THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
of Vivarais relates the trial and death of the young pastor.
Bibliography: D. Benoit, Vne victime de Vintolerance au XVIIIe siccle, Toulouse, 1879; Charles Coquerel, Histoire des eglises du desert, i. 287 sqq., 387 sqq., Paris, 1841.
MAJOR (MAIER), GEORG: Lutheran theologian; b. at Nuremberg Apr. 25, 1502; d. at Wittenberg Nov. 28, 1574. At the age of nine he was sent to Wittenberg, and in 1521 entered the university there. When Cruciger returned to Wittenberg in 1529, Major was appointed rector of the Johannisschule in Magdeburg, but in 1537 he became court preacher at Wittenberg and was ordained by Luther. In 1545 he was made professor in the theological faculty, in which his authority increased to such an extent that in the following year the elector sent him to the Conference of Regensburg (see Regensburg, Conference of), where he was soon captivated by the personality of Butzer. Like Melanchthon, he fled before the disastrous close of the Schmalkald war, and found refuge in Magdeburg. In the summer of 1547 he returned to Wittenberg, and in the same year became cathedral superintendent at Merseburg, although he resumed his activity at the university in the following year. In the negotiations of the Interim he took the part of Melanchthon in first opposing it and then making concessions. This attitude incurred the enmity of the opponents of the Interim, especially after he cancelled a number of passages in the second edition of his Psalterium in which he had violently attacked the position of Prince Maurice of Saxony, whom he now requested to prohibit all polemical treatises proceeding from Magdeburg, while he condemned the preachers of Torgau who were imprisoned in Wittenberg on account of their opposition to the Interim. He was even accused of accepting bribes from Maurice. In 1552 Count Hans Georg, who favored the Interim, appointed him superintendent of Eisleben, on the recommendation of Melchior Kling. The orthodox clergy of Grafschaft Mansfeld, however, immediately suspected him of being an interimist and adiaphorist, and he tried to defend his position in public, but his apology resulted in the so-called Majoristic Controversy (q.v.). At Christmas, 1552, Count Albrecht expelled him without trial and he fled to Wittenberg, where he resumed his activity as professor and member of the consistory. Thenceforth he was an important and active member in the circle of the Wittenberg Philippists. From 1558 to 1574 he was dean of the theological faculty and repeatedly held the rectorate of the university. He lived long enough to experience the first overthrow of Crypto-Calvinism (see Philippists) in electoral Saxony, and Paul Crell, his son-in-law, signed for him at Torgau in May, 1574, the articles which repudiated Calvinism and acknowledged the unity of Luther and Melanchthon. Among his writings, special mention may be made of the following: A text edition of Justini ex Trogo Pompejo historia (Hagenau, 1526); an edition of Luther's smaller catechism in Latin and Low German (Magdeburg, 1531); Sententice veterum poetarum (1.534); Qucestiones rhetoricoe (1535); Vitce Patrum (Wittenberg, 1544); Psalterium Davidis juxta transla-
tionem veterem repurgatum (1547); De origine et auctoritate verbi Dei (1550); Commonef actio ad ecclesiam catholicam, orthodoxam, de fugiendis blasphemiis Samosatenicis (1569); as well as commentaries on the Pauline epistles and homilies on the pericopes. (G. Kawerau.)
Bibliography: Major's Opera appeared in 3 vols., Wittenberg, 1569-70, though the edition is incomplete. Some letters of his are in CR, vols, ii., vi., vii., and x.; in J. Voigt, Briefwechsel der beriihmtesten Gelehrten der Reformation, pp. 424 sqq., Konigsberg, 1841; and in A. Schumacher, Gelehrter Manner Briefe an die Konige in Dannemark, 1522-1663, ii. 99-247, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1758- 1759. A worthy biography is yet to be written. Consult bibliography under Majoristic Controversy.
MAJOR, JOHN: Scotch Roman Catholic historian and scholastic divine; b. at Gleghornie (22 m. n.e. of Edinburgh) in 1469; d. at St. Andrews (32 m. n.n.e. of Edinburgh) 1550. He studied at the universities of Cambridge and Paris (M.A., of Paris, 1496; D.D., 1505), became a regent of the latter university in 1496, also a fellow and teacher in arts and philosophy; accepted the position of principal regent and professor of philosophy and divinity at the University of Glasgow, 1518; returned to the University of Paris, 1525; went to St. Andrews in 1531, and was made provost of St. Salvator's College in the university there, 1533, holding the position till his death. In theology Major was in essentials a stanch Roman Catholic, denouncing sternly the Hussite, Wyclifite, and Lutheran movements, but also opposing the luxurious living and tendency to expensive and grandiose architecture manifested by the monastic orders; intellectually he was a schoolman, opposed to the newer spirit then entering the universities. One of his titles to fame is the part he had in the education of John Knox (q.v.). The work by which he is now best known is Historia Majoris Britannia, tarn Angliw quam Scotia (Paris, 1521, republished, Edinburgh, 1740; Eng. transl. in the Scottish History Society's Publications, vol. x., Edinburgh, 1892, containing also a life of Major, an estimate of his character and writings, and a collection of his prefaces) . Other works were a new edition of H. Pardo's Medulla dyalectices (Paris, 1505); a volume on logic (1508); commentaries on the " Sentences " of Lombard (1509-17; new ed., 3 parts, 1510-28); and a commentary on the Gospels (1529). Bibliography: Besides the life in the Eng. transl. of his " History," ut sup., consult: P. H. Brown, George Buchanan, Edinburgh, 1890; idem, John Knox, i. 13, 14, 20-28, 50-52, et passim, London, 1895; T. G. Law, in Scottish Review, July, 1892; DNB, xxxv. 386-388.
MAJORISTIC CONTROVERSY: A Lutheran controversy of the sixteenth century regarding the doctrine of justification by faith. The sixth article of the Augsburg Confession, like Melanchthon, maintained the necessity of good works as the necessary outcome of faith, not with the intention of attributing any merits to good works in themselves, but only to emphasize the necessary connection between faith and works. In his report on the Conference of Regensburg (see Regensburg, Conference op), Major had unmistakably taught the doctrine of faith and grace and had sharply attacked the view which maintained that the justi-