Johann Melchior Goeze

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Engraving by Christian Fritzsch (1796)

Johann Melchior Goeze (known as Zionswächter; * October 16, 1717 in Halberstadt ; †  May 19, 1786 in Hamburg ) was a Lutheran theologian who worked in Hamburg and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's main opponent in the fragments dispute .

Life

Goeze, son of a Protestant pastor, studied Protestant theology from 1734, initially in Jena . Two years later he moved to the University of Halle . There he was a student of Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten , then the most important representative of Lutheran orthodoxy in the transition to the Enlightenment. After completing his studies, Goeze became a preacher in Aschersleben in 1741 and became a deacon after just one year.

In 1750 Goeze was appointed pastor to Magdeburg , where he also began his work as a writer. In this way Goeze made a name for himself as a church journalist, whose loyalty to the Bible and Confession was considered incontestable. The appointment to the main pastor in 1755 at the Katharinenkirche in Hamburg was a direct result of Goeze's literary activities. From there he became one of the most important opponents of the Enlightenment , because Hamburg was considered a stronghold of Lutheranism at that time. Over the course of five years, Goeze developed into the spokesman for the Lutheran city clergy and in this role watched over pure teaching. On the one hand Goeze used his sermons to publicly disseminate his views, on the other hand he intensified his journalistic activities in the newspaper "Hamburgische Nachrichten aus dem Reich der Schehrsamkeit". Goeze also made a significant contribution to a programmatic change in this magazine. Soon it appeared only under the title "Voluntary contributions to the Hamburg news from the realm of erudition" and was called "black newspaper" by its opponents because of its emphatically anti-Enlightenment and ecclesiastically and politically orthodox Lutheran orientation.

Goeze as representatives of Lutheran orthodoxy was mainly through his with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing led coalition on the issued by such fragments of unnamed (parts of a paper by Hermann Samuel Reimarus ) known ( fragments dispute ). In the course of this dispute, which went down in history as the most famous religious dispute of the 18th century, Lessing wrote eleven replies against Goeze, among other things, which became known under the title Anti-Goeze (1778).

In his drama Nathan the Wise Lessing gave Goezes traits to the patriarch .

Goeze also turned against his colleague Julius Gustav Alberti (1723–1772) in Hamburg and against Karl Friedrich Bahrdt , Johann Bernhard Basedow , Anton Friedrich Büsching and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (because of Werther's suffering ) and in the second Hamburg theater dispute in 1769 against Johann Ludwig Schlosser and Johann Heinrich Vincent Nölting .

Goeze owned an extensive collection of Bibles that had been kept in the State Library of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. It was almost completely destroyed in 1943 during the British bombing raid on Hamburg, the so-called Operation Gomorrah . Johann Melchior Goeze also owned an extensive coin collection and an accompanying library, which he bequeathed to his son Gottlieb Friedrich Goeze. It was auctioned off a year after his death.

In 1746 he married Johanna Rosina Derling, the daughter of the mayor of Aschersleben . Of the five children, only the son Gottlieb Friedrich Goeze (1754–1791) survived.

Johann Melchior Goeze's brother was the pastor and naturalist Johann August Ephraim Goeze (1731–1793).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Melchior Goeze: Joann Melchior Goezens main pastor to St. Catharinen in Hamburg Directory of his collection of rare and strange Bibles in various languages: with critical and literary comments , Gebauer Verlag, Halle, 1777, ( online Bavarian State Library digital) and continuation of the directory of his Collection of rare and strange Bibles in various languages ​​with critical and literary comments , Verlag Johann Heinrich Kühnlin, Helmstedt, 1778.
  2. ^ Accompanying document to the exhibition Operation Gomorrah - the destruction of the Hamburg State Library in 1943 in the State and University Library Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, from July 9 to August 23, 2003, p. 23, ( PDF ).
  3. ↑ Directory of the considerable and excellent Goezeschen collection of ... coins, thalers, medals, cliffs, bracteates and impressions in tin, which are to be sold on November 19, 1792 and the following days ... Martin Paul Krüger .... Gottlieb Friedrich Schniebes, 1792, ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Johann Melchior Goeze  - collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Johann Ludwig Schlosser Chief Pastor to St. Katharinen in Hamburg
1755–1786 		Georg Heinrich Berkhan
personal data
SURNAME Goeze, Johann Melchior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1717
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1786
Place of death Hamburg