Hoi, Matthias

Hoi, Matthias of Hohenegg, famous in history as the confessor of John George I, elector of Saxony. He was born of a noble family at Vienna in 1580, and educated at Wittenberg. In 1600 he commenced at this university a course of lectures, and published a program on the position which he was to take, Oratio detestans Papam et Calvinistas, in which he manifests that great hatred for Romanists and Calvinists which characterized all the acts of his life. Hoe distinguished himself greatly both as a student and a lecturer. In 1612 he was called to Dresden by the elector, and became court preacher and confessor. His talents and adroitness gave him, in time, complete possession of the judgment and conscience of the elector, whom he hindered from entering into a league with Frederick V, the unfortunate king of Bohemia, by representing to him that the Reformed religion, which Frederick professed, was fatally wrong, and could not exist without injury to Lutheranism. Hoe seems, indeed, to have hated the Reformed even more than he did the Romanists, and there appears not the shadow of a reason to assert that he was bribed by the emperor. To the declaration of his principles while a lecturer at Wittenberg, and above alluded to, he adhered until the end of his life, though it is said he greatly abated in his hatred against the Calvinists in his last days. His private character has been highly commented upon by all who knew him. He wrote a Commenatarius in Apocalypsin (Lpz. 1610-40, 2 parts), and a number of controversial works against the Reformed Church and the Romanists. He died in 1645. See Bayle, Genesis Dictionary, s.v.; Herzog, Real Encyklop. vol. 6:165; Mosheim, Ch. History, cent. 17:sec. 2, pt. 1, ch. 1, n. 12; Gass, Gesch. d. Dognatik, 2, 19, 78; Kurtz, Ch. History, 2, 183; Dorner, Gesch. d. protest. Theol. (see Index); Fuhrmann, Handwörterb. d. Kirchengesch. 2, 320-322. (J. H.W.)