Caspar Olevian

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Caspar Olevian on a 16th century engraving

Caspar Olevian , also Kaspar Olevianus (born August 10, 1536 in Trier , † March 15, 1587 in Herborn ) was a German Reformed theologian and an important representative of the "Second Reformation" in Germany. He worked as a professor in Heidelberg , where he was a member of the commission for the final version of the Heidelberg Catechism , and at the Herborn High School .

Life

Caspar Olevian's birthplace in Trier's Grabenstrasse in the pillory

Caspar Olevian was born the son of a baker, guild master, councilor and city rent master. His mother was the daughter of a butcher's guild master and councilor. The father derived the name Olevian from today's Trier district of Olewig , from which the family originally came. Caspar Olevian attended various schools in Trier. He left town when he was only 13; he was sent to Paris for further training to the upper classes of the grammar school and the study of Artes. He later studied in Orléans and Bourges Law, where he in 1557 under the civil lawyer François Douaren Dr. juris obtained his doctorate.

During the student years of Caspar Olevian, French Protestantism experienced its early great expansion and its first level of organization in secret communities. The life orientation of Caspar Olevian found its basis in Bourges, here he was shaped and permanently aligned in the spirit of Calvinism . The student Olevian became Protestant there in a secret Huguenot community . Two of his professors were also Protestants personally, his doctoral supervisor Duarenus, who was in line with the prevailing Catholic conditions.

In 1556 Caspar Olevian was in great danger. High-spirited students had capsized their boat on a river near Bourges and had all drowned in the process. Caspar Olevian, who had observed the accident from the bank, had run into danger himself while attempting to provide assistance. In distress, he vowed to devote himself to the study of theology and the spread of the gospel if he got away with his life.

Because of this vow, Caspar Olevian decided to prepare for the Reformation preaching office in Switzerland and to study theology. In March 1558 he traveled to Geneva via Strasbourg for this purpose , where he heard theology from Johannes Calvin . Because of Calvin's illness, he moved to the Schola Carolina in Zurich to study with Peter Martyr Vermigli . There he also heard Heinrich Bullinger , in Lausanne he was a student of Theodor Beza .

In June 1559 he returned to Trier. He was initially formally employed as a Latin teacher by the city council and taught at the Burse. Later he set up a German catechism lesson and from August 1559 onwards, as a public preacher, his powerful demeanor and rousing evangelical sermon increased the number of visitors to the initially still small local evangelical community, so that within a short time around a third of the population of the City of Trier belonged to the municipality.

Memorial plaque for Caspar Olevian on the north side of the Electoral Palace in Trier

Trier fell in the same year at the instigation of Archbishop Johann VI. von der Leyen to the Catholic side. A majority of the council as well as the guilds of the city forbade Caspar Olevian to preach in urban areas, but not elsewhere. However, such a prohibition was issued by the councils of the Archbishop and Elector of Trier , justifying the fact that Trier was not an imperial city , the provisions of the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555 (" cuius regio eius religio ") therefore did not apply to the city and its magistrate. The Reichsgericht later confirmed this argument.

Several Protestants from Trier, including Caspar Olevian, were imprisoned during this time and only released after they had vowed to either return to the rightful Catholic faith or to leave the city. Many declared that they wanted to become Catholics again, and a large number of citizens emigrated. The Reformation in Trier had failed.

Caspar Olevian also left the city after ten weeks in prison. He followed a call from Elector Friedrich III. from the Palatinate (1559–1576) to Heidelberg, where he was initially employed as a teacher at the Collegium Sapientiae , a kind of seminary for preachers. In 1560 he briefly took over a theology professorship at the University of Heidelberg , but gave up this position because it was more his way of doing practical church service. In 1561 Caspar Olevian married the widow Philippine von Metz. The marriage had three children, two sons and a daughter. Olevian then worked as the parish priest at the Peterskirche and later at the Heiliggeistkirche and as court preacher. The elector gave him his full confidence and appointed him a member of the newly established church council in 1562. From this position he was significantly involved in the reorganization of the Palatinate church system according to Calvinist reformed principles and there he experienced the creation of the Heidelberg Catechism .

“The old thesis that Olevianus was a co-author of the catechism is no longer tenable, nor is the more recent hypothesis that the final version of the German text was due to him. Olevianus was a commissioner among others. He was personally not satisfied with the final catechism. He would have liked it to be more Calvinist. As the leading churchman, however, he was significantly involved in the ecclesiastical introduction of the catechism. "Olevianus induced the elector to add question 80 to the catechism, which was" entirely in the spirit of Frederick "

In the reformed church order for the Electoral Palatinate , which was published on November 15, 1563, with its presbyterial-synodal elements in addition to the sovereign consistory , with its new practice of administering the Lord's Supper and, above all, with its strictness monitored and controlled by the presbytery instead of the sovereign police force He played a decisive role in the regulations of church discipline. As an influential confidante of the Palatinate Elector, he traveled with him to the religious talks in Maulbronn (1564), in Oppenheim (1565) and in Amberg in the Upper Palatinate (1566). Olevian also often accompanied Elector Friedrich when monasteries and foundations were dissolved in the Electoral Palatinate, where violent attacks were not uncommon, for example on May 9, 1565 in the Cyriakus pen (Worms) . There the entire facility was destroyed and burned; Caspar Olevian broke open the tabernacle with his own hands and the elector crumbled the consecrated hosts with his hands under his approving comments .

After the death of the decidedly Calvinist Friedrich III. in autumn 1576 and the accession of his Lutheran son Ludwig VI. (1576–1583) Caspar Olevian had to leave Heidelberg. In 1577 he was accepted at the court of Count Ludwig I von Wittgenstein in Berleburg , where he directed the education of the Count's sons. From Berleburg he influenced the progress of the Reformation in the county and in the nearby Nassau principalities and counties of the Wetterau as far as Solms-Braunfels and Wied . In those years he wrote a “peasant catechism” tailored to the needs of the rural people and took an active part in meetings and synods.

In 1584 Count Johann VI appointed him . von Nassau-Dillenburg into his territory and entrusted him with the founding of the high school in Herborn , which was created that same year. Caspar Olevian became its first rector and, along with Johannes Piscator , was its leading theologian. A final high point in Caspar Olevian's life was the Herborn General Synod in 1586, which he chaired and at which the Reformed churches of Nassau-Dillenburg, Wittgenstein, Solms-Braunfels and Wied-Runkel were represented. The total of 26 theologians united to form a supra-territorial church, thus overcoming the exclusively territorial character of a Reformation church for the first time in Germany and, after long and violent disputes, decided on a church constitution that represented a hybrid form of presbyterial and consistorial elements.

Caspar Olevian himself also overcame many boundaries in the course of his life: first the class boundary from baker's son to student, then the language boundary from French to German, the faculty boundary from jurisprudence to theology and above all the denominational boundary from Catholicism to Protestantism. This openness to the new and the search for truth on the one hand and the acceptance of limits by taking positions on the other hand are essential characteristics of Caspar Olevian. With this he made himself - as one of the most important reformers in Germany - a guide of the ecumenical movement of the present day for the Volkskirche.

Caspar Olevian died on March 15, 1587 of the consequences of an accident that he had already suffered on December 30, 1586. During a visit to the sick, he fell severely several times on an icy path and suffered internal injuries that at the time could not be recognized or treated. His last word became famous: when asked by his colleague Ulsted whether he was also certain of his salvation, he replied “Certissimus” . On March 18, 1587, Caspar Olevian was buried in the Evangelical City Church of Herborn , where a neo-Gothic epitaph was set for him in 1887 .

Act

As a dogmatist, Caspar Olevian continued to develop the federal theology adopted by Heinrich Bullinger and made the idea of ​​a covenant between God and man the basis of his biblical understanding in his main work De substantia foederis gratuiti inter Deum et electos (1585). He understood the entire history of God with mankind under this sign: God had agreed with Adam a natural covenant ( foedus naturae ), which men had broken through sin, whereupon God made a new covenant with them, a covenant of grace, and through the Sealed the death of his son. The core of this covenant of grace is the election of people, through it the certainty of salvation is conveyed, in it the rule of God - the kingdom of God - is realized. Caspar Olevian linked the covenant of grace of God with the kingdom of God, and he illustrated how the certainty of salvation, of belonging to the kingdom of God, is granted to people: through progressive faith and through the external means of the visible church, the word in the Sermon and the sacraments.

Caspar Olevian tried only to a small extent on the exegesis of the Bible, for example on the letters of Paul . This differs from his teachers Calvin and Bullinger.

Remembrance day

March 15th in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

literature

Web links

Commons : Caspar Olevian  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Johann Friedrich Gerhard Goeters : On the history of the catechism ; in: Evangelical Reformed Church (Synod of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Bavaria and Northwest Germany), Lippische Landeskirche, Reformed Bund (Ed.): Heidelberger Katechismus. Revised edition 1997 ; S. 89. Online as an html page ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. or as a PDF file (201 kB) . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ekd.de
  2. ^ Johann Friedrich Gerhard Goeters: On the history of the catechism. In: Evangelical Reformed Church (Synod of Protestant Churches in Bavaria and Northwest Germany), Lippische Landeskirche, Reformed Bund (ed.): Heidelberger Katechismus. Revised edition 1997 ; P. 90. Online as an html page ( memento of the original from January 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. or as a PDF file (201 kB) . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ekd.de
  3. ^ Caspar Olevian and Elector Friedrich III. with the abolition of the Cyriakus foundation in Neuhausen
  4. ^ Contemporary report on the events during the abolition of the Cyriakus foundation in Worms-Neuhausen and the Michaelsstift in Sinsheim
personal data
SURNAME Olevian, Caspar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reformed theologian
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1536
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1587
Place of death Herborn