Johann Gerhard

During a dangerous illness, at the age of fourteen he came under the personal influence of Johann Arndt, author of Das wahre Christenthum, and resolved to study for the church.

Though still comparatively young, Gerhard was already regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany; in the "disputations" of the period he was always protagonist, and his advice was sought on all public and domestic questions touching on religion or morals.

To the first category belong the Commentarius in harmoniam historiae evangelicae de passione Christi (1617), the Comment, super priorem D. Petri epistolam (1641), and also his commentaries on Genesis (1637) and on Deuteronomy (1658).

Of a controversial character are the Confessio Catholica (1633–1637), an extensive work which seeks to prove the evangelical and catholic character of the doctrine of the Augsburg Confession from the writings of approved Roman Catholic authors; and the Loci communes theologici (1610–1622), his principal contribution, in which Lutheranism is expounded "nervose, solide et copiose," in fact with a fulness of learning, a force of logic and a minuteness of detail that had never before been approached.

[1] The Meditationes sacrae (1606), a work expressly devoted to the uses of Christian edification, has been frequently reprinted in Latin and has been translated into most of the European languages, including Greek.