Friedrich Staphylus

About 1536 he went to Wittenberg, obtained the Degree of magister artium in 1541 and at Melanchthon's recommendation became a tutor in the family of the Count of Eberstein.

At this time Staphylus was still under the influence of Martin Luther's opinions, as is shown by his academic disputation upon the doctrine of justification, De justificationis articulo.

However, at his installation as professor he obtained the assurance that he need not remain if the duke tolerated errors which "might be contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the primitivæ apostolicæ et catholicæ ecclesiæ consensum".

In 1547–48 he was the first rector elected by the university, but in 1548 he resigned his professorship, because he met with enmity, and was dissatisfied with religious conditions in Prussia.

The dogmatic dissension, which seemed to him to make everything uncertain, drove him continually more and more to the Catholic idea of Tradition and to the demand for the authoritative exposition of the Scriptures by the Church.

He expressed these views in the treatise Synodus sanctorum patrum antiquorum contra nova dogmata Andreæ Osiandri, which he wrote at Danzig in 1552.

In his Theologiæ Martini Lutheri trimembris epitome (1558) he severely attacked the lack of union in Protestantism, the worship of Luther, and religious subjectivism.