Joachim Morsius

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Joachim Morsius ( Latinized from Mors or Moers , pseudonym : Anastasius Philarethes Cosmopolita ; born January 3, 1593 in Hamburg ; † probably towards the end of 1643 at Gottorf Castle ) was a German polymath with theosophical views.

Live and act

Morsius was the youngest son of Jacob Mors, a rich goldsmith, draftsman and engraver in Hamburg. The father had him, whose talent was already recognizable, initially given private lessons; whether he also attended the Johanneum Latin school is uncertain. In April 1610 Morsius went to the University of Rostock to study theology there, but mainly pursued humanistic and scientific studies. Here Joachim Jungius became his teacher. He also briefly studied at the universities of Leipzig and Jena . In 1615 he was the first university librarian to take over the administration of the Rostock University Library , but soon gave up this position again (1618?). He married a rich woman from Dithmarschen, whom he left before 1617. In the following years his restless nature, which made long stay in one place seem unbearable, drove him from place to place. He was in Stettin, Hamburg and Leyden, in 1618 in Denmark and Pomerania, in 1619 at the Dordrecht Synod , then in London, Oxford and Cambridge; at Cambridge he received his master's degree. After 1620 he stayed in Hamburg and from 1623 in Lübeck , where he was initially supported by the rector Johann Kirchmann and later councilor Leonhard Elver ; However, he soon gave himself up entirely to mystical speculation and became the center of a small circle of followers of Jakob Boehme and Rosicrucians , to whom Balthasar Walther and Johann Staritius came from abroad, which finally led to his expulsion in 1624 at the urging of Superintendent Nikolaus Hunnius . In 1627 we find him again in Copenhagen, in 1628 in Leyden.

In all these cities Morsius was in lively exchange with the most important scholars of the time, to whom he made rich gifts. He soon became known through the writings he edited, for example by Hugo Grotius , Joseph Justus Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon . However, his fortune was soon used up, and in 1629 his family had him summoned to the Hamburg council for waste ; in his protests against this, in his opinion, unjustified subpoena, he found support from respected Hamburg scholars such as Friedrich Lindenbrog and Johann Huswedel . Since the death of his father in 1612, he lived in constant quarrels with his family.

In 1630 he lived in Frankfurt and Strasbourg, and in the next few years in Holstein and Denmark. When he came back to Lübeck in 1633, he was reported to the council here because he had a crush on him and distributed magical and fanatical books; After the Tripolitanum Ministry , the clergy of the cities of Lübeck, Hamburg and Lüneburg, agreed on a joint action against the New Prophets in Mölln in April 1633 and Morsius' writings were based on a kind of Index Librorum Prohibitorum with those of others , he left the city voluntarily.

In the spring of 1636, the Hamburg council had him quoted again with the assistance of the Lübeck authorities and, at the request of his brother Jacob Morsius, who had meanwhile expanded his father's goldsmith business with jewelery, arms deliveries and banking, locked him in the Pesthof on Hamburg-St. Pauli a. Apparently through the mediation of King Christian IV of Denmark he was released from this prison around 1640; since then he has stayed in various places in Holstein and Schleswig. He died of a sudden death in Gottorp in early 1644; however, his exact date of death is uncertain.

estate

In 1648, the Lübeck council made the high sum of 1,500 guilders available to purchase its extensive library, which had been left behind, with numerous magical writings and more than 700 letters for the city ​​library - despite or perhaps because of its non-conformist interests.

On his travels Morsius brought together an extremely extensive collection of autographs , copperplate engravings, woodcuts, occasional prints and similar rarities in the style of a family record . Later he added a variety of additions, small biographical notes, copies of poems of praise and other things. Jacob von Melle , who had received it from his father-in-law Samuel Pomarius and handed it over to the Lübeck city library , divided the collection with 779 entries and 113 portraits, which originally made up a shapelessly thick volume , into four volumes; and to these he in turn added a triple register in a fifth volume. The album Morsianum is considered one of the most important sources for the pansophic movement of the time.

Fonts

  • (Ed.) Joannis Brentii Theologi Celeberrimi Epistola De Exilio Suo Nunc primum edita ex Bibliotheca Joachimi Morsii. Rostock: Richel 1616
Digitized , University and State Library Saxony-Anhalt
  • Speculum consiliorum Hispanicorum… productum in lucem a JM. Lugduni 1617
  • Anastasius Philarethes Cosmopolita: Epistola sapientissimae fratrum rosae crucis sociatit remissa. circa 1620
  • Anastasius Philarethes Cosmopolita: Nuncius Olympicus. From utterly secret libraries and writings / such a noble divine and highly enlightened famous Theosophus and Medicus, in Theosophia, Cabala, Magia, Chemia, Medicina and Pilologia, through much arduous journeys and great tasting / Ecclesiae and Reip. literariae commodo brought together / in which the greatest heavenly and earthly wisdom is included , 1626
  • Idea actionis corporum.

Album Morsianum

literature

Web links

Commons : Joachim Morsius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Joachim Morsius  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to an older view (including ADB): 1642; However, there is still a letter from Morsius to Joachim Jungius dated August 26, 1643 ( digitized version )
  2. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
  3. ↑ ADB
  4. ↑ Ms. hist. 8 ° 25, 1-5 (earlier signature Ms. 4 o 61 a-e) of the Lübeck city library, see Kayser (Lit), p. 310 and Max Seiffert : Das Album Morsianum , in the journal of the International Music Society 1 (1899), p. 28f ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ Will-Erich Peuckert : The Rosencreutz. Berlin: E. Schmidt 1973, ISBN 3-503-00573-0 , p. 212
  6. ^ Facsimile in Carlos Gilly : Adam Haslmayr. The first herald of the Rosicrucian manifestos. Amsterdam 1994 (Pimander. Texts and Studies published by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, 5) ISBN 978-3-7728-1698-7 , pp. 238-291. More recent research assumes that Adam Haslmayr (1560–1631?) Is the Theosophus and Medicus .
personal data
SURNAME Morsius, Joachim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moers, Joachim; Philaretus Cosmopolita, Anastasius (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German polyhistor and theosophist
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1593
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: 1643
Place of death Gottorf Castle