passage in the history of the German reformation. Already in 1540 he had been sent to the religious conference at Worms, where, however, according to Camerarius, Cardinal Granvelle who presided, aware of Alesius's readiness for the fray, would not allow him to speak (Bayle; the presence of Alesius at Worms is confirmed by a letter from Cruciger dated Worms, 6 Nov. 1540, in which he informs Luther of Alesius's arrival; see Burkhardt, Luther's Briefwechsel, 365). At the diet held at Ratisbon in the spring of 1541 there had seemed a fair prospect of a compromise being arrived at on the religious difficulty, more especially by the doctrine of justification being provisionally defined in a sense favourable to Lutheran views; but Luther and the Elector of Saxony held out against an arrangement which they treated as patchwork, and Luther in particular resented the readiness of Bucer and the Landgrave of Hesse to come to an agreement with the emperor. Matters stood thus, when it occurred to the Elector Joachim and the Margrave George of Brandenburg to send a formal embassy to Luther in the name of the several estates of the realm, in order to induce him to give way. To this embassy, which arrived at Wittenberg in June 1541, and solemnly presented its powers to the protestant patriarch, Alesius was attached as its theologian. Luther's answer was at first considered satisfactory, but in the end he was found to insist upon the acceptance of the Augustana and its apology pure and simple; and thus this remarkable attempt, like many others less promising, came to naught (see K. A. Menzel, Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen seit der Reformation, vol. i. chap. 24; reference to Alesius, p. 346). Alesius was employed in several of these missions, after he had removed in 1543 to Leipzig. His departure from Frankfort-on-the-Oder was caused by his having, in a disputation on the question whether the civil magistrate can and ought to punish fornication, maintained the affirmative with Melanchthon, and taken offence at the delay of the decision (Thomasius ap. Bayle, who enters at extreme length into the merits of the question). The Brandenburg government, angered by his abrupt departure, and supposing him to have taken refuge with Melanchthon at Wittenberg, called upon the university there to chastise him; but he had instead repaired to Leipzig, where Duke Maurice was now the territorial sovereign. He was warmly received by Fachsius, who was both burgomaster and professor of law at Leipzig, and through whose good offices he afterwards obtained favours at the hands of the elector (Thomasius, citing Alesius's dedication of his ‘Epit. Catech.’ to the sons of Fachsius). Here he seems speedily to have been appointed to a professorial chair, and according to Bale he at some time became dean of the theological faculty; Strype, whose account is however clearly inaccurate, says that Fife became a professor there with him. In 1543 Alesius, in a happy hour for such peace as he may have desired, refused a call to Königsberg, where Duke Albrecht of Prussia was on the point of establishing a university. At Leipzig Alesius continued to lead an active literary life, composing a long series of exegetical, dogmatic, and controversial works, and, though apparently of a contentious disposition, contending on the side of conciliation and concord. He belonged to that generous if sanguine band of divines of whom Melanchthon was leader and type, to whom no gulf which conscientious effort was incapable of bridging seemed fixed between Lutheranism and Calvinism—or even between the new learning and vetus ecclesia. In the days of the Augsburg interim he was among the protestant theologians who were to have attended the council of Trent, and was doubtless reckoned among ‘die falschen Christen, die Adiaphoristen, die gottlosen Sophisten,’ among whom ‘Philips’ was chief (see L. Pastor, Reunionsbestrebungen, 397). He was present at Naumburg in 1554, where a kind of preliminary agreement between the protestant princes was attempted; at Nürnberg in 1555, where he assisted Melanchthon in allaying the conflict caused by the followers of the elder Osiander; again at Naumburg, and at Dresden, in 1561. His opinions, like those of Melanchthon, in truth inclined to Calvinism; in the so-called synergistic controversy (on the relations between faith and good works), he stood on the side of George Major, and was in consequence bitterly attacked by the orthodox fanatics who followed Flacius (Thomasius; cf. G. Weber in Herzog's Realencyklopädie).
In the reign of Edward VI Alesius seems once more to have visited England, where Archbishop Cranmer employed him to translate into Latin the first liturgy of King Edward VI (1549) for the use of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr, whose views on the ‘Communion Book’ were desired by Cranmer, but who lacked the requisite knowledge of the English tongue. It is with reference to this piece of work and the changes afterwards introduced into the communion service that, at a disputation held at Oxford 18 April 1554, between Latimer and a numerous body of opponents, the prolocutor Dr. Weston declared that ‘a runagate Scot did
