THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
maining Saxon; the religious attitude of the people was by that time almost entirely Protestant.
Bibliography: Gams, Series episcoporum, pp. 291-292; Chronicon episcoporum Merseburg, ed. R. Wilmans in MGH, Script., x (1852), 163-212; cf. Wilmans in Archiv der Gesellschaft fiir altere deutsche Geschichtskunde, xi. 146- 211; Hauck, KD, ii. 130 sqq., 142 sqq., et passim.
MERSWIN, RULMAN. See Friends of God.
MERULA, ANGELUS (Engel de Merle): Early Dutch Protestant; b. at Briel (14 m. w. of Rotterdam) 1482 or 1487; d. at Bergen (34 m. s.s.e. of Brussels) July 26, 1557. He studied four years at the University of Paris (M.A., 1507; Lie. theol., 1508), was ordained priest at Utrecht, 1511, and became preacher in Briel. In 1530 he removed to Heenvliet. Before 1540 he came under suspicion of heresy, but was not molested till 1553, when he was arrested at The Hague. In 1554 the authorities claimed that he retracted, but it is probable that, being deaf, he did not understand the document which was read to him. He was not released and was finally condemned to death at Bergen, but died while kneeling in prayer at the place of execution. He was a learned scholar and his convictions were the fruit of his study. His view of the Lord's Supper was the same as Zwingli's, but was not borrowed from him. He wished to reform the Church from within by the pure preaching of God's Word, which he made the sole authority; to church tradition he attached no worth. Each one must follow his own conscience, since without freedom no faith is possible. Unbelief is the chief sin. Christ alone is savior, and the invocation of the saints is fruitless. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the only sacraments. All Christians are priests. The Roman Church is but one branch of the Church catholic and the pope is antichrist. He rejected purgatory, transubstantiation, and the church doctrine of absolution and indulgences. He is described as an amiable, discreet, and good-hearted man, who loved to do good. An orphan asylum founded by him in Briel is still in existence.
(S. D. van Veen.) Bibliography: W. Moll, Angelus Merula, de hervormer en martelaar des geloofs, Amsterdam, 1855 (cf. on this H. de Jager, in Archief voor Nederlandsche Kerkgesckiedenis, vi. 1-44, and A. H. L. Hensen, in De Katholiek, cxi., 1897, 43-68); I. M. J. Hoog, De Verantwoording van Angelus Merula, Leyden, 1897.
MERX, ERNST OTTO ADALBERT: German Protestant; b. at Bleicherode (10 m. s.w. of Nordhausen), Prussian Saxony, Nov. 2, 1838; d. at Heidelberg Aug. 4, 1909. He was educated at the universities of Marburg, Halle, and Berlin, 1857-61 (Ph.D., Breslau, 1861); became privat-docent at the University of Jena, 1865, and associate professor, 1869; professor of Oriental languages at Tubingen, 1869; of theology at Giessen, 1873; and of Old-Testament exegesis at Heidelberg, 1875. He was the author of Meletemata lgnatiana (Halle, 1861); Bardesanes von Edessa (1863); Cur in libro Danielis juxta Hebrceam Aramcea adhibita sit dialectus (1865); Grammatica Syriaca (1867); Das Gedicht von Hiob (Jena, 1871); Neusyrisches Lesebuch (Tubingen, 1873); Tiirkische Sprichworter ins Deutsche iibersetzt (Venice, 1877); Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger von den dltesten Zeiten bis zu den Re-
formatoren (Halle, 1879); Die saadjanische Uebersetzung des Hohen Liedes ins Arabische (Heidelberg, 1882); Chrestomathia Targumica (1887); Idee und Grundlinien der allgemeinen Geschichte der Mysterien (Heidelberg, 1892); Documents de paleographie hebreue et arabe (Leyden, 1894) ; Ueber die heutigen Au/gaben des evangelischen Bundes (Leipsic, 1892); Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem dltesten bekannten Texte (3 vols., Berlin, 1897-1905); Aus Muallim Nadschis Siinbule (1898); Die morgenldndischen Studien und Professoren an der Universitat Heidelberg (Heidelberg, 1903); and Die Biicher Moses undjosua . fiir Laien (Tubingen, 1907). He edited the Archiv fiir wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments since 1871, as well as Vocabulary of the Tigre Language written down by Moritz von Beurmann (Halle, 1868) ; and the second edition of F. Tuch's Commentar uber die Genesis (1871).
MERZ, GEORG HEINRICH : German Lutheran ; b. at Crailsheim (46 m. n.e. of Stuttgart) Aug. 8, 1816; d. at Stuttgart Dec. 31, 1893. At Maulbronn and Tubingen he came under the influence of Strauss and Baur, only to turn from them to a more positive faith. Schelling's lectures at Berlin (1841-42) suggested to him the possibility of apprehending historic revelation as the pivotal center for a philosophic system; while Kugler inspired him to a concrete historical understanding of medieval art, a study promoted by his extensive travels in Germany, Belgium, France, England, and Austria. On his return to Germany, he began a careful study of German art, and his Uebersichten took up the cause of ancient German and Evangelical art.
From 1846 to 1850 Merz was deacon at Neustadton-the-Kocher, while during the years that marked the frustration of national hopes he was pastor of St. Catherine's in Hall, Swabia (1850-63). His most effective literary work was his Armut und Christentum (Stuttgart, 1848), in which he advocated not merely " Christian communism," as practised by open-handed Pietism, but rather " Christian socialism," or the corporate application of personal assistance, and the enlistment of women in forms of Christian activity. Pursuing a popular vein, he now wrote his most widely circulated book, the Christlichen Frauenbilder (Stuttgart, 1851; Eng. transl. by S. Jackson, " Eminent Women of the German Reformation," London, 1856), presenting a collection of biographies of Christian women of all eras of the Christian Church. Meanwhile, he further cultivated the study and practise of art, restoring his own church with very modest means and writing the text for J. Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (Leipsic, 1852-60; Eng. transl., The Bible in Pictures, 2 vols., London, 1869). His main object, however, was to reach a scientific ground of harmony with the practical church problems of the present; and his results were set forth in his Die innere Mission in ihrem Verhaltnis zu den wissenschaftlichen und kirchlichen Richtungen der Gegenwart (TSK, 1854), in which he explained the significance and status of the Innere Mission in both actual and ideal relation to the German Church.
Merz now became successively dean and circuit school-inspector at Marbach (1863), supreme con-