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Grynaeus or Grunaeus, Simon

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Grynaeus, Johann

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surnamed Major, a German Protestant theologian, was born at Vehringen (Hohenzollern) in 1493. He studied at Pfortz-helm and Vienna, and early embraced the Reformation. He taught Greek at Heidelberg from 1524 to 1529. In 1534 he went to Tubingen, commissioned by duke Ulrich of Wurtemberg to reform the churches of that place. In 1536 he settled at Basle, where he died of the plague Aug. 1,1541. Intimately connected with Melancthon, Luther, Calvin, Thomas More, and others, Grynaeus was a zealous promoter of the Reformation, and, as such, was exposed to great dangers, but always managed to get out of them unharmed, thanks to his powerful protectors, lie was present at the diets of Spires and of Worms, and went to England in 1531 to confer with Henry VIII about his divorce. He was employed to collect the opinions of the Reformed theologians on that subject. A great admirer of the classics, he did much to promote the interests of sound education in the German universities. He discovered in a convent on the Rhine the last five books of Livy (published by Erasmus, Basle, 1531, fol.). Grynaeus published Latin translations of the works of Plutarch, Aristotle, and Chrysostom, the first Greek edition of the Veterinarii medici (Basle, 1537, 4to) and of the Amagest of Ptolemy (Basle, 1538, fol.). He was also the author of Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum, etc. (Basle, 1532-1555, fol.). See Bruck-er, Historia critica Philosoph. vol. 4:period iii, p. 105 sq.; Freytag, Adparatus Litterarius, iii, 497; Melch. Adam, Vitae Theolog. p. 56; Athenae Rauricae, ii, 69-72; Reimmann, Hist. Litterar. 4:207; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 22:272; Burnet, History of Reformation, pt. i, bk. ii; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. v, 402; Middleton, Evangelical Biography, i, 149.