Georg Michael Pfefferkorn

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Georg Michael Pfefferkorn (born March 16, 1645 in Ifta , † March 3, 1732 in Graefentonna ) was a German Protestant theologian , hymn poet and rhetorician .

Life

Georg Michael Pfefferkorn came from a Thuringian pastor's family. He was the son of Georg Pfefferkorn († 1677), who had worked as a pastor in Ifta since 1619. He received his first training in Creuzburg and at the grammar school in Gotha , whose rector was Andreas Reyher at the time. He then studied theology in Jena and Leipzig . On February 14, 1666, he obtained his master's degree in Jena with the Philosophema de abstractione disputation under President Johann Christoph Hundeshagen . After completing his studies, he took over a position as a private tutor in Altenburg . Since 1668 he taught in the top two classes of the local high school. In 1673 he entered the service of the new sovereign, Duke Ernst the Pious , teaching his three youngest sons, Princes Christian , Ernst and Johann Ernst , first in Altenburg and then in Gotha .

In 1676 Pfefferkorn received the parish office in Friemar through the following Duke, Friedrich I , and at the same time became an adjunct in the Diocese of Molschleben , as the previous owner suffered from old age. In 1682 Duke Friedrich I appointed him as superintendent to Gräfentonna, the capital of the Tonna dominion acquired on October 4, 1677 by Count Christian Ludwig von Waldeck . On April 18, Jul. / April 28, 1682 greg. Introduced into his office, he also joined the consistory that still existed here from earlier times . But since he used his influence in favor of his relatives, the Duke transferred the most important rights of this authority to the Upper Consistory in Gotha in 1695. Due to increasing blindness, Pfefferkorn had to hire a theology candidate as an assistant from 1721, whereupon his son-in-law David Bernegger followed in the same office from 1729. He died on March 3, 1732 at the age of 86 in Gräfentonna.  

Pfefferkorn left a widow and four children. He lost his first wife, Sibylle Polmann, whom he married in Altenburg in 1672, after just one year when giving birth to a son. About ten years later he was married to Judith Gutbier, who gave birth to two daughters and two sons. The older son, who was also called Georg Michael Pfefferkorn like his father, died on October 26, 1733 as a pastor at Stutzhaus in the Thuringian Forest .

Works

Pfefferkorn emerged as a writer at a young age. First he wrote the poetry collection Poetic and Philosophical Festive and Weekly Pleasure (Altenburg 1666), which earned him the title of imperial, crowned poet. He then wrote casual poems as well as practice-oriented instructions in poetry and rhetoric . In 1684, in his work Strange and Exquisite History of the famous Landgraviate of Thuringia, he provided a scholarly political representation of this principality. Although it is an uncritical compilation, it was popular because of its wealth of anecdotes. His other writings include:

  • Brief instructions to make a pure German verse in a short time , Alterburg 1669
  • Jesuit cuckoo call, or 15 religious questions in the case of the apostasy of the Swedish Queen Christina , Altenburg 1671
  • Quite a few Lutherans, as well as reluctant religious relatives, as papists, Calvinists, Turks and pagans, good judgments from Luther , his teachings and writings , Altenburg 1671; On the other Protestant-Lutheran jubilee festival, a slightly increased edition was published , Gotha 1717
  • Pleißnian honorary wreaths, or abdication speeches ... , Altenburg 1672 u. ö.
  • Corpse abdication , Altenburg 1672, 1677 and 1689
  • Brief but unpredictable instruction on German funeral speeches , Altenburg 1690; 1705

Longer be Pfefferkorns name has as the author of four hymns received, of which in particular the first two have been transferred in many hymnbooks:

  • What do I ask about the world | And all her treasures (8 stanzas; set to music by Bach around 1735 )
  • Oh, how sad are pious souls | All here in this world of woe (7 stanzas)
  • My mind, how sad, | What is it that makes you sad (5 verses)
  • I want | through my whole life Always be satisfied with that (7 stanzas)

Pfefferkorn claimed to have also composed the well-known song Who knows how close my end is to me . This caused a violent literary dispute over the authorship of the song in the 18th century while Pfefferkorn was still alive. After it was first published anonymously in the Rudolstädter Gesangbuch of 1688, other collections of songs repeated it initially without a name, but soon after ( Saalfeld Hymnal from 1698) with that of Countess Aemilie Juliane von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . In 1710 the Zwickau hymn book attributed it to the privy councilor and chancellor Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff . Pfefferkorn's name is mentioned for the first time in 1714 as a result of a letter addressed by him to the hymnologist Johannes Avenarius in Schmalkalden and published in his song catechism (1714), in which he now mentions the Schwartzburg memorial of a friend of Christ the Counts of Lamb (1707) The assertion made that Aemilie Juliane was the author, denied that he wrote the song after the sudden death of Duke Johann Georg I of Saxony-Eisenach while hunting and at the suggestion of Seckendorff in October 1686. That letter answered the preliminary report on The Friend of the Lamb Spiritual Bride and Groom in the same year by defending the countess' claims emphatically and with plausible reasons. The German historian and librarian Albert Schumann also took the view that it was not Pfefferkorn but the countess who wrote the song.

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ So Pfefferkorn, Georg Michael in the German Digital Library ; according to Uwe-K. Ketelsen ( Killy Literaturlexikon , 2nd edition, vol. 9, p. 188), Pfefferkorn was born in 1646.
  2. ↑ Georg Michael Pfefferkorn on hymnary.org.
  3. ^ Albert Schumann:  Pfefferkorn, Georg Michael . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 620 f.
personal data
SURNAME Pfefferkorn, Georg Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, hymn poet and rhetorician
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1645
PLACE OF BIRTH Ifta
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1732
Place of death Count donna