Betkius (Betke), Joachim

BETKIUS, bêt´kî-Us (BETKE), JOACHIM: Lutheran preacher and forerunner of the Pietistic movement; b. at Berlin Oct. 8, 1601; d. at Linum, near Fehrbellin (33 m. n.w. of Berlin), Dec. 12, 1663. After finishing his course at Wittenberg, he became associate rector at Ruppin, then was for more than thirty years pastor at Linum. He wrote several theological and devotional works, by the reading of which Spener said he had profited. They contain edifying exhortations against forgetting the need of sanctification in addition to justification, but are marred by intemperate fanaticism; Betkius holds the clergy responsible for all the anti-Christian phenomena of his time, and for the divine judgments of the Thirty Years' war.

(F. W. Dibelius.)