GRYNAeUS, or Gryner, Johann Jakob (1540-1617), a learned theologian of the period immediately succeeding the Reformation, was born, October 1, 1540, at Bern, where his father Thomas, nephew of Simon Grynaeus, was at that time a teacher of theology, was educated at Basel, and in 1559 received an appointment as curate to his father who had become pastor of Röteln in Baden. In 1563 he proceeded to Tübingen for the purpose of completing his theological studies, and in 1565 he returned to Röteln as successor to his father. Here, as the result of much reading and reflexion, he felt compelled to abjure the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and to renounce the Formula Concordias. Called in 1575 to the chair of Old Testament exegesis at Basel, he became involved in unpleasant controversy with Simon Sulzer and other champions of Lutheran orthodoxy; and in 1584 he was glad to accept an invitation to Heidelberg, where two years were spent. Returning to Basel in 1586 as antistes or superintendent of the church there, he exerted for upwards of twenty-five years a very considerable influence upon both the church and the state affairs of that community, and acquired a wide reputation as a skilful theologian of the school of Zwingli. Five years before his death, which occurred August 13, 1617, he had the misfortune to become totally blind, but he continued to preach and lecture to the last.
His numerous works include commentaries on various books of the Old and New Testament, Theologica theoremata et problemata (1588), and a collection of patristic literature entitled Monumenta S. Patrum Orthodoxographa (2 vols, fol., 1569)....
GRYNAeUS, Simon (1493-1541), a learned theologian of the Reformation, was born in 1493 at Vehringen, in I1i3 fourteenth year was sent to school at Pforzheim, and subsequently studied at the university of Vienna, where he graduated as master of arts, and for some time acted as tutor. He next became rector of a school at Ofen (Buda), but as an avowed sympathizer with Reuchlin and Erasmus he was not permitted by the Dominicans to retain this post long. After an interval spent at Wittenberg with his old school friend Melanchthon, he became professor of Greek in the university of Heidelberg in 1525; with the duties of this post he from 1526 combined those also of the Latin chair. In 1529 the friendship of Oecolampadius obtained for him a call to Basel as successor of Erasmus; the completely disorganized state of the university at that time gave him abundant leisure not only for private study but also for a tour to England, where he charged himself with the task of obtaining the opinions of the Reformed theologians upon the subject of the king’s divorce. On his return to Basel in 1531, the year of the death both of Zwingli and of Oecolampadius, he began as theological professor to give exegetical lectures on the New Testament; and in 1534 he was summoned by Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg to assist in the reformation there, and especially in the reorganization of the university of Tübingen. In 1536 he took an active part in the framing of the first Helvetic confession, and also in the conferences held with the purpose of inducing the Swiss to accept the concord of Wittenberg, which had also been drawn up in that year. He was the sole representative of the Swiss churches at the conference of Worms in 1540. His death took place suddenly at Basel on August 1, 1541. In Greek philology Grynaeus was one of the first scholars of his day. In theology he was more of a theoretical than of a practical turn; but his profound erudition and singularly penetrating judgment gave him great influence among the more active spirits of the time. In literature his chief contributions were translations into Latin of Plutarch, Aristotle, and Chrysostom. See Streu-ber’s Simonis Grynoei Epistolae (1847), where a full list of his works is given.
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