Abraham Calov

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Abraham Calov

Abraham Calov , also Calovius, Kalau , (born April 16, 1612 in Mohrungen , East Prussia ; † February 25, 1686 in Wittenberg ) was a German mathematician, philosopher and theologian, one of the most famous representatives of Lutheran orthodoxy .

Life

Calov was born as the son of the electoral Brandenburg clerk Peter Calov († 1631) and his wife Catharina († September 30, 1629), daughter of the mayor Daniel Spieß and his wife Magdalena von Randau. After attending the city school in Mohrungen, he attended the grammar school in Thorn in 1624 , switched to the old town school in Königsberg in 1625 and returned to Mohrungen because of the plague that raged there.

In February 1626, he enrolled at the University of Königsberg with an electoral scholarship from Brandenburg and initially devoted himself to studying the liberal arts . His teachers at that time included Samuel Fuchs , Sigismund Weier , Lauerentius Wegerus , Johann Strauss , Albert Linemann and Christoph Eilard . Trained in this way, he acquired the academic degree of a master's degree in philosophy in April 1632 . Then he turned to a study of theology. His teachers in Königsberg were Johann Behm , Andreas Mylius and Coelestin Myslenta , under whom he developed as a controversial theologian of Orthodox Lutheranism at a young age .

Besides, he had to be informer earned by three young noblemen extra income whose fathers for worried that he theology could continue with another scholarship at other universities graduated. Traveling via Danzig and Lübeck , he arrived at the University of Rostock in September 1634 . Founded in the house of Johann Quistorp the Elder , he held public and private lectures on philosophy and theology, wrote writings and held disputations for three years . The turmoil of the war prevented the continuation of theological studies in Jena and Wittenberg. Instead, he made occasional trips to Stralsund and the University of Greifswald in 1636 and also visited some places in Denmark . On June 22, 1637 he received his doctorate in theology in Rostock .

In the same year he returned to Königsberg, where he became an adjunct of the philosophical faculty and in 1640 took over an extraordinary professorship in theology. Here he took part in the electoral visitations in Samland and earned a reputation as a polemicist . He had a very stimulating effect on the philosophy of his time and must be perceived, especially in epistemology, as a formative head who can be classified in Kant's prehistory .

In 1641 he went to the Academic Gymnasium Danzig as rector and was pastor at the Trinity Church. From here he appeared on the Thorner Religious Discussion in 1645 against religious syncretism and Georg Calixt .

In the summer of 1650, with the support of court preacher Jakob Weller , he followed a call from Johann Georg II of Saxony to the University of Wittenberg . In Wittenberg, people had already considered Calov's appointment a year earlier. Since May 1650 they were looking for a "doctor who was well experienced in pamphlets and other theological exercises ". This was quickly found in Calov. On July 31, 1650, he was appointed third full professor in the theological faculty and took up the position on October 19. In November of the same year he became a member of the Wittenberg consistory , represented Paul Röber at sermons and, after his death, was elected pastor at the city ​​church by the city and the university in 1652 . The elector also appointed him general superintendent of the Saxon spa districts.

Like Leonhard Hutter and Aegidius Hunnius the Elder before him , Calov was of the opinion that efforts to reach unity between Lutherans, Reformed and Catholics were only possible at the expense of the truth of the faith and should therefore be rejected. He understood the Lutheran doctrine based on the concord formula as the only defensible form of faith. That is why he rejected any form of dissolving confessional boundaries and turned in his writings against Roman Catholicism, Reformedism, the indifferent Calixtines (see Syncretical dispute ), but above all against the Socinians still present in East Prussia and Poland. In the dispute with Calixt, Calov claimed that the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg should be the highest authority in questions of conscience for all of Lutheranism.

So Calov's academic teaching was often in a polemical context. In 1655 he wrote to the Elector of Saxony that in lectures and disputations he had repeatedly emphasized the differences between Lutheranism on the one hand and the old sectarians such as the "Helmstadt Innovations" on the other. At that time he was undisputedly one of the most influential teachers at the University of Wittenberg. He is said to have drawn almost 500 students to his chair. Even Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony , who was under the strong influence of his court preacher Weller, visited Calov to attend his remarks at the university.

Against the “novae Satanae molitiones in hoc cumprimis seculo maxime eristico et controversarium ac certaminum admodum feraci”, the revision of the Loci communes , which Calov published in twelve volumes from 1655 to 1677, was directed against , however, without bringing the work to a conclusion. This " Systema locorum theologicorum " actually achieved for the first time a philosophically secured systematic overall penetration of theological articles. With his main exegetical work, the Biblia illustrata Old and New Testaments , which appeared in four folio volumes from 1672 to 1676, he primarily opposed Hugo Grotius , who had tried to justify his own written explanation in the annotations to the Old and New Testament . Taking up a wide variety of interpretative traditions, including rabbinical ones, it represents a top exegetical achievement of the time. The basic principle is the conviction that God spoke through the Bible, and thus a truth of faith can be recognized from every verse that has to be interpreted in its context .

In addition to the Biblia illustrata intended for theologians , Calov also presented a German-language Luther Bible in which he incorporated Luther's interpretations of every passage in the scriptures. This Holy Bible according to Mr. D. Martini Lutheri German interpretation and explanation ... and with the citation of Mr. Lutheri German and Germanized writings has become particularly known through its intensive reception by Johann Sebastian Bach .

Calov was in extensive exchange with various European scholars. With Philipp Jacob Spener , who sent him his Pia Desideria , Calov was good friends throughout his life and was in intensive correspondence.

Despite the great popularity of Calov in the Lutheran faculties, he was unable to assert himself with all of his concerns. Above all, the fight against Georg Calixt failed because it could not achieve any formal condemnation of syncretism on the part of the Lutheran Church, because the Lutheran-Orthodox University of Jena , there especially Johannes Musaeus , did not want to follow such a sharp demarcation. Calov even got into an argument with his own elector when he published the Historia Syncretismi in 1682 without his permission .

The dispute over the union efforts of the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm proved to be even more disadvantageous . As a Reformed ruler over predominantly Lutheran territories, he wanted to dissolve the borders between the two religious parties for political reasons. As early as 1651 he had forbidden any pulpit polemics by the Lutheran clergy and thus, in the opinion of the clergy, interfered inadmissibly with the freedom of the ministry. The Lutherans sought support primarily from Calov, who was known to them from his time in Vorwittenberg. In 1660 Friedrich Wilhelm complained to the Saxon elector that the Lutherans in Wittenberg were publishing polemical writings against the Reformed. On April 14, 1662 he repeated his complaint. Calov had interfered in the dispute between court preacher Christian Dreier and the pastors of the Königsberg city and suburban parishes and attacked Dreier with a theological opinion. Since the Wittenbergers did not allow themselves to be dissuaded from their striving for the independence of the Lutheran Church and from their right to anti-calvinist polemics and attacked the Union efforts in Hesse with the writing Epicrisis de colloquio Cassellano Rintelio-Marpurgensium , which was also spread in Brandenburg, the Brandenburg elector issued an edict on August 27, 1662, which convened a religious discussion planned by the Irish in Berlin and at the same time forbade his country children to study theology and philosophy in Wittenberg, and recalled the Brandenburg students from the university.

This hit the University of Wittenberg hard, with the result that resistance arose in its ranks against its own theological faculty. First a dispute began with the philosophical faculty, which claimed the right to occasionally deal with ecclesiastical and religious basic questions or the biblical history in its exercises. However, the theological faculty saw in this an encroachment on its own sphere of activity. The dispute escalated into personal attacks. Due to multiple complaints at the Saxon court, a visitation commission was finally set up in 1665 to investigate the events. On July 12 of the same year, this commission brought about a settlement between the faculties which put the theological faculty in its place.

The aging Calov was not spared a conflict in his own faculty. Although he managed to work well together with his younger colleagues Johann Andreas Quenstedt and Johannes Deutschmann , there were disputes with Johannes Meisner . Meisner, who received his professorship shortly before Calov, was promoted to senior in the faculty after Johann Scharf's death . Perhaps for this reason Calov took offense at Meisner's less straightforward position on theological questions. In 1675, during a disputation, Calov believed to have found evidence that Meisner had deviated from the Lutheran view in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Immediately he wrote a list of the alleged errors of Meisner and accused him of heterodoxy. This controversy caused such a stir that it even weakened the reputation of the Leucorea theological faculty. An attempt by the elector to mediate between the parties also failed, so the points of contention were first presented to a theological forum of the befriended universities in Leipzig , Giessen and Strasbourg . Since the forum was not unanimous, the case was brought to the senior consistory in Dresden . This set up a creed that all members of the Wittenberg faculty should sign. The confession was kept entirely in the spirit of Calov, so that he could sign it without hesitation. Meisner, however, only wanted to sign with reservations, but had to submit to the consistory in 1680. With that, the dispute was outwardly resolved. After Meisner's death a year later, Calov no longer had to fear any resistance within the faculty.

Calov's intransigence may also have been one reason why he never became rector of the Wittenberg alma mater , although he was the dean of the theological faculty nineteen times . Although Calov had suffered from poor health from early childhood, he survived many epidemics in Wittenberg. Weakened by a stroke, he died in Wittenberg in 1686, where an epitaph was erected for him.

Act

While posterity often placed Calov's polemical writings at the center of his work, his exegetical and hermeneutical reflections are equally noteworthy and his impact on school philosophy must not be ignored. The diverse topics of the disputations that were held at the Wittenberg Faculty under his direction deal not only with controversial theological debates but also with philosophical, ecclesiological, exegetical and practical-theological questions. His dogmatic achievement, as can be seen in his main work Systema locorum theologicorum , consists primarily in the development of a consistent and coherent understanding of theological doctrine, which does not neglect the philosophical requirements.

At the funeral the funeral speaker compared him to the church father Athanasius ; Contemporaries criticized him as a Lutheran Pope; elsewhere he has been called "Grand Inquisitor" and "Mathematician of Religion". The political and theological interests of posterity, which attached importance to a unification of the Protestant churches, may have contributed to the fact that Calov's one-sided reception has been preserved over the centuries. The struggle for the correct interpretation of the scriptures was undoubtedly the most important concern for him, but his enormous creative power has produced far more than just polemical pamphlets. Until the second half of the 17th century, the university's theological faculty was still regarded as a faith tribunal for Orthodox Lutheranism, which was certainly due to Calov. Unintentionally, he may have played an important role in the history of the founding of the university in Halle .

family

Calov was married six times. His first marriage was in November 1637 with Barbara († 1639 in Königsberg), the eldest daughter of the electoral Brandenburg council Christoph Martini and his wife Judith Schultze. A daughter was born from this marriage.

  • Anna Catharina Calov (born March 9, 1639 in Königsberg (Prussia), † March 22, 1667 in Wittenberg) married. on June 2, 1657 with Johann Deutschmann

His second marriage was in Königsberg on August 20, 1640 with Regina (born March 23, 1614 in Königsberg; † May 30, 1658 in Wittenberg), the daughter of the electoral Brandenburg council in Königsberg and former mayor of Kneiphof Michael Friese († 1651 ) and his wife Barbara von Müllheim († 1640). Children are also known from this marriage:

  • Abraham Calov (* Königsberg; † March 26, 1662 in Wittenberg)
  • Regina Calov (born June 29, 1643 in Königsberg, † January 7, 1664 in Wittenberg) married. 1633 with the lawyer Wilhelm Leyser II.
  • Anna Maria Calov (* Danzig; † twelve weeks old)
  • Son NN. Calov (* Danzig; † died at birth)
  • Michael Calov (* Danzig; † four weeks old)
  • Dorothea Calov (* 1650 Danzig; † August 27, 1651 in Wittenberg)
  • Christian Michael Calov (born November 13, 1652 in Wittenberg; † December 25, 1652 ibid)
  • Johann Fabian Calov (born March 4, 1655 in Wittenberg; † March 21, 1655 ibid)

After his second wife died of consumption, Calov entered into his third marriage on June 7, 1659 with Dorothea Elisabeth († March 26, 1662 in Wittenberg), the daughter of the theologian Johann Hülsemann and his wife Sophia Barwasser. The marriage remained childless.

After the death of his third wife, he married on June 2, 1663 Coscilia († September 3, 1663 in Wittenberg), the daughter of the Leipzig lawyer Enoch Heiland and his wife Magarethe, the daughter of Polycarp Leyser the Elder . From this marriage a son emerged:

  • Abraham Calov II (* 1663 in Wittenberg; † 1684 Gießen)

He concluded his fifth marriage on November 13, 1666 with Catharina Elisabeth († March 4, 1684 in Dresden), the daughter of the Saxon personal doctor Johann Nester and his wife Maria Schröder. There were three children from this marriage:

  • Anna Sophia Calov (born August 26, 1667 in Wittenberg; † November 21, 1667 ibid)
  • Johanna Elisabeth Calov (born March 13, 1669 in Wittenberg; † April 23, 1669 ibid)
  • Johann Georg Calov (born July 19, 1670 in Wittenberg; † November 19, 1670 ibid)

His sixth and last marriage was on September 3, 1684 with Johanna Dorothea, the daughter of the theologian Johann Andreas Quenstedt and his wife Anna Sabina Scharf. There were no children from this marriage.

Works (selection)

  • Stereoma voluntatis Christi de substantiali praesentia ... Rostock 1633.
  • Metaphysica divina. Rostock, Hallervord, 1640.
  • Scripta philosophica. Lübeck, Wilden, 1651
  • Systema locorum theologicorum. 12 volumes. Wittenberg 1655-1677.
  • Consilia theologica Witebergensia. Frankfurt Main 1664.
  • Biblia illustrata. 4 volumes. Frankfurt am Main 1672–1676 and 1719.
  • Institutiones theologicae to examine novae theologiae Calixtinae. 1649.
  • Theologia positiva. Wittenberg 1682.
  • Necessary rejection of several injuries. 1651.
  • Consensus repetitus fidei Lutheranae. 1655.
  • Harmonia Calixt. Haeretica. 1655.
  • Synopsis controversiarum. 1652.
  • Syncretism Calixtinus. 1653.
  • Harmonia Calixtine-haeretica. 1655.
  • Historia syncretistica. 1682.
  • Trachemys scripta antisociniana. 1684.
  • Criticus sacer, vel, commentarii apodictico-elenchtici super Augustum confessionem.

literature

Web links

Commons : Abraham Calov  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see: Matriculation and reception of Abraham Calov in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ↑ Abraham Calov's doctorate in the Rostock matriculation portal
  3. ^ Max Wundt: The German school metaphysics in the 17th century . Tübingen 1937, p. 133-136, 157-260 .
  4. ↑ Kenneth G. Appold: Orthodoxy as Consensus Building . Tuebingen 2004.
  5. ↑ Kenneth G. Appold: Abraham Calov's doctrine of vocatio in its systematic context . Tübingen 1998, p. 171 .
personal data
SURNAME Calov, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calovius, Abraham; Calovius, Abrahamus; Calow, Abraham; Kalau, Abraham; Kalawen, Abraham; Kalow, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and university professor, representative of Lutheran orthodoxy
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1612
PLACE OF BIRTH Mohrungen , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1686
Place of death Wittenberg