RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Papias Papyrus
1610. He was a student at Strasburg (1562-64) and Tubingen (1564-66), and after being a private tutor for a year, resumed his studies at Strasburg. He was then vicar of Reichenweyer for a short time, but in 1570 was again in Strasburg, lecturing on Hebrew and serving as preacher. In 1573, he resumed his lectures on exegesis and church history at Strasburg, where he was appointed minister, preacher, and professor of theology in 1578, having been made a canon in 1575. The church in Strasburg was at that time dominated by the rigid Lutheran Johannes Marbach (q.v.), who had caused the departure of Peter Martyr and Hieronymus Zanchi, and the dismissal of the pastor of the French congregation. He was opposed, however, by most of the teachers at the high school, of which Pappus had been scholarch since 1573; Marbach's chief antagonist being Johannes Sturm, who was earnestly seeking a modus vivendi with the Reformed. The magistracy wavered between the two factions, and in Mar., 1578, Pappus proposed sixty-eight theses to show that it was not contrary to Christian charity to condemn erroneous doctrines and to separate from heretics. On Apr. 5, 1578, after a passionate defense of Calvinism by a young Pole, J. Mirisch, Sturm laid his Antipappus primus before the assembled scholarchs, professors, and clergy, and was answered by Pappus. Henceforth the controversy was continued in writing, Sturm fulminating his second, third, and fourth Antipappus, and Pappus replying with an equal number of defensiones, while Osiander and the young adherent of Sturm added to the dispute, and Sturm wrote his Epistola eucharisticce and an attack on Osiander, and directed an edition of the Tetrapolitan Confession which the magistrates forbade to be sold in Strasburg.
To sum up the controversy, Sturm claimed that not Pappus' contention that there was no violation of love in condemning doctrines which subvert salvation but the Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist was the point at issue, and that if the Augsburg Confession were properly understood, the Calvinists could adhere to the same. He, too, is in favor of the union of all Evangelical churches but not on the Formula of Concord, whose doctrine of ubiquity was in contradiction with that of the ascension and was provocative of schism. Pappus, on the other hand, declared that the doctrine of ubiquity emphasized the divine omnipotence and the union of the human and divine in Christ, and deplored the fact that the Formula was not forthwith signed. While the struggle thus continued, the magistrates remained firm in refusing the Formula of Concord, but the violence and turmoil increased so that, on Apr. 23, 1581, further controversy was forbidden. On account of an attack of bitter invective on Jacob Andrea (q.v.), Sturm was retired to private life. Pappus had already succeeded Marbach as head of the Kirchenkonvent early in 1581, and, though the Formula of Concord had not yet been formally adopted, rigorous measures against the Reformed in accordance with its spirit were now taken. All efforts at appeal were in vain, and on Mar. 24, 1598, the new church constitution was adopted by the council which in-
cluded the acceptance of the Formula, thus marking a triumph for Lutheranism. Never ceasing his efforts for the overthrow of Calvinism, Pappus still found time to attend the debate between Roman Catholics and Lutherans convened by Margrave Jacob of Baden at Emmendingen in June, 1590; where he assumed the onerous charge of proving that the Church Fathers had taught doctrines essentially Evangelical. The result of this debate was his Confessionis Augustance et Augustiniance parallela (Frankfort, 1591). Among his writings, besides many controversial pamphlets and sermons, mention should be made of Epitome historice ecclesiasticae (1584); Commentarius in Confessionem Augustanam (1589); Articuli prascipui doctrince Christians in theses digesti (1591); and Contradictions doctorum nunc Romance Ecclesice (1597).
(K. Hackenschmidt.)
Bibuography: W. Horning, Johannes Pappus, Strasburg, 1841 ; H. Heppe, Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus, Hi. 314 sqq., iv. 312 sqq., 4 vols., Marburg, 1853-59; G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, i. 266 sqq., Leipsic, 1862; and the literature under Sttjbm, Johann.