Flacius,

Flacius, or VLACICH, MATTHIAS, surnamed Illyricus, a pupil of Luther and Melanchthon, was born at Albona, in Illyria, in 1520. He studied at Basel, Tübingen, and Wittenberg successively, and became professor of the Hebrew Scriptures at this last-named university in 1544. From this time he took an active part in all the theological discussions of the time; and for his attacks upon Melanchthon's compromise, known as the Leipzig Interim, he was, four years later, deprived of his professorship. Nor did he procure another appointment until 1557, when he became professor of Theology at Jena. This post he again lost, after holding it for five years, on account of his doctrine that original sin was essentially inherent in man's nature. After this he led a wandering life, dying in great poverty at Frankfort-on-Main in 1575. Of his numerous works three deserve mention—Clavis Scripturæ Sacre (1567), Catalogus Testium Veritatis (1556), and Ecclesiastica Historia (1559-74). It is said that Flacius, in order to gather materials for his work, visited, in the disguise of a Franciscan monk, several monastic libraries throughout Europe, and purloined from them such MSS. as were useful to him, amongst those thus stolen being the original of Fordun's Scotichronicon, which, with other MSS., was after his death purchased by the Duke of Brunswick for the library at Wolfenbüttel. The history, called Magdeburg Centuries, was only partly written by him. See CHURCH HISTORY, and Preger's monograph (1861).