Jakob Ludwig Passavant

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Jakob Ludwig Passavant; Engraving by Johann Heinrich Lips , around 1775.

Jakob Ludwig Passavant (born March 6, 1751 in Frankfurt am Main ; † January 8, 1827 there ) was a pastor of the Reformed Church and childhood friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

life and work

Passavant was the son of Johann Ludwig Passavant (1719–1793) and his wife Maria Jakoba geb. Cook . After attending the municipal grammar school , he studied theology in Göttingen and Marburg and in 1774 became assistant preacher with Johann Caspar Lavater in Zurich .

Goethe's trip to Switzerland in 1775

Here he met his childhood friend, the 25-year-old Johann Wolfgang Goethe , who had fallen in love with the only 16-year-old Anna Elisabeth Schönemann and announced his engagement at Easter 1775 of the same year. However, strong doubts about the given marriage promise led Goethe to embark on a long journey to Switzerland on May 14, 1775. It went to Zurich via Darmstadt, Mannheim, Strasbourg, Freiburg and Schaffhausen until June 9, 1775.

Passavant suggested a hike through the original Swiss cantons . On June 9, 1775, both of them crossed Lake Zurich to hike from there to Richterswil and on impassable paths to Maria Einsiedeln . With bad weather we went up to the Gotthard Pass to spend the night in the Gotthard hospice from June 21st to June 22nd. Passavant tried in vain to persuade Goethe to descend to Italy. Passavant accompanied Goethe over Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug back to Zurich, which they reached again on June 26, 1775. It was not until eleven years later that Goethe began his Italian journey .

Reformed clergyman

Jakob Ludwig Passavant moved to Hamburg in 1776 and became the parish administrator of the Reformed community there and, in 1777, pastor of the Reformed community of Münden in the Electorate of Hanover . At the beginning of 1787 he took up his position as the second pastor of the Reformed community in the Lippe residence city of Detmold .

In 1795 he was elected Second Preacher of the German Reformed Congregation built in 1787 in his hometown of Frankfurt am Main, and in 1813 First Preacher . In 1817, at the age of 66, he was awarded a theological doctorate by the University of Jena , probably at the suggestion of his childhood friend Goethe. He also mentioned him in his writings, for example in “ Poetry and Truth ” and as Ferdinand in “ The Sorrows of Young Werther ”.

literature