Johann Arndt

ARNDT, Johann. b. Ederitz, Anhalt, 27 December 1555; d. Celle, Hannover, 11 May 1621. He studied at Helmstedt (1576), Wittenberg (1577), Strasbourg (1578) and Basel (1579-80). In 1581 he returned to north Germany, where he was a teacher and deacon at Ballenstedt (where his father had been ‘Hofprediger’, or Senior Preacher), and in 1583 priest at Badeborn in his native Anhalt. His opposition to the Calvinist views of the local prince, Johann Georg von Anhalt, led to his departure for Quedlinburg in 1590. He stayed there until 1599, surviving an outbreak of the plague in 1598, before going to Braunschweig (1599-1608) as pastor of the Martinikirche. His book, Vom Wahren Christenthums (‘Of True...