flacius.net

(Matija Vlačić Ilirik)
Labin, 1520 – Frankfurt-am-Main, 1575

Lutheran reformer, theologian, linguist, philosopher and church historian. One of the most famous sons of Labin. He spent most of his life in Germany where he first studied theology, Greek and Hebrew and was Luther’s student in Wittenberg. He dedicated his life to teaching, and to the spreading and defending of what he believed was the true Lutheran understanding. He published more than 200 books, pamphlets and other materials, primarily about theology, church history and Biblical interpretation. Among his most significant works are Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (Key to the Sacred Scriptures), Catalogus Testium Veritatis (Catalogue of the Witnesses of Truth) and Ecclesiastica Historia (widely known as the Magdeburg Centuries, prepared by Flacius and a group of his colleagues. It was the first work on church history written from a Protestant perspective).

“A man of resolute courage, insuperable strength, possessing a wide-ranging knowledge one rarely encounters, with a broad vision and an industrious spirit.”
Wilhelm Preger, 1878

Matthias Flacius Illyricus was born on 3 March 1520 in Labin (Albona in Latin), which was at the time under the rule of the Venetian Republic. He left his hometown at the age of 16 and went to study in Venice. His relative, Baldo Lupetina who was a Franciscan superior on the nearby island of Cres (and was later executed as a heretic in Venice) encouraged young Matthias to pursue further studies in Germany. Flacius arrived in Augsburg in 1539, which was by that time already an important city for the Reformation. It was here in 1530 that the local princes true to Luther’s teachings, under the leadership of Philipp Melanchthon, made their confession before Emperor Charles V (the Augsburg Confession).

After a brief stay in Augsburg, Flacius moved to Basel and enrolled at the university, where he studied Greek and Hebrew and got to know many of the Protestant intellectuals of the time. From here he relocated to Tübingen in order to continue his studies and found lodging in the house of one of the professors, Matija Grbac (Matthias Garbitius Illyricus), who was also from Istria.

During the 1540s Flacius lived in Wittenberg, the city where the Lutheran Reformation began in 1517. He received a Master’s degree from the university at the age of 24 and immediately after he was promoted to professorship.

From here he moved on to Magdeburg, where the first open opposition to the Augsburg, and later the Leipzig Interims (forced truces between Catholics and Protestants) was organised by him between 1549 and 1557. It was during this time that Flacius began openly opposing Melanchthon whom he accused of making compromises. In contrast, Flacius believed himself to be a faithful follower of Luther’s theology. The years spent in Magdeburg proved to be very productive for him as a writer. He began working on the 13-volume Magdeburg Centuries (which he prepared together with his colleagues) and wrote many pamphlets and tracts.

In 1557 Flacius was invited to Jena, where he led the newly founded theological faculty at the university until the end of 1561. At that time he was fired as the result of a theological controversy on original sin, and moved south to Regensburg, where he lived between 1562 and 1566. He desired to open a school for South Slavs and to relocate the Protestant printing press from Urach but neither of his dreams came true, as the city cancelled his asylum on the orders of Emperor Maximillian II. At the invitation of Antwerp’s city senate Flacius moved there for a short time and wrote a confession of faith for the Lutherans of the Low Countries. He was in Strasbourg between 1567 and 1573, where he completed his last great work Glossa on the New Testament. He died in Frankfurt in 1575.

Flacius’ most lasting contributions to Protestantism lie in his outstanding hermeneutical achievements, for which he has been referred to as one of the pioneers in the field, his work in the area of church history, and his theological opus. In the massive work Clavis Scripturae, Flacius was the first to establish that any passage of the Bible should be interpreted considering the purpose and the structure of the whole chapter or a given book, as well as the rule that the literal sense of the text should have a priority over allegories and metaphors. As a theologian Flacius tried to stay loyal to Luther and to his emphasis on the slavery of the human will. He had probably the largest private collection of books of the 16th century.