THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
PISIDIA. See Asia Minor, VII.
PISTIS SOPHIA. See Ophites.
PISTOJA, SYNOD OF. See Ricci, Scipione de',
JOHAXXES.
PISTORIUS, JOHANNES BECKER: The name of two persons, father and son, who were influential, though widely divergent, figures in the religious controversies of the sixteenth century.
1. Johannes Pistorius the Elder: First Protestant pastor at Xidda, Hesse; b. in the latter part of the fifteenth century; d. 1583. In company with Butzer, he appears to have attended the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, and in 1541 he became superintendent of the diocese of Alsfeld. Landgrave Philip accorded him the utmost confidence. In 1540 he was one of the Hessian delegates to the convention at Hagenau, and soon afterward he
Contro- was delegated to attend the colloquy versies with at Worms, in 1540—41. He accom-
Roman panied the landgrave to the Diet of Catholics. Regensburg, where the emperor appointed him to speak on the Protestant side, along with Melanchthon and Butzer. He stood loyal to Melanchthon, who esteemed him highly. In 1543, at the request of Butzer, the landgrave sent him to Cologne, to support attempts of the elector to introduce the Reformation there. He preached to large throngs, and to Melanchthon 's complete satisfaction. In 1545-46, again as a colleague of Butzer, he took part in the religious conference at Regensburg. When it was purposed to introduce the Interim (q.v.) in Hesse, he headed a brave, though moderate, resistance, even being ready to resign his office. After the reaction brought about by the Elector Maurice, the landgrave, in 1557, despatched Pistorius to the princely diet at Frankfort; and not long afterward he was one of the speakers at the great religious conference in Worms (q.v.).
From this time on, Pistorius was busied more by
the controversies raging among the Protestants than
by the struggle against the Roman Catholic Church.
He then deeply influenced the Hessian position, and
his constant aim was either to preserve
Activity or to restore peace. Together with his in Inter- colleagues at the Synod of Ziegenhain, Protestant in 1558, he gladly accepted the Frank- Controversy, fort Recess (q.v.) . Owing to illness, he was unable to accompany the landgrave to the princes' conference at Naumburg in 1561, although he declared, in a formal expression of opinion, that the revised Augsburg Confession contained no doctrinal deviation from the original. It was most probably Pistorius who composed the important Hessian opinion, dated Oct. 19, 1566, regarding the " final answer " of the Wurttemberg theologians to the Heidelberg divines (Tubingen, 1566). This document takes a very decided stand against the Heidelberg party with their Calvinistic teaching regarding the Lord's Supper, and it recognizes the doctrine of Ubiquity (q.v.). At the momentous eighth general synod of 1576, when the Torgau Book (see Formula of Concord) was under advisement, Pistorius approved its basal creed, its various doctrinal statements and antitheses, its
teaching concerning the Lord's Supper, and, pending deeper investigation, its Christology. At the same time, he shared the scruples urged by the majority against emphasizing the Invar lata, the '' damnation " of the Calvinists, and the subtlety of the doctrine of ubiquity; and he was, therefore, the first to sign the treatise explanatory of these points. At the general assembly in Treysa (Nov., 1577), Pistorius and the majority voted to reject the Book of Bergen (see Formula of Concord). It is thus evident that Pistorius undervalued the significance and range of the dogmatic questions of the period. He intensely disliked doctrinal polemics, and always treated dogmatic questions from a practical point of view. Administratively he evinced a very influential activity in organization and polity, as well as in public worship, discipline and education, during his entire term of office. At his death he left an unfinished work on the diets and colloquies that he had attended from 1540 to 1557.
2. Johannes Pistorius the Younger: Roman Catholic convert and apologist; b. at Nidda (19 m. s.e. of Giessen), Hesse, Feb. 4, 1546; d. at Freiburg Sept., 1608. He studied first theology and then medicine, and in 1568 published at Frankfort the peculiar cabalistic treatise: Early Life De vera curandce pestis ratione, which and Con- he followed by his Artis cabalisversion of ticoe scriptores (Basel, 1587). During Margrave the life-time of Charles II. (d. 1577), Jacob. sole regent of the margravate of Baden-Durlach, Pistorius became court physician, though he was continually taking part in theological affairs. Meanwhile he had gone over from Lutheranism to Calvinism; and shortly afterward, in 1588, became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church. He now wrote a number of open letters which opened a controversy on the nature of the Church, an issue that he henceforth deemed the most important point under discussion. At the same time he made earnest, though unsuccessful, efforts to convert Margrave Ernest Frederick. With the Margrave Jacob, at Hochberg Castle, he had better fortune. This chivalrous, learned, and traveled prince had frequently received foreign Protestants, although in 1585-86, when in the Spanish military service, he had fought against the adherents of the new teachings in the archdiocese of Cologne. He was very accessible, moreover, to Roman Catholic court influences, and now became a convert to the ancient Church. To justify this step he arranged a religious conference at Baden, the residence of his cousin, Margrave Eduard Fortunatus, who had himself become a Roman Catholic in 1584. Margrave Jacob appeared with his councilor, Pistorius, his chaplain, Johann Zehender, the Jesuit Theodor Busoeus, and others. Duke Christopher of Wurttemberg, who had been invited, did not attend in person, but sent certain councilors and theologians, Jakob Andrea, Jakob Heerbrand, and Gerlach. The debate (Nov. 18-19) occupied four sessions, though it did not turn on ubiquity, as the margrave had purposed, but on the visible and invisible Church, as Pistorius had arranged. The conference proved fruitless, however, and was soon broken off. Andrea and Pistorius parted in enmity,