Flacius (Vlacich), Matthias

FLACIUS (VLACICH), MATTHIAS. - Protestant scholar, called F. Illyricus, b. at Albona (Istria) on 3 March 1520, d. at Frankfurt on 11 March 1575. Having entered the Franciscan Order, he was sent in 1539 by his uncle Baldo Lupetino, who was provincial of Venice, to complete his studies in Germany, where he embraced the Lutheran errors, soon distinguishing himself among the most ardent supporters of the German reformer.

A professor of Hebrew in 1544, he led a wandering life, driven from city to city for his radical attitude and his outright opposition to the Interim of Augsburg and to the adiaphorists, led by Philip Melanchthon (v. ADIAFORA). F. was the recognized leader of the antiadiaphorists, and as such incurred the wrath of Melanchthon, who persecuted him without respite. Likewise, F. contradicted both Georg Major and the current of the synergists, which the latter led, no less than Osiander (v.). An exalter of the figure of Luther, especially in his book on the marks of the true religion: De falan papistarum religionis (Magdeburg 1549), F. carried his doctrines to their extreme consequences, asserting among other things that final salvation depends exclusively on a free judgment of God and that justification must be attributed immediately to the merits of Christ. A teacher for some years at the University of Wittenberg, he was particularly harsh in combating Catholic dogma, especially with the two works Catalogus testium veritatis qui ante nostram octotem reclamarum Papae (Basel 1556) and Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (ibid. 1567).

For a certain time, during his stay at Jena, he played a leading part in the Centurie of Magdeburg (v. CENTURIATORI DI MAGDEBURGO). Shortly before his death he was struck by yet another decree of expulsion while he was at Frankfurt.

Renzo U. Montini