THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
a reditu ex Babylonico exilio usque ad ultimum excidium H ierosolyma? (Wittenberg, 1548;, and with Kasper Peucer he prepared his Yocabula rei nuinmurice volucrum ct piscium appellationes (1549).
His most famous work is his Culendarium historicum (1550), written in collaboration with Melanchthon arid containing a reformed calendar of the saints with a historical calendar.
Eber 's firm attitude during the Schmalkald War of 1 546-47 won him the admiration of his colleagues, and on June 21, 1557, he succeeded Johann Forster as professor of the Old Testament and preacher at the Schlosskirche. He accompanied Melanchthon to the Colloquy of Worms and acted as secretary, but returned from Worms at Christmas, and succeeded Bugenhagen as municipal preacher and general superintendent of the electoral circuit, Sept. 4, 1558. When Melanchthon died in 1560, his course of lectures was completed by Eber, who, as professor of the Old Testament, was invited by the Elector August to revise the Vulgate of the Old Testament for the Biblia Germanico-Latina (1565). He was obliged, however, to complete his work in a year and a half, and he was little pleased with his results. As a preacher he is best known by two volumes published after his death by his pupils, the Evangeliorum dominicalium explicatio (ed. J. Cellarius, Frankfort, 1576) and the Katechismuspredigten (ed. T. Feurelius, Nuremberg, 1577). His most bitter struggles were connected with the controversies on the nature of the Eucharist. Like Melanchthon, he rejected the ubiquitarianism of Brenz, and frequently approximated the Calvinistic view. Peucer later said in reproach of him that he had been convinced of the truth of the Swiss doctrine as early as 1561, but had suddenly become an opponent of the crypto-Calvinists of Wittenberg after the Dresden conference of Mar. 25, 1561. It is indisputable that on that occasion he advocated a confession which harked back to the Wittenberg Concordia, and henceforth taught a modified Lutheranism which he regarded as the true interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, defending his views in his Vom heiligen Sakrament des Leibs und Bluts unsers Herrn Jesu Christi (Wittenberg, 1562), although his course contented neither the Lutherans nor the Reformed. Eber is also famous as an author of hymns, of which the best-known are Herr Jesu Christ, wahr'r Mensch und Gott (" Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God ") and Wenn voir in hochsten Nothen sein (" When in the hour of utmost need "). (G. Kawerau.)
Bibliography: Sources of value for a life are in CR, iii.ix., and in J. Voigt, Brief wechsel der beruhmtesten Gelehrten mit Herzog Albrecht, pp. 234 sqq., Konigsberg, 1841. Consult also: C. H. Sixt, Dr. Paul Eber, Heidelberg^ 1843; idem, Paul Eber. Ein Stuck Wittenberger Lebens', Ansbach, 1857; T. Pressel, in Leben und ausgewahlte Schnften der Voter . der lutherischen Kirche vol viii., Elberfeld, 1862, G. Buehwald, Paul Eber, Leipsic, 1897; J. W. Richard, Philip Melanchthon, passim, New York, 1898; Julian, Hymnology, 318, 9.
EBERHARD, e'ber-hard, OF BETHUNE: French grammarian and theologian; b. at Bethune (20 m. s.w. of Lille); flourished between 1100 and 1200. Of his life almost nothing is known, except that he was the author of two important works.
The first of these is his Graeismus de figuris et octo parlibus orationix,a, poem of more than 2,000 verses treating of rhetoric, prosody, grammar, and syntax, the whole without any logical arrangement. It was first edited by J. H. Metulinus (Paris, 1487). As a theologian Eberhard distinguished himself by his Liber antihccresis, in which he assailed the Cathari, then numerous in Flanders. This work is important as a source for the teachings of this sect. It was first edited by J. Gretser in his Trias scriptorum contra Waldenses (Ingolstadt, 1614), and contains two appendices, one a catalogue of older heresies, drawn from the Origines of Isidore of Seville, and the other a polemic against the Jews. A number of unimportant treatises, including the Labarintus, a poem on poetry, rhetoric, and grammar, are erroneously ascribed to this Eberhard.