GEORG

CALIXTUS (1586-1656)  , Lutheran divine, was born at Medelby, a village of Schleswig, in 1586 . After studying philology, philosophy and theology at Helmstedt, Jena, Giessen, Tubingen and Heidelberg, he travelled through Holland, France and England, where he became acquainted with the leading Reformers . On his return in 1614 he was appointed professor of theology at Helmstedt by the duke of Brunswick, who had admired the ability he displayed when a young man in a dispute with the Jesuit Augustine Turrianus . In 1613 he published a book, Disputationes de Praecipuis Religionis Christianae Capitibus, which provoked the hostile criticism of orthodox scholars; in 1619 he published his Epitome theologiae, and some years later his Theologia Moralis (1634) and De Arte Nova Nihusii . Roman Catholics felt them to be aimed at their own system, but they gave so great offence to Lutherans as to induce Statius Buscher to charge the author with a secret leaning to Romanism . Scarcely had he refuted the accusation of Buscher, when, on account of his intimacy with the Reformed divines at the conference of Thorn (1645), and his desire to effect a reconciliation between them and the Lutherans, a new charge was preferred against him, principally at the instance of Abraham Calovius (1612-1686), of a secret attachment to Calvinism . In fact, the great aim of his life was to reconcile Christendom by removing all unimportant differences . The disputes to which this attitude gave rise, known in the Church as the Syncretistic controversy, lasted during the whole lifetime of Calixtus, and distracted the Lutheran church, till a new controversy arose with P . J . Spener and the Pietists of Halle . Calixtus died in 1656 . There is a monograph on Calixtus by E .

L . T .

Henke (2 vols., 1853-1856) ; see also Isaak Dorner, Gesch: d. protest . Theol. pp . 606-624; and especially Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie .