Introduction

Biography

Paul was the son of Jo­han­nes Eb­er, a mas­ter tail­or in Kitz­ing­en.

In 1523, he left home to at­tend the Gym­na­si­um in Ans­bach. Forced by ill­ness to re­turn home, he was thrown from horse­back and dragged more than a mile, leav­ing him de­formed for the rest of his life.

In 1525, he en­tered the St. Lor­entz school at Nur­em­berg un­der Jo­ach­im Ca­mer­ar­ius. In 1532, he went to the Uni­vers­ity of Wit­ten­berg (gra­du­at­ed 1536).

Thereafter he be­came a tu­tor in the Phi­lo­soph­ic­al fa­cul­ty there. He was ap­point­ed pro­fess­or of La­tin in 1544, then in 1557 pro­fess­or of He­brew and cas­tle preach­er. In 1558 he be­came town preach­er and Ge­ne­ral Su­per­in­tende­nt of the Elect­or­ate, re­ceiv­ing his DD de­gree from the uni­vers­ity in 1599.

At Wit­ten­berg he was a close friend of [Phil­ipp] Me­lanch­thon, was pri­vy to all his plans, and con­duct­ed the great­er part of his cor­res­pond­ence. Af­ter Me­lanch­thon’s death in 1560, he be­came lead­er of his par­ty, and had to en­gage in va­ri­ous con­tro­vers­ies with the Cry­pto-Cal­vin­ists &c.; the seeds of his fatal ill­ness be­ing sown on his re­turn jour­ney from the fruit­less con­fer­ence held at Al­ten­burg with the theo­lo­gians of Je­na, which last­ed from Oct. 20, 1568, to March 9, 1569.

Eber was, next to Lu­ther, the best po­et of the Wit­ten­berg school. His hymns, some of them writ­ten for his own child­ren to sing to Lu­ther’s me­lo­dies, are dis­ting­uished for their child-like spir­it and beau­ti­ful sim­pli­ci­ty. 17 hymns have been at­trib­ut­ed to him, 4 of which are cer­tain­ly his, and prob­ab­ly 2 oth­ers. Of these 6, 5 have been tr. in­to Eng­lish.

Julian, pp. 319–18