Gottfried Arnold was a German Lutheran theologian and historian.

Arnold was born at Annaberg

Annaberg

Annaberg is a former district in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It was bounded by the Czech Republic and the districts of Aue-Schwarzenberg, Stollberg and Mittlerer Erzgebirgskreis. Its national colors are pink, green, and blue.- History :In the Middle Ages the Ore Mountains were virtually...

, in Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 (Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

), where his father was schoolmaster. In 1682 he went to the Gymnasium at Gera

Gera

Gera, the third-largest city in the German state of Thuringia , lies in east Thuringia on the river Weiße Elster, approximately 60 kilometres to the south of the city of Leipzig and 80 kilometres to the east of Erfurt...

, and three years later to the University of Wittenberg. Here made a special study of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 and history, and afterwards, through the influence of Philip Jacob Spener, the father of pietism

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

, became tutor in Quedlinburg

Quedlinburg

Quedlinburg is a town located north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. In 1994 the medieval court and the old town was set on the UNESCO world heritage list....

. His first work, Die Erste Liebe zu Christo, appeared in 1696. It went through five editions before 1728, and gained the author a high reputation.

In the year after its publication he was invited to Gießen

University of Giessen

The University of Giessen is officially called the Justus Liebig University Giessen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.-History:The University of Gießen is among the oldest institutions of...

 as professor of church history. He disliked academic politics and academic life so much that he resigned in 1698, and returned to Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

. The next year he began to publish his largest work, his Unparteyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie [i.e., Impartial History of the Church and of Heresy] (Frankfurt, 1699–1700), two hefty volumes in which he showed more sympathy towards heresy

Heresy

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 than towards any established Church, or especially the clergy (cf. Otto Pfleiderer

Otto Pfleiderer

Otto Pfleiderer was a German Protestant theologian.-Biography:He was born at Stetten in Württemberg. From 1857 to 1861 he studied at the University of Tübingen under FC Baur, and afterwards in England and Scotland...

, Development of Theology, p. 277). In this major revision of church history, Arnold directed his sharpest criticism against those who wrote deeply biased apologetic "orthodox" histories instead of trying to understand where substantial religious differences actually came from. In his view, "heresy-making" was usually the defensive reaction of those in authority, rather than a true indictment of unconventional thinkers. He thought that the worst calamity in Church history was its establishment as the accepted and orthodox faith by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Arnold evinced a remarkable sympathy for a huge variety of "heretics." This "Impartial History" exercised a wide influence on the German Enlightenment and won approval from such thinkers as Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Leo Tolstoy. His next work, Geheimniss der göttlichen Sophia, showed that he had developed a form of mysticism

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

including a female image of wisdom (sophia) as a kind of divinity. Soon afterwards, however, his marriage and his acceptance of a pastorate marked a sharp change of views, and he produced a number of noteworthy works on practical theology. He was a thoroughly learned and prominent Pietist Lutheran, with a wide range of influence, and at least in his early career a radical Pietist, vehemently opposed to the unbending ecclesiastical structures of his time. His hymns also made a substantial contribution to the treasury of hymns within the Lutheran church, and a poem used by Johann Sebastian Bach ("Vergiss mein nicht" BWV 505).
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Private library

• Peter C. Erb, Pietists, Protestants, and Mysticism: The use of late medieval spiritual texts in the work of Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714) (Pietist and Wesleyan Studies, no. 2) (Metuchen, N.J., 1989)
• Dietrich Blaufuss and Friedrich Niewöhner, eds., Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714). Mit einer Bibliographie der Arnold Literatur ab 1714 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995) [note: this volume contains scholarly articles, pp. 1–336; the inventory of Arnold's personal library taken at his death, pp. 337–410; a schematic listing of the major events in Arnold's life, pp. 411–414; and a bibliography of works on Arnold dating from 1714 to 1993, pp. 415–424] One of the important contributions to this volume is Reinhard Breymayer: "Der wiederentdeckte Katalog zur Bibliothek Gottfried Arnolds," pp. 55–143.