Friedrich Armin Loofs

1858-1928. Lutheran theologian. Born at Hildersheim and educated at Tübingen under Harnack, at Göttingen under Ritschl, and at Leipzig, he became a devoted Ritschlian and was appointed professor of church history at Leipzig in 1886 and at Halle in 1888 where he remained until his death. He played a leading role in Lutheran affairs and became a member of the Saxon Consistory in 1910. He wrote several important monographs on the Fathers and the patristic period, of which Paulus von Samosata (1924) is probably the best known, and a notable work Guidelines to the Study of Dogma in 1890. A book severely critical of the materialistic philosophy of Haeckel was published in English in 1903; in 1913 there came a christological study, What is the truth about Jesus Christ? and in 1914 a series of lectures given in London entitled Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian Doctrine.