Paul Eber
Paul Eber -- P. 119
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As
Justus Jonas
had somewhat of
Luther's
talents and frank courage, so
Paul Eber
was not unlike his
great friend Melancthon. He was the son of a poor
tailor, a small delicate child, whose love of books
induced his father to stint himself even in food, in
order to send the boy to the Grammar School of
Nuremberg, one of the first schools into which the
reformed doctrine had penetrated, Paul Eber at
once imbibed its spirit, and as soon as he was old
enough, went to Wittenberg to sit at Luther's feet.
Attracted by his thoughtfulness and purity of manners,
Luther invited him to his table, where he met Melancthon,
and as the lad wrote a remarkably clear and
delicate hand, while Melancthon wrote a particularly
bad one, the latter took him for his amanuensis.
From this time they lived on terms of the closest
intimacy, so that Luther used to call him "Philip's
familiar," and "Philip's treasury." He became professor
120
of Hebrew at Wittenberg, and married a wife
whom Melancthon chose for him, with whom he lived
most happily. But in the theological disputes of
those days he, like many others of Melancthon's
special followers, was accused of concealed Calvinism,
and bitterly attacked; and finally, at the conference of
Altenburg, in 1569, he was named among those who
were excluded on this ground from the Lord's Table
and the privilege of becoming sponsors. He went
home in cold March weather, wounded to the heart
by this intolerance; his health gave way, and the
death of his wife, which occurred unexpectedly about
this time, was his own deathblow. He died in 1569.
Eber's
hymns
have a tone of tenderness and pathos
about them, which is much less characteristic of this
period than the grave, manly trustfulness of Luther
and Jonas. But they soon became very widely known,
and in the following age, that of the Thirty Years'
War, few hymns were more constantly used both in
public and private, than
one of his
beginning:--
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"When in the hour of utmost need
We know not where to look for aid,
When days and nights of anxious thought
Nor help nor comfort yet have brought;
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Then this our comfort is alone,
That we may meet before Thy throne,
And cry, O faithful God, to Thee,
For rescue from our misery."
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This hymn was composed in 1547, when the
Imperial armies were besieging Wittenberg, and Eber
with two others were the only professors who remained
in the university. Two of his hymns for the dying
121
have been always very commonly used at deathbeds
and funerals in the Roman Catholic as well as the
Evangelical parts of Germany. The one
is,1414"Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott."
"Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God."
the other is the following childlike expression of perfect trust:--
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