FECHT, feHt, JOHANNES: German Lutheran, an opponent of Pietism; b. at Sulzberg, in the Breisgau, Dec. 25, 1636; d. at Rostock May 5, 1716. He studied at Durlach and Strasburg, and in 1661 began a wandering student life of five years, visiting a number of German universities and residing for a considerable time at Wittenberg and Giessen. In 1666 he was recalled to Sulzberg, and in 1669 was appointed court chaplain and professor of theology. He was then superintendent in Durlach until the capture of the city by the French in 1689, when he fled to Calw, and met there the duke of Mecklenburg, who invited him to Rostock. He removed to that city in 1690 and remained there as superintendent and professor until his death, enjoying the utmost esteem and refusing flattering calls to other universities. He was a genuine representative of the conservative theology of the seventeenth century, and, despite his later reputation as an impassioned polemist, was at heart a man of peace in the eyes of his contemporaries. His opposition to Pietism was sincere, nor did he fail to respect its good qualities. He was a prolific writer, beginning with philosophy and classics, and later touching every department of theology, although he gradually came to restrict himself to dogmatics and polemics. His principal works are: Historia coloquii Emmendingensis (Rostock, 1694); Selectiorum ex universa theologia controversiarum, recentiorum præcipue, sylloge (1698); Philocalia sacra (1707); and the posthumous Lectiones theologicæ (1722) and Compendium universæ theologiæ (Zerbst, 1744).

(K. SCHMIDT.)