Heinrich Schmettau

Heinrich Schmettau (born November 29, 1628 in Brieg , Silesia , † November 1, 1704 in Berlin ) was a German Reformed theologian and preacher of the Elector of Brandenburg at court and cathedral in Berlin.

Life

Schmettau was a son of the forester Georg Schmettau (1585-1636). His brothers Gottfried (1620–1668) and Ernst (1622–1687) were raised to the Bohemian nobility in 1668.

After attending the Görlitz high school, Schmettau began studying at the University of Frankfurt (Oder) in 1648 . Further study visits took him to Groningen , Heidelberg , Strasbourg and Basel , where he was ordained in 1653 . After a study trip to France and England via Geneva, he returned to Silesia in 1654 after being appointed first court preacher to Duke Ludwig von Liegnitz . In 1658 he was also consistorial councilor , and in 1663 superintendent . When he was to become general superintendent in 1666, the Catholic estates protested. Then granted Duke Christian him an honorable discharge. At the same time, the Great Elector offered him a theological professorship in Frankfurt (Oder). Before he took up the position, however, the elector set up another cathedral preacher position at the Berlin Cathedral in order to appoint Schmettau there in December 1666. After the death of Georg Konrad Bergius in 1691, he also became the oldest court preacher and consistorial councilor.

Schmettau was considered the most learned of the Berlin court preachers of his time. In addition to several sermons, he also published theological works. After he had already translated tracts of the Anglican bishop Joseph Hall (1574–1656) in the Liegnitz period , he had Hall's Biblical Faces / Or Considerations of the Biblical Histories, an extensive biblical commentary, followed in 1665–1669 and gave in 1683 with The first beginning or that original origins of the human race, a highly regarded work by the English lawyer Matthew Hale against early atheism .

Schmettau was married to Maria Elisabeth (1641–1700), daughter of the Brieger grammar school rector Johann Martin Lucas (Lucae), since 1655. They had twelve children, five of whom were still alive when Schmettau died. Three of the daughters were married to officials from the Electorate of Brandenburg. One of the sons was the later Prussian court and school councilor Friedrich Wilhelm von Schmettau (* 1670 - June 22, 1732), whose son Johann Ernst von Schmettau became a Prussian major general.

literature

• Rudolf von Thadden : The Brandenburg-Prussian court preachers in the 17th and 18th centuries. A contribution to the history of the absolutist state society in Brandenburg-Prussia. de Gruyter, Berlin 1959, pp. 186-188.
• Lothar Noack, Jürgen Splett: Bio Bibliographies. Brandenburg scholars of the early modern period. Berlin-Cölln 1640–1688. de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, pp. 396-403. ISBN 3-05-002840-8 .
• Peter Bahl : The court of the great elector. Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2001, esp.p. 573f. ISBN 3-412-08300-3 .
• Franz Menges:  Schmettau, barons and counts of. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 134 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Works by and about Heinrich Schmettau  in the German Digital Library