Georg Christoph Silberschlag

Georg Ludwig Christoph Silberschlag (born July 14, 1731 in Aschersleben , † July 11, 1790 in Stendal ) was a German scientist and teacher. He discovered the atmosphere of Venus .

Life

The son of the doctor and pharmacist Johann Esajas Silberschlag and his first wife Katharina Rebekka born. Waldmann had received his first training in his hometown. Like his half-brother Johann Esaias Silberschlag, Silberschlag was first a student and then a teacher at the Berge monastery near Magdeburg . From 1747 to 1750 he attended the school and between 1753 and 1762 he worked at the facility as a teacher. In between he studied at the University of Halle . In addition to his work, he was also active in the natural sciences. He was particularly interested in astronomy .

On June 6, 1761, together with Heinrich Wilhelm Bachmann , he observed the passage of Venus in front of the sun in the observatory of the Berge monastery . He noticed a diffuse light aura around Venus, which he was the first to interpret as a dense atmosphere. He published his work results on June 13, 1761 in the Magdeburgisch Privilegierte Zeitung . Here he also speculated about possible life on Venus.

In 1762 he was first pastor in Engersen , 1763 in Stendal as senior pastor in the St. Petrikirche, in 1771 he was the third pastor at the Trinity Church in Berlin . He also served as an inspector of the Royal Realschule in Berlin and in 1779 in Stendal and became general superintendent of Altmark and Prignitz .

In the city of Magdeburg a street was later named as Silberschlagstraße .

Participation in the fragments dispute

In the fragments dispute, a theological argument mainly between Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Johann Melchior Goeze , Silberschlag also took the floor. With the text "Antibarbarus or defense of the Christian religion and the procedure of the Protestant teaching post in religious instruction against and again the objections of modern times" he made known his opinion.

In the writing he complains that Lessing would have been able to publish material of much higher quality from the extensive Wolfenbüttel library , which he was in charge of. Instead, he resorted to the fragments, which Silberschlag describes as “badly out of all measure”.

The fragments are seen as the largest collection of insults and blasphemies against religion and as an attack on Christian truths, which do not harm the religion but do harm the believer. He explains the title of his letter, Antibarbarus, by saying that the fragments are a barbarism, and consequently his counter-writing can be described as Antibarbarus.

Lessing describes the term barbarian in his reply as the invention of philosophy, from which the true religion is derived, in contrast to Silberschlag's definition of a person with gross ignorance and gross morals. On the basis of his own explanation, Lessing shows himself proud to be a barbarian, but he does not want to be viewed as dishonest.

Works

• New theory of the earth, or detailed study of the original formation of the earth, according to the accounts of the scriptures and the principles of natural science and mathematics. Berlin 1764, ( online )
• Selected monastic experiments in the sciences of natural science and mathematics. Berlin 1768 ( online )
• Time and eternity. compared to each other. Berlin 1771
• Psychological investigation into the state of mind of the person in the years of his teaching. Berlin 1771
• About the end of the youth; a program. Berlin 1771
• About those knowledge of the human understanding which is eternal with the existence of the soul; a program. Berlin 1772
• About the gift of right thinking; a program. Berlin 1773
• About the behavior of men against the evident certainty of revealed divine truth; a program. Berlin 1773
• Whether what we call weaknesses of the human mind is due to the mind or to reason; a program. Berlin 1774
• About the knowledge of the divine truth revealed; a program. Berlin 1774
• About the influence of insights into people's attitudes, a program. Berlin 1775
• From self-knowledge; a program. Berlin 1775
• From the uncertainty of human opinions; a program. Berlin 1776
• A program of the obligations arising from doubt and certainty. Berlin 1776
• Of true Christianity and its reasons and properties. Berlin 1777. 2 parts
• Antibarbarus, or defense of the Christian religion and the Protestant teaching post in religious instruction against and against the drafts of more recent times. Berlin 1778–1779. 2 parts
• Pastoral Entities. Berlin 1779
• Of the devil's streaks; a sermon on Psalm, August 5th, Berlin, 1779
• The call to the preaching office and the duties to be observed on the part of the patron and candidate. Stendal 1781
• The true nature of Jesus' passion, explained and proven. Stendal 1787
• News from the lake at Arendsee in the Altmark. (With a plan of the Faulen See, near Gentzien and the Arendsee lake, near the town of Arendsee, in the Altemarck. 1786. ) - In: Writings of the Society of Friends of Nature Research in Berlin. Eighth Volume First Piece. , Berlin 1787, pp. 225-235. (Reprint for the Arendsee working group for the Third Lake Symposium by Olaf Meußling, Ansbach 2000)

literature

• Veronikas Albrecht-Birkner: Pastors' book of the church province of Saxony. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig, 2008, ISBN 9783374021406 , Vol. 8, p. 259
• Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 .
• German Biographical Archive. (DBA) microfiches, Munich a. a. 1986. I, No. 1185, 337-351
• Wilhelm Hess :  Silberschlag, Georg Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, p. 314.
• Heinrich Doering : The learned theologians of Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Verlag Johann Karl Gottfried Wagner, 1835, Neustadt an der Orla, vol. 4, p. 223, ( online )
• Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim: Works and Letters. Vol. 8. u. 9th ed. Arno Schilson. Frankfurt / M .: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1989 a. 1993.

Web links

• Biographical details of the Francke Foundations in Halle