Paul Speratus

Paul Speratus ( born December 13, 1484 at Rötlen Ellwangen ( Jagst); † August 12, 1551 in Marie Werder, today Kwidzyn ) was a Catholic priest, then a Protestant preacher, reformer and song writer.

Life

His real name was either SPRET or Hoffer, the Latinized form of the name would translate with the hoped for or groom. Speratus completed his studies in Freiburg im Breisgau, Paris and Vienna, and was both doctor of theology, as well as the rights and philosophy. He also got the title of papal and imperial Hofpfalzgrafen awarded. Prior to turning to the Reformation, he was from 1514 to 1520 priest in Salzburg, then a few months in Dinkelsbühl, yet in 1520 he was Domstiftprediger in Würzburg. Even here, he represented the teachings of Martin Luther and was forced to flee after he had decided to give up celibacy.

This fate then befell him in Salzburg, Vienna, he was after a sermon on January 12, 1522 in St. Stephens, in which he attacked the vow of celibacy, even excommunicated as heretics. In the Moravian Jihlava his reformatory sermons were finally on fertile ground, the city council gave him a pastorate. Soon, however, he was arrested at the instigation of the Bishop of Olomouc and sentenced to death by fire, but pardoned on condition of leaving the country.

About Wittenberg he arrived in 1524 as court preacher Albert I of Brandenburg -Ansbach to Königsberg. From 1530 until his death he was one of the first Lutheran bishops of Pomesania in Marienwerderstraße in Prussia.

Paul Speratus is the poet of the hymn It is our salvation come from, which is included in Luther's Eight Songs book of 1523 (EC 342).

Remembrance

August 12 in the Protestant calendar name.