AGRICOLA (originally SCHNEIDER, then SCHNITTER), JOHANNES
(1494-1566),
German Protestant reformer, was born on the 20th of
April 1494, at Eisleben, whence he is sometimes called Magister
Islebius.
He studied at Wittenberg?, where he soon gained the
friendship of Martin Luther. In 1519 he accompanied Luther to the great
assembly of German divines at Leipzig, and acted as recording
secretary. After teaching for some time in Wittenberg, he
went to Frankfort in 1525 to establish the Protestant reformed mode of
worship. He had resided there only a month when he was called
to Eisleben, where he remained till 1526 as teacher in the
school of St Andrew, and preacher in the Nicolai church.
In 1536 he was recalled to teach in Wittenberg, and was welcomed by
Luther. Almost immediately, however, a controversy, which
had been begun ten years before and been temporarily silenced,
broke out more violently than ever. 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.
In consequence of the bitter controversy
with Luther that resulted, Agricola in 1540 left Wittenberg
secretly for Berlin, where he published a letter addressed
to the elector of Saxony, which was generally interpreted
as a recantation of his obnoxious views. Luther, however,
seems not to have so accepted it, and Agricola remained at
Berlin.
The elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, having taken
him into his favour, appointed him court preacher and general
superintendent. He held both offices until his death in 1566,
and his career in Brandenburg was one of great activity and
influence. Along with Julius von Pflug, bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz,
and Michael Helding, titular bishop of Sidon, he prepared
the Augsburg Interim of 1548. He endeavoured in vain to
appease the Adiaphoristic? controversy.
He died during an epidemic of plague on the 22nd of September
1566.
Agricola wrote a number of theological works which
are now of little interest. He was the first to make a
collection of German proverbs which he illustrated with a
commentary. The most complete edition, which contains
seven hundred and fifty proverbs, is that published at
Wittenberg in 1592.