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Nicolai, Melchior

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an eminent German theologian, who flourished near the beginning of the 17th century as a university professor at Tubingen, was identified with the Lutheran controversy which was carried on in his time between the theologians of Giessen and Tubingen concerning the κένωσις and κρύψις of the divine attributes. The theologians of Tubingen (Luke Osiander, Theodore Thummius, and Melchior Nicolai) supposed that Christ, during his state of humiliation, continued to possess the divine properties of omnipotence, omnipresence, etc., but concealed them from men. The divines of Giessen (Munzer and Feuerborn) asserted that he voluntarily laid them aside. For further particulars, see Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, vol. ii, pt. i, p. 179 sq.; Schrockh, Kirchengesch. 4:970 sq.; comp. Thummii Ταπεινωσιγραφία sacra (Tubing. 1623-4), and Nicolai, Considerato Theolog.vol. iv; Qucestionum cotnroversarum de profjundissima κενώσει Christi (ibid. 1622, 4to); Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, 2:353; Gass, Gesch. der Prot. Dogmatik, 1:277.