Jesuit, then Lutheran: Walther knew why, Wikipedia does not

     While processing the volumes of Der Lutheraner of Walther's years, I ran across a remarkable account of Dr. Jacob Reihing from the 17th century.  Reihing was a famous Jesuit scholar called upon to refute a damaging  publication by the Lutheran Matthias Hoe von Hoenegg against the Pope's church.  But he ended up converting to Lutheranism — a dramatic move.  When researching Reihing in Wikipedia, I discovered there was none in English, only a German site. And the German Wikipedia said: “There are no external reasons [keine äußeren Gründe] for the surprising change to the evangelical camp.”

But that is not true — C. F. W. Walther knew the reason for Reihing's explosive move and reported about it in his review of von Hoenegg's book. The following is an excerpt (Der Lutheraner, Volume 27, March 15, 1871, p. 111) (EN):

“Finally, the famous Jesuit Dr. Jakob Reihing took up the task and wrote his 'Handbook' against it. But what happened? When this Jesuit was urged to invalidate the Scriptural proofs given in the little manual and to substantiate his own assertions with Scripture, then finally, by God's grace, the light dawned on him, he converted, became a Lutheran, now refuted his own supposed refutation of the 'little manual' and showed himself what fallacies he had made.”

Wikipedia is mostly blind to spiritual truth in history, but not Walther. Walther saw clearly how God worked through von Hoenegg's book to show the energetic Jesuit the truth of the saving doctrine. — More will be said about von Hoenegg and his remarkable book in a future blog.