CHEMNITZ, MARTIN. - German Protestant theologian, one of the major representatives of Lutheran doctrine, whence the nickname alter Martinus (Lutherus). Born at Treuenbrietzen in the March of Brandenburg on 9 Nov. 1522, died at Brunswick on 8 Apr. 1596. As a young man (1539-46) he studied above all mathematics, astronomy and the classical languages. Appointed librarian at Königsberg (1550) by Duke Albert of Prussia, he devoted himself to the study of the Fathers and of dogmatic theology. He was afterwards preacher (1554) and superintendent (a title equivalent to that of bishop) at Brunswick (1567), until his death.
Ch. established himself especially as a dogmatic theologian through a long series of publications, which place him in the front rank among the Protestant theologians of the 16th century. In the work Examen Concilii Tridentini quadripartitum (Frankfurt 1563-73), he attacks the decrees of the Council of Trent. His other principal works: Fundamenta sanae doctrinae de vera et substantiali praesentia, exhibitione et sumptione corporis et sanguinis Domini in coena (Leipzig 1561); Theologiae Jesuitarum brevis ac nervosa descripto; Loci theologici, in quibus Philippi Melanchthonis loci communes rerum theologicarum perspicue explicantur (Frankfurt 1591). His name is likewise associated with the Corpus doctrinae Prætenicum and the Formula concordiae. Although a disciple and friend of Melanchthon, he upheld the Lutheran doctrine concerning the Supper, repudiating and combating the crypto-Calvinist current and the Corpus doctrinae Philippicum. He sought nevertheless to mitigate the doctrine of ubiquity, attributing to the human nature of Christ an omnipresence that is only relative (multivalipraesentia), that is, dependent on the free will of the God-Man, who can be and really is present « ubicumque, quandocumque et quomodocumque vult ».