Borrhaus, Martin (Cellarius)

BORRHAUS, MARTIN (generally known as CELLARIUS): German theologian; b. at Stuttgart 1499; d. at Basel Oct. 11, 1564. Being educated and adopted by his kinsman Simon Cellarius, he called himself Cellarius until about forty years of age, although the name of his parents seems to have been Burress or Borrhus. In 1515 he was made magister artium at Tübingen, where he became intimately acquainted with Melanchthon, two years his senior. He was made bachelor of theology under Reuchlin at Ingolstadt in 1521, and became a friend of Marcus Stübner at Wittenberg. The eight sermons delivered by Luther after his return from the Wartburg impressed Cellarius deeply, but his zeal in defense of Stübner was such that he left Wittenberg, where he had treated Luther with rudeness, and went to Switzerland, whence he traveled by way of Austria and Poland to Prussia, which had just embraced the Evangelical faith. There he was tried, and required to sign a bond in which he promised to return at once to Wittenberg. His interview with Luther in 1526 filled the latter with respect for Cellarius, who now settled in southern Germany, winning the hearts of Capito and Butzer in Strasburg. In 1527 he published his first work, De operibus Dei, and in 1544 he was appointed professor of the Old Testament at Basel, where, in collaboration with Castello and Curio, he composed a polemical treatise under the name of Martin Bellius, directed against Calvin in the Servetus controversy. He rejected infant baptism, but was a firm believer in predestination.

Carl Albrecht Bernoulli.

Bibliography: ADB, iii (1876), 381; E. Egli, Zwingliana, i, 30–31, Zurich, 1904; C. Gerbert, Geschichte der Strassburger Sektenbewegung zur Zeit der Reformation, 1524–34, Strasburg, 1889. References will be found in the lives of the Reformers Luther, Melanchthon, Butzer, Zwingli.