Christian Gnilka

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Christian Franz Paul Gnilka (born December 20, 1936 in Langseifersdorf , Reichenbach district (Eulengebirge) , Silesia ) is a German classical philologist who taught as a full professor at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster (1972-2002) and continued there as an emeritus in Research and teaching is active.

Life

After the early accidental death of the father, the doctor Fridolin Gnilka (1939), the mother, Margarete Gnilka, nee. Schneider, with their two children, Ingeborg and Christian, to Breslau. The escape in January 1945 led the family to Bamberg. Here Gnilka attended the Neue Gymnasium, today's Franz-Ludwig-Gymnasium (1947–1952), which he always remembered with gratitude because of the strict teaching in the two ancient languages. In the following years he attended the Hammonense grammar school in Hamm, Westf., Where he passed the matriculation examination in 1956.

He studied classical philology in Bonn (1956–1962), interrupted by three semesters in Munich (1957–1958) and one semester in Rome (1960–1961). In Bonn his teachers were especially Hans Herter and Wolfgang Schmid , in Munich Friedrich Klingner , Rudolf Pfeiffer , Bernhard Bischoff , in Rome Ettore Paratore and Giuseppe Lugli . He received significant stimuli from the sociability of the Bonn district (founded in 1854 by Franz Bücheler ). In the summer semester of 1962 he received his doctorate degree in Bonn with a thesis on the Latin poet Prudentius. phil. after receiving his doctorate, he then worked for two years under the direction of the church historian and archaeologist Theodor Klauser in the editorial team of the Franz Joseph Dölger Institute for the Study of Late Antiquity at the University of Bonn. In 1963 he married Dagmar Rolf. The couple have two daughters, Marion and Marei, and six grandchildren. In the following year he made up the first state examination in philology in Bonn and switched to the Philological Department of the University of Bonn as a research assistant (1964–1971). In 1970 he completed his habilitation in Bonn for the subject Classical Philology with an investigation into late antique intellectual history. In 1971 he was appointed adjunct professor at the University of Bonn and was offered full professorships in his field in Frankfurt am Main and in Münster. At the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität he worked alongside Heinrich Dörrie , Otto Hiltbrunner , Martin Safe , and later also Hermann Wankel and Wolfgang Hübner as director of the Institute for Classical Studies until his retirement (1972–2002). He refused an offer to the chair of his teacher Wolfgang Schmid in Bonn (1978). But he set a lively memorial to the teacher in a commemorative speech (Alma Mater. Contributions to the history of the University of Bonn 53, 1982, 15–29, also printed in the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 44, 1981, 185–200). The meeting with the Indologist Paul Hacker in Münster was essential for his work on late antique and early Christian intellectual history . The appreciation of Günther Jachmann 's text-critical achievements established the friendship with the British philologist James A. Willis (1925-2014).

research

The work in the Dölger Institute was reflected in the habilitation thesis (directory no. 2) and in two lexicon articles (no. 3 and 4), preliminary work for the habilitation thesis. Henry Chadwick judged the "Aetas Spiritalis" : "Professor Gnilka's book is full of first-rate scholarship", and Umberto Mattioli, editor of the two-volume work "Senectus" (1995), begins with a detailed praise of Gnilka's work on this subject: they are often quoted as "per la loro importanza e utilità".

Gnilka never lost sight of the author to whom the dissertation was intended (No. 1). Works on Prudentius run through his entire oeuvre, summarized in two extensive volumes and a register volume (No. 7, 8, 9), continued in the Philological Forays through Roman Poetry (No. 11), which also contain essays on other poets (Catullus , Horace, Virgil, Phaedrus, Martial, Juvenal, Juvencus, Paulinus Nolanus), as well as in another large publication (No. 14). These works are shaped by a critical attitude towards the traditional text and by the effort to make visible the creative handling of Christian poets with the tradition of classical poetry. In the critique of authenticity, Gnilka succeeds Günther Jachmann , whose selected writings and textual historical studies he edited (1981, 1982). Gnilka stuck firmly to Jachmann's realization that the text that has been handed down to us, especially in important works, is caused by the random disintegration of critical editions from antiquity. He found this view confirmed by his studies on Prudentius and especially on Juvencus (contained in No. 11).

The work on poetry encompasses research on intellectual history. The interest in the complex phenomenon of the transition from ancient culture to Christianity, awakened by the work at the Dölger Institute, found a new depth and a new orientation through the encounter with the Indologist Paul Hacker (1913–1979) in Münster. Gnilka entered into a close collegial and friendly relationship with him despite the great age difference, which was ended by the sudden death of Hacker. Both recognized that in the first few centuries the church did not indulge itself haphazardly, soon this or that, influence of ancient culture, but rather penetrated it with energy, and that the way in which the church penetrated culture and gradually transformed it was a process guided by firm principles , a consciously practiced method. With his eye on Indian intellectual history, Hacker saw that early Christian thinkers liked to describe this method with the simple term “right use”, and so the Greek word for “use”, Chrêsis, became the key word for the new line of research. Together with the missiologist Johannes Dörmann , Gnilka founded a series of publications: “Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture ”. Four volumes in the series are by my own hand (No. 5, 6, 10, 15), others bring students' works to Greek and Latin authors of the early Church. The narrow program font with which the series was opened (No. 5) appeared later, greatly expanded, in the second edition (No. 13) and was translated into Italian. Pope Benedict XVI praised Gnilka's work as "fundamental to the question of gospel and culture" (No. 13, foreword).

The attack on the Roman Petrus tradition, undertaken by Otto Zwierlein , was rejected by Gnilka in two works: "Philological information on the Roman Petrus tradition" (No. 12); "Simon magus and the Roman Petrus tradition": Roman quarterly publication 113, 2018, 151–165 = Pratum Patristicum (No. 15) 189–206.

Fonts (selection)

  1. Studies on the psychomachy of Prudentius (Classical-Philological Studies 27), Wiesbaden 1963, 142 pages, 1 plate
  2. Aetas Spiritalis. Overcoming the natural age groups as an ideal of early Christian life (Theophaneia 24), Bonn 1972, 271 pages, 1 plate
  3. Article Greisenalter: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum 12, 1983, 995-1094
  4. Article pension provision: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum, Supplementvol 1, 2001, 266–303
  5. Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture I. The concept of "right use", Basel / Stuttgart: Schwabe Verlag 1984, 151 pages
  6. Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture II. Culture and conversion, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 1993, 201 pages
  7. Prudentiana I. Critica, Munich / Leipzig: KG Saur 2000, 762 pages, 20 plates
  8. Prudentiana II. Exegetica, Munich / Leipzig: KG Saur 2001, 648 pages, 16 plates
  9. Prudentiana III. Supplement, Munich / Leipzig: KG Saur 2003, 100 pages
  10. Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture IX. Seven chapters on nature and human life, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 2005, 253 pages
  11. Philological forays through Roman poetry, Basel: Schabe Verlag 2007, 532 pages, 4 plates
  12. Christian Gnilka, Stefan Heid, Rainer Riesner, martyrs. Death and grave of Peter in Rome, Regensburg: Schnell and Steiner, 1. Auf. 2010, 2nd edition 2015, therein: 33–80: Philological information on the Roman Petrustradition (Gnilka), also contained in the volume: Petrus und Paulus in Rom. An interdisciplinary debate, ed. by Stefan Heid, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna: Herder 2011, 247–283. Italian version: Osservazioni di un filologo sulla tradizione romana di Pietro, in: Gnilka, Heid, Riesner, La more e il sepolcro di Pietro, Città del Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vatican 2014, 41–99
  13. Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture I. The concept of "right use". Second, expanded edition, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 2012, 376 pages, four color tables. Italian version: Chrêsis. Il metodo dei Padri della Chiesa nell`utilizzo della cultura antica. Il concerto di retto uso, Brescia: Morcelliana 2020
  14. Prudentius. Contra orationem Symmachi. A critical revue, Münster Westfalen: Aschendorff Verlag 2017, 578 pages, three color plates
  15. Chrêsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture X. Pratum Patristicum, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 2019, 478 pages, two color plates

literature

  1. Alvarium. Festschrift for Christian Gnilka, ed. by Wilhelm Blümer, Rainer Henke and Markus Mücke, Münster 2002 (Yearbook for Antiquity and Christianity, Supplementary Volume 33)
  2. Jan Mersch, On the method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture. A conversation with Prof. Dr. Christian Gnilka: Kirchliche Umschau, Volume 16, 2013, No. 1, 18–24
  3. Manuel Schlögel, Chrêsis. On the relationship between belief and culture. For Christian Gnilka on his 80th birthday: Communications Institute Pope Benedict XVI., Volume 8, 2015, 82–89
  4. Chrésima. Exemplary studies on the early Christian Chrêsis, ed. by Markus Mücke, Berlin / Boston 2019 (Studies on Ancient Literature and History 138)
  5. Giulio Maspero, La Serietà della Storia, Presentazione: Annales Theologici 32, 2018, 197f.
  6. Un metodo per il dialogo fra le culture. La chrêsis patristica, ed. by Angela Maria Mazzanti, Brescia: Morcelliana 2019 (Supplementi Adamantius IX)

Editing

  • with Willy Schetter : Studies on the literature of late antiquity (= Antiquitas. Series 1: Treatises on ancient history. Vol. 23). Habelt, Bonn 1975, ISBN 3-7749-1323-4 .
  • Günther Jachmann : Selected writings (= contributions to classical philology. 128). Hain, Königstein im Taunus 1981, ISBN 3-445-02183-X .
  • Chrēsis. The method of the church fathers in dealing with ancient culture. 1984ff., ZDB -ID 2017752-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Alvarium. Festschrift for Christian Gnilka . In: Wilhelm Blümer, Rainer Henke and Markus Mücke (Eds.): Yearbook for Antiquity and Christianity, Supplementary Volume 33 . Munster 2002.
  2. Manuel Schlögel: Chrêsis. On the relationship between belief and culture. For Christian Gnilka on his 80th birthday . In: Communications Institute Pope Benedict XVI., Volume 8 . 2015, p. 82-89 .
  3. H. Chadwick: Review: Aetas Spiritalis . In: Theological Studies NS Band 26 , 1975, p. 195 .
  4. U. Mattioli: senectus. La vecchiaia nel mondo classico . tape 1 . Grecia / Roma / Bologna 1995, p. VII .
  5. ^ Christian Gnilka: Science without preconditions? Paul Hacker's view of the church fathers . In: Ursula Hacker-Klom, Jan Klom, Reinhard Feldmann (eds.): "Hacker's work will one day be discovered again!" Monsenstein and Vannerdat OHG, Münster 2013.
  6. ^ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: Communication and Culture. New ways of evangelization in the third millennium . In: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (ed.): On the way to Jesus Christ . Augsburg 2002, p. 45 .