Johann August Ernesti

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Johann August Ernesti

Johann August Ernesti (born August 4, 1707 in Tennstedt , † September 11, 1781 in Leipzig ) was a German Protestant theologian , philologist , educator and rector of the Thomas School in Leipzig during the Enlightenment .

Life

Ernesti, whose father was pastor and superintendent in Salz and Sangerhausen , was sent to the Pforta State School at the age of 16, at 20 he began studying mathematics with Johann Matthias Hase , philology with Johann Wilhelm von Berger , philosophy with Friedrich Philipp Schlosser and Friedrich August Wolf and theology with Johann Georg Neumann and Ernst Friedrich Wernsdorf at the University of Wittenberg , which he continued at the University of Leipzig . In Leipzig his teachers were Christian Friedrich Börner , Salomo Deyling , Johann Christoph Gottsched and Christian August Hausen the Younger . In 1730 he completed his training at the Philosophical Faculty. In the following year he became tutor to Leipzig's mayor Christian Ludwig Stieglitz and took the position of vice-principal at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, at which Johann Matthias Gesner was principal at the time and who was followed by Ernesti in 1734. He drafted the school regulations for the Princely Schools in Electoral Saxony and the Latin Schools.

In 1742 he was appointed associate professor for ancient literature at the University of Leipzig, and in 1756 full professor for rhetoric (successor to Johann Erhard Kapp ). In the same year he received his doctorate in theology in Leipzig with the dissertation Vindiciae arbitrii divi in ​​religione constituenda , in 1759 he became a full professor at the associated faculty. The Enlightenment theologian worked with Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten from the University of Halle in order to free the current theological dogmatics from their scholastic and mystical proliferation, thus preparing the way for a reform of theology. At the end of his life he was a senior of the Meißnische Nation, canon in Meißen , Ephorus of the electoral scholarship holders, assessor of the electoral Saxon consistory in Leipzig, member of the Göttingen Society of Sciences and President of the Societas Jablonoviana . He died after a brief illness at the age of 74.

Johann August Ernesti is the uncle of Johann Christian Gottlieb Ernesti .

Act

Aside from the quality of his own writing, Ernesti is known in Germany for his influence on textual criticism . With Johann Salomo Semler he worked on the reform of Lutheran theology, together with Gesner he set up a new school for old literature. He discovered grammatical subtleties in Latin relating to the succession of tenses that had escaped previous research. Because of his knowledge he was entitled "Germanorum Cicero".

As the editor of classical Greek literature , he cannot be compared with his Dutch contemporaries Tiberius Hemsterhuis , Lodewyk Kaspar Valckenaer , David Ruhnken or his colleague Johann Jacob Reiske . He did not even seek the heights of textual criticism . But it is thanks to him and Gesner for having consulted philologists who are greater than themselves and for having kindled the national enthusiasm for the old knowledge.

It is primarily hermeneutics in which Ernesti can claim importance as a theologian. Here, however, his services are outstanding, and at the time when his Institutio Interpretis NT was published (1761), he was most astonished about it. In this work one finds general principles of interpretation that were developed without the aid of any philosophy, but consist of observations and rules that, although previously described and used by secular authors, were never strictly applied to biblical exegesis . He was the founder of the historical-grammatical school, which allowed only one meaning in both the sacred and classical scriptures, which also had to agree in grammar, logic and history. His theological work can be assigned to neology .

He consistently criticized the opinion of those who attribute everything in the illustration of the Holy Scriptures to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as well as of those who disregard all linguistic knowledge and want to explain every word through things. The rule of interpretation of the “analogy of belief” is rigorously limited by him, and he teaches that it can never provide the explanation, but only a selection of possible meanings.

At the same time, however, he does not seem to have been aware of the inconsistency between the usual teaching of biblical inspiration and its hermeneutical principles.

Selection of works

Classical literature

Theological literature

  • Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis (1755–1758)
  • New Theological Library , Volumes I to X (1760–1769)
  • Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd edition., 1775)
  • Latest theological library , Volumes I through X (1771–1775).

In addition to these major works, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which were compiled in the following publications: Opuscula oratoria (1762); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764); Opuscula theologica (1773).

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann August Ernesti  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 77.
personal data
SURNAME Ernesti, Johann August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and philologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 4, 1707
PLACE OF BIRTH Tennstedt , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1781
Place of death Leipzig