—at the end [of the distribution], of course. And thus carried away under arrest, he sent him captive to Duke George of Saxony. Moreover, a large crowd of citizens and manual laborers pursued this man, their pastor, so that they might be at the fortress to prevent unjust force. The captain, seeing their zeal and being persuaded by his friends and agents, sent him back free, with a cease-and-desist order more stern than before to the effect that he should no longer preach.
Afterward, when in this way silence had been imposed on the preachers of the pure doctrine within the city walls by the magistrate at the urging of the sacrificing-priests and monks, God raised up confessors and preachers in the Hospital [Church] outside the city, which was appointed the name of St. John. There was a man in that place, old and renowned for his piety, Benedict Kirchoff, who, though he had been blind for some years, nevertheless God had opened the very eyes of his mind so that he saw the light of Gospel truth and was not afraid to profess it publicly. There was in that Hospital another colleague, one Hermann Dencus, who suffered from a hoarse voice, who busied himself with the work of a pastor in administering the Sacraments according to the Lord’s institution. So the hoarse man sang [and] the blind man preached, for Kirchoff saw to it that Luther’s writings were read to him by others, and what things from them he had been able to commit to memory, with which he was most happily gifted, he taught to the people. Then Dencus would follow the sermons of his colleague with sacred songs.
To this place there was a new flow of people from Quedlinburg, both from the neighborhood of the city and from the countryside. Therefore a pulpit [cathedra] was constructed out of rough-hewn beams in the area of the cemetery, because the church, always quite narrow, could not hold the great number of hearers flowing in from all sides. And though Captain Mosebucus, flitting about the city walls with armed cavalry, attempted to stop that flow of citizens with threats and a roadblock, nevertheless he was unable to succeed in any way. So then, though the enemies of the truth did not want to listen, observing the city and the citizens lifting up their voice like a trumpet, they were forced to allow the blind and hoarse to glorify God outside the city in the open air and proclaim His Word, free from papistic sludge, to the people.
After a space of time, men conspicuous for their erudition and piety were again moved to propagate the divine Word in the city itself: Johannes Bethmann, pastor of the Neustadt temple; Laurentius Donerus, pastor at the Church of St. Egidius; and Jonas Hildebrand, pastor at the Church of the Holy Spirit. Not without danger to their fortunes and lives, these men impressed the purer doctrine of the Gospel upon the people and often were forced to hide themselves in the towers of the temples that they might be safe from the plots and violence of their enemies.
A tale has been handed down concerning Bethmann that when his adversaries accused him before Prince George of Saxony of apostasy from the Church and spreading heresies among the people and, further, when he was called on this charge by the prince, with unbroken and fearless spirit he came before him, who at that time was staying at Quedlinburg. Indeed, before he came before the prince, he said farewell to his brother, relatives, and friends, fearing, of course, that they would not again see his face on this earth. For he feared for his life on account of his enemies’ threats and the famous harshness of this prince. The gossip of the soldiers and attendants of the prince augmented this fear not a little. They stood forth in a great line before and behind the buildings where the lodging of the duke was located, and Bethmann had to be led through the midst of these. Seeing Bethmann, they sent up a laugh, began snorting, lifted him up by the hook of his nose, sent hard threats against him, and cried out that his clothes should be torn off and his head severed. But he came to the prince with a firm and steadfast mind and, in accord with accustomed practice, reverently and submissively prostrated himself at his feet, with his young nephew, the son of his brother, in tow, who carried a volume of the Holy Scriptures.
When his accusers did not appear upon being called in turn for a third time, the prince began to reproach Bethmann with very harsh words, alleging that though he had received his formation, as they call it, from the Roman Church and had bound himself with an oath to obey her, nevertheless he had nefariously defected from her, taken up with the Lutheran sect, spread false doctrines contrary to the Roman Catholic Church among the people, and thus delivered innumerable souls to the fire of hell. With as much humility and submissiveness as he was able, yet with that seriousness that is proper for a steadfast confessor of Christ, Bethmann responded by pointing out the codex of the Scriptures: “The universal Church confesses that she is sworn to the sacred books, that is, to the canonical writings of the prophets and apostles, which are the very Word of God and show the way of salvation without any error. Up to this point I have taught out of these books, and the word of the Gospel, which I teach to be trust in the merits of Christ alone, I have laid before my hearers. But if it were possible to be convinced from Holy Writ that I have thus far seduced any of my followers with any falsehood, I would not only publicly retract it but also even accuse myself of something beyond the penalties set forth.” Having said these things, he subjected himself: “I acknowledge that I am a sinner before God. I subject myself in all submission to the prince, my most clement lord.”After the matter had been deliberated and considered in his own counsel, the prince admonished him that he acknowledge his error and return to the Roman Church, but immediately added, “Go and carry out your office until you receive another mandate from us.”
Upon Bethmann’s death, the replacement was the pontifical sacrificing-priest Johannes Genth. When the hearers refused to attend his sermons and sacred acts and were [thus] destitute of the public exercise of the true religion, Johannes Leo, the rector of the Neustadt School, with his students and the citizens encouraging him, lectured in the school on the evangelical doctrine from the writings of Luther and explained them manfully.
These things happened at the beginning of the cleansing of the doctrine. Then, at length, when Prince George died in the year 1538 (having suffered from the colic), the pontifical sacrificing-priests fled out of the city of their own accord. And the magistrate, noticing that he could not impede the course of the Gospel, not only ceased the persecution but also, when the truth of the evangelical doctrine was recognized from the Word of God, advanced the work of the Reformation (along with the foremost men) by calling to this task worthy preachers who were inclined to the genuine religion expressed in the Augsburg Confession, whom he set over the parishes of the city. Dr. Tilemann Pletenerus, the superintendent of the church of Stolberg, was also invited, who began to emend the customary ceremonies and chants in the temple of the Citadel.
From that time the true and genuine doctrine of the Gospel—without any leaven of human traditions and corruptions—was always, up to today, put forth to the people in all the temples of the whole city by an uninterrupted succession of men in the ministry, men most renowned for erudition and piety, among whom were men known to me: Master Friedrich Abstorffius, Master Andreas Leopoldi, superintendents and court preachers; Master Bartholomaeus Bertramus, Andreas Brandes, Johann Arnd, Bartholdus Velsteinius, Master Georg Scholl (by whom I was initiated in the Christian mysteries [sacris Christianis]8), Johannes Weidling, Jacobus Apelius, and a great many others, who, after they served the plan of God with their lives, devoutly and peacefully fell asleep and were gathered to their fathers, as the Holy Spirit says concerning the death of devout people in Acts 13:36. those who succeeded them in oversight [
] and the ministry, and who live thus far by the grace of God, are decorated with no lesser gifts of the Holy Spirit, nor do they who do the work of the Lord with the true piety of distinguished erudition joined with humanity and modesty—men most worthy of all praise—do so with little fruit.
If we now look away from the churches to the senate, we shall see in it an order of city government hitherto outstanding. And we shall also see, to this very day, men most notable for their age, prudence, authority, and experience sitting over it as officers of justice, most vigilant cultivators and defenders, who established the well-being of all the citizens as the supreme law over their counsels and actions and labor at it with all their powers, so that they might leave our native republic, which they received from their elders in a flourishing condition, to their posterity in the same state. In my day, the consulship was held by Ambrosius Rühelius, Peter Sicheling (who drew me from the holy font of Baptism9), Nicolaus tulich, Johannes Steinacker, Lothar Lüder—all now among the saints. These most distinguished men handed on the torch of civic government to you men, especially to you, Lord Nicolaus Schultz; to you, Lord Christophorus Noricus; and to you, Lord Bodo Bluethus; and to your most honorable colleagues. Wherefore nothing is more hoped for in [our] prayers than that you, standing faithfully in the most praiseworthy footsteps of your ancestors, would conserve the well-being and safety of the citizens as an edifice in good repair; in this matter, indeed, the most felicitous outcome agrees with your own prayers and plans.
You have so steered the ship of state entrusted to your care that it is not possible ever for any one of you to be found wanting in probity in regard to your prudence in directing matters or in regard to your diligence in taking up labors or in regard to patience in taking on adversities. What can I say concerning you, Most High Consul Lord Doctor Johannes Muller? For more than three decades you have performed with solicitude and dexterity such great works in the council as a gift to our native republic that it appears that in this matter you will not have an equal as your successor—and certainly no one superior. No one to whom your mind, life, manners, and actions are somewhat deeply known can overlook your indefatigable zeal for reading theological writings, your attentiveness to judgment in sacred and political matters, your incorruptible affection toward the ministers of the churches and schools and toward all learned men whatsoever.
If we turn away from the senate to the school and shed some light on a little bit of history of recent events, we shall see that from the school of Quedlinburg, as if from the Trojan horse, have come forth unnumbered toga-clad soldiers of literary pursuits, whose labor for the Church and republic was most helpful and fruitful. It always had rectors most distinguished for their erudition, prominent molders of developing youth, among whom two men stand forth like two torches and olive branches: Basilius Faber—famous throughout all of Europe for his edition of a dictionary of scholastic learning10—and Master Heinrich Faber, under whose discipline it was my lot to spend my boyhood and adolescence, whose lifelike portrait you most distinguished men, not without reason, took care to place in the choir of St. Benedict’s Temple on account of his extraordinary benefactions to the school and the whole city. Recall that when he devoutly died of the plague in the year 1598, sixteen doctors could be counted who not at all unwillingly confessed that they received a great part of their learning from his instruction. Those who succeeded these great men in the office of teaching developing youths in scholastic learning, and preside over the same today, are themselves satisfied to actively fulfill [just] the most part of their assigned duty and to obtain the praise of their predecessors.
If we turn from the school to the private dwellings of the citizens, the following will come to the attention of our minds and eyes: the unyielding zeal for true doctrine in the fathers of the households, the singular regard for the ministerium, the obedience toward the magistrates, the beneficence for the poor little students cared for with alms, the diligence for raising children devoutly and educating them in the discipline and admonition of the Lord [Eph. 6:4]. Thus I can add nothing more concerning the integrity in friendly relationships and justice in business and other virtuous associations.
Yet just as there are thorns and nettles in a rose garden, so also in the body politic there are ever found certain corrupt humors and abscesses. Nevertheless, most distinguished men, since your oversight and your care and vigilance in these matters resists evil men as much as possible, therefore when some crime appears in the midst of the rest of the citizens born for and trained in virtue, it is not appropriate to detract anything from their praise. Therefore with reason, I, from the bottom of my heart on account of my association with the city (by reason of my birth and education), congratulate you, most honorable consuls and most esteemed senators, for the government of this, our native republic, thus far somewhat described by me. Nor do I think it possible for me to be induced by any man to reckon it a fault that I wish to speak in my preface upon such topics as the praise owed to my fatherland, which caught me in its fold at my birth, in which my infancy bleated, my boyhood played, my youth was educated; in which I am able to count a long series of relations, friends, companions or, rather, patrons. More and greater are the blessings that the most kind God granted to this, my fatherland, than I am able worthily to recount, proclaim, and determine.
But to you, most distinguished men, I wish to dedicate this Exegesis of the first volume of the Theological Commonplaces, that I might give a public testimony of my affection for our native republic and for you leaders of the same; also that I might show at least some indication of my grateful heart for your favor, honor, and love; also for your benefactions, on the one hand, to me and, on the other hand, to my relatives—some dead, some still living—and to this day preserved in plenteous measure by you most distinguished and esteemed men; also that I might at length pay back that debt, by which I am tightly bound to the fatherland and to you, its overseers, by a promise made long ago, with some sort of coinage, since in my literary line of work I could not mint a better sort.
I pray with groaning supplications to God, highest in goodness, greatest in power, that the good gifts which He has conferred on our fatherland most fruitfully would abound in the land, if not perpetually—for nothing in human affairs is perpetual—at least for a long time, and not cease to strengthen the land daily. And for you, most celebrated men, for one and all of you, I pray that God might kindly dispense to you a peaceful tranquillity of rule, longevity of life, continual good health, every prosperity of soul and body, and at length, at the end of the course of this life, eternal happiness.
Given at Jena on the first of April, in the year 1625,
to you men most distinguished and esteemed
by the man who obeys, loves, and esteems you most zealously,
Johann Gerhard, doctor
1 In Republican Rome, “conscript fathers” (patres conscripti) was a technical term for the senate.
2 Heinrich I der Vogler (Latin: Henricius Auceps) lived AD 876-936.
3 That is, a specific division of the provinces of the old Roman Empire.
4 That is, a small ecclesiastical geographic region, not identical with a “congregation.”
5 In the early medieval revival of the Western Roman Empire, one would go to the “Court” (curtes) to pay taxes and take care of governmental affairs.
6 In the Roman Empire, “Augusta” was a term for the emperor’s wife. The emperor himself held the official title of “Augustus.”
7 Sacrificuli, a pejorative term aimed at priests who offered the sacrifice of the Mass.
8 That is, baptized.
9 That is, “who was my godfather.”
10 B. Faber’s Thesaurus Eruditionis Scholasticae (1571) was reprinted and expanded numerous times well into the eighteenth century. Faber also contributed to the first four of the Magdeburg Centuries.