Collegium Carolinum (Zurich)

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Former Collegium Carolinum at the Grossmünster

The Collegium Carolinum in Zurich was a philosophical-theological college founded in 1525 and a forerunner of the University of Zurich and the theological faculty of the University of Zurich .

history

One of the innovations of the Reformation was the encroachment on the church property , which was to be used for its original purpose, education and poor welfare . The previous tasks of the church now became state tasks. Huldrych Zwingli planned an educational reform for Zurich that would train future pastors in Hebrew and Greek in addition to Latin, because the word of God could only be understood in its purest form by including the early Christian scriptures. He was modeled on the Collegium Trilingue founded by Erasmus von Rotterdam in Leuven in 1517 .

The humanistic and reformatory program in Zurich was institutionalized through the reform of the Canon Monastery at the Grossmünster . On September 29, 1523, with a council mandate, the collegiate pledges were converted into theological-philological professorships. The weekdays lectures (Lezgen, Lectiones) by well-learned men should be free of charge for interested people from town and country.

On 19 June 1525 the new training institute began operations as a rood- for theology on (Bible School) with scientific claims. From 1559 it was classified as a high school for theology and from then on carried the name Schola Tigurina (Zurich School). Because Zwingli called the interpretation of the Bible "prophecies" following 1 Cor 14  EU , the Zurich School was also known as "prophecy".

Seal of the University of Zurich with the Grossmünster

In 1601 the Schola Tigurina became part of the Collegium Carolinum , which consisted of a theological, philological and philosophical department. The name Carolinum referred to Karl the Great , the founder of the Great Minster, which still adorns the seal of the University of Zurich today. Johann Jakob Bodmer and the philologist Johann Jakob Breitinger worked at the college . Among her students was the pastor and philosopher Johann Caspar Lavater , who studied theology, philosophy and philology from 1756 to 1762, and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi studied theology and jurisprudence.

The Zurich school system, which ended with the theological exam, consisted of the following levels in the 17th century:

  • German school
  • Latin school at the Grossmünster or Fraumünster
  • Collegium humanitatis (secondary studies as a two-class school)
  • Collegium Carolinum (three classes and five year courses; before 1601 lectureship )

When the University of Zurich was founded in 1833, the Collegium Carolinum became the Faculty of Theology . The school files of the Collegium Carolinum are in the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich (EI 16.1.).

meaning

Under Zwingli's successor, Heinrich Bullinger , the biblical-exegetical working group became a high school in 1559 under the name Schola Tigurina , a prototype for all later reformed academies of the Confederation and even Europe.

She owed this reputation in particular to her achievements in the fields of biblical exegesis and translation as well as oriental studies and linguistics. Two examples are the first Protestant translation of the entire Bible in German from 1531 ( Zurich Bible ) as well as a number of biblical commentaries distributed over large parts of Europe, which already anticipated the concerns of modern biblical studies.

Important university lecturers included Jakob Wiesendanger , whose Greek grammar was used until the 18th century; Konrad Pelikan , who created the first Hebrew grammar as a non-Jewish Christian; Heinrich Bullinger , whose complete account of the Christian faith (decades) appeared in thirty complete editions in several languages; Theodor Bibliander , who wrote the first critical Latin edition of the Koran; Conrad Gessner , who made a monumental Bibliotheca universalis ; Peter Martyr Vermigli , who wrote textbooks for generations of theologians on both sides of the Atlantic; Josias Simler , author of a centuries-old standard work on Swiss history; Johann Wilhelm Stucki (1542–1607), author of several scholarly vitae and a work on the cultural history of antiquity, Kaspar Waser , author of grammars of Hebrew, Chaldean and Syriac and continuer of the Chronicle of Johannes Stumpf and the orientalist Johann Heinrich Hottinger . A special feature are the biographies published in full after the death of the chair , which further strengthened the reputation of the Zurich High School into the 18th century.

The Schola Tigurina lost its leading position in Europe to Geneva towards the end of the 16th century . However, the Zurich theologians had made a significant contribution to the consolidation of the Reformed creed with the historical-critical interpretation of the Bible and federal theology. The two universities remained in close contact in the 17th century, among other things, when talented boys from Zurich were initially sent to the Geneva Academy for further studies .

All the great thinkers from Zurich, who became famous in the European scholarly world in the 17th and 18th centuries, were pupils of the Collegium humanitatis, established in 1601, and of the Collegium Carolinum , i.e. the expansion of the Schola Tigurina . This also included the founding father of the Zurich University, Johann Caspar von Orelli , who had been professor of rhetoric and hermeneutics at the Collegium Carolinum since 1819.

Eminent professors

literature

  • Johann Jacob Wirz: Historical representation of the documented ordinances: which concern the history of the church and school system in Zurich as well as the moral and, to some extent, the physical wolf species of our people. Zurich 1793, p. 217.
  • Barbara Schmid: The biographies of the Zurich clergy and scholars. Transformations of biography at the transition to encyclopedia, in: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 111, 2017, pp. 87-108.
  • Anja-Silvia Goeing: Storing, archiving, organizing: the changing dynamics of scholarly information management in post-Reformation Zurich . Leiden 2016.
  • Barbara Schmid: A new denominational elite? How Johann Heinrich Waser (1600–1669) became the political hope of the Zurich Orthodoxy, in: In the eye of the hurricane. Federal power elites and the Thirty Years War. Edited by André Holenstein, Georg von Erlach and Sarah Rindlisbacher. Baden, Hier und Jetzt Verlag for Culture and History, 2015, ISBN 978-3-03919-366-0 , pp. 106–120.
  • Hanspeter Marti and Karin Marti-Weissenbach [eds.]: Reformed Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: the Zurich High School in the 17th and 18th centuries . A publication by the Center for Cultural Studies Research, Engi GL . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-412-20929-2
  • Anett Lütteken, Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer, Jesko Reiling (eds.): The traditional teaching at the Collegium Carolinum. In: Bodmer and Breitinger in the European Enlightenment Network . Exhibition at the Zurich Central Library, Zurich 2006, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8353-0560-1 .
  • Hanspeter Marti: The Zurich High School as reflected in the curriculum and teaching expenses (1650-1740) . In: Zürcher Taschenbuch on the year 2008, new series 128 (2008).
  • Regula Weber-Steiner: Congratulations wishing glory and honor: Casual carmina for Zurich mayoral elections in the 17th century . German literature from the beginnings to 1700. Verlag Peter Lang, Bern 2006, ISBN 3039103881 .
  • Ernst Gagliardi , Hans Nabholz and Jean Stohl: The University of Zurich 1833–1933 and its predecessors: Festschrift for the celebration of the century . Zurich 1938.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regula Weber-Steiner: Congratulatory fame and honor stories: Casual carmina for Zurich mayoral elections of the 17th century .
  2. ^ Karin Maag: Zurich and the Genevan Academy . In: Karin Maag: Seminary or University. The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560-1620 . Aldershot 1995, ISBN 1-85928-166-4 , pp. 129-153 .
  3. ↑ Emidio Campi: 175 years of the University of Zurich and its history, 2008.

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '12 "  N , 8 ° 32' 39"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred eighty-three thousand five hundred and one  /  247161