Heinrich Blyssen

Born at Cologne or Bonn, Germany in 1526; died at Graz, 24 April, 1586. He entered the Society of Jesus, and St. Ignatius, appreciating his logic and knowledge of theology, sent him with eleven other Jesuits to Bohemia to combat heresy there, and to sustain a public discussion with the disciples of Luther and Hus. Though only twenty-five years of age, he acquitted himself with honor, and in 1556 he became professor of theology and Hebrew at the Jesuit college at Prague. Still maintaining his controversy with the heretics of Bohemia, he published a collection of theses: “De ciborum delectu atque jejunio” (Prague 1559). To continue the work of public lectures which he began, he gave a Sunday course of polemics to the clergy and laity. Appointed rector of the college at Prague in 1561, he was transferred in 1570 to the college at Graz, where he vigorously continued his lectures on theology. Attacked by Jacob Heerbrand on his doctrine concerning the Church, he published a defense of his thesis: “Defensio assertionum theologicarum de verâ et sacrosanctâ Christi, quam habet in terris, Ecclesiâ militante (Ingolstadt, 1577). His last and principal work, “De uno geminoque sacrae eucharistiae synaxeos salubriter percipiendae ritu ac usu” was published (Ingolstadt, 1585) when he was provincial of Austria.