SOURCE: "Andreae's Life from the Sources," in Cross and Crucible: Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), Phoenix of the Theologians. Vol. I, Martinus Nijhoff, 1973, pp. 24-111.

In the following excerpt from his Cross and Crucible, Montgomery emphasizes the continuity of Andreae's Christian philosophy throughout his life and dismisses "the questionable efforts on the part of some (both 'occultists' on the left and 'orthodoxists' on the right) to drive a wedge between Andreae's allegedly 'radical' youth and 'conservative' manhood."

While preparing himself for ordination, Andreae lived at the famous Tübinger Stift, whose roster of famous stipendiarii over the centuries has included Kepler, Schelling, and Hegel. The Stift must have reinforced for Andreae the orthodox Lutheranism of his University years, for the theological tone had been set by Jakob Andreae, Heerbrand, Hafenreffer, Stephan Gerlach, J. Heilbrunner, Polycarp Leyser, and Aegidius Hunnius. Probably the social-service nature of the Stift influenced Andreae's later...