THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
pastor of the Church of St. John in Magdeburg, whence he continued his attacks on Hardenberg. In 1561 his opponent was deposed as a disturber of the common peace and expelled. At a convention held in Luneburg in 1561, Hesshusen achieved the victory of strict Lutheranism, but the synod of Lower Saxony accepted its resolutions only under the condition that preachers be forbidden to condemn one another. In the mean time Johann Wigand, whom Strigel had expelled from Jena, had come to Magdeburg. Hesshusen intended to secure for him a position at the Church of St. Ulrich, and for this purpose tried to expel Sebastian Werner. The magistrates, however, did not submit to this arbitrary procedure. Riots followed, and Hesshusen declared that he did not consider the council any longer a Christian authority and imposed the ban upon its members. As a consequence, in 1562 he was driven out of Magdeburg by an armed force. He fled to Wesel, his native city; but his denunciations of the pope as Antichrist aroused the displeasure of the duke of Jiilich, and at his instigation the council expelled him. He pleaded in vain with the authorities of Strasburg to be received there. In 1565 Count Palatine Wolfgang of Zweibrticken called him to Neuburg as court preacher. In May, 1566, he took part in the discussions of the Diet of Augsburg, with the permission of his sovereign.
On the death of the Count Palatine in 1569, Duke John William called him to the University of Jena, with the special task to reestablish strict Lutheranism in the country. With his colleagues Wigand and Ccelestin he subjected the clergy of Thuringia to a vigorous examination. The fruit of this visitation was Hesshusen's Examen theologicum (1570). In 1570 Jacob Andrea came to Weimar to win the duke for the Formula of Concord; but all attempts at union were bitterly opposed by Hesshusen, and Andrea was dismissed without having achieved his purpose. In 1571 Hesshusen attacked Flacius, his former friend, who, according to him, taught that hereditary sin formed the substance of man. On the death of Duke John William in 1573, the administration of the country was entrusted to Elector Augustus, who speedily expelled Hesshusen and Wigand and a hundred other clergymen and theologians. The two leaders turned to Brunswick, where Chemnitz offered them a place of refuge. On Sept. 21, 1573, Hesshusen was consecrated bishop of Samland. In his zealous defense of the Lutheran doctrine against the Calvinists he went so far as to say that not only is Christ omnipotent, but that the humanity of Christ is omnipotent, on the basis of the unity of the two natures. Now the tables were turned upon him. After having triumphantly represented Flacius as teaching that the devil was a creator as well as God, he was now proved to teach that there were two divine beings, both omnipotent. As Hesshusen did not retreat, the duke deposed him from his office (1577). With the assistance of Chemnitz, he received a position in the University of Helmstedt. He was finally persuaded to sign the Formula of Concord, and every obstacle to its introduction in Brunswick seemed to be removed; but in comparing the printed copy
with the written text, Hesshusen found a considerable number of deviations, and was not satisfied with the explanations of Chemnitz. The duke of Brunswick also opposed the Formula, so that it was not accepted in his country, and thus lost much of its general authority.
Of his works may be mentioned: Von Ami und Gewalt der Pfarrherren (1561; ed. Friedrich August Schiitz, Leipsic, 1854), in which he developed his rigorous views on church discipline, and De servo arbitrio (1562). Against the supposed adiaphorism of men like Andrea who tried to harmonize, he wrote Yom Bekenntnis des Namens Jesu (1571). Several treatises are directed against the Wittenberg catechism of 1570 and against the Consensus of Dresden. He wrote against Rome in his exposition of the nineteenth Psalm (1571) and in De 600 erroribus pontificis ecclesice (1572). Against Flacius he wrote Analysis argumentorum Flacii (1571), Gegenbericht von der Erbsiinde wider Flacius (1571). Clara et perspicua testimonia Augustini (1571), and Antidotum contra Flacii dogma (1572, 1576). He developed the thoughts of his Examen theologicum further in De vera ecclesia et ejus autoritate libri ii. (1572). Against the Calvinistic doctrine of ubiquity he wrote Verm et sacra Conjessionis de prmsentia corporis Christi pia defensio (1583); Bekenntnis von der persbnlichen Vereinigung beider Naturen (1586) and other works. Hesshusen also wrote commentaries on the Psalms and on the epistles of Paul, six books De justification (1587), and several collections of sermons. (K. Hackenschmidt.)
Bibliography: The chief source is J. G. Leuckfeld, Historic, Heshusiana, Quedlinburg, 1716. Consult further: K. von Helmolt, Tilemann Hesshusen und seine sieben exilia, Leipsic, 1859; C. A. Wilkens, Tilemann Hesshusen, ein Streittheologe der Lutherkirche, ib. 1860; Schaff, Christian Church, vii. 671 sqq.; Moeller, Christian Church, iii. 185 et passim.
HESSHUSIUS. See Hesshusen, Tilemann.
HESYCHASTS: A community of Greek quietistic and mystic monks, especially on Mount Athos in the fourteenth century. Since the First elevation of the Palseologi to the im- Appearance. perial throne, the Church had been Barlaam. in a state of continuous unrest, the policy of the government inclining alternately to union with the Roman Catholic Church and to hostility to the Latin faith; while the first half of the fourteenth century was a period of civil war. This was the time at which the Hesychasts originated, first on Mount Athos, under the leadership of Gregorius Palamas (q.v.), later archbishop of Thessalonica. They spoke of an eternal, uncreated, and yet communicable divine light, which had shone on Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration, and had passed to them. They were soon assailed, however, by the monk Barlaam, a native of Calabria, of Greek descent, but educated in the Roman Catholic Church, and originally a member of a Roman Catholic Basilian order. He had gone to Greece at the beginning of the reign of Andronicus, joined the Greek Church, and won prominence by polemics against the Roman Church and as an agent of Andronicus to Benedict XII. at Avignon, ostensibly to procure the support of western Euroj v against the Turks, but really to labor for a unica
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