CHEMNITZ, MARTIN. – German Protestant theologian, one of the foremost representatives of Lutheran doctrine, hence the sobriquet alter Martinus (Lutherus). Born at Treuenbrietzen in the Margraviate of Brandenburg on 9 November 1522, he died at Brunswick on 8 April 1596. As a young man (1539–46) he studied chiefly 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 subsequently became preacher (1554) and superintendent (a title equivalent to that of bishop) at Brunswick (1567), where he remained until his death.
Ch. established himself especially as a dogmatic theologian through a long series of publications, which place him in the forefront among the Protestant theologians of the sixteenth century. In the work Examen Concilii Tridentini quadripartitum (Frankfurt 1563–73), he attacked the decrees of the Council of Trent. His other principal works are: 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 also associated with the Corpus doctrinae Prætenicum and the Formula concordiae. Although a disciple and friend of Melanchthon, he upheld Lutheran doctrine concerning the Lord’s Supper, repudiating and combating the crypto-Calvinist movement and the Corpus doctrinae Philippicum. He nevertheless sought to moderate the doctrine of ubiquity, attributing to Christ’s human nature only a relative omnipresence (multivalipraesentia), dependent, that is, on the free will of the God-Man, who can and truly is present « ubicumque, quandocumque et quomodocumque vult ».