Johannes Agricola

He had resided there only a month when he was called to Eisleben, where he remained until 1526 as teacher in the school of St Andrew, and preacher in the Nicolai church.

Agricola was the first to teach the views which Luther was the first to stigmatize by the name Antinomian, maintaining that while non-Christians were still held to the Mosaic law, Christians were entirely free from it, being under the gospel alone.

[4][5] As a consequence of the bitter controversy with Luther, in 1540 Agricola left Wittenberg secretly for Berlin, where he published a letter addressed to Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, which was generally interpreted as a recantation of his prior views.

Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg, having taken Agricola into his favour, appointed him court preacher and general superintendent.

Along with Julius von Pflug, bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz, and Michael Helding, titular bishop of Sidon, he prepared the Augsburg Interim of 1548, a proposed settlement under which Protestants would accept all Catholic authority, being permitted to retain the Protestant teaching on communion under both kinds and married clergy, but otherwise compelled to accept Catholic doctrine and practice, including the rejection of justification by faith alone.

The first volume contains 300 proverbs and was published in 1529 (Drey hundert Gemeyner Sprichworter, der wir Deutschen vns gebrauchen, vnd doch nicht wissen woher sie kommen; first published in Low German the year before); the second volume contains 450 proverbs and was published in 1530 (Das ander teyl gemainer Tewtscher Sprichwörter, mit jhrer außlegung : hat fünffthalb hundert newer Wörtter).