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Georg Major (April 25, 1502 – November 28, 1574) was aLutheran theologian of theProtestant Reformation.
Major was born inNuremberg in 1502. At the age of nine he was sent toWittenberg, and in 1521 he entered the university there.[1] He was a student ofMartin Luther andPhilip Melanchthon,[2] the latter being a particular influence.[1] When Cruciger returned to Wittenberg in 1529, Major was appointed rector of the Johannisschule inMagdeburg, but in 1537 he became court preacher at Wittenberg[1] and was ordained byMartin Luther.[citation needed] He began to lecture on theology in 1541.[1]
In 1545 he joined the theological faculty, and his authority increased to such an extent[citation needed] that in the following year the elector sent him to theConference of Regensburg,[1] where he was soon captivated by the personality ofButzer. LikePhilipp Melanchthon, he fled before the disastrous close of theSchmalkald war, and found refuge in Magdeburg. In the summer of 1547, he returned to Wittenberg, and in the same year became cathedral superintendent atMerseburg, although he resumed his activity at the university in the following year.[1]
In the negotiations of theAugsburg Interim, he took the part of Melanchthon in first opposing it and then making concessions. This attitude incurred the enmity of the opponents of the Interim, especially after he cancelled a number of passages in the second edition of hisPsalterium in which he had violently attacked the position ofMaurice, Elector of Saxony, whom he now requested to prohibit all polemical treatises proceeding from Magdeburg, while he condemned the preachers of Torgau who were imprisoned in Wittenberg on account of their opposition to the Interim. He was even accused of accepting bribes from Maurice.
In 1552, Count Hans Georg, who favored the Interim, appointed him superintendent ofEisleben, on the recommendation ofMelchior Kling. The orthodox clergy of the County ofMansfeld, however, immediately suspected him of being an interimist and adiaphorist, and he tried to defend his position in public, but his apology resulted in a dispute called theMajoristic Controversy.
AtChristmas, 1552, Count Albrecht expelled him without trial and he fled to Wittenberg, where he resumed his activity as professor and member of the WittenbergConsistory. Thence forth he was an important and active member in the circle of the WittenbergPhilippists.
From 1558 to 1574 he was dean of the theological faculty and repeatedly held the rectorate of the university. He lived long enough to experience the first overthrow ofCrypto-Calvinism in theElectorate of Saxony, and Paul Crell, his son-in-law, signed for him at Torgau in May 1574 the articles which repudiatedCalvinism and acknowledged the unity of Luther and Melanchthon.
He died at Wittenberg in 1574.
His significant writings include:
He also wrote commentaries on the Pauline epistles and homilies on the pericopes.
