[Image] [Hi-Res Image]
Page 345
345 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Forney
Saxon or Swiss principles and doctrines was then a burning one, and Forster lost his position in this struggle because he did not side with the Zwinglians. In 1542 he became provost of St. Lawrence at Nuremberg, and thence extended his reformatory activity, first to Regensburg in 1542 and in the following year to the county of Henneberg. In unselfish devotion to the cause of the Reformation he sacrificed his position at Nuremberg, but as his plans of church discipline were not carried out, he went into voluntary retirement after three years. After some vain efforts of Melanchthon and his friends to find a position for him, Prince George of Anhalt called him as superintendent to the bishopric of Merseburg, and subsequently Duke Augustus provided him with a capitular prebend. After Cruciger's death in 1549, he was called to Wittenberg as professor of Hebrew and preacher at the Castle Church. In 15-14 he took part in the convention of Naumburg on the side of Melanchthon. The last decade of his life may be designated as the Melanchthonian period, since be became more lenient in church discipline and expressed himself in a more conciliatory manner on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The principal work of his life is a great Hebrew-Latin dictionary, Dietionarium hebraicum novum, non ex rabbinorum commentis nee ex nostratium doctorum stulta imitatione descriptum sed ex ipsis thesauris S. Bibliorum et eorundem accurata collatione depromptum (Basel, 1557; 2d ed., 1564).
2. Not to be confounded with the above is the younger Johann Forster; b. at Auerbach (15 m. S.W. of Zwickau), Saxony, Dec. 25, 1576; d. at Mansfeld (38 m. s. of Magdeburg) Nov. 17, 1613. He was preacher at Leipsic, 1593, rector in Schneeberg, 1601; chief preacher of Zeitz, professor of theology in Wittenberg 1609 and finally general superintendent at Mansfeld He was the author of various theological and devotional writings.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. Germann, Johann Forster, der Henneberger Re/ormator, Meiningen, 1894; FSrster, in ZHT, 1869, pp. 210 sqq.; L. Geiger, Das Studiumderhebrdiechen Sprache in Deutschland, pp. 97 sqq., 136, Breslau, 1870; KL, iv. 1625-26.
FORSYTH, NATHANIEL: Missionary to India. See INDIA, II., § 2.
FORSYTH, PETER TAYLOR: English Congregationalist; b. at Aberdeen, Scotland, May 12, 1848. He studied at the University of Aberdeen (M.A., 1869), the University of Gottingen, and New College, London, and after being assistant to the professor of Latin at the University of Aberdeen was pastor at Shipley, Yorkshire (1876-79), St. Thomas' Square, Hackney (1880-85), Cheetham Hill, Manchester (1885-89), Clarendon Park, Leicester (1889-94), and Emmanuel Congregational Church, Cambridge (1894-1901). Since 1901 he has been principal of Hackney Theological College, Hampstead, London, as well as a member of the 'theological faculty of London University. In 1905 he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. In theology lie is Evangelical, positive, modern, and social. He
has written Pulpit Parables (sermons for children, in collaboration with J. A. Hamilton; Manchester, 1886); Religion in Recent Art (1889); The Charter of the Church (London, 1896); The Holy Father and the Living Christ (1897); Christian Perfection (1899); Rome, Reform, and Reaction (1899); and The Taste of Death and the Life of Grace (1901).
FORTUNATUS, VENANTIUS HONORIUS CLEMENTIANUS: Bishop of Poitiers and Christian poet; b. near Treviso, in Upper Italy, c. 535; d. in Poitiers in the beginning of the seventh century. He studied grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence in Ravenna, left Italy about 564, went through Germany to Gaul, lived for some time at the court of Sigbert of Austrasia, then went to Tours, and later to Poitiers. Here he became acquainted with Radegunde, a Thuringian princess, the divorced wife of Lothair I., who with her adopted daughter, Agnes, lived in the convent of the Holy Cross. The intercourse with these two women induced the poet to desist from his migratory life and to become presbyter in Poitiers. Thenceforth he lived in close connection with all prominent personalities of the country, wrote poetical eulogies, and grew in authority and fame as a poet., especially after he had collected and published his poems, at the instigation of Gregory of Tours. Shortly before his death he became bishop in Poitiers.
The poetical productions of Fortunatus are very numerous, most of them written for special occasions. He may indeed be called a court poet. Hospitality which he had enjoyed, the celebration of a wedding, a funeral-everything was put into easy verse. His poetic gifts were by no means slight; leis language is picturesque and full' of thought; his hexameters and pentameters surprise by the purity of their rhythm. But there is also not lacking a certain bombast and artificiality of expression, characteristic of the time, and still more faulty is the base flattery in his eulogies which reflects unfavorably upon his character. Since Fortunatus eulogized quite a number of eminent personages, his poems are valuable also for the historian. His descriptions of nature are excellent, as, for instance, his representation of a journey on the Moselle from Metz to Andernach, which he had undertaken in the suite of the king of Austrasia, likewise a poem on the castle of Bishop Nicetius of Treves. Still more valuable are three elegies composed under the inspiration of Radegunde; one represents the tragic fate of GaIsvintha, daughter of a West Gothic king; a second is intended to con-
sole Amalafried, cousin of Radegunde, the last Thuringian heir; the last is to console Artachis, a relative of Amalafried, on the death of the latter. The greatest fame of Fortunatus, however, rests
upon his religious hymns, as Vexilla regis prodeunt (transl. by J. M. Neale, The royal banners forward go), and Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis (transl. by Neale Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle), hymns on the Passion; and Quem terra pontus cethera (transl. by Neale, The God whom earth
and sea and Sky), a hymn on Mary. Fortunatus also wrote a comprehensive epic poem on the life of St. Martin (De vita Martini), and some lives of saints in prose, Albinus, Marcellus, Germanus, and