ARNDT, JOHANN. - German Lutheran theologian and mystic, born at Edderitz (Anhalt) on 27 Dec. 1555, died at Celle (Hannover) on 11 May 1621. He is known as one of the most profound connoisseurs of Catholic mysticism among Protestants.
Initially destined for the medical profession, he abandoned it to devote himself with ardor to theology, which he studied successively at Helmstadt (1576), Wittenberg (1577), and Basel (1579). In 1581 he became an elementary schoolmaster in his native place, and two years later, pastor at Paderborn.
His vast and multifarious theological and ascetical culture, largely acquired by his own reading of the major medieval mystics, notably St. Bernard, St. Teresa, Tauler, and à Kempis, inspired his thought with a markedly Catholic orientation, for which he suffered no little persecution from his coreligionists. In 1590, having refused to adhere to the decree of the Duke of Anhalt prohibiting the use of images in churches, he was deprived of his office and forced to leave the city of Paderborn. From this period dates his first work, *Iconographia*, in which he upholds the legitimacy of the veneration of images. Subsequently he became pastor at Quedlinburg and at Brunswick.
The author was an ardent advocate of the interior kingdom of God and a precursor of Spener (v.). Against the doctrine of justification by faith alone, he maintained the necessity of moral renewal, affirming that perfection cannot be attained unless the highest spiritual forces are deployed in a life of purity. All his works were widely studied in Germany and abroad. Among the principal ones we may note: *Auslegung des Katechismus Lutheri*; *Auslegung des ganzen Psalters*; *Paradiesgärtlein aller christlichen Tugenden*; *Vom wahren Christentum*. This last publication, in four volumes, was translated into many languages, almost rivaling the *Imitation of Christ*.
The complete edition of the author’s works, edited by J. J. Rambach, appeared in 3 volumes at Leipzig and Görlitz in the years 1734–36.