Joachim Camerarius

1500-1574. German Reformer. Born in Bamberg, he studied at Leipzig, Erfurt, and Wittenberg, and later instituted reforms at the universities of Tübingen and Leipzig. Noted as philologist and humanist, he was an outstanding Greek scholar. He participated in religious colloquies and imperial diets—e.g., Speier (1526 and 1529) and Augsburg (1530). In 1525 he journeyed with Melanchthon* to the Palatinate and visited Erasmus* in Basle. His friendship with Melanchthon stemmed from mutual humanistic, theological, and pedagogical concerns. He translated the Augsburg Confession* into Greek. His Greek catechism is Melanchthonian in its theology. He wrote biographies of Melanchthon (his most famous work), George, Prince of Anhalt, and Eoban Hesse. He gathered letters of prominent religious leaders of the Reformation, which though partially scattered proved valuable for historical research. He discussed the possibility of Lutheran reunion with Roman Catholicism with both Francis II (1535) and Maximilian II (1568).