Bernhard Bartmann

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Bernhard Bartmann (born  May 26, 1860 in Madfeld , †  August 1, 1938 in Paderborn ) was a German , Roman Catholic dogmatist .

Life

Bernhard Bartmann was born on May 26, 1860 in Madfeld (now Brilon) as the son of the day laborer and bricklayer Johann Adolf Bartmann (1831–1900) and his wife Elisabeth Louise, née Schlüter (1830–1876). The parents ran agriculture as a sideline. Several of her children died early, so that Bernhard Bartmann grew up as an only child. The mother, who died young, owned a small library of Catholic teaching and edification books, including, in addition to legends of saints, the hand-held postil Leonhard Goffinés and Gregor Rippel's The Beauty of the Catholic Church from which she read to the boy. The local pastor Franz Kaspar Dalhoff let him start school at the age of five. During school he worked as a school helper. He then spent three years preparing for the entrance exam for the teachers' seminar in Büren .

He finished his training at Easter 1880 and worked as a teacher at a simultaneous school in Werne (now Bochum) until 1882 . There he was the only Catholic among seven teachers and carried out religious instruction for the Catholic students after the end of regular lessons. Afterwards he prepared himself with the pastor in Dahl for the final examination of a humanistic high school , from Easter 1884 he studied Catholic theology in Münster , Easter 1885 he moved to the University of Würzburg , then to Eichstätt and completed his training at the Paderborn seminary . In Würzburg he attended lectures with Franz Hettinger , in Eichstätt with Albert Stöckl and Mathias Schneid and above all with Franz von Paula Morgott and Valentin Thalhofer .

On March 19, 1888, Bernhard Bartmann was ordained a priest . He was employed as a pastor and teacher at the Rector's School in Hamm, he was also the vicar of the main church on Sundays and the pastor's cooperator on weekdays . He switched to pastoral care at his own request and was vicar at the Dortmund Provost Church for four years. Bishop Hubert Theophil Simar put him back in the school service, where he worked for four years at the same time at the Realschule and the Realgymnasium as a pastor and taught exclusively the Catholic religion.

During his time in Hamm, Bernhard Bartmann began his doctoral thesis, which he submitted to Paul von Schanz and Johannes von Belser in Tübingen in 1896 . His subject was St. Paul and St. James on justification . On September 22nd, 1898 he was appointed to the chair of dogmatics at the Episcopal (from 1929 Archbishop's) Philosophical-Theological Academy Paderborn (today's Theological Faculty Paderborn ), which he held for 40 years until his death. Bartmann was a long-time employee of the theological journal "Theologie und Glaube", which has been published by the professors of the Paderborn Academy since 1909.

Bernhard Bartmann died after a brief illness on August 1, 1938 in Paderborn. He was buried in the Ostfriedhof Paderborn.

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Dissertation on theology of justification

With the topic of his doctoral thesis, Bartmann took up the dogmatic controversy between Catholic and Reformation theology , which was central to his time and which he was very familiar with due to his origins and activities in a mixed-denominational environment. Deliberately proceeding from the biblical roots and not only from Catholic school theology, he developed in an intensive examination of the Protestant criticism a not immune from controversial theological misinterpretation, but argumentatively differentiated and mature Catholic standpoint in the doctrine of justification . In his later textbooks, he dealt with the subject in detail again and again, trying to make the Catholic position understandable for critical readers and to dispel prejudices. In the specialist theological dispute with Protestant representatives such as Adolf Schlatter , he also proved himself to be a distinguished and profound expert on the theology of justification and thus belongs to the ranks of the early foremen of the unification of the large churches in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, about 100 years later .

Practical doctrine of dogma

Bernhard Bartmann's main work is his textbook on dogmatics . It appeared from 1905 to 1932 in eight editions, from the third (1918) in two volumes, and was translated into Italian and French. The systematic, but less speculative than historically oriented manual was not only widespread in the Catholic area, but also served Protestant theologians such as Karl Barth as a reference for dealing with the Catholic doctrine of the faith, since it also applies the Reformation point of view to all important issues unabbreviated and accurate lectured. In addition, Bartmann wrote numerous historical-dogmatic articles and reviews for specialist journals as well as around 18 books, which were not only aimed at specialist theological readers, but aimed at a broader, religiously interested audience and were therefore sometimes characterized as " popular religious writings". One of the concerns of his books was to place biblical and dogmatic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in closer relation to one another than was customary in traditional neo-scholasticism until then. Bartmann saw here a starting point for a conversation with Protestantism, the positions of which he dealt constructively with throughout his life. At the same time, Bartmann tried to explain Catholic doctrine and piety practice and its historical roots in an understandable way for critics and to refute common prejudices, especially of the Protestant-enlightened milieu against Catholic dogmatics and piety , in a factual and non-polemical way. His books were also aimed at Catholic pastors and preachers, to whom he wanted to give dogmatically reliable working aids that contain less scientific-academic explanations of the central issues of faith that are more tailored to pastoral care, whereby, as in his scientific work, he is concerned with general understanding and tried to use a clear, catchy writing and argumentation style.

More lively image of Jesus

His book of Jesus Christ, our Savior and King (1926/1929), in which he describes Jesus Christ as a figure who appeared from the beginning with a royal and messianic claim, whose kingship is not in worldly triumph, but in the Passion story from the cross. In this Bartmann saw the special contribution of German Catholic theology to the interpretation of the shortly before (1925) by Pope Pius XI. introduced Christ the King Festival . The book was innovative because it did not follow the conventional schemes of dogmatic handbook literature, but developed a clear narrative presentation that cites passages from the Bible less as evidence of dogmatic truths of faith, but rather uses them in an illustrative and narrative manner. The memorable, theologically commented retelling of the work of Jesus together with his miracles, proverbs and parables showed the reader Jesus Christ as a person of flesh and blood and in this way contributed to the renewal of Catholic Christology towards a more lively and less abstract image of Christ and a more intimate one Relationship with Jesus. As he himself noted in the foreword of the new edition in 1928, Bartmann tried to remove the boundary between dogmatic Christology and historical research into the life of Jesus as much as possible.

Bartmann approached the historicization efforts and modernization concerns of Reform Catholicism with express mildness until the end and avoided too harshly condemning inner-Catholic critics of the doctrine, although he knew how to defend the contents of the teaching with training, eloquently and well-founded against radical criticism.

Theological devaluation of Judaism

In his Jesus book, Bartmann already emphasized the religious contrast in which, according to his interpretation, Jesus Christ stood to Judaism of his time. According to Bartmann, who portrays prophets like Jeremiah , Ezekiel and Malachi as precursors of Jesus critical of the law, during his ultimately unsuccessful public ministry, Jesus increasingly distanced himself from the Jewish practice of faith, which had been characterized by excessively rigor and rigor since his exile in Babylon , and finally ended the God's covenant with Israel and replaced by his new covenant. With this, God withdrew his grace from the Jewish people because, due to their changeable and superficial attitudes, the majority refused the conversion preached by Jesus all over the country and, through their ruling party , they had definitely rejected the messianic kingship of Jesus. In 1934, in his work Positive Christianity in Catholic Essence , which sees itself as a critical-positive appreciation of the National Socialist conception of Christianity from the point of view of Catholic doctrine, he described the Jewish “Old Covenant” as “pre-Christian” and on a lower level of divine revelation than the New Testament standing. In his last book, The Beliefs between Judaism and Christianity , published in early 1938, he reaffirmed this anti-Judaistic interpretation of the Christian-Jewish relationship in the sense of the classical theory of substitution and rejection and went so far as to question the revelatory character of the Old Testament with biblical and church-historical arguments to ask, although he clung to its divine inspiration . The book, which was conceived as a reaction to works by German-Jewish authors such as Hans-Joachim Schoeps or Martin Buber , who had emphasized the fundamental closeness between Judaism and Christianity, however, established the fundamental incompatibility of Christian and Jewish religions. Even the Jewish doctrine of grace, which is determined by a work and merit righteousness without the helping gift of grace from God, knows only God's election of Israel as a gracious basis; therein lies a fundamental opposition to Christianity. The paperback was delivered in parts of the edition together with an anti-Semitic pamphlet as a publisher's supplement, which intensifies the anti-Jewish perspective even further and sharpens it like a pamphlet. With his anti-Judaist one-sidedness and at the same time theologically modern and appealing presentation, Bartmann encouraged anti-Jewish attitudes in German Catholicism and thus exerted a negative influence in the Catholic milieu at the time of the National Socialist persecution of Jews.

The journalist and dialect researcher Peter Bürger , who is involved in critical research on Catholicism, cites Bartmann's anti-Jewish attitude as an example of his origin and sphere of activity, since an anti-Jewish basic attitude in Catholicism in the diocese of Paderborn and in particular in the former Sauerland region of Cologne had been the norm since the middle of the 19th century at the latest .

Honors

Pope Pius XI appointed Bernhard Bartmann on August 26, 1924 as papal house prelate .

In his birthplace Madfeld, the main street has been renamed Bernhard-Bartmann-Straße .

Fonts (selection)

  • St. Paulus and St. Jacobus on justification (=  Biblical Studies . No. 2.1 ). Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1897 (dissertation).
  • Textbook of dogmatics . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1905 (2nd, probably and linked edition 1911; from 3rd edition 1918 in two volumes; last 8th edition 1932).
  • Christ an opponent of the cult of Mary? Jesus and his mother in the Holy Gospels. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1909.
  • Paul. The main features of his teaching and the modern history of religion . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1914.
  • The Christian's life of grace. Biblically, dogmatically, ascetically presented . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1921.
  • Dogma and the history of religion presented for wider circles . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1922.
  • Mary in the light of faith and piety (=  Catholic life values . No. 8 ). Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn 1922 (4th edition 1925).
  • Outline of dogmatics (=  Herder's Theological Outlines ). Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1923.
  • Marian texts (=  religious source writings . Edited by Dr. Walterscheid, Bonn. No. 37 ). Publishing house L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1926.
  • Jesus Christ, our Savior and King (=  Catholic life values . No. 10 ). Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn 1926 (1st / 2nd edition; 3rd / 4th, verb. Edition 1929).
  • The creation. God, world, man . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1928.
  • The purgatory. A Christian comfort book . Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn 1929 (3rd edition 1934).
  • Our belief in providence . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1931.
  • Salvation, sin and atonement . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1933.
  • Positive Christianity in a catholic view of essence (=  The Christian in the time . No. 8 ). Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1934.
  • The conflict of beliefs between Judaism and Christianity . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1938.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klemens Honselmann:  Bartmann, Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 612 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ a b c Eduard Stakemeier: Bernhard Bartmann . Life, work and theological meaning. In: Professors of the Archbishop's Philosophical-Theological Academy Paderborn (Ed.): Theology and Faith . Journal for the Catholic clergy. tape 44 , no. 2 . Ferdinand Schöningh, 1954, ISSN  0049-366X , p. 81-113 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Bernhard Bartmann: Bernhard Bartmann . In: Erich Stange (Hrsg.): The religious studies of the present in self-portrayals . tape III . Felix Meiner, Leipzig 1927, p. 1-35 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Obituary by Eduard Stakemeier: Bernhard Bartmann † ( Memento from February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) . In: Theology and Faith. Journal for the Catholic clergy. 30th year (1938), Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn 1938, pp. 481-484.
  5. ^ A b c d Robert A. Krieg: German Catholic Views of Jesus and Judaism. In: Kevin P. Spicer (Ed.): Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust. Indiana University Press / USHMM , Washington, DC 2007, pp. 50-75 (on Bartmann: pp. 55-59).
  6. ↑ Bernd Moeller , Bruno Jahn (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia of Theology and the Churches (DBETh), KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2005, p. 93.
  7. ↑ Statement from Prof. Dr. Eugenio Araya G. (C.14.b). In: Friedrich Hauschildt, Udo Hahn, Andreas Siemens (eds.): The joint declaration on the doctrine of justification. Documentation of the creation and reception process. P. 411/415.
  8. ↑ 3., presumably u. verb. Edition (proof of the German digital library).
  9. ↑ For example in the systematic index of articles in the journal Theologie und Glaube (1909 to 1990) ( Memento of October 16, 2004 in the Internet Archive ).
  10. ↑ Cf. his foreword to dogma and the history of religion, presented for wider circles. Paderborn 1922.
  11. ↑ See Dogma and Kanzel. Introduction and doctrine of God in 54 drafts. Paderborn 1921.
  12. ↑ “Even if a historical life of Jesus cannot be written, then it has not escaped the notice of one or the other reviewer that I have arranged the material as far as possible according to the historical thread, as it was self-evident." ( Jesus Christ, our Savior and King, 3rd and 4th edition, Paderborn 1929, foreword, p. X).
  13. ↑ Cf. Bartmann's contribution Dogmatic Questions in: Reform-Katholizismus? One answer to the book: Catholicism. His death and becoming. Reprint of the journal Theologie und Glaube (year 1938, issue 2), pp. 7–26.
  14. ^ Robert A. Krieg: German Catholic Views of Jesus and Judaism. P. 58 and Note 25 (referring to Bartmann, Jesus Christ, our Savior and King , p. 465 f.).
  15. ^ Robert A. Krieg: German Catholic Views of Jesus and Judaism. P. 58 f.
  16. ↑ Bartmann refers in particular to Schoeps' recently published work: Jüdisch-Christianisches Religionsrechner in 19 centuries. History of a theological debate. Vortrupp Verlag, Berlin 1937.
  17. ^ Robert A. Krieg: German Catholic Views of Jesus and Judaism. P. 59.
  18. ^ Karl Schwarzmann: The Nathanael question of our day: “Can something good come from Palestine?” Self-published (with imprimatur of the Archdiocese of Cologne), Cologne 1938.
  19. ^ Robert A. Krieg: German Catholic Views of Jesus and Judaism. P. 57.
  20. ↑ Peter Bürger: “All people descend from Adam and Eve.” Catholic Sauerlanders, anti-Semites and “Jew friends”. In: ders. (Ed.): Friedenslandschaft Sauerland. Contributions to the history of pacifism and antimilitarism in a Catholic region (= Daunlots. Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at the Eslohe Museum , volume 77). Eslohe 2015, p. 311 (PDF; 7.3 MB) .
  21. ↑ Madfeld. Openstreetmap, accessed February 4, 2016 .
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personal data
SURNAME Bartmann, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German, Roman Catholic dogmatist
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Madfeld
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1938
Place of death Paderborn