THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
enabled to visit the universities of Leipsic, Jena, and Wittenberg. On his return to Giessen he lectured in the philosophical faculty, a controversy between the theologians of Giessen and Marburg leading him to write his two treatises: De prmdestinatione reformatorum non divina (Giessen, 1675), and De osculo juris naturae cum primo prcecepto decalogi (1675).
About this same time Petersen became associated with Spener and his circle, and renouncing an academic career, retired to Lubeck in obedience to his father's wish. Here he hoped to become a preacher, but ruined his chances by a malicious poem on the Roman Catholic clergy. To escape prosecution for his action, he accepted a call to Rostock as professor of poetry; but the enmity which he had excited followed him there, and early in 1677 he accepted a call to the Church of St. jEgidius at Hanover, where he found a defender in Duke John Frederick until, in 1678, he became superintendent of the diocese of Lubeck and court chaplain at Eutin.
Petersen's next ten years were the happiest of his life. His preaching was so popular that he issued a collection of his sermons, and he also advanced the cause of popular religious training by his Spruch- Catechismus (Plon, 1680). In 1688 he became superintendent at Liineburg. His predecessor, Caspar Hermann Sandhagen, had first decided to take another position, but had changed his mind after Petersen had accepted the call. The ducal government and many of the people wished Sandhagen to remain, so that Petersen, by insisting on holding them to their call, had to contend with their opposition from the very first. This antagonism was intensified by a number of other factors, especially by the chiliastic views which Petersen put forth more and more, until all preaching on the subject was forbidden by the consistory of Celle. In 1691, however, his defense of the visions of Rosamunde Juliane von Asseburg (q.v.) in his Sendschreiben an einige Theologos (Eng. transl., A Letter to Some Divines Concerning the Question whether God, since Christ's Ascension, doth any more Reveal Himself to Mankind by the Means of Divine Apparitions f With an Exact Account of what God hath Bestowed upon a Noble Maid, by Francis Lee, London, 1695), combined with his increasing promulgation of chiliasm, again brought him before the consistory, which, after receiving a formal expression of opinion from the theological faculty of Helmstadt, on Jan. 28, 1692, deposed him and expelled him from the principality of Liineburg.
After a brief residence in Brunswick, Wolfenbiittel, and Magdeburg, Petersen purchased an estate at Nieder-Dodeleben, near the latter city, through the assistance of his sympathizers, and settled down to a life of quiet study and literary activity. He now proceeded to defend his chiliasm,
particularly in his Die Wahrheit des herrlichen Reiches Jesu Christi, welches in der siebenten Posaunen noch zu erwarten ist (2 parts, Magdeburg, 1692) and Mysterion apokatastaseos panton, das ist Geheimniss der Wiederbringung aller Dinge (3 vols. Frankfort, 1700-10). He likewise wrote commentaries on the Psalms (1719), Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (1719), Daniel (1720), the Minor Prophets (1723), etc., his mystical views appearing in these as well as in other writings. The last three years of his life were spent on his estate of Thymer, near Zerbst, whither he had removed from Nieder-Dodeleben, and his literary activity was such that he could record the writing of nearly seventy printed books and pamphlets and of over a hundred more that remained in manuscript.
Despite his eccentricities, Petersen was one of the foremost theologians of his period of transition from orthodoxy to the conflicting extremes of pietism and rationalism. He is also known as a poet in both Latin and German, he himself mentioning 700 hymns in manuscript. His epic Uranias sive opera Dei magna carmine heroico celebrata was edited by Leibnitz (Halle, 1720), while his collections of hymns include the 300 prose Stimmen aus Zion zum Lob des Allmdchtigen im Geist gesungen (2 parts, Halle, 1696-98) and Neue Stimmen aus Zion (1701), as well as the poetic Dreihundert Stimmen aus Zion (1721). Seven of his Latin hymns and eight of his prose German hymns were included by Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen in his Geistreiches Gesang-Buch (Halle, 1704). Three of Petersen's hymns have also been translated into English: the " Cerne lapsum servulum," thrice rendered with the first lines " Look on me Thy servant fall'n," " Jesus cometh to fulfil," and " Lamb of God, all praise to Thee "; " Salve crux beata, salve," of which the chief renderings begin " Welcome Cross and tribulation," " Cross, reproach, and tribulation," and " O Cross, we hail thy bitter reign "; and " Liebster Jesu, liebstes Leben," translated as " Jesus, Lord of life and glory."
The doctrines in which Petersen departed from orthodox Lutheran principles were his theories of the millennial kingdom; the restoration of all things; the heavenly God-man, the first-born of all creatures; and direct miraculous revelations of God at the present time. (Carl Bertheau.)
Bibliography: The chief sources are his autobiography, Frankfort, 1717, and his Leben Frauen Johanna Eleonord Petersen (his wife), ib. 1718. Consult further: Kurachner, J. W. Petersen, ein theologisches Lebensbild, Eutin, 1862; J. G. Walch, Einleitung in die Religionsstreitigkeiten, ii. 586 sqq., v. 937 sqq., Jena, 1735-36; I. Moller, Cimbria literata. ii. 639 sqq., Copenhagen, 1744; C. G. Joeher, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, iii. 1421 sqq., Leipsie, 1751; H. Schmid, Geschichte des Pietismus, pp. 186 sqq., Nordlingen, 1863; A. Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, ii. 225 sqq., Bonn, 1884; ADB, xxv 508 sqq.; Julian. Hymnology, pp. 216, 892, 988.