Judex, Matthew

, one of the principal writers of the Centuries of Magdeburg, was born Sept. 21, 1528, at Tippolswald, in Misnia. His inclination to literature induced his father to send him to study at Dresden: but the college of Wittenberg being more to his mind, he removed thither, and afterwards was driven, by necessity, to Magdeburg. Here he supported himself by being tutor in the family of a lawyer, who sent him with his son to Wittenberg, in 1546. This gave him an opportunity of completing his own studies; and he obtained the degree of M. A. in this university, 1548. He then returned to Magdeburg, and taught the second form there for some years; and in 1554, was chosen minister of St. Ulric’s church.

In 1559, he quitted his church at Magdeburg, being promoted to the divinity professor’s chair at Jena in 1559; but did not keep possession of it above eighteen months, being deprived by order of John Frederic duke of Saxony. He remained, however, six months longer at Jena, and thence returning to Magdeburg, was obliged, in six months more, to retire to Wismar. He suffered many persecutions and vexations, which appear to have shortened his days, as he died in 1564, in the very prime of life. He was a man of good morals, laborious, zealous, learned; and wrote a great many books on religious controversies; and one, very rare, “De Typographic inventione,”Copenhagen, 1566, 8vo. He understood music very well, and had s’ome knowledge of mathematics. He could write verses both in Latin and Greek, and had designed to write an ecclesiastical history of his own time. Besides the share he had in the first two Centuries of Magdeburg, he was concerned in the German translation of the first three Centuries. These Centuries form an ecclesiastical history, carried | down to 1298, and were compiled by various protestant divines of Magdeburg. The title is “Historia ecclesiastics congesta per Magdeburgenses, et alios,” Basil, 1562, 13 vols. folio, whicb is the best edition. ¹