Johann Kaspar Ruef

Johann Kaspar Ruef

Johann Kaspar Ruef (born January 6, 1748 in Ehingen (Danube) , † January 25, 1825 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a lawyer and librarian. He taught as a professor in Freiburg.

education

After an excellent graduation from the Ehinger Lyzeum, Ruef studied theology in Freiburg from the winter semester of 1764 onwards. Already at the age of 19 he acquired his baccalaureus , but was still too young for the priestly ordinations, so that he turned to jurisprudence. With the repeal of the Jesuit order in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV , the spirit of the Enlightenment also wafted through the Habsburg territories. When the young Ruef became interested in a teaching position, the Austrian government sent him to Vienna so that he could familiarize himself with the new Josephine curriculum for grammar schools. He studied Greek in Vienna, then obtained the academic title of Magister art in Freiburg . liberal. et phil. and on December 14, 1776 became a teacher of poetics and from 1778 also of Greek at the academic high school.

Professional background

Ruef received his doctorate in law in 1785 and was from 1786 librarian at the university library . He took care of their reorganization and cataloging, which he completed on August 26, 1788. After the Benedictines had taken over the academic high school in 1792, Ruef lost his teaching position, but the university appointed him professor for Roman civil law on August 22, 1797, combined with a council position at the court of appeal . With the transition of Freiburg to Baden in 1807 Ruef lost this office, but retained his professorship with the title of Hofrat . From 1810 to 1812 Ruef was the university's prorector and from 1812 to 1813 the speaker of the Freiburg Freemason's lodge Zur noble Aussicht . He was also a member of the Illuminati Order . After the death of the canon lawyer Josef Anton Sauter , Ruef was additionally given his chair in 1818, combined with his appointment as a Privy Councilor.

Literary activity

Ruef's literary activity from 1782 to 1793 was shaped by his Josephinism , in which he advocated full freedom of conscience, Christian tolerance, the eradication of superstition and the improvement of the church system in all matters. He apologized to his teachers: I have to say that the honest men of the Society of Jesus are all innocent of my heresies . From 1782 to 1787 he edited the magazine Der Freymüthige together with Sauter and the theologian Matthias Dannenmayer . The aim of this philosophically liberal publication was to spread misunderstood truths, to dispute harmful prejudices, superstitious follies, and abuses; To make philanthropy and tolerance more general, to contribute in general to the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of the heart . Even Georg Christoph Lichtenberg judged in distant Göttingen : According to current times, the Freymuthige alone is worth a university . Most of the articles in the magazine, which also reported the imperial ordinances in church matters, came from the pen of Ruef and were initially so popular at court that Joseph ordered that the professors concerned be given the utmost satisfaction . In 1787 at the latest, however, the frank tone of the bold turned the authorities so bad that Ruef discontinued the magazine and, as a continuation of his enlightenment efforts, published the purely theologically oriented Freiburg contributions to promote the oldest Christianity and the newest philosophy from 1788 . Ruef specified the objective of his new work: saving the right to one's own investigation, defending biblical Christianity and denying unbelief as well as superstition, belief in charcoal and enthusiasm, awakening the true Christian spirit of tolerance and unity among Christians .

As a result of the revolutionary events in France and with the death of Joseph II , the ecclesiastical political trend in Vienna under his successor Leopold II took a reactionary direction. On March 15, 1793, a court decree was issued to the front Austrian government to forbid Prof. R. Freiburg's contributions in general, not to allow the further sale of the entire work, and therefore R. not only continued to continue it, but also to publish it similar works and writings, while avoiding the severest punishment . The District President of Upper Austria, Joseph Thaddäus von Sumerau , averse to any radical development, hurried to immediately remove the harmful principles from circulation. This made it impossible for Ruef to be literary until the Breisgau passed to Baden, but he remained true to his liberal ideas in the church field. It goes with Ruef's attitude that in 1807 he was one of the founding members of the Freiburg Reading Society , which had set itself the goal of marrying the Catholic South with the Protestant North in the enlarged Baden , as the poet Johann Georg Jacobi put it.

literature

• Fritz Baumgarten: Freiburg im Breisgau. In: The German universities. Volume I . Publishing house Dr. Wedekind, Berlin 1907
• W. Behaghel: Johann Caspar Adam Ruef. In: Baden biographies . Second part . Bassermann, Heidelberg 1875, p. 227 f. ( Digitized version )
• Johann Friedrich von Schulte:  Ruef, Johann Kaspar Adam . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 587 f.
• [Ernst Zimmermann (?)]: Review of Amann's From Efforts at the University of Freiburg in Canon Law. In: Theological literature sheet for the general church newspaper . Printed and published by Karl Wilhelm Leske, No. 19 and 20, 1837, col. 145–157 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of the Rector's speeches
2. ^ Register of members of the lodge
3. ↑ List of members of the Illuminati Order
4. ↑ in Zimmermann, Col. 149
5. ↑ in Baumgarten, page 82
6. ↑ in Baumgarten, page 82
7. ↑ in Schulte
8. ↑ in Zimmermann, column 150
9. ↑ in Schulte
10. ↑ Meinrad Schaab , Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History . Volume 1: General History. Part 2: From the late Middle Ages to the end of the old empire. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-91948-1 , p. 768.