THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
in meeting the difficulties due to the strong following of the Friends of Light (see Free Congregations in Germany, § 1), and later to the rapid increase in the population of his parish. He reapportioned the parish, increased the number of clergy, and erected the splendid new Church of St. Stephen. His theology was Christocentric on a Lutheran basis. He excelled as a pulpit orator and, besides many single sermons, published several collections that have been frequently reprinted. To be mentioned are: Zwolf Festpredigten (Halle, 1862); Der Heilsweg (1864); Siinde und Erlosung (1873); TJnterm Kreuz (1884); Kreuz und Krone (1891); Die Bergpredigt (1893); Eins ist Not (1895); and Die letzte Nacht und der Todestag des Herrn Jesu (1898).
Bibliography: The principal work is M. Kahler and H. Hering, Heinrich Hoffmann, . Leben, Wirken und Predigt, Halle, 1900. His Letters were edited by M. Hart, ib. 1902, and biographical material is found also in Aus dem Tagebuch, ed. M. Hart, ib. 1900.
HOFFMANN (HOFMANN), MELCHIOR: German mystic and Anabaptist; b. at Schwabisch-Hall
(35 m. n.e. of Stuttgart), Wurttemberg,
Earlier toward the end of the fifteenth
Preaching, century; d. at Strasburg about 1543,
He was a leather dresser by trade; in the pursuit of his calling he went to Livonia and, in 1523, advocated there the doctrines of Luther and of the Wittenberg Reformation.
With this teaching Hoffmann blended a strain of mysticism that later assumed predominance in his beliefs. He is the type of the untrained lay preacher of the Reformation period who, by sheer force of religious fervor, vehemence of speech, and directness of appeal, presented a formidable competition to the educated clergy. The lack of preachers of the latter type in Livonia made Hoffmann's success the more emphatic. Driven from Wolmar in the autumn of 1524, he made Dorpat the scene of his labors, where an attempt on the part of the archiepiscopal authorities to seize him led to an iconoclastic uprising (Jan. 10, 1525). Hoffmann's activity was regarded askance by a faction of the Reformers, but he succeeded in obtaining a letter of approval from Luther and Bugenhagen, and with augmented authority engaged in a feud with the official clergy, against whom he upheld the divine nature and origin of the preacher's mission, advocating also a prophetic interpretation of the Scriptures. Forced finally to leave Dorpat, in 1526 he became preacher among the Germans of Stockholm. There he published a commentary on Dan. xii. which, with other writings, revealed a growing departure from the Lutheran position. The dogmas of justification and predestination were still retained, but eschatological ideas came into the foreground, centering in a belief in the speedy approach of the end of the world. With much labor he evolved his own scheme of the Last Day, and passed from the attitude of preacher to that of prophet, whose mission was to announce the coming of the Lord. The year 1533 was set for the end of things.1
1 In his eschatology, which was not marked by originality, Hoffmann followed the Franciscan Spirituals, the Taborites (see Huss, John, Hossiteb), Nicholas Storch, and others.
A. H. N.
In 1527 Hoffmann left Stockholm for Holstein.
There he preached for two years openly at odds
with Luther. Frederick I. of Denmark
Doctrine however, after subjecting his doctrines of the to a test, permitted him to continue Lord's his mission labors, and assigned Kiel
Supper, as his special field. As the result of a prolonged controversy with Armsdorf at Magdeburg and with the Sleswick preacher Marquard Schuldorp, in the course of which Hoffmann formally abjured the Lutheran theory of the Lord's Supper, Frederick I. ordered a public disputation to be held at Flensburg (Apr. 8, 1529), at which the Lutheran party was represented by Bugenhagen. Hoffmann expounded, not without skill, his conception of the Lord's Supper, the kernel of which was that the bread is not the body of Christ but is a seal, sign, and memorial of the body of the Savior. In receiving the bread the communicant through faith receives the Word, and with it the spiritual body of Christ, into his heart. The origins of his doctrine are to be found in the early form of the Lutheran doctrine and in Carlstadt; the principal sources, however, are in his own mystical thought. He attempted, too, to distinguish between his theory and that of Zwingli.
Banished from Denmark as a result of the disputation, Hoffmann arrived at Strasburg, where at first he was welcomed by Butzer on
Joins the account of his opposition to Luther, Ana- but soon lost favor.2 During 1529 and
baptists. 1530 he issued a number of writings the most important of which, an interpretation of Revelation, reveals his doctrine in completely developed form. The history of the Church is divided into three periods: the first extended from the Apostles to the establishment of the power of the papacy ; the second was marked by the unrestrained might of the papacy; the third, beginning with the Reformation, was marked by the final revelation and the substitution of the Spirit for the letter. Two witnesses of the final day were to appear and were to fall before the power of the papacy united with the followers of the letter; then was to follow the disappearance of truth, the destruction of the spiritual Jerusalem by the Turks, and the final appearance of Christ. Hoffmann now drew nearer to the Anabaptists, for whom he demanded in 1530 the exclusive possession of a church in the town. Hoffmann was arrested and compelled to leave Strasburg, but his experiences only hastened his entrance into the ranks of the Anapabtists, to whom he brought enthusiasm and courage at a time when their power in South Germany was already broken. The impetus which he lent to the movement was not without appreciable influence in preparing the way for the excesses of John of Leyden (see Anabaptists, II., § 2; Munster, Anabaptists in.) From 1530 to 1533 he appeared alternately in East Friesland and in the Strasburg region. His labors were the most important factor in transplanting Anabaptist doctrines from the south to the north of
2 On his way to Strasburg, in cooperation with Carls*^ he propagated anti-Lutheran views in East Friesland, v. nere Lutheranism and Zwinglianism were in open conflict, mere he gained an influence that was momentous in consequent.
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