Johann Nicolaus Schrage

Johann Nicolaus Schrage (born November 15, 1753 in Hildesheim , † March 2, 1795 in Stolzenau ) was a German Protestant theologian. After a few years as a pastor in Hollenstedt, he took on a teaching position in Göttingen in 1790 and finally became superintendent in Stolzenau in 1792.

Life

Schrage was born the son of a cooper and butcher. He lost his parents at an early age and was raised by his stepfather. His maternal grandfather provided financial support to help him develop spiritually. From the age of 14 to 21 he attended high school in his hometown and earned an extra income as a tutor for several families. In 1773 he moved to the University of Göttingen to study theology. He limited his training to the pragmatic core necessary for preaching, instead of striving for comprehensive education. In 1776 he became a private tutor in Hanover for the "pretty" family Hinüber , where he was also assigned the training of the four daughters of the future Duke Karl II of Mecklenburg . Several attempts to take over pastoral positions in Hildesheim failed, although he constantly trained his rhetorical talent. One obituary emphasized that his sermons were of "exemplary popularity", while another took offense at the "too lively gesticulation" and "the zeal that often emerged in the wrong place".

In 1782 he passed his theological exam in Hanover in order to take over the vacant position at the garden church from Wilhelm Johann Julius Hoppenstedt . That also failed, but Schrage married Hoppenstedt's second daughter, "such an extremely gentle soul, with the degree of education and domesticity that ... knew how to bear his peculiarities, to treat his natural, quick-tempered vehemence with such gentle indulgence and to disarm". In 1784 Schrage was finally given the parish in Hollenstedt near Uelzen. Together with his wife, he took in young orphan girls here to care for; his son Carl died here as a child. In 1790, after a well-received guest sermon at the Hanoverian market church, a call as extraordinary professor of theology at the University of Göttingen followed, with which the second pastorate at the university church was connected. However, he looked quite unlucky there. Therefore, in 1792 he accepted the position of superintendent in Stolzenau, where he participated in improving the school system, but died in 1795 of pneumonia. His widow and six children survived him.

Works

• Preaching as he changed his office. Dieterich, Göttingen 1790 (digitized version of the SUB Göttingen, 2012).
• Prog. In quo commendantur doctrinae de sublimiori Christi natura ad excitanda pietatis studia vis et usus. Pars prior. Goettingen 1790.

literature

• Friedrich Schlichtegroll : Joh. Nicol. Slope. In: ders .: Nekrolog for the year 1795. Part 2, Justus Perthes, Gotha 1798, pp. 267–289.
• Johann Georg Meusel : Schrage (Johann Nikolaus). In: ders .: Lexicon of the German writers who died between 1750 and 1800. Gerhard Fleischer d. J., Leipzig 1815, p. 426 f.
• Heinrich Doering : Johann Nicolaus Schrage. In: ders .: The learned theologians of Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Wagner, Neustadt an der Orla 1835, Vol. 4: Schr – Z , pp. 1–4.

Web links

• Schrage's portrait in the digital portrait index

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schlichtegroll, p. 272 .
2. ↑ Doering, p. 3 .
3. ↑ Schlichtegroll, p. 283 .
4. ↑ Johann Nicolaus Schrage: Speech before the confirmation of my foster daughters about 2 Chron. 15.2 given on the second Christmas day 1789. In: ders .: Sermons ... , pp. 27-40.
5. ^ Johann Nicolaus Schrage: Holdenstadt farewell sermon held on New Year's Day 1790 on the ordinary epistle. In: ders .: Sermons ... pp. 41–68, here p. 65.
6. ↑ Johann Nicolaus Schrage: God is unduly great in his government. A guest sermon on the regular epistle on Trinity Monday Röm XI, 33–36 held in the Marktkirche in Hanover 1789. In: ders .: Sermons… , pp. 1–26.