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1624, he was sent back to Erfurt, and remained a prisoner at the hospital until he died. He is said to have repented of his errors.

Stiefel was a highly gifted man, well educated, and very familiar with the Latin and German Bible. The theological bickerings which then prevailed in the pulpits repelled him, and dry dogmatic dissertations turned him from the Church. He had been studying the writings of Thomas Miinzer (q.v.) for a long time, whose fundamental ideas he adopted: the renunciation of infant baptism and the Lord's Supper, as taught by the Church, the control of the secular power, and the Scripture as a dead letter; and the advocation of dreams and visions and of the inner word of the Spirit. The community idea of Miinzer he followed in practise.

(PAUL MEDER.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The one work of accessibility and value is P. Meder, Der Schmdrmer Esajas Stiefel, in Jahresbericht des ErJurter Geschichts- and AZtertumsuereina, 1898.

STIEFEL (STYFEL), MICHAEL: German Reformer and mathematician; b. at Esslingen (8 m. s.e. of Stuttgart) 1486 or 1487; d. at Jena Apr. 19, 1567. He entered the Augustine monastery of his native city, and in 1511 was consecrated priest. He first assumed an active part in the Reformation with the treatise, Von der Christfernzigen rechtgegriindten Leer Doctoris Martini Lathers (1522), being specially affected by reading the book of Revelation. He took refuge in May, 1522, with Hartmut of Cronberg; but upon the surrender of Cronberg Oct. 15, he fled to Wittenberg, and, Mar., 1523, became court preacher of Count Albrecht of Mansfeld. With great zeal he devoted himself to mathematical studies, setting up a strange cabalistic system by transforming letters into the so-called trigonal numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, thus disclosing secrets of the Bible. Luther, however, assured him of the futility of his practise, from which he desisted for awhile. Luther also sent him as preacher to Christoph forger of Tollet and Kreusbach, a nobleman in upper Austria. Compelled to flee from Austria in 1527, he found refuge in Luther's house, where he collected and transcribed the works and letters of Luther, until Sept., 1528, when he became pastor in Lochau. From 1532 he returned to his apocalyptical calculations and published Ein Rechenbuchlein Vom End Christi, ApocalyPsis in Ayocalypsim (Wittenberg, 1532). He unearthed the mysteries of the history of the Scripture, the Church, and the papacy, and calculated the date of the advent of Christ as eight a.m., Oct. 19,1533. In consequence he was brought to Wittenberg by the officers of the elector, held in confinement for four weeks to await the elector's sentence and only the intercession of Luther and Melanchthon saved him from prison and secured his reinstatement in the parish of Holzdorf, 1534 or 1535. Holding himself aloof from prophecies, for fourteen years, he prosecuted genuine mathematical studies, resulting in Arithmetica integra (1543); and Deutsche Arithmetica (Nuremberg, 1545). He matriculated at Wittenberg, 1541, probably for the purpose of giving mathematical instruction to students. During the Schmalkakl war Stiefel returned to his cabalistic play with numbers, was expelled from $olzdorf by the soldiers

of Spain, fled to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and thence to Prussia, and was stationed at Memel, where he carried his calculations on Daniel into the pulpit. After a brief stay in Eichholz, near Konigsberg, on account of antagonism to Andreas Osiander (q.v.) there, he returned to Saxony as pastor of Brack. At Eichholz he issued Ein sehr wunderbariiche yl'ortrechnung Sampt einer mercklic,5,erc Erklerung etlicher Zalen Danielis and der 0ffenbarung Sanct Johannis (1553), composed of a mass of strophes, the sentences of which afforded the apocalyptical numbers and disclosed their mysteries. His partizanship for Flacius against Melanchthon induced him to go from Electoral Saxony to the territory of the Ernestines. After 1559 he held mathematical lectures at the University of Jena. His German explanation of Revelation, which he represented as a prophecy of all history, finally reached the Thomas Library of Leipsic; for specimens, see :H. Pipping's Arcana bibliothecce Thomce, pp. 70 sqq. (Leipsie, 1703).

(G. KAWERAU.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. T. Strobel, N,sue Beitrdpe, i. 1, pp. b eqq., Nuremberg, 1790; T. Reim, Rejorrrcatioreablfftter der Reichsatadt Esslingen, pp. 77 ac;q., Esslingen, 1860; G. Bossert, Luther and Wurttemberg, pp. 7 aqq., Ludwigsburg, 1883; ADB, asavi. 208 eqq.; TfiK, 1907, pp. 450 aqq.

STIER, sti'er, RUDOLF EWALD: German Biblical theologian; b. at Fraustadt (57 m. n.w. of Breslau) Mar. 17, 1800; d. at Eisleben (40 m. n.w. of Leipsic) Dec. 16, 1862. He entered the University of Berlin in 1815 to study law, but finding this subject ill suited to his poetic; taste, he was registered as a theological student in 1816; but his romantic spirit led him to the pursuit of poesy, adopting Jean Paul as his ideal, and engaging in correspondence with him. In 1818 he went to the University of Halle and became president of the Halle Burscheuschaft. In consequence of the decease of a young woman whom he loved and a change of life in that intense period of religious :revival, he abandoned his literary adventure and took up the study of theology seriously at Berlin, 1819. From 1821 to 1823 he occupied a position in the seminary at Wittenberg, where he devoted himself to a comprehensive study of the Bible. lit 1823 he took a position in the teachers' seminary at Karalene, and in the following year became teacher at the mission seminary at Basel; was pastor at Frankenleben, 1829-38; at Wichlinghaugen, 1838-47; spent a season in literary retirement at Wittenberg, 18471850; was called by the consistory of Magdeburg to the office of superintendent at Schkeuditz, 1850; and was superintendent at Eis:,eben, 1859-62. During all these years Stier's main interest was in Biblical study in which J. von Meyer's annotated Bible was his basis and guide. .NOt satisfied with the Lutheran version he collaborated with Yon Meyer in the production of his last edition of 1842, and in his own (Bielefeld, 1856) he made extensive alterations. His translation is specially valuable for the parallel passages given. His exegetical works are practical and devotional, here and there parenetic, and somewhat lacking ii dogmatic relevance and pointedness. He was author of Siebzig ausgewdhlte Psalmen (Halle, 1834); and of commentaries on Ephesians (1846; popular ed., Berlin, 1859), on