Gerhard Esser

Gerhard Esser (born December 17, 1860 in Ophoven ; † December 6, 1923 in Bonn ) was a Roman Catholic clergyman and university professor.

education

Gerhard Esser studied Catholic theology at the University of Bonn and then switched to the Cologne seminary . On 19 May 1883 he received - with dispensation for lack of minimum age - in the Great Cathedral in Cologne by Archbishop Paul Cardinal Melchers the priesthood .

Act

After additional studies at the University of Würzburg , he joined in 1887 a position as Repetent the Collegium Albertinum in Bonn and was at the university in 1892 to Dr. theol. PhD . His research focus was on the life and work of the early Christian writer Tertullian , and in 1893 he dedicated his first publication on the theory of the soul of Tertullian to the director of the Collegium Albertinum, Franz Düsterwald . In 1898 Esser was appointed full professor of dogmatics at the Catholic theological faculty of the University of Bonn and in 1922 he retired. His lectures were printed as manuscripts in six volumes. During the First World War , Esser, together with Wilhelm Stockums , at the time director of the Collegium Leoninum , and the theology professors Arnold Rademacher and Heinrich Schrörs, organized lecture courses for the candidates for priesthood in the western stage area. From 1899 - until 1908 on behalf of Franz Philipp Kaulen - until 1910 Esser held the office of university preacher. In collaboration with Joseph Mausbach , he published the three-volume apology Religion, Christianity, Church , which in its time played an important role in the confrontation between the Church and modernity . In autumn 1914, Esser was one of the signatories of the appeal to the world of culture! .

Awards

• Red Eagle Order 4th class

Works (selection)

• Tertullian's doctrine of the soul. Ferdinand Schöningh publishing house, Paderborn 1893.
• Tertullian's penitentials de paenitentia and de pudicitia and the edict of indulgence by Pope Callistus. Bonn University Program, Bonn 1905.
• with Joseph Mausbach : Religion, Christianity, Church. An apology for the scientifically educated , Kösel, Kempten 1911–1913.
• The addressee of Tertullian's De pudicitia and the author of the Roman Edict of Penance. Hanstein, Bonn 1914.
• War and Divine Providence. Breer & Thiemann, Hamm (Westphalia) 1915.
• Jesus Christ, the divine teacher of humanity. J. Kösel & Pustet publishing house, Munich 1921.
• God and the world. J. Kösel & Pustet publishing house, Munich 1921.

literature

• Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne. 21st edition. JP Bachem Publishing House, Cologne 1911, p. 15.
• Eduard Hegel (Ed.): The Archdiocese of Cologne between the Restoration of the 19th Century and the Restoration of the 20th Century: 1815 - 1962 , Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7616-0873-X , pp. 231, 429, 457.
• German Biographical Encyclopedia. Bd. 3. KG Saur, Munich a. Leipzig 1995-2003, ISBN 3-598-23160-1 , p. 180.

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Esser in the catalog of the German National Library