David Chytraeus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Chytraeus

David Chytraeus (to lat actually D. Kochhafe by Greek χυτρα "pot" Chytraeus.. Graecized , * 26. February 1530 in Ingelfingen ; † 25. June 1600 in Rostock ) was a Protestant theologian, historian, school organizer and five-time rector of the University of Rostock . He is considered to be one of the leading representatives of the Late Reformation.

education

Chyträus was born as the son of a Swabian pastor who was devoted to the Protestant faith, Matthäus Kochhafe († 1559) from Brackenheim and his wife Barbara Nelberg (also Neiperg). After the family was persecuted because of their Protestant attitude, they found refuge in Menzingen . His brother Nathan was born there. At the age of seven years, David visited in Gemmingen the Latin School where Franciscus Irenicus was his teacher.

At the age of nine he was accepted into the Tübingen monastery and enrolled at the University of Tübingen on June 22, 1539 . Here he received humanistic training from Joachim Camerarius the Elder , Erhard Schnepf and Melchior Rufus Volmar . In February 1544 he completed his studies at the artist faculty together with Dietrich Schnepf , Jakob Dachtler and Georg Liebler with the degree of a Magister Artium and moved to the University of Wittenberg in October of the same year . Since his parents had little financial means, the Menzing local lord Peter von Mentzingen gave him a generous scholarship during his studies.

Wittenberg

Wittenberg at the time when Chyträus was studying and teaching there

In Wittenberg he still listened to Martin Luther and after his death he bonded closely to Philipp Melanchthon , who accepted him as a pupil and housemate filii loco after the thirteen-year-old, who had just completed his master's degree, had impressed him during the interview with his early acquisition of his title and his knowledge of Greek . He heard lectures from Martin Luther, Paul Eber , Johann Forster . During the Schmalkaldic War he left Wittenberg for a short time and stayed in Heidelberg and Tübingen.

He returned, however, as early as 1548 and gave lectures on Melanchthon's Loci communes as well as on rhetoric, astronomy and history. In the following year he expanded these lectures "Oratio Davidis Cythrai in repetitionem locorum communium Domini Philippi ..." his successfully conducted courses and thus created the first public study instruction in the field of Lutheranism specifically aimed at academic theology students.

The synthetic character of the speech is striking. Essential advice and recommendations from the two teachers from Wittenberg, Luther and Melanchthon, were combined by Chyträus to form a new whole, behind which there is a completely independent, and in a certain way even original, concept of theology study. With it the fundamental accomplishments of the theology study are described, which, however, are specified by Chyträus with the double humanistic educational goal.

Thus the explanations lost their exclusive reference to the biblical word and became practical exercises through which the student should learn to cultivate his exercises. This synthetic approach was later expanded and deepened by Chyträus in his Rostock instructions. Chyträus was very popular with his lectures, but the Schmalkaldic War suddenly interrupted his teaching activities in Wittenberg and he went to Heidelberg and Tübingen during that time . After the Wittenberg surrender and the reorganization of the Wittenberg Academy under the new Elector Moritz von Sachsen , he returned to Wittenberg. There he held lectures again and went on an educational trip with Andreas Martini to Switzerland and Italy.

Rostock

When he returned to Wittenberg, he accompanied his friend Johannes Aurifaber to Rostock in 1550 and was appointed to the teaching department of the University of Rostock, where he held philological, philosophical, historical and theological lectures. In 1561 Chyträus, who had already enrolled in 1551 to study at the Rostock University, acquired his doctorate at the theological faculty; 1563 followed the professorship for theology. In the same year 1563 David Chyträus was appointed rector of the university for the first time.

In the years 1567, 1573, 1585 and 1597 further terms of office as rector followed, during which Chyträus made great contributions to the reorganization of the Rostock University. Chyträus also contributed to the establishment of Lutheran educational institutions of the Evangelical State Church of Mecklenburg (establishment of a consistory and superintendent order, both in 1571) and was involved in the Naumburg Princes' Day , the Brunswick Convention and in the drafting of the concord formula of 1577, the final confession of Lutheranism.

Alpine church and school regulations

The evangelical estates of Lower Austria invited Chyträus in 1568 at the instigation of Emperor Maximilian II , so that he could work out a church ordinance and an agenda for them . On August 13, 1569, the emperor allowed the evangelical estates to exercise freely on the basis of the church ordinance drawn up by Chyträus in Spitz an der Donau and in 1570/71 approved the new agenda, which was adopted by the estates a year later. The Styrian estates also asked Chyträus to reorganize their church relationships. He arrived in Graz at the beginning of January 1574 and completed the church ordinance of Styria in May . This was then also taken over by the Evangelicals in Carniola and Gorizia .

Chyträus as a school organizer

Chytraeus changed in the course of the late reformist period from a Philippist to a moderate Gnesiolutheran . This is expressed in his work as a school organizer. He founded many grammar schools of the Lutheran type in Protestant countries, and in 1575 he was also instrumental in founding the Helmstedt University . With the school regulations for the Protestant landscape school in Graz, he created a type of school that ran from elementary lessons to rhetorical and legal training.

Chyträus remained a professor in Rostock until the end of his life. There his significant historical studies originated and he himself became an important pillar of the educational institution. His work extended far beyond the borders of Mecklenburg and also extended to the Scandinavian countries.

Chytraeus as a historian

Chyträus wrote numerous textbooks and handbooks and, as a Bible commentator and author of scientific propaedeutic writings, was one of the main authorities of German Lutheranism. Perhaps more sustainable, he was a historian. Since 1559 he has given lectures on history as part of his theological professorship and then since 1575 has focused almost entirely on historical activity. In terms of conventional history, he was an accomplished specialist in ancient history and wrote auxiliary scientific writings on chronology and topography. Under the influence of Melanchton, however, he expanded the interest and the curriculum to include topics of recent history and contemporary history and made significant work on the history of Westphalia and northern Germany in the 16th century.

He initiated the first large collection of files on the history of the Augsburg confession , which he processed in a German and an expanded Latin representation. With his publicly held speech on October 18, 1569 as part of his historical lectures and since then often published on the state of the Christian churches in the East, a fruit of his trips to Austria and his personal correspondence with Greek theologians, he directed the interest of German Protestantism to the Eastern churches and became the forerunner of Protestant Eastern Church studies.

He was interested in music and music history and is the author of a short treatise, De Musica (1595).

Works

Title page of the Chronicon Saxoniae
For a complete overview, see the list of prints from the 16th century published in the German-speaking area (VD 16) .
  • Catechism. Rostock 1554
  • Regulae vitae. Wittenberg 1555
  • Praecepta rhetoricae inventionis. Wittenberg 1556 ( digitized version from Kiel University Library )
  • Onomasticon theologicum. Wittenberg 1557
  • Oratio de Studio Theologiae recte inchoando. Wittenberg 1560
  • Oratio Davidis Cythrai in repetitionem locorum communium Domini Philippi, habita Vuitebergae Anno Christi. 1549. In: Selectarum Declamationum Professorum Academiae Ienensis. Tomus Primus / edited by Johannes Goniaeus (Richard). Argentorati 1554
  • Tabula philosophorum sive series philosophorum et sectarum eorum praecipuarum a Thale et Socrate usque ad Ciceronem
  • De studio dialecticae recte instituendo
  • De lectione historiarum recte instituenda . Rostock 1565
  • (together with Christoph Reuter): Christian Church Agenda. How it is used at the two estates of lords and knights in Ertzhertzogthumb Austria under the Enns . 1571
  • De ratione discendi et ordine studiorum. 1574
  • De statu ecclesiarum hoc tempore in Graecia, Asia, Ungeria Boemia […] . Strasbourg 1574
  • Oratio de statu ecclesiae in Graecia, Asia, Africa, Bohemia etc. 1575
  • Historia Augustanae Confessionis 1578.
  • Poematum Nathanis Chytraei praeter sacra omnium libri septendecim. Rostock 1579 ( digitized at CAMENA )
  • Historia of the Augspurg Confession: How it was first advised, written, and handed over to Keizer Carolo V, sampled from other religious acts, as it happened at the Diet of Augspurg in 1530. Rostock 1586
  • Chronicon Saxoniae
  • De Vandaliae et Saxoniae Alberti Crantzii continuatio. Wittenberg 1586
  • Opera theologica . Leipzig 1599
  • With Caspar Schütz : Historia Rerum Prussicarum. Danzig 1599 ( digitized version )

The son of Chyträus published the father's correspondence in 1614: "Davidis Chytraei epistolae, editio posthuma a Davide CHYTRAEO, Autoris filio, Hannoviae MDCXIV".

literature

Web links

Commons : David Chyträus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Ludwig Melchior Fischlin: Memoria theologorum Wirtenbergensium resuscitata , Georg Wilhelm Kühn, Ulm 1710, p. 89f ( digitized version of the Bavarian State Library in Munich).
  2. ^ Reception of David Chyträus in the Rostock matriculation portal
  3. ^ Enrollment of David Chyträus in the Rostock matriculation portal
  4. ^ Promotion to the doctorate of David Chyträus in the Rostock matriculation portal
personal data
SURNAME Chytraeus, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kochhaff, David; Kochhafe, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1530
PLACE OF BIRTH Ingelfingen
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1600
Place of death Rostock