Zacharias Ursinus

Zacharias Ursinus
Zacharias Ursinus
	Breslau, Silesia, Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Habsburg monarchy; (now Wrocław, Poland)
Died	6 May 1583 (aged 48); Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Electoral Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire; (now Germany)
Nationality	Silesian/German
Occupation	Theologian/Professor
Notable work	Heidelberg Catechism

Zacharias Ursinus (18 July 1534 – 6 May 1583) was a sixteenth-century German

University of Heidelberg and the College of Wisdom (Collegium Sapientiae). He is best known as the principal author and interpreter of the Heidelberg Catechism.^[1]

Origins and early education

At age fifteen he enrolled at the

Peter Martyr Vermigli

.

In Heidelberg and Neustadt

In 1561, upon Vermigli's recommendation,

Caspar Olevianus

(1536–1587) was formerly asserted as a co-author of the document, though this theory has been largely discarded by modern scholarship. [3] The death of the Elector Frederick and the accession of the Lutheran Ludwig IV in 1576, led to the removal of Ursinus, who occupied a professorial chair at the

Casmirianum, a Reformed academy at Neustadt an der Weinstraße from 1578 until his death.^[4]

He died, aged 48, in Neustadt an der Weinstraße.

His Works were published in 1587–1589, and a more complete edition by his son and two of his pupils, David Pareus and Quirinius Reuter, in 1612.^[4] Ursinus's collected catechical lectures (Het Schatboeck der verclaringhen over de Catechismus) was one of the most prominent theological handbooks among seventeenth century Reformed Christians and was especially popular in the Netherlands. Reformed German and Dutch immigrants to North America celebrated his legacy—especially his role in the creation of the Heidelberg Catechism. Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, is a liberal arts college founded in 1869 in his name.

References

^ Fred H. Klooster, "The Priority of Ursinus in the Composition of the Heidelberg Catechism," Controversy and Conciliation: The Reformation of the Palatinate 1559-1583, ed. Derk Visser (Allison Park, Penn.: Pickwick, 1986), 73-100.
^ Herzog, Johann Jakob; Hauck, Albert; Jackson, Samuel Macauley; Sherman, Charles Colebrook; Gilmore, George William (1912). The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology and Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Biography from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Funk and Wagnalls Company.
^ Lyle Bierma, "The Purpose and Authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism," in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 67.
^ ^a ^b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ursinus, Zacharias" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 803.

External links

Works by or about Zacharias Ursinus at Internet Archive
Works by Zacharias Ursinus at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Biography (in Dutch)
Works by Zacharias Ursinus at Post-Reformation Digital Library

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	Spain France BnF data Germany Italy Israel Belgium United States Sweden Czech Republic Korea Netherlands Poland Vatican
People	Netherlands Deutsche Biographie Trove
Other	IdRef

Zacharias Ursinus

Origins and early education

In Heidelberg and Neustadt

Impact

References

External links

Further reading