proclamation of Queen Victoria as empress of India in 1877, and in 1888
was created K.C.I.E. He also possessed decorations conferred by the
rulers of Japan, Persia, Turkey and Siam. Sir Edwin Arnold died on the
24th of March 1904.
ARNOLD, GOTTFRIED (1666-1714), German Protestant divine, was born at
Annaberg, in Saxony, where his father was a schoolmaster. In 1682 he
went to the Gymnasium at Gera, and three years later to the university
of Wittenberg. Here he made a special study of theology and history, and
afterwards, through the influence of P.J. Spener, "the father of
pietism," he became tutor in Quedlinburg. His first work, _Die Erste
Liebe zu Christo_, to which in modern times attention was again directed
by Leo Tolstoy, appeared in 1696. It went through five editions before
1728, and gained the author much reputation. In the year after its
publication he was invited to Giessen as professor of church history.
The life and work here, however, proved so distasteful to him that he
resigned in 1698, and returned to Quedlinburg. In 1699 he began to
publish his largest work, described by Tolstoy (_The Kingdom of God is
within You_, chap, iii.) as "remarkable, although little known,"
_Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie_, in which he has been
thought by some to show more impartiality towards heresy than towards
the Church (cp. Otto Pfleiderer, _Development of Theology_, p. 277). His
next work, _Geheimniss der gottlichen Sophia_, published in 1700, seemed
to indicate that he had developed a form of mysticism. Soon afterwards,
however, his acceptance of a pastorate marked a change, and he produced
a number of noteworthy works on practical theology. He was also known as
the author of sacred poems. Gottfried Arnold has rightly been classed
with the pietistic section of Protestant historians (_Bibliotheca
Sacra_, 1850).
See Calwer-Zeller, _Theologisches Handworterbuch_, and the account of
him in Albert Knapp's new edition of _Die erste Liebe zu Christo_
(1845).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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