Erich Przywara

Erich Przywara (1920s)

Erich Przywara (born October 12, 1889 in Katowice , † September 28, 1972 in Hagen near Murnau ) was a Jesuit , Catholic philosopher and theologian .

Life

From 1908 to 1910 he went through the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Exaten near Roermond ( Holland ). Then he received the usual training in philosophy and theology in Valkenburg until 1921 . In 1920 he was ordained a priest. From 1922 Przywara worked in the editorship of the Jesuit magazine Voices of the Time , from 1933 until the ban by the Nazi regime in 1941 he was its editor . During the war he was only able to devote himself to pastoral care due to serious illness . In Hagen near Murnau he finally found a secluded domicile, in which, despite his illness, he created an extensive old work. Przywara died there on September 28, 1972. His grave is in Pullach .

Main thought

In the discussion with Karl Barth and Max Scheler , Przywara points out that although the cognition of the human mind takes place within the horizon of being, as finite cognition, however, it can never grasp the infinite fullness of being itself, but only being in beings that the infinite can only be reached in the mirror of the finite. The cognition of being happens only analogously : the expressiveness of the cognitions is relativized by their non-expressive power, as it says in the formula of the IV Lateran Council of 1215: "inter creatorem et creaturam non potest tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos maior sit dissimilitudo notanda" [No resemblance can be predicated of the Creator and the creature without it including a greater dissimilarity between the two].

Przywara makes it clear that all philosophy and theology are created under the stipulation of these analogies , and thus postulates that in spite of all (actual) unthinkability, the infinite can be thought.

Effect and appreciation

He was influenced by his acquaintance with Edith Stein . He himself worked primarily on Hans Urs von Balthasar , Karl Rahner and Josef Pieper .

In the spring of 1941, when she had to do her Reich Labor Service, Sophie Scholl was reading the works of the Doctor of the Church, Augustine ; this reading by Erich Przywara, Augustine. The shape as a structure (Leipzig 1934) earned her some "mocking remarks" from her RAD comrades. In his introduction, editor Przywara presents the entire occidental intellectual history under the auspices of Augustine, according to the fertilizing as well as the dangerous side. Finally, Przywara goes into the inner-Catholic tension between Augustine and Thomas .

Works

• Eucharist and Work ; Freiburg, 1917.
• God's secret of the world. Three lectures on the spiritual crisis of the present , Munich, 1923
• Love ; Freiburg, 1924.
• Philosophy of religion of Catholic theology . In: Manual of Philosophy . Ed. V. A. Baeumler et al. M. Schröter, Division II, pp. 1–104. 1927
• Wrestling of the present , 2 vols. 1929.
• The Secret of Kierkegaard ; Munich, 1929.
• Gloria. 240 new religious songs for church, school and home. Edited by Josef Kreitmaier SJ in connection with Erich Przywara SJ
  The great majority of the texts were written by Przywara.
  • In the edition of 1931 first publication of the song text O great King, Jesu Christ (with a melody by Kreitmaier); Church song known in some dioceses (e.g. Osnabrück GL 805 with an Osnabrück melody)
• Analogia entis 1932
• Christian existence ; Leipzig, 1934.
• Heroic ; Paderborn / Vienna / Zurich, 1936
• Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius Loyola, Friedrich Nietzsche . In: Zeitschrift für Ascese und Mystik 11 (1936), 257–295.
• Crucis mystery. The Christian Today , Paderborn 1939.
• Old and New Covenant. Theology of the hour ; Vienna and Munich, 1956.
• Idea of ​​Europe ; Nuremberg, 1956.

literature

• Eva-Maria Faber: Introduction to Erich Przywara. In: Josef Weismayer, Gisbert Greshake (Hrsg.): Sources of spiritual life. Volume 4: The Present. Grünewald, Mainz 1993, pp. 101f.
• Eva-Maria Faber: Przywara, Erich. In: TRE . 27, 1997, pp. 607-610.
• Peter Lüning: Man in the face of the crucified. Studies on the understanding of the cross by Erich Przywara, Karl Rahner, Jon Sobrino and Hans Urs von Balthasar. (Munster contributions to theology 65). Munster 2007.
• Stephan Lüttich: Night as Locus theologicus. Theology of Night and Night of Theology by Erich Przywara. In: Stephan Lüttich: Night experience. Theological dimensions of a metaphor. Würzburg 2004, pp. 242-299. (StSSTh 42)
• Erich Naab:  Erich Przywara. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1014-1017.
• Thomas Schumacher: In-About: Analogy as a basic definition of theo-logy; Reflections in the exit by Erich Przywara. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-936909-00-8 .
• Karl-Heinz Wiesemann: Breaking chord: the interplay of theology and mysticism in Karl Adam, Romano Guardini and Erich Przywara as theological fugue. Würzburg 1999.
• Martha Zechmeister:  Przywara, Erich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 752 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Martha Zechmeister : Erich Przywara's way of negative theology. Lit, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3105-1 .
• Martha Zechmeister: Erich Przywara. In: LThK ³ . Volume 8, Col. 688-689.
• Leo Zimny: Erich Przywara: his literature 1912 - 1962. With e. Introduction by Hans Urs von Balthasar. - Einsiedeln: Johannes Verl., 1963. - 92 p., 1963.
• Cornelius Keppeler, Erich Przywara - challenging and misunderstood , in: ders./Justinus C. Pech (ed.), Influential, but forgotten? Theological thinkers from the first half of the 20th century , Heiligenkreuz 2016, 85–105.

Web links

• Literature by and about Erich Przywara in the catalog of the German National Library