Tentzel, Wilhelm Ernst

Tentzel, Wilhelm Ernst a German theologian, was born July 11,1659, at Greussen, in Thuringia. He became lecturer at the gymnasium at Gotha in 1685, and was appointed in 1696 historiographer there, and died at Dresden, Nov. 24, 1707. In the theological department he is especially known by his controversy with the Jesuit Schelstrate on the arcani disciplina (q.v.): Dissertatio de Disciplina Arcani (Wittenb. 1683; also in his Exercitationes Selectae (Leips. and Frankft. 1692), written against the Antiquitas Illustrata. Tentzel also published Exercitationes X de Hymno Te Deum Laudamus (ibid. 1692). Of great interest is also his historical narrative of the beginning and first progress of Luther's Reformation, thus explaining Seckendorf's history of Lutheranism, edited by Cyprian (ibid. 1718, 3 vols.): — De Proseuchis Samaritarum (Wittenb. 1682): Dissertatio de Ritu Lectionum Sacrarum (ibid. 1685). See Theol. Universal-Lexikon, s.v.; Winer, handbuch der theol. Literdtur, 1, 609, 628, 738, 849, 854; 2, 799; Fabricius, Biblioth. Ecclesiast. (Hamburg, 1718), vol. 1; Regensburger Real-Encyklop. s.v. (B,P.)