LUETKEMANN, liit'ke-man, JOACHIM: German Lutheran theologian; b. at Demmin (28 m. s. of Stralsund), Pomerania, Dec. 15, 1608; d. at Wolfen biittel (8 m. s. of Brunswick) Oct. 18, 1655. Both his writings and his personality, which combined deep learning with the efficacious inner conviction of Pietism, had no alight influence in the same direction as those of Arndt and Johann Müller, while his controversy with the orthodox Lutherans as to the humanity of Christ in his death, though without abiding consequences, attracted much attention at the time. He was educated at the universities of Greifewald and Strasburg, afterward traveling through France and Italy and returning to Rostock to pursue his studies there. He became a lecturer in the philosophical faculty there in 1638, and five years later professor of metaphysics and physics. He had already become known as a preacher, and contributed much to the activity of religious life in Rostock. His work there was interrupted by a controversy in which he became engaged with the strict orthodox party in Mecklenburg, whom the duke favored. He put forth in what seemed to them a dangerous form a proposition already enun ciated in the Middle Ages. To the concept of hu manity, he said, there belongs besides the existence of soul and body the form of their joint existence, their unity; and with the dissolution of thin unity in death the manhood of Christ was dissolved. The assertion of its permanence must take away some thing from the reality of the death of Christ, and thus from the reality of redemption. He attempted to save the belief in the divine-human character of Christ by the theory that the divinity was united not only with the soul but with the body; and when the soul left the body, the Godhead did not leave it, but the true, essential, eternal life still dwelt in the dead body. A vehement strife broke out over this apparent departure from the ortho dox doctrine. Lütkemann defended himself in his Disset'faEfo phyeico-lheologica de taro homine. The orthodox teaching seemed to imply that the body of Christ, as a necessary concomitant with the soul to the unity of human nature, was incorruptible. Two court preachers at Weimar, Collar and Bar tholomii, now expressed a doubt of this, and de fended Lütkemann's view from this standpoint. The Rostock theologian Cothmann appeared as a violent opponent of Lütkemann, and used his influence with the duke to have him silenced both as a professor and as a preacher. In spite of the support of clergy and people, he was obliged to leave Rostock. Duke Au gust of Brunswick, however, offered him the position of general superintendent and court preacher, and there he spent his remaining years, drawing up the ex cellent school ordinance of 1651 and the church order of 1657. He wrote a number of philosophical works and one of the most popular books among the disci ples of Arndt was his Vorschmack der gottlichen Gate (Wolfenbüttel, 1643).

(W. Dilthey.)

Bibliography: A Life by Philipp Rethmeyer is prefixed to his Vorachnsack in the later editions, e.g., Brunswick, 1740. Consult also: F. A. Tholuck, Akademische Leben, ii,

109, Hamburg, 1854.

61