Elias Birnstiel

Elias Birnstiel (* around 1600 in Erfurt ; buried July 28, 1679 in Stotternheim ; also Latinized Birnstielius ) was a Thuringian clergyman and scholar.

biography

Birnstiel began his studies at the University of Erfurt in 1618. Because people usually began studying at the age of eighteen at that time, one can conclude that they were born in 1600, but that is not certain. Afterwards Birnstiel was a teacher and professor at the Protestant Ratsgymnasium in Erfurt. We find him in 1632 as a pastor in Kleinbrembach , in 1649 as a pastor in Stotternheim , from 1658 to 1664 he was in charge of the Schwerborn parish . He was married to Anna and we know of a daughter Christina, baptized on March 20, 1653 in Stotternheim.

plant

• S. Aurelii Augustini Aureum Votum: Inter Brachia Salvatoris mei vivere volo, & mori cupio / Quod pro Scito Adoptivo, scutoque Christianissimo, metrica toga varie a variis exornari, & publicae lucis fieri curavit M. Elias Birnstilinis, Eidem Salvatori a ministeriis divin , 1665).

Birnstiel published this book in 1665, which he dedicated to the Prince-Bishop of Mainz , Johann Philipp von Schönborn, as early as 1661. It contains a collection of poems by 54 other authors, all of whom vary the same alleged Augustine quote in Latin meters. Among the authors are Caspar von Barth and Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel .

In the last place in this book, Birnstiel publishes his own variations of the quote: Inter brachia Salvatoris mei et vivere volo et mori cupio ( “In the arms of my Savior I want to live and I wish to die” ). Birnstiel himself considers the lines to be Augustinian , in fact it is a quote from the Manuale Augustini , a collection of contemplative texts that an uncertain author has put together from various sources. Birnstiel's poems, which he himself calls Lucubrationes , are epigrams in elegiac distiches in mainly Latin, but there are also two Greek distiches .

literature

• Jochen U. Frankl: In Quo Sint Omnia. The Lucubrationes of Elias Birnstilius. In: Ulrich Schlegelmilch, Tanja Thanner (Ed.): The poets and the stars. Contributions to Latin and Greek literature for Ludwig Braun . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Würzburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-87717-632-0 , pp. 247-258.