David Chytraeus or Chyträus (26 February 1530 – 25 June 1600) was a German
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
, reformer and
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
. He was a disciple of Melancthon.
He was born at
Ingelfingen. His real surname was Kochhafe, which in
Classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
is χύτρα, from where he derived the Latinized pseudonym "Chyträus".
Chytraeus was professor of the
University of Rostock
The University of Rostock (german: link=no, Universität Rostock) is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continen ...
and one of the co-authors of the
Formula of Concord
Formula of Concord (1577) (German, ''Konkordienformel''; Latin, ''Formula concordiae''; also the "''Bergic Book''" or the "''Bergen Book''") is an authoritative Lutheran statement of faith (called a confession, creed, or "symbol") that, in its tw ...
. He is known for his work as the author of a Protestant catechism. His original Latin text was published in 1554, then reprinted in 1599. Now it has been translated for the first time in German. It has been published, together with editorial notes and commentary by Michael.
He is the author of a treatise on music, ''De Musica''.
[Joachim Burmeister, ''Poétique musicale. Suivi de David Chytraeus – De la Musique'', translation, introduction, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur and Pascal Dubreuil, Rhuthmos, 2017.]
Chytraeus died in
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...
, aged 70.
Notes
References
* Joachim Burmeister, ''Poétique musicale. Suivi de David Chytraeus – De la Musique'', translation, introduction, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur and Pascal Dubreuil, Rhuthmos, 2017.
The Protestant Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopediaby John Henry Augustus Bomberger, 1860, p. 714.
article in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
1530 births
1600 deaths
People from Ingelfingen
16th-century Latin-language writers
16th-century German historians
German Lutheran theologians
University of Rostock faculty
16th-century German Protestant theologians
German male non-fiction writers
16th-century German male writers
{{Germany-historian-stub
16th-century Lutheran theologians
17th-century Lutheran theologians