Johann Balthasar Ritter (theologian, 1674)

Johann Balthasar Ritter (born October 27, 1674 in Frankfurt am Main ; † January 3, 1743 ibid) was a German Lutheran theologian, pastor and church historian.

life and work

Knights came from the theologian family Ritter , since the Reformation  over six generations of the lineage Lutheran preacher in the imperial city turned Frankfurt. His father was Johann Balthasar Ritter (II.) (1645–1719), a German and French preacher at the Weißfrauenkirche and a member of the fifth generation.

From 1691 on, Ritter studied theology in Hamburg, Kiel, Leipzig and Gießen. In 1703 he became pastor in the village of Niedererlenbach , which belongs to Frankfurt , and in 1705 in the city itself. He was one of the most respected members of the  Ministry of Preachers and in 1732 was appointed to the consistorial council alongside Senior Christian Münden .

Ritter was a representative of Lutheran Orthodoxy . He is considered to be the first important church historian in Frankfurt. His main work is the Evangelical Monument of the City of Frankfurt am Main , published in 1726 , a church history of the Reformation up to 1555. He had numerous original writings and documents from the estate of his ancestor Matthias Ritter .

The planned continuation until 1600 was still a manuscript when he died. It was only Anton Kirchner and Hermann Dechent who continued Ritter’s research in the 19th century. With Ritter's death in 1743, the tradition of the theologian family in Frankfurt ended. A son who had studied theology like him had already died, the second son had taken up another job.

Works (selection)

• Actual and cumbersome description of life by M. Mat. Flacii Illyrici , Frankfurt am Main 1723 by Wolfgang Christoph Multz
• Evangelical monument of the city of Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1726 at Johann Friedrich Fleischern Digitized in the Google book search

literature

• Hermann Dechent:  Ritter, Lutheran pastor family in Frankfurt a. M. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 666-670.
• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 , p. 201 .