# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1855_S296
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

296 The Lutheran Theological Pastor's Library.

...he was now also moved to abandon his plan of studying medicine, and to vow to God that he would devote himself to the service of the Gospel. Gerhard himself accordingly writes of Arndt in the year 1615: "I have honored and regarded him now for more than sixteen years as my spiritual father, since it was he who first counseled me toward the Studium theologicum." Indeed, when he went to Jena in 1603, Gerhard asked Johann Arndt for guidance on how theology ought to be studied, and received such guidance from him. *) As for the Oratio, prayer, in the second place — Gerhard's Meditationes sacrae and Exercitium pietatis quotidianum, among other works, are by themselves sufficient to prove what a fervent man of prayer he must have been. Let it only be noted here that, despite the immense labor imposed on him by his many offices, his literary activity **), his far-flung correspondence, and the calling of his person into all manner of important public negotiations by persons of high rank, he nevertheless held a devotional hour twice daily with his children and household. His shining godliness itself became the occasion for envious and carnal men to try to render him suspect of Rosicrucianism and of Weigelianism, in consequence of which accusation Gerhard composed the well-known poem:

Qui studium hoc aevo pietatis gnaviter urget
Et sophies partem tractat utramque sacrae,
Ille Rosaecrucius vel Weigelianus habetur
Et nota turpis ei scribitur haereseos etc.

That is: Whoever in this age earnestly presses on toward zeal in godliness and pursues both parts of holy wisdom is held to be a Rosicrucian or a Weigelian, and is branded with the shameful mark of heresy, etc. As for the Meditatio, finally — that is, study — Ger-

*) It is found in the already-cited biography by Fischer, pp. 23-24.

**) It has been calculated that, on average, five printer's sheets came from each day of his literary life which he wrote for the press, mostly in the Latin language. Johann Major writes: "He never rewrote, revised, or copied out anything twice, nor had it copied for him; rather, as swift as his thoughts and his mind were, just as swift was his hand — no spring gushes as abundantly as it flowed from him when he set pen to paper." (Conc. funebr.) The learned Michael Walther confesses: "I would truly collapse under the burden if I were to take upon myself even the hundredth part of his compositions. I ascribe this wonder to the special assistance of the Holy Spirit." Even Roman Catholics and Reformed have held Gerhard's works in exceptionally high esteem. Voss confesses that he could not help but read through all of Gerhard's writings word for word. To be sure, envy also stirred among these gentlemen. It was a source of irritation that the Lutheran church could point to such a scholar. When the famous French Reformed theologian Claude de Saumaise (Salmasius) met Gerhard's son in Leyden, he addressed him with these untrue words, betraying his own envy: "Are you the son of that Gerhard who wrote more than he read?" Jöcher reports in his Gelehrten-Lexicon: "Gerhard left behind nearly 30 volumes in manuscript, which lie in the Ducal Library at Gotha. He also carried on so extensive a correspondence that he wrote more than 10,000 letters."