Patrick Hamilton (theologian)

Patrick Hamilton (* around 1504 near Linlithgow , Scotland ; † February 29, 1528 in St Andrews ) was a Scottish Protestant theologian and martyr.

Life

He was the younger son of Sir Patrick Hamilton (before 1473-1520), Laird of Kincavil, from the Hamilton family close to the Scottish royal family . While his older brother James should inherit his father's lands, he was given a church benefice at the age of 13 ( Fearne Abbey ) and sent to Paris to study . From 1517 he got to know humanistic and early Reformation ideas and returned home. In 1523 he enrolled at the University of St Andrews as Mag. Parisiensis . He came to the authorities with his views in conflict and evaded further tests with two companions by a trip to Germany. His destination was Wittenberg , but in 1527 he broke off the trip in Marburg / Lahn because he had heard that Martin Luther had been called there.

His teacher was the former Franciscan observant Franz Lambert von Avignon , who set the course for the Reformation in Hesse in 1526 with the Homberg Church Ordinance . This induced him to set up and defend academic theses on the relationship between faith and good works.

At the end of the year, Patrick returned to Scotland alone, his cousin's path is lost in the dark, Gilbert Winram stayed in Marburg. John Frith , with William Tyndale a tireless promoter of evangelical doctrine, got his hands on the theses, which had already been translated into English and Dutch, had them printed as an appendix to his work A disputation of Purgatory and named them Patrick's Places . This single literary testimony by Patrick Hamilton has been reprinted many times and occupies a position in the English and Scottish Churches similar to that of Luther's Small Catechism in Germany .

Patrick Hamilton returned to St Andrews , charged with heresy and summoned for questioning. In a short trial, he was sentenced to death on February 29, 1528 and immediately burned in public before the royal cousin could have been appealed or his brother asked for action. One of those who was supposed to bring him back on the “right path” fled to the continent shortly afterwards and later became a professor in Frankfurt (Oder) and Leipzig : Alexander Alane (called Alesius).

Remembrance day

February 27 in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

literature

• Peter Lorimer, Precursors of Knox: or, Memoirs of Patrick Hamilton, the First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish reformation; Alexander Alane ... and Sir David Lindsay ... , Vol.I. Patrick Hamilton, Edinburgh and London 1857
• Rainer Haas, Englishman and Scotsman at the University of Marburg in the first years of its existence , in: Yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association, Volume 23, 1972, pp. 23–31
• Rainer Haas, Franz Lambert and Patrick Hamilton in their importance for the Evangelical Movement on the British Isles , Diss. Marburg 1973, therein text-critical edition of Patrick's Places
• Rainer Haas, Patrick's Places. The first theological treatise at the University of Marburg in 1527 , in: Yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association, 53rd Volume 2002, pp. 97-144
• Rainer Haas:  Hamilton, Patrick. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 611-614.
• Rainer Haas, All sorts of Protestants - Christ witnesses from the Tudor period In it: Patrick Hamilton - student in Marburg - martyr in St. Andrews , pp. 1-56, John Hamilton - was the later Archbishop of St. Andrews in 1527 as a student in Marburg an der Lahn? , Pp. 129-137, Verlag Tr. Bautz, Nordhausen, 2010

Web links

• Short biography on www.heiligenlexikon.de