It is likely that he was the son, or possibly a remoter relative, of Johann Salige, a businessman and civic leader of Lübeck who died in 1530.
He first appears in the records as a Lutheran preacher based in Woerden, a prosperous small town a short distance to the west of Utrecht.
Together with Hinrich Fredeland, who preached at St. James's Church, he launched what might be construed as an intensification of the Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence.
Martin Luther had uncompromisingly rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation, but had replaced it with the idea that Christ is nevertheless substantially present in the physical elements (bread and wine) of the Eucharist.
It is a mark of the seriousness with which the church authorities viewed the matter that this time both Lucas Bacmeister and Martin Chemnitz were called in for advice.
The Saliger Controversy needs to be seen as one of a whole series of theological disputes, principally between Gnesio-Lutherans and Philippists during the years between the death, in 1546, of Martin Luther and the widespread acceptance of the Book of Concord in 1580.
However, despite referencing the issues to which he had drawn attention, the Formula of Concord avoided mentioning Saliger by name, and may indeed have been intending to reference him when they wrote, "We reject and condemn also all presumptuous, frivolous, blasphemous questions and expressions which are presented in a gross, carnal, Capernaitic way regarding the supernatural, heavenly mysteries of this Supper.
In 1971 Tom Hardt, a Swedish theologian and pastor, included in his doctoral dissertation the contention that Saliger was "doctrinally correct" in terms of the mainstream beliefs of Lutherans in the first part of the sixteenth century.