Friedrich Loofs

Friedrich Loofs

Friedrich Armin Loofs (born June 19, 1858 in Hildesheim , † January 13, 1928 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German Protestant church historian .

biography

Loofs grew up in Hildesheim and attended the Andreanum grammar school there . From 1877 he studied in Leipzig , Tübingen , Göttingen and finally again in Leipzig until 1882 Protestant theology . After first turning to the Lutheran Christoph Ernst Luthardt , he joined the Leipzig student and friends group around Adolf Harnack . Under Harnack's influence, he also studied in Göttingen with Albrecht Ritschl , the most important Protestant theologian in Germany at the time.

From 1880 to 1881 he was a private tutor in Leipzig. In 1881 he was promoted to Dr. phil. doctorate, Lic. theol .; in the same year he qualified as a professor for church and dogma history. From 1882 he taught as a private lecturer in Leipzig. In 1886 he was appointed associate professor there. As such, he moved to Halle in 1887 , where he was full professor from 1888 - as successor to Justus Ludwig Jacobi . His successor was Erich Seeberg in 1926/27 .

Loofs had a lasting influence on the faculty, was rector of the university from 1907 to 1908 and was promoted to Dr. theol. hc in Marburg . For 15 years he was a consistorial councilor in Magdeburg and from 1890 to 1925 he was the municipal poor carer .

In 1917 he was awarded the Dr. jur. hc awarded by the University of Leipzig, he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle III. Class, the Crown Order II. Class and the Commander's Cross II. Class of the House Order Albrecht the Bear . In 1904 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

Scientific work

Loofs was primarily a patristic . In his studies he dealt with a. with Eustathius of Sebaste , Leonthius of Byzantium , the Council of Serdica , the letters of Basil of Caesarea and the Nestorian fragments.

His guide to studying the history of dogma is one of the classics of this discipline , along with Harnack's and Reinhold Seeberg's textbooks . The work, first published in 1889 as a guide for his lectures on the history of dogma , was printed in seven editions by 1968 in a repeatedly improved, also "completely revised" (6th edition 1906) and (by Kurt Aland ) "supplemented" version. To this day, because the source texts are quoted in the original languages, it has its place in the more demanding study of the history of dogma.

Loofs also made important contributions to the history of the Reformation ( Luther's position on the Middle Ages and modern times , Halle as aS 1907) and the history of Christianity in modern times (including in the Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church ). The first volume of his textbook Symbolik oder Christian Konfessionskunde from 1902 (another one has not appeared) is considered a milestone in modern, comparative denominational studies .

Loofs has also emerged as a preacher and author of popular theological writings in which he addressed a “wider circle of educated Christians”. In particular in the so-called Apostolic Controversy, in the disputes about the attitude to the Roman Church and other theological issues of the time, Loofs took a decided position.

Together with Martin Rade , the publisher, Wilhelm Bornemann and Paul Drews , he was a co-founder of the liberal Protestant magazine Die Christliche Welt , which was published from 1887 (until 1941) . In the first few years he played a major role in their development. With the increasing socio-political orientation of the magazine and its opening up to the representatives of the School of Religious History, however, he increasingly distanced himself from it until he stopped working in 1902.

Works

• Leontius of Byzantium and the eponymous writers of the Greek Church , Leipzig 1887
• Antiquae Britonum Scotorumque eccesiae qualesfuerint mores, quae ratio credendi et vivendi, quae controversiae cum romana ecclesia causa atque vis , Leipzig / London 1882
• Sermons , Halle 1892
• The Apostolicum in three sermons delivered on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Trinity Mondays in 1895 in the academic church service in Halle , Halle 1895
• Eustathius of Sebaste and the chronology of the letters of St. Basil. A patristic study, Halle 1898
• On the chronology of the letters of Basil of Caesarea. A patristic study. Easter program of the University of Halle-Wittenberg, 1898
• Anti-Haeckel. A replica with supplements, Halle 1900 (5th edition 1906)
• Sermons II , Halle 1901
• Basic lines of church history in the form of dispositions for his lectures , Halle 1901
• Symbolism or Christian denomination , Volume 1 (Outline of Theological Sciences. [Series 1] Part 4, Volume 4), Tübingen / Leipzig 1902
• Nestoriana. The Fragments of Nestorius collected, examined and edited, Halle 1905
• Guide to the study of the history of dogma , fourth, completely revised edition, published by Max Niemeyer, Halle a. P. 1906
• Academic sermons , Dresden 1906
• Luther's position on the Middle Ages and modern times , Halle as 1907
• The Creed of the Homousians of Sardica , Berlin 1909
• About self-redemption, pantheism and joie de vivre. Three sermons delivered by D. Friedrich Loofs in 1911, Halle 1911
• Who Was Jesus Christ? Discussed for theologians and the wider circle of educated Christians, Halle 1916
• The "International Association of Serious Bible Students " , second, very expanded edition, JC Hinrich'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1921
• The articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae: Program of the theological faculty of the University of Halle-Wittenberg on October 31, 1917 , Halle 1917
• Paul of Samosata. An investigation into the history of literature and dogma in the early church, Leipzig 1924
• Theophilus of Antioch Adversus Marcionem and the other theological sources in Irenaeus , Leipzig 1930 (posthumous)
• Patristica. Selected essays on the Old Church, ed. by Hanns Christof Brennecke and Jörg Ulrich, Berlin / New York 1999 (pp. XIII-XIX: Bibliography)

literature

• Ernst Barnikol : Theological and ecclesiastical from the correspondence Loofs - Harnack. For the anniversary of Friedrich Loofs (1858–1928). In: Theological literary newspaper. Vol. 85, 1960, ISSN  0040-5671 , pp. 217-222.
• Georg Fritz:  Loofs, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 148 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Klaus Kienzler :  Friedrich Loofs. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 219-221.
• Günter Schenk, Regina Meÿer: Biographical studies on the members of the professorial circle "Spirituskreis". Hallescher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2007, ISBN 978-3-929887-33-4 , pp. 96-110.
• Christian Stephan: The silent faculty. Biographical contributions to the history of the theological faculty of the University of Halle. Stekovics, Dössel 2005, ISBN 3-89923-103-1 , pp. 137-141.
• Jörg Ulrich (Ed.): Friedrich Loofs in Halle (= work on church history. Vol. 114). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-024634-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Loofs in the catalog of the German National Library
• Discount in the ULB hall
• Overview of the lectures of Friedrich Loofs at the University of Leipzig (summer semester 1883 to summer semester 1887)
• Entry on Friedrich Loofs in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Johannes Rathje : The world of free Protestantism, Stuttgart 1952, pp. 118–123 (“Break between Rade and Loofs”).