Alexander Gordon

“ No doubt his impelling motive was to prove popery to be built on bad history and bad exegesis. Whether that be so or not, the extirpation of bad history and bad exegesis is now felt to be of equal interest to all religionists. ”

“ Affirming the natural inability of man, he unwittingly fell into expressions consonant with the Manichaean view of sin, as not an accident of human nature, but involved in its substance, since the Fall. Resisting ecclesiastical censure, he left Jena (Feb. 1562) to found an academy at Regensburg. The project was not successful, and in October 1566 he accepted a call from the Lutheran community at Antwerp. Thence he was driven (Feb. 1567) by the exigencies of war, and betook himself to Frankfort, where the authorities set their faces against him. ”

“ Again betaking himself to Frankfort, the prioress, Catharina von Meerfeld, of the convent of White Ladies, harboured him and his family in despite of the authorities. He fell ill at the end of 1574; the city council ordered him to leave by Mayday 1575; but death released him on the 11th of March 1575. His first wife, by whom he had twelve children, died in 1564; in the same year he remarried and had further issue. His son Matthias was professor of philosophy and medicine at Rostock. Of a life so tossed about the literary fruit was indeed remarkable. His polemics we may pass over ”