THOMASIUS, CHRISTIAN. — Philosopher and jurist, born in Leipzig on 1 January 1655, died in Halle on 23 September 1728.
Under the protection of Frederick III (1690), he was first a professor at the Ritter Akademie in Halle, then, from 1694, professor of legal science at the new University that he himself organized, and finally, from 1710 until his death, dean. He was a tenacious and profound innovator of German culture: he used the German language instead of Latin, applied with absolute rigor the Lutheran formula of the division between morality and law, devised the territorial system, anticipating Josephinism while at the same time advocating the secularization of social life, opposed witch trials and torture, and worked for the formation of a national German law freed from Romanist influences. For all this he was called the second reformer of Germany after Luther.
Among his works, the following should be mentioned: De jure principis circa adiaphora (Halle 1695); Das Recht evangelischer Fürsten in theol. Streitigkeiten (there 1696); De jure principis circa haereticos (there 1697); De fundamentorum definiendi causas matrimoniales hactenus receptorum insufficientia (there 1698); Vindiciae juris majestatis circa sacra, etc. (there 1699); Theses de crimine magiae (there 1701); De tortura e foris christianorum proscribenda (Leipzig 1705); De translatione ministrorum Ecclesiae (there 1706); De foro competente et subjectione clericorum sub potestate civili (there 1709); De originibus
processus inquisitorii contra sagas (Halle 1712); Historia contentionis inter Imperium et sacerdotium usque ad saec. XVI, etc. (there 1722).