Bernhard Textor

Bernhard Textor (* around 1560 in Allendorf on the Werra / "in the Soden" ; † 1602 on the Pest in Dillenburg ) was a Reformed theologian. His father Konrad Weber (Latinized: Textor), also from Allendorf, is documented as a pastor in Waldis ( Wahlhausen ) in the 1560s .

Textor was from November 1585 to April 1589 second chaplain in Herborn , where he befriended the theology professor Caspar Olevian (1536–1587). At his suggestion, in 1587, since the Heidelberg catechism had not yet found entry in many Nassau parishes, he worked on questions from the Lutheran catechism and the Augsburg confession in the Reformed sense for schools .

With his colleague Jacob Alsted († 1622), father of the famous Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), he stood at the death bed of his patron Olevian.

From April 1589 he was pastor in Driedorf and returned to Herborn on June 23, 1590 as the third professor of theology. Here he led the public disputations of the theology students, whom he also had to instruct in the art of preaching (homiletics). His mastery in this is testified by his three volumes "Pandekten Heiliger Reden" ("Pandectae sacrarum concionum"), written in Latin and published in 1606. He used the method of the philosopher Ramus, whose enthusiastic supporter he was. He held his professorship until 1594, when Count Johann VI appointed him. as court preacher, first city pastor and inspector of the churches and schools of this diocese to Dillenburg . In his new office he wrote the essay "The core and sap of the Holy Bible", in which he recorded an extremely clear and solid instruction in the doctrine of Christianity, and several funeral sermons.

His successor in the office of court preacher and inspector was his fellow countryman Johannes Gottsleben from Allendorf . His mentor Olevian has often praised him for his hard work, but Textor continued the Dillenburg church records, which had been carefully kept up to then, with extremely gaps and from 1594 on and soon completely neglected it. Due to his bad example, he is likely to be mainly responsible for the fact that no entries were made by his successors between around 1600 and 1626.

Textor married Barbara Heugel on December 5, 1586, a daughter of the former Laaspher deacon Johannes Heugelius († 1582) from Wetter (Hesse) , as whose oath he was named in 1589.

To his children who later belonged Netphener pastor Andreas Textor.

Bernhard Textor died in 1602 as a victim of the plague that was rampant again in the Dillenburg area. His widow Barbara later married the court preacher and professor Johann Jacob Hermannus, who was also widowed .

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Cuno:  Textor, Bernhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 628.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bauks: The Protestant pastors in Westphalia from the Reformation period to 1945. Bielefeld 1980, p. 507.
• Emil Becker: Bernhard Textor. In: Heimatblätter to maintain and promote the idea of ​​home. Supplement to Dill-Zeitung 10 (1937), p. 12.
• Oskar Hütteroth: The old Hessen pastors of the Reformation period. Vol. 2, Marburg 1966, p. 391.
• Otto Renkhoff: Nassau biography. Wiesbaden 1992, p. 805.

Web links

• Publications by and about Bernhard Textor in VD 17 .