Johann Andreas Cramer (theologian)

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Johann Andreas Cramer, contemporary copper engraving

Johann Andreas Cramer (born January 27, 1723 in Jöhstadt ; † June 12, 1788 in Kiel ) was a German writer and theologian of the Enlightenment period .

Life

Johann Andreas Cramer was the son of the pastor Caspar Anton Cramer (1681–1750) and his wife Juliane, née Coith (1702–1729). He first attended the Princely School in Grimma and studied at the University of Leipzig after the death of his father in 1742 . He was one of the co-founders of the literary magazine Bremer Posts . From 1745 he held lectures as a master's degree in Leipzig. In 1748 he became pastor in Kröllwitz near Merseburg and in 1750 came to Quedlinburg as court preacher and consistorial councilor , where his son Carl Friedrich Cramer was born.

On the recommendation of Klopstock and Bernstorff , the Danish King Friedrich V. Cramer appointed court preacher to Copenhagen in 1754 , where he and Klopstock published the moral weekly Der nordische Aufseher . At the university there he received the theological professorship in 1765 and served as rector in 1766/67. However, his patron Bernstorff was dismissed in 1770 under the new unstable King Christian VII . Under the influence of the cabinet minister and royal personal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee , Cramer was removed from office in 1771 and expelled from the country. In the same year he accepted a position as superintendent in Lübeck . After the fall and execution of Count Struensee, he was called back by the Danish king, receiving a professorship in theology in Kiel in 1774 and the university's chancellery in 1784 .

Cramer died on June 12, 1788 in Kiel and was buried on June 19, 1788 in the St. Jürgen cemetery . Later his body was reburied in the Eichhof park cemetery.

family

Cramer married Juliane Charlotte Radicke (born August 25, 1726 in Leipzig) on ​​January 28, 1749 in Leipzig, who died on June 11, 1777 in Kiel. His second marriage was on January 12, 1781 on Söbo , Funen , Margarethe Marie Scherewien, née de Falsen (* May 12, 1738; † May 8, 1795).

Cramer had five sons and four daughters. Well-known sons were Carl Friedrich Cramer and Andreas Wilhelm Cramer .

Act

The Enlightenment was highly regarded as a scholar, preacher and poet. He began his writing activity with an annotated translation of the general world history of Bossuets , as well as the sermons and small writings of the church father John Chrysostom (10 volumes, 1748–1751). His sermons have been published in more than 20 volumes. The hymnbook he edited for Schleswig-Holstein from 1780 contained, in addition to songs by contemporary poets, extensive arrangements of older songs in the sense of Enlightenment theology and rationalism . Cramer himself composed over 400 sacred songs, of which large numbers were to be found in the hymn books of his time. Today's evangelical hymn book only contains the (revised) communion song You, disciples of Jesus, should never forget (EG 221). In the Mennonite hymn book , in addition to the above-mentioned Last Supper song Cramers (MG 166), there is also the hymn Herr, you cannot be compared (MG 38). The hymn book of the New Apostolic Church also contains two Cramer songs. Poems by Cramer were set to music several times by contemporaries, for example by Georg Philipp Telemann ( Donner-Ode TWV 6: 3) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ( Psalms with Melodies H. 733 (1774), based on texts from Cramer's poetic translation of the Psalms with treatises on the same […]).

As a professor at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, he founded the homiletic seminar in 1775 and the school teacher seminar in 1781, the first teacher training center for popular teachers in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein . In 1785 the new catechism he wrote was introduced in Schleswig-Holstein, which, in line with the Enlightenment theology , was intended to replace the very detailed orthodoxy-based declaration of Martin Luther's Small Catechism . The Cramer regional catechism made use of the Socratic method, which was often used in education at the time . Like the hymn book, Cramer's catechism remained in use for about 100 years.

Selection of works

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of rectors on the University of Copenhagen website
  2. ↑ Walther Meier Rust: Cramer, Johann Andreas . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, p. 118
  3. ↑ Walther Meier Rust: Cramer, Johann Andreas . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, p. 118
  4. ^ Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Psalms with Melodies, H. 733 : Notes and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
  5. ^ First part. Leipzig 1755 ; Second part. Leipzig 1759 ; Third part Leipzig 1763 ; Fourth and last part Leipzig 1764
predecessor Office successor
Johann Gottlob Carpzov Superintendent of the Lübeck Church
1771 - 1774 		Johann Adolph Schinmeier
personal data
SURNAME Cramer, Johann Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1723
PLACE OF BIRTH Jöhstadt
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1788
Place of death Kiel