Adolphe Monod

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adolphe Louis Frédéric Théodore Monod (born January 21, 1802 in Copenhagen , † April 6, 1856 in Paris ) was a Danish , later French Reformed theologian and revival preacher .

Adolphe Monod

Live and act

Monod was the son of the Reformed pastor and writer Jean Monod from French-speaking Switzerland , at that time pastor of the French Reformed Church in Copenhagen, and his wife Louise Philippine de Koninck. He had seven brothers, including the theologians Frédéric Monod (1794–1863) and Guillaume Monod (1800–1896) and the surgeon Gustave Monod (1803–1890). At the age of six, Monod and his family came to Paris because his father had been called to serve in the Reformed church there. Monod, who only became a French citizen at the age of 25, grew up in Paris and studied theology with his older brother Guillaume at the University of Geneva from 1820 to 1824 . During his studies he made the acquaintance of the Réveil and some of its more important representatives, such as Thomas Erskine , Louis Gaussen and Charles Scholl . Monod was strongly influenced by Erskine, but, unlike his older brother Frédéric, he kept a distance from the Geneva Free Church .

The Reformed Church sent him to Italy in 1826 , where he founded a Protestant congregation in Naples that same year and headed it for two years. In 1828, Monod was entrusted with the post of pastor of the reformed parish of Lyon . As such, he married the Scottish Hannah Honyman (1799–1868), whom he had met through Erskine , in the same year . Together with his wife Monod had seven children, including the philanthropist and feminist Sarah Monod (1836-1912).

In Lyon, there were considerable difficulties over time, as Monod showed himself more and more often as a "hardliner". In 1832 he refused to celebrate the Lord's Supper with everyone present and justified this in his sermon Qui doit communier? He only wanted to do this with resurrected Christians. A few weeks later he was removed from office by the church council. In consultation with like-minded friends, Monod founded his own free church , the Église evangélique de Lyon, together with them (in response to his suspension) . The German merchant Hermann Heinrich Grafe , a friend of Monod, founded the first Free Evangelical Congregation in Germany in 1854 based on this example in Elberfeld (today Wuppertal) .

Despite founding his own church, Monod never questioned the concept of the one Reformed national church. His basic idea was to renew the community from the bottom up and thereby shape it as a “reformed” church in the true sense of the word. In contrast to some of his colleagues, such as François Olivier or Auguste Rochat , Monod rejected the dissident movement . In 1836 he rejoined the Reformed Church in France when it entrusted him with a professorship at the theological faculty in Montauban . Here he worked for over ten years, first as a professor of ethics and eloquence, then for the Old Testament and finally for the New Testament . In the autumn of 1847 he took over a pastorate at the reformed church Oratoire du Louvre in Paris, first as a suffragan , from 1849 as pasteur titulaire . With his brother Frédéric Monod, who was also working in Paris at this time, he had to endure some theological and political discussions. While Adolphe, as Vice-President of the National Synod, advocated maintaining the unity of the Reformed, Frédéric founded the Union des Églises libres évangéliques de France together with Agénor Étienne de Gasparin in 1849 and was editor of the Archives du Christianisme au XIXe siècle .

Tomb of Adolphe and Frédéric Monod

Adolphe Monod took part in the founding meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in London in 1846 . Not only reports from his contemporaries but also his writings attest to the eloquence of Monod. Even when he became seriously ill in 1854, he preached bedridden for the rest of his life. Adolphe Monod died of liver cancer in Paris at the age of 54 . He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery (Division 36).

Fonts (selection)

  • La femme. Two discours. M. Ducloux, Paris 1848.
    • Female life. Two lectures. Agency of the Rough House, Hamburg 1850; 3rd probably edition Meyer, Hannover 1858.
  • Saint Paul. Cinq discours. M. Ducloux, Paris 1851 (and other editions).
    • The apostle Paul. Five speeches. Frankfurt a. M. 1854 (new edition Kaiserslautern 1935).
  • Les Adieux d'Adolphe Monod à ses amis et à l'Eglise. Meyrueis, Paris 1856 (and several other editions and editions).
    • Farewell words to his friends and the church. Bookstore of the Nassauischen Colportageverein, Herborn 1898 (and other editions).
  • Adolf Monod's selected writings. Volume 1-8. Velhagen and Klasing, Bielefeld 1860–1862; 3rd edition 1895.

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolphe Monod  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On him see Jean-François Mayer: Un messie au 19e siècle: Guillaume Monod. In: Religioscope , September 23, 2002.
  2. ^ Genealogical entry on the website of the Monod family association.
  3. ^ Sébastian Fath: You ghetto au réseau. Le protestantisme évangélique en France 1800-2005 , Histoire et société N ° 47, Labor et Fides, 2005, ISBN 2-8309-1139-3 , pp. 106–141
personal data
SURNAME Monod, Adolphe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Monod, Adolphe Louis Frédéric Théodore (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Reformed theologian and revival preacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1856
Place of death Paris