Heinrich Wilhelm Justus Wolff

Heinrich Wilhelm Justus Wolff (born January 11, 1789 in Königslutter ; † April 8, 1844 ) was a German Protestant - Lutheran theologian and from 1826 until his death chief pastor at the Hamburg St. Katharinen Church . He was a staunch advocate of rationalism .

Career

From 1807 Wolff studied Protestant theology in Helmstedt at the Academia Julia , where he was one of the last graduates in 1810 and gave a farewell speech on the dissolution of the university. Activities as a teacher at the Helmstedter Pedagogy and from 1814 at the Katharineum in Braunschweig followed . From 1816 Wolff was a preacher at the St. Andreas Church in Braunschweig . In 1826 he was appointed senior pastor to the St-Katharinen-Kirche in Hamburg and held this office until his death after a long illness.

family

Wolff was the son of a church council. He married Charlotte Wilhelmine Concordia Ballenstädt from Schöningen in Helmstedt in 1812 ; with her he had twelve children, ten of whom survived. One of Wolff's sons also studied theology.

Positions and arguments

Unlike most of the clergymen who are close to rationalism, Wolff did not primarily address ethics and morals in his sermons , but rather beliefs, rejecting most of the teachings of the Symbolic Books - to which he had pledged an oath as a prerequisite for his office . So on Pentecost 1829 he turned against the doctrine of the Trinity . The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples on the day of Pentecost ( Acts of the Apostles , 1) could be explained by a natural event. As early as Christmas 1828 Wolff had called the Christian doctrine of atonement nonsense, and Jesus Christ appeared in the sermon as a pure human being, like others - without God's nature.

Wolff considered his opponents, the Bible-loyal Christians, with coarse words. So he described the Herrnburg pastor Johann Wilhelm Bartholomäus Rußwurm on the occasion of his description of his awakening in a Hamburg newspaper as a hypocritical promoter of darkness and criminal boy who spreads the weeds of superstition against his better knowledge and conscience .

Wolff's remarks at Christmas 1828 led to a complaint from the Kiel pastor Claus Harms , which led to an intervention by Senator Martin Hieronymus Hudtwalcker at Whitsun 1829 ; this was followed by a reprimand by the Senate.

Fonts (selection)

• Heinrich Wilhelm Conrad Henke . Memories from his life and grateful memories of his services from two of his students , Fleckeisen, Helmstedt and Leipzig 1816 (with Georg Karl Bollmann)
• Sermons held in the St. Catharinen Church in Hamburg . Robert Kittler, Hamburg 1841 and 1842

Many other sermons and speeches by Wolff have appeared in print.

literature

• Ingrid Lahrsen: Between awakening and rationalism. Hudtwalcker and his circle , Wittig, Hamburg 1959
• Hans Schröder, AH Kellinghusen: Lexicon of Hamburg writers up to the present , vol. 8, section 4481, pp. 136-139

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Wilhelm Justus Wolff in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sermon on the 5th Sunday after Epiphany, quoted from Ingrid Lahrsen: Between Awakening and Rationalism. Hudtwalcker and his circle , Wittig, Hamburg 1959, p. 87. The print of Rußwurm's description in the Hamburger Wochen Nachrichten of January 30, 1829 was taken from the foreword to his 1826 altar end.

predecessor	Office	successor
Rudolf Jänisch	Chief Pastor to St. Katharinen in Hamburg 1826 - 1844	Otto Ludwig Siegmund Wolters