April,
Easter Sunday, 1556. An
obscure Reformation hero, Conrad Pelican, passes on Easter Sunday, 1556. (Use
for 20 April 2014, Easter Sunday. See 20 April)
H/t to Mr. Andy Underhile for
the blog-note.
Obscure Heroes of the Reformation - Conrad Pelican
Conrad Pelican was born in Rouffach, in the German
province of Alsace in the years 1478. He was schooled at home until he was 13
when his parents sent him to Heidelberg. After a year and four months of study
he returned home and entered a monastery. He later, however, returned to
Heidelberg and then moved to Tubingen where his studied liberal arts. He also
studied Scholastic theology and Hebrew. At Basel he was made Doctor of
Divinity. The Pope, impressed with his learning sent a legate to bring him to
Rome. On the way there, Pelican became very ill and returned to Basel.
While there, he came across some of Luther’s books,
and through consulting with some godly men, Pelican began to be enlightened of
popish errors. His distaste for Roman errors grew so strong that he was
persecuted as a Lutheran. About this same time the senate of Basel appointed
him, with Œcolampadius, lecturer in divinity where he began first reading on
Genesis, then on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
In 1526 Zwingli was able to have Pelican brought to
Zurich. In Zurich, Pelican renounced his monkish life. He married and had a
son. Because he was currently reading on Samuel, he named his son Samuel. After
his wife died, he married a second time, but had no children by his second
wife.
After Zwingli died, Bullinger and Bibliander
replaced him. Bibliander astonished his hearers for his excellent linguistic
skills which he applied to his lectures on Isaiah, and for the fact that he had
such skills at the age of 23. Pelican was requested to print all of
Bibliander’s lectures with annotations. The lectures were on every book of the
Bible except Revelation. In order to make the commentary complete, Pelican
included Sebastian Meyer’s commentary on Revelation.
Pelican translated many books out of Hebrew which
were printed by Robert Stephens. He held the post of professor of Hebrew at
Zurich for 30 years. He was revered for his great learning, his indefatigable
labors and his sweet and holy demeanor. He died on Easter Sunday 1556 at the age of 78.
No comments:
Post a Comment