Johann Jakob Redinger

Johann Jakob Redinger (born August 24, 1619 in Neftenbach ; † March 10, 1688 in Zurich ) was a Swiss Protestant clergyman, philologist and rector of a Latin school .

Life

family

Johann Jakob Redinger was the son of the Hessian carpenter Christian Redinger († 1625) and his wife Verena (née Schlang) (1592–1621) from Neftenbach. His brother was Bernhard Redinger (* February 1621). From his father's second marriage to Elisabeth (née Sprenger), he had two half-siblings.

Johann Jakob Redinger was married to Barbara († October 25, 1690), daughter of the poet Johann Wilhelm Simler ; the marriage was divorced in 1667; they had four children together.

education

From 1630 he received a pre-apprenticeship as a pastor at the Latin School at Fraumünster with Johann Rudolf Stucki († 1660) in Zurich, which he continued at the Kollegium humanitas and the Collegium Carolinum ; his examination took place together with the later theologian Johann Heinrich Hottinger .

Activity as a clergyman

During the Thirty Years' War he was from 1642 to 1646 field chaplain to Colonel Hans Jakob Rahn in Piedmont and Catalonia .

He was elected pastor in Dietikon-Urdorf on May 30, 1646 by the Zurich council . The parishes of Urdorf, Dietikon and Spreitenbach belonged to the parish ; the pastor's seat was in Ober-Urdorf; the population of Dietikon and Spreitenbach was predominantly Catholic. In 1647 he proposed the unification of the two parishes of Urdorf and Dietikon with the pastor's seat in the Urdorf rectory and the appointment of a special clergyman in Dietikon. From 1648 he intensified the catechization in all parishes and also had the chapel in Urdorf rebuilt, one of whose donors was Colonel Johann Jakob Rahn, and he also ensured that a reformed school was built in Dietikon.

Redinger repeatedly complained against the action and behavior of the Wettingen monastery and Abbot Niklaus von Flüe towards the Reformed community, so that on July 18, 1647, a conference between the Zurich mayor Rahn, the governor Leu and the abbot took place; it ended with the abbot promising to remedy the complaints. Thereupon Redinger sought out the abbot on July 22, 1647, who now began to argue with excuses, whereupon Redinger turned to the council again on July 29, 1647. In the course of the next few years the friction increased more and more, among other things because the abbot wanted to impose regulations and prohibitions on the Reformed parishioners.

During acts of war between Zurich and the canton of Schwyz , when Rapperswil was about to be besieged by the Zurich (see also Siege of Rapperswil ), Redinger had the preacher from Dietikon, a monk of the Wettingen monastery, arrested and brought to Zurich. The bailiff in Baden then filed a complaint against Redinger with the council in Zurich. The council decided that Redinger was not authorized to arrest the pastor, especially since an investigation revealed no incriminating evidence against the pastor, and removed him from his position in Urdorf.

Activity as a soldier

Because Redinger continued to campaign for the reformed cause, he went during the First Villmerger War at the beginning of January 1656 as a captain in the camp of Adjutant General Bürkli in Oberwil in Freiamt . Together with the adjutant general and Rittmeister Hans Konrad Escher, he scouted a place on the Reuss on January 10, 1656 , from which the troops could be crossed in order to then unite with the Bernese ; all but Bürkli were captured. In March 1656 he was released in exchange for other prisoners. His family came to live with his brother-in-law, mint master Hans Heinrich Simmler (1609–1686).

Stay in Schaffhausen

In the following years he was expelled on July 19, 1656 , also due to pressure from the Five Catholic Places , after which he moved to the Netherlands . Even before his expulsion, he had his Latin-German dictionary Latinisher Runs by Tütshen Sprachkwäl printed in Schaffhausen by Johann Kaspar Suter , in which he wanted to prove that the German language is the mother of Greek , Latin , Italian and French and Spanish language. During his stay in Schaffhausen, he communicated a lot with Stepan Spleiss (1623–1693), Rector of the Latin School there (today: Kantonsschule Schaffhausen ), who researched into improving Latin teaching. Spleiss was also a follower of Johann Amos Comenius , whose Latin book Janua had also been printed by Suter in Schaffhausen in 1656. From this acquaintance with Spleiss, he made his first contacts with Camenius. In Schaffhausen, Redinger made the decision to continue working as a teacher, especially since he mastered the Hebrew , Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish languages.

Stay in Amsterdam in 1656

After his expulsion from Zurich, he traveled to Comenius in Amsterdam . On the outward journey he met the pharmacist Hans Konrad Lavater (1628–1691) in Frankfurt am Main , the great-grandfather of the future pastor Johann Caspar Lavater , who lent him money to travel on.

After arriving in Amsterdam on October 4, 1656, on March 10, 1657, he took over a class with 20 students in the Latin school of Comenius. He also had some books by Comenius printed and handed the proceeds over to the administration of Johann Anton Pestalozzi (1641–1663), who originally did business in Amsterdam on behalf of his father of the same name and stayed there after his death; this Johann Anton Pestalozzi also took an active part in the writing activity of Comenius.

Activity as rector

Redinger, who in the meantime had made a name for himself as a teacher of ancient languages ​​and as a language methodologist, was appointed to Frankenthal in October 1658 by the Palatinate government as the rector of the Latin School (today: Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium ), which had been founded in 1638 . In addition to the school management, he began to translate some of Comenius' Latin books into German. The first school book that he published in Frankenthal was the Komenische Sprach-Lehr in 1659 . In the same year he was commissioned by the Elector Palatinate, Karl Ludwig , to set up teaching at the newly founded grammar school according to the Comenian method. He now also began to study the prophetic writings of Comenius and came to the conclusion that the Turks were threatening the Christian religion.

Travel as part of the dissemination of scriptures

In April 1664 he took a six-week vacation to travel to his homeland in Switzerland to present the prophecies of Comenius to the secular and spiritual councils. On April 26, 1664 he presented some copies to Mayor Meier in Schaffhausen, to Mayor Hans Heinrich Rahn (1593–1669) in Zurich on April 29, 1664, and some copies to Mayor Johann Rudolf Wettstein in Basel and on May 2, 1664 on May 7, 1664 to Schultheiss Niklaus Dachselhofer in Bern.

Because of the dreams and faces he had, he traveled on to France and arrived in Fontainebleau on June 2, 1664 . He sent several copies of the prophecies of Comenius to King Louis XIV through a guard captain; others he presented to Marshal Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne .

From Fontainebleau he traveled on to Paris and on June 6, 1664 handed over several copies to Archbishop Hardouin de Perefixe ; a fortnight later he traveled back to Frankenthal.

There he learned that he had already been terminated by the elector before his return because the Imperial envoy from Regensburg had complained about his publicly rebellious behavior against the House of Austria , and the French king also complained about a letter that Redinger had written and had sent to the king. This caused Redinger to write a threatening letter to the elector; as a result, he was expelled from the country with his wife and children within eight days.

In a petition to the elector, Redinger asked for an extension of the deadline for his wife and children so that they could sell the property; the request was granted, but his own expulsion remained.

Trip to Turkey

Because he wanted to know what the Christians thought of his revelations, he decided to bring these revelations to the Turks and Jews in order to show them the will of God . He traveled to Vienna via Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig and Prague , secretly crossed the Danube and the Waag and in September 1664 arrived in the Turkish army camp in Neuhäusl ; on his arrival, just after the Turkish War of 1663/1664, a peace was made between the imperial and the Turks.

He received an audience with the Grand Vizier Köprülü Fâzıl Ahmed Pascha and tried to convert him to Christianity until he asked him whether he wanted to become a Turk. When he replied that it was impossible, but that he was convinced that the Turks wanted to become Christians, he was released from the audience and found quarters in the interpreter's tent .

Three days later he was again led to the Grand Vizier and had to explain the revelations to him, who then talked to him for several hours. Redinger asked the Grand Vizier to be allowed to accompany him to Constantinople and was then taken to the Transylvanian ambassador Ladislaus Balo, under whose protection he was for the following six weeks.

After the peace agreement on August 10, 1664, he traveled with the Turkish army to Mohacs and tried to learn the Turkish language from the soldiers. On arrival in Mohacs, Balo warned him that the Grand Vizier intended to have him secretly executed in Greek Weißenburg , whereupon Redinger fled.

Continuation of the journeys for the distribution of writings

He traveled to Schäsburg with a Transylvanian nobleman and visited the Transylvanian Prince Michael I. Apafi , to whom he also presented the revelations. The prince then gave him a horse and issued him a passport letter.

He traveled across Zathmar and Eperies after Lednitz and stayed there for two days at the Prophet Mikuláš Drabik on. Before he left, Drabík wrote him a "warning letter" in Latin, dated December 14, 1664, addressed to the Protestant electoral and imperial princes, estates and cities; the letter was translated into German by Redinger. During the onward journey he copied the letter and sent it to the Duke of Silesia , Johann II Casimir , Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony and Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg as well as to Stuttgart , Nuremberg , Ulm , Regensburg, Bern, Basel and Schaffhausen. He later brought a copy to the mayor of Zurich. At the same time he also distributed a register of the Epiphany and a special application from Hungary directed against the House of Austria , which presumably also came from Drabík. In Saxony he was heard by various councils, in Brandenburg by the elector personally and in Kassel also by councils.

On January 16, 1665 he returned to his family in Frankenthal and was immediately taken into custody for more than three weeks in the school house until he was expelled again.

He first went to Strasbourg and stayed there for five weeks, but tried in vain for a job. After he was also expelled from Strasbourg, he found protection with Duke Friedrich Ludwig in Meisenheim , who wanted to employ him as rector or teacher at the next opportunity, but this opportunity did not arise. During this time, Redinger maintained a lively correspondence with his wife and children, who made him violently accused of his behavior.

With no prospect of a job, he moved on to the Elector Karl I. Ludwig in Mannheim ; There he was arrested immediately after his arrival and placed in the cane house with an ankle band . In the meantime his wife had sold the entire property in Frankenthal and moved to Zurich with the children.

Stay in Switzerland

After Redinger's release from prison, he moved to Switzerland and was arrested there after his arrival in Zurich. Shortly thereafter, he was tried for leaving his family and no longer providing for their support. His justification that his actions corresponded to the divine will and that his thoughts and actions were only aimed at the well-being of humanity led to the fact that he was considered to be a fanatic and half-crazy person who actually belong in a hospital, but Redinger refused from.

After Redinger was released from prison after his defense, he was not allowed to return to his family and lived with the surgeon Heinrich Gessner. Because the council of the city of Zurich did not comply with his request to force his wife to move back in with him, he decided to move back to Holland. Shortly before, he wrote to his brother Bernhard in Neftenbach that he, together with Colonel Lochmann, Councilor David Holzhalb and the surgeon Heinrich Gessner, should ensure that the four oldest children are trained as craftsmen, and that all correspondence should be sent to the address by his brother by Anton Pestalozzi in Amsterdam.

On August 24, 1665, the mayor and the city council issued him a passport so that he could travel to Holland; he also received a letter of recommendation from the Antistes Johann Jakob Ulrich (1602–1668).

Stay in Amsterdam in 1665

Redinger set out on his voyage on August 27, 1665 with a ship and went down the Rhine. After his arrival in Amsterdam he visited Comenius, the evangelical pastor and collaborator of Comenius, Johannes Rulicius (1602–1666) and the merchant Lorenz de Geer and told them about his plan to join the navy; however, they then reported that it was already too late for this. They recommended that if he wanted to serve the Netherlands, he should recruit a few thousand confederates to go against the Bishop of Munster , Christoph Bernhard von Galen . To this end, he traveled to Grafenhag and sent a letter to the gentlemen of the States General , in which he stated that he was inclined, out of love for the true Reformed religion ... to render the gentlemen a pleasant service by recruiting a few thousand men from the reformed Swiss cantons ... and to offer his services ; for this he also enclosed the letter of recommendation from the Antistes.

He handed over to the representative of the province of Gelderland , Mr. von Brackel, a description of a Swiss regiment with monthly provision, 2000 men under 12 flags , with the specification of the corresponding personnel costs. For the representatives of the States General, however, the amounts requested were too high. On October 12, 1665, his request was rejected with a gift of money of 150 guilders.

After the failure of the negotiations, he stayed with Comenius in Amsterdam and received translation assignments from Comenius and Lorenz de Geer. These translations also included the publication of the syllogism orbis terrarum practicus , a prophetic pamphlet against the papacy and the House of Austria. Comenius had given him the Latin script to check and he was supposed to translate it into German for Lorenz de Geer. At the beginning of 1666, Comenius also completed his revelation Lux e Tenebris ("Light from Darkness"), which was to be presented to the French king as the first reader.

Travel to France and stay in Switzerland from 1666

Redinger was commissioned to deliver the message because he had already traveled there two years earlier with an extract from the revelations. On March 9, 1666, he presented the syllogism to the Archbishop in Paris and on March 16, 1666, Count Comingis received the chiliastic font Lux e Tenebris , who passed it on to the king. Shortly afterwards he traveled to Baden in Aargau via Mömpelgard and Basel; his wife and mother-in-law, who lived in the inn, refused to see him, but he stayed at the same inn for five weeks.

After Comenius had campaigned for Redinger at the Antistes in Zurich, he arrived there at the end of June 1666. Because he wanted to have the syllogism printed, on July 4, 1666, he had to answer to the ordained persons of both estates , the secular and the spiritual, in the canons' room at the Grossmünster for his behavior. In mid-July he again had to answer questions in the canons' room and in front of the canons and three councilors. He was again accused of his commitment to the revelations, accused of being unfaithful to his wife and violation of fatherly duties, but his request to want to live with his family again was not granted; he was further accused of betraying the Christians to the Turks and of causing an uproar among the electoral and imperial princes, estates and cities. Because of him, the Protestant population in France was persecuted more and he led an unsound lifestyle. This prompted the council to detain him for three weeks in prison. Through this measure Redinger was moved to renounce the revelations, but he regretted it all his life. He sent the revocation of the revelations to his wife, and this came to the authorities through her brother's mediation.

Shortly afterwards, he wanted to use force to gain access to his wife by pushing in her room door in the inn. He then wrote a letter to the authorities in which he attacked the Antistes and his brother-in-law, who would persecute him. In response to this letter, the council recognized that the Redinger couple had been divorced at bed and table for over a year on November 3, 1666, after which he should leave the country. For this he will be dressed and receive some "allowance". For his journey he made demands for letters of recommendation and the publication of the book of Revelation. The canons now insisted that he be admitted to a hospital. The letter of indictment he wrote against his «persecutors» led to him being taken to the hospital by the town hall at Christmas 1666.

When he was released from the hospital after the New Year of 1667, he was determined to seek death in Catholic Lucerne because they had acted particularly bitterly against his writings. In Lucerne he wrote a letter to the mayor and the city council of Lucerne, which he then gave his innkeeper to read. The landlord then stopped him for two days and advised him against his plan if he could not hand over the books to the mayor at the same time.

Redinger decided to get the books from Zurich himself. On the way there he met the woman from Knonau ; The latter informed him that he had the order from the governor to take him prisoner and bring him to the town hall in Zurich. The capture was to take place because Redinger had threatened in Rifferswil to call on the Lords of Lucerne to invade the Zurich area in an enemy manner and to scorch and burn .

After an interrogation in Zurich, it was decided that he would be transferred to the Wellenberg prison in the Limmat . The council, which in the meantime had consulted again, finally found that Redinger was a Weigelian and Anabaptist and on January 30, 1667 ordered his transfer to the Anabaptist room in Oetenbach .

On August 1, 1667, Redinger had to appear before the marriage court and announced improvement there; he wants to deal with language research in the future. The marriage court adjourned and wanted to refer the matter to the council again.

Because he was ill from the prison conditions, a five-week cure was prescribed in Baden . On the way to the ship that was supposed to take him there, he learned that a package had been kept for him at Pestalozzi in Zurich; He had this sent to him in Baden. The package contained three copies of Lux e Tenebris , which Comenius had sent to the Antistes in Zurich, who then sent them back to Redinger via Pestalozzi. He sent one of these copies to the mayor Tachselhofer and one to the city council of Bern. He now began again, despite warnings, to speak of the revelations .

At the beginning of October 1667 he returned to Zurich and on October 5, 1667 the marriage court ruled that the marriage was divorced and Redinger had to be admitted to the hospital; he stayed there for the next twenty years; but was given freedom at short notice in the summer of 1680. After he immediately started speaking about the revelations again during this period, he was again admitted to the hospital and stayed there until the end of his life. During his stay in the hospital, among other things, he maintained a lively correspondence with the Zurich merchant Heinrich Römer (1628–1697) in Frankfurt am Main, who also supported him financially in the printing of his writings.

Fonts (selection)

• Latinish Runs of the Tütshen Sprachkwäl, or: Latinish Tütshes wortbüchlin: In which through a lichten griff, with several hundred bispilen it is shown how the Latinish language flowed out of the Tütshen. Suter, Schaffhausen 1656.
• Jan Amos Komenský; Johann Jakob Redinger: Comeniana grammatica primae classi Franckenthalensis Latinae scholae destinata ut et harmonica nomenclatura Germanice versa et collecta a Iacobo Redingero. Komenische Sprach-Lehr, the first heap of the Franckenthalischen Latin school, as well as the word book of the same meaning Germanized and collected by Jakob Redinger. Lasche, Hanover 1659.
• Johann Amos Comenius; Johann Jakob Redinger: The Johan Amos Komenius play school or living arts circle . Goetze, Frankfurt 1659.
• Johann Amos Comenius; Johann Jakob Redinger; Thomas Matthias Götze; Nikolaus Kuchenbecker: Johannis Amosi Comenii Prima Pars Scholasticae Eruditionis, dicta, Vestibulum Continens Fundamenta Rerum, Et Sapientiae nostrae circa Res, ut & Vocabula primitiva Latinae Linguae: adornatum Iuxta leges novissimae Methodi. Kuchenbecker, Frankfurt 1662.
• Johann Amos Comenius; Jakob Redinger; Joannes Seidelius; Philipp von Zesen : JA Comenii Portael der Saecken en Spraecken. Vestibulum Rerum et Linguarum. The front door of things and languages. Amsterdam 1673.
• Heavenly newspapers, of the happy outcome of current heavy wars . Zurich, 1678.
• Johann Jakob Redinger; Johann Alexander Boener ; Leonhard Loschge; Christoph Gerhard: Front gate of the school instruction. Noribergae: Loschge 1678.
• Jan Janszoon Struys; Jakob Redinger: Unfortunate Ship People or Strange Journey Twenty Dutchmen, who built a large ship in Moscow under the orders of the Christian Reussian Keizer. Müller, Zurich 1679.
• Constant blueprints in the true Christian faith, or, credible report from Johann Ruedolf ​​Stadlers, watchmaker from Zurich, steadfast Tood in the Persian main town of Ispahan. Zurich 1680.

literature

• Leonard Meister: Helvetic scenes of the modern enthusiasm and intolerance . Zurich 1785. pp. 81-105.
• Jakob Baechtold:  Redinger, Johann Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, p. 534.
• Friedrich Zollinger: Johann Jakob Redinger (1619–1688) - formerly Rector of the Latin School in Frankenthal. Frankenthal 1903.
• Johann Jakob Redinger. In: Friedrich Zollinger: Johann Jakob Redinger and his relationships with Johann Amos Comenius. A historical-educational sketch from the 17th century. Zurich 1905.
• Basil Schader: Johann Jakob Redinger (1619–1688): Linguist and pedagogue in the wake of Comenius. Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1985.
• Johann Jakob Redinger. In: Sundar Henny: Vom body written: The microcosm of Zurich and its self-testimonies in the 17th century. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2016.
• Rosmarie Zeller: The Turks as better Christians. Johann Jakob Redinger and his efforts to convert the Turks. 2018.

Web links

• Rosmarie Zeller: Johann Jakob Redinger. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ^ German biography: Stucki, Johann Rudolf - German biography. Retrieved April 17, 2020 . 
2. ^ The pastors from 1520 to today. Retrieved April 25, 2020 . 
3. ^ Archive guide Canton Zurich / District Dietikon / Municipality Urdorf. Retrieved April 25, 2020 . 
4. ^ Robert Müller: Dietikon in the 17th century. In: Neujahrsblatt von Dietikon 1990, 43rd volume. 1990, accessed April 16, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Splice, Stephan. Retrieved April 21, 2020 . 
6. ^ Family tree of Johann Anton Pestalozzi. Retrieved April 21, 2020 (English). 
7. ^ Rahn, Hans Heinrich. Retrieved April 21, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Ulrich, Johann Jakob. Retrieved April 23, 2020 . 
9. ^ Comenius, Johann Amos, 1592-1670: Lux e tenebris, novis radiis aucta (1665) - Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Retrieved April 23, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Römer, Heinrich. Retrieved April 24, 2020 . 
11. ↑ Udo Sträter: Pietism and Modern Times Volume 42 - 2016: A yearbook on the history of modern Protestantism . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, ISBN 978-3-647-55914-8 ( google.de [accessed April 24, 2020]).