Adam Contzen

Adam Contzen (born April 17, 1571 in Monschau , † June 19, 1635 in Munich ) was a German Jesuit , state theorist and confessor of Maximilian I of Bavaria.

Life

Contzen, about whose youth little is known, came from the Duchy of Jülich . He began his studies in 1588 at the Jesuit College in Cologne , where he obtained a master's degree . In 1591 he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Trier for a year . He then spent a few years at the Jesuit colleges in Cologne and Münster before he began studying theology at the Jesuit Academy in Mainz in 1599 at the latest , where he heard from Nicolaus Serarius and Martin Becanus . Contzen was ordained priest before 1603. He then taught philosophy and biblical languages ​​at the college in Cologne and at the University of Würzburg . In 1609 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Studies in Mainz as the successor to Nicolaus Serarius , where he began to make a name for himself as a writer. At the beginning of 1622 Contzen was appointed confessor of the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg , Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen , who, however, died in December 1622. Contzen then moved to the Jesuit Academy in Molsheim in Alsace , where in January 1624 he received the order from the Jesuit general Mutio Vitelleschi to go to Munich because Elector Maximilian of Bavaria had chosen him to be his confessor. Contzen stayed at the Munich court until his death. Johannes Vervaux became his successor .

State theory

Contzen appeared in journalism from 1613, initially with controversial theological writings in the tradition of his teacher Martin Becanus, in which he advocated the unity of the Catholic faith and castigated the corrosive effects of Protestantism , especially Calvinism , especially in dispute with the theologian from the Electorate of the Palatinate David Pareus . However, Contzen achieved greater impact with his work on the theory of the state, of which it could be said: "His politics is the quintessence of what was taught from a strictly Catholic point of view in the first half of the 17th century." ( Michael Stolleis ) Contzen worked out the theory of the state in his main work, the Politicorum Libri Decem (1620), next to it in the political novel Methodus Doctrinae Civilis (1628) and in the Fürstenspiegel Aulae Speculum (1630). Following Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Contzen sees the state as a God-willed, natural order that serves the purpose of the Bonum commune ; this purpose can only be realized in the monarchy , which is of divine origin. The monarch can only realize the moral good if he is not hindered in his actions by estates . Contzen consistently rejects a right of resistance , the monarch only has to answer to God. In doing so, he advocates a decidedly anti-Machiavellianism : the moral good is not in conflict with political prudence and the need for the state; rather, good leads to success because God is on the side of good.

Confessor of Maximilian I.

When he was called to Munich in 1624, the political theorist came close to one of the most important imperial princes of the denominational age . Elector Maximilian needed his Jesuit confessors not only as pastors, but also used their expertise specifically for advisory services on religious and political issues. The early absolutist prince was able to identify with Contzen's theory of the state as well as with his ideas about church politics, which aimed at a reform of the church according to the Tridentine model. But the practitioner Maximilian was caught in the tension between the great tendencies of the age: State and politics on the one hand, religion and denomination on the other. For Contzen, according to his theory of the state, there was no contradiction here: a policy that was strictly based on the norms of Christianity (in its denominational reading) must always be for the good of the state. The secular councilors of the elector, lawyers like Wilhelm Jocher , who were prepared to make concessions to the Protestants for the sake of compensation, Contzen disparagingly called "politicians" and accused them of Machiavellianism . Whether Maximilian as a whole followed the secular counsels or his Jesuit advisers, especially Contzen, is controversial in research and can only be decided on a case-by-case basis. For Contzen, however, it is clear that his influence was greatest at the time the Edict of Restitution was created and that it had passed its zenith with the failure of the expansive Catholic policy since 1630.

literature

• Dieter Albrecht : Maximilian I. von Bayern 1573–1651 , Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1998 (on Contzen pp. 325–329; numerous other mentions).
• Robert Bireley: Maximilian von Bayern, Adam Contzen SJ and the Counter Reformation in Germany 1624–1635 (= series of publications of the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Paper 13). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975.
• Ernst-Albert Seils: The doctrine of the state of the Jesuit Adam Contzen, confessor to Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria (= historical studies booklet 405), Matthiesen Verlag, Lübeck and Hamburg 1968.
• Ernst-Albert Seils: Adam Contzen's theory of the state. A contribution to the research of the older German state thought . In: Der Staat 10 (1971), pp. 191-213.
• Hermann Tüchle :  Contzen, Adam. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 346 ( digitized version ). (Overtaken by the work of Robert Bireley)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robert Bireley: Maximilian of Bavaria, Adam Contzen SJ and the Counter-Reformation in Germany 1624-1635 , Göttingen 1975, p 25, 26, 41 and 42nd
2. ↑ Robert Bireley: Maximilian of Bavaria. Adam Contzen SJ and the Counter Reformation in Germany 1624–1635 , Göttingen 1975, pp. 27–31.
3. ^ Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany. First volume 1600–1800 , CH Beck, Munich 1988, p. 123.
4. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Maximilian I of Bavaria 1573-1651 , Munich 1998, p. 325 f.
5. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Maximilian I of Bavaria 1573–1651 , Munich 1998, p. 182 f. and p. 329.