AGRI´COLA, Johann, a distinguished German reformer, and the first divine of the Lutheran church who promulgated the antinomian theory of Grace, was born at Eisleben in Saxony, 20th April, 1492. Hence he is often called John Eisleben, or Islebius. His family name was probably Schnitter or Schneider, which, understood in its agricultural sense, he Latinized into Agricola. He was sent to study philosophy and theology at Wittemberg, where he became an attached disciple and intimate friend of Luther. In 1519 he assisted at the Leipzig disputation, in the capacity of scribe or secretary. Having been made bachelor of theology along with Melancthon, he taught for some years in Wittemberg, probably as an extraordinary professor; from whence, in 1525, he was recommended by Luther to the magistracy of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, to assist in introducing the Reformation into the churches and schools of that important city. Later in the same year, he was appointed by Graf Albrecht of Mansfeld rector of the newly-erected school of Eisleben, and preacher of the church of St. Nicholas in his native town. Here he acquired such fame as a preacher, that, in the following year, 1526, he was invited to accompany his native princes to the diet of Spires, in the capacity of court chaplain. In 1527 he took exception to some directions given by Melancthon to the pastors of the Saxon churches, to the effect that they should make use of the "law" as well as the "gospel," to bring men to repentance. Agricola maintained that the preaching of the law for that end was set aside by the gospel, and formed no part of the proper subject-matter of the evangelical ministry. Luther and Bugenhagen succeeded to some extent in overcoming his objections to Melancthon's views, which were also their own, but the event showed that he was rather silenced than convinced. In 1530 he was present at the memorable diet of Augsburg, and was only inferior in importance, among the evangelical divines there assembled, to Melancthon and John Brentz. In 1536 he left Eisleben to resume his academic duties at Wittemberg. In 1537 he subscribed the articles of Schmalcald. In the same year he re-opened the antinomian controversy at Wittemberg, where he was now vigorously confronted by Luther himself. A rapid series of public disputations took place between them, in the course of which Agricola became so heated and embittered against his impregnable adversary, that he took the extreme step of attacking his former master and friend, in a letter addressed to the elector himself. This was in 1540. The elector immediately appointed commissioners to try the cause, and enjoined Agricola to abide in Wittemberg the result of the process. But before the commissioners could enter upon the business, Agricola had repented of the rashness of his appeal, and, in spite of the elector's injunction, withdrew from the city. He was soon afterwards invited to Berlin by Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, who had just then determined to introduce the Reformation into his dominions. At Berlin he published in 1541 a "Retractation," which he addressed to the elector of Saxony, and to the preachers and council of Eisleben; but this retractation could only have been meant to extend to his personal charges against Luther, as he continued to hold his antinomian opinions to the end of his life.
The pulpit eloquence of Agricola had obtained for him the appointment of court preacher at Berlin, and, ere long, his eminent business-talents raised him to the honourable portion of general superintendent of the evangelical churches of the Mark of Brandenburg. After the death of Luther in 1546, his ill-regulated ambition would seem to have aimed at reaching the summit of ecclesiastical influence in evangelical Germany. And in 1548, when the disastrous war of Schmalcald had laid the Reformation for a time at the emperor's feet, Agricola accepted from Charles the sinister commission to draw up, along with Julius Pflug and Michael Sidonius, what was called the "Augsburg Interim," a compromise with the papal church, in doctrine and worship, which was rejected with indignation by all honest protestants; and the violent enforcement of which, in several parts of Germany, was attended with severe loss and suffering to many faithful ministers. By this act of flagrant treachery to the cause of the Reformation, and of equally flagrant inconsistency with his own previous zeal in behalf of evangelical doctrine—a zeal which he had pushed even to an erroneous extreme—it is no wonder that Agricola brought himself under the disgraceful suspicion of having accepted bribes, both from the emperor and his brother, King Ferdinand. He still continued, however, to enjoy the favour of the house of Brandenburg, and, long after the troubles of the Interim had passed away, his doctrinal zeal continued to display itself with as much antinomian one-sidedness as ever. In 1588 he thundered from the pulpit at Berlin against the teaching of George Major of Wittemberg, concerning the necessity of good works, and declared roundly that such teaching was no better than a doctrine of devils, devised to rob men of Christ and his gospel altogether. He died at Berlin, 22nd September, 1566, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
A very unfavourable view of Agricola's character has been taken by Walch, Planck, Bretschneider, and other writers of the Lutheran church, who attribute his opposition to the doctrine of Luther and Melancthon in some points, to the most unworthy personal motives, and trace his conduct in the matter of the Augsburg Interim to sources still more dishonourable. But in the more recent judgment of a very competent authority. Professor Schenkel of Heidelberg, who has made the history of the Reformation-period the subject of long-continued and profound study, Agricola was rather egotistical and self-opinionated than dishonest and corrupt, and his doctrinal errors were merely the result of a want of clearness of head, and of a narrow way of viewing the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith. His diligence as an author was not inconsiderable, but few of his writings have come down to our times. His principal work was a collection of 750 German proverbs—a selection out of 5,000 which he professed to have amassed—a work of national interest and value, which has secured to him an honourable place in the literature of Germany—P. L.
AGRI´COLA, Johann Ammonius, a German physician, an ardent admirer of the ancient Greek and Roman medical writers, and author of numerous erudite and able notes and treatises in illustration of their works, was born about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and died at Ingolstadt in 1570.
AGRI´COLA, Johann Friedrich, a musician, was born at Dobitchen in the duchy of Gotha, on the 4th of January, 1720. He studied law in the university of Leipzig, and, at the same time, music under J. Sebastian Bach. He went to Berlin in 1741, to be considered one of the ablest organists of the day, and to continue his theoretical studies under Quautz. In 1750 he wrote his comic opera, "Il Filosofo Convinto," for the Royal theatre at Potsdam, in acknowledgment of the merit of which Frederick the Great, who was already predisposed in his favour, gave him an appointment as court composer. The next year he visited Dresden, where he was so impressed by the operas of Hasse, then being performed there, that his style was ever after influenced by them. On the death of Graun in 1759, he was made kapellmeister at Berlin. He died in 1774. He wrote many operas, much church music, and several theoretical papers, the principal of which are named in M. Fètis' Biographie.—G. A. M
AGRI´COLA, Michael, a Swedish missionary, and translator of the New Testament into the Finnish language, was a native of Finland, and flourished in the sixteenth century. Having studied under Luther at Wittemberg, he was made bishop of Abo by Gustavus I., and sent as a missionary to the Laplanders. Died in 1557
AGRI´COLA, Rudolph, one of the most distinguished revivers of classical learning and taste in the fifteenth century, was born in 1442, in the village of Bafflen, near Groningen, in Friesland. His family name was Husmann. He went to the university of Louvain, but found little pleasure in the exercises of scholastic philosophy, and preferred the study of Cicero and Quintilian to the rhetoric and dialectics of the schools. After taking his master's degree, he repaired to Paris, and from thence to Italy, with the view of improving his attainments in ancient literature. He stayed two years in Ferrara, where Theodore Gaza, one of the learned fugitives from Constantinople, was expounding the Greek originals of Aristotle. Here he studied Greek and taught Latin, and excited the surprise and admiration of the fastidious scholars of Italy by the purity of his Latin style and accent. The conceited Italians, to whom everybody beyond the Alps was a barbarian, were chagrined that so accomplished a scholar was not an Italian. Having returned to Groningen, he undertook a commission, in behalf of his native city, to the court of the Emperor Maximilian I., which occupied him six months, and which he discharged with success. He was invited soon after to accept the principality of a college in Antwerp, which, after much hesitation, he decided to decline, preferring to oc-
