Johannes Colerus

Johannes Colerus at the age of forty, engraving by Jan Jacobsz. Wielant after a painting by Johann Friedrich Bodecker

Johannes Nicolaus Colerus (actually Köhler; born January 5, 1647 in Düsseldorf , † July 19, 1707 in The Hague ) was a German Protestant theologian and one of the early biographers of the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza .

Life

Johannes (Nicolaus) Köhler, who called himself Colerus in Latin , was born as the son of the knitter Johannes Nicolaus Köhler and his wife Maria, née Laufsatz. After attending school in Solingen and Dortmund , he moved to the University of Gießen in 1665 , the high school in Worms in 1668 and finally the University of Strasbourg a year later . After completing his studies, he began his church career in 1671 as a pastor in Mülheim an der Ruhr , where he also held the office of court preacher to Count von Daun-Falkenstein . In the same year he married Margaretha Alberti, with whom he had two daughters. 1678 he was in the Netherlands called, where he was the passage of time working as a high German preacher different Lutheran churches, first in Weesp and from 1679 in Amsterdam , where he was involved in ecclesiastical disputes in which he is in terms of Lutheran orthodoxy committed . The same happened to him in The Hague, where he was called in 1693. There he died and was buried in the church in Rijswijk .

plant

In addition to several sermons, Colerus published a biography of Spinoza, which was largely based on testimonies from contemporaries who had known the philosopher personally. It first appeared in Dutch in 1705 as an appendix to a sermon on the resurrection of Jesus Christ held the previous year and subsequently in numerous translations, including 1733 and 1734 in German. Among the other early Spinoza biographies, it stands out due to its balanced and factual presentation, which has left a lasting mark on the image of the philosopher, especially during the so-called Spinoza Renaissance of the 18th century.

Works

• Life of Bened. von Spinoza, from which writings of this vested worldly wisdom and from the testimony of many credible persons who knew him particularly well, drawn and described by Johann Colero, former preacher of the Evangelical Community in Haag; Nunmehro, however, translated from French into High German, and increased with various comments [by Johann Faccius ]. Frankfurt, Leipzig 1733 ( digitized version ). Reprint under the title: The life of Benedict von Spinoza. In the old German translation with introduction and notes ed. by Carl Gebhardt . Weissbach, Heidelberg 1952.
• Iohannis Coleri, former Lutheran preacher in the Hague, Truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Defended against B. de Spinoza and his followers: In addition to a precise description of the life of this notorious philosophy, which one does not want so much from his own writings, but rather from many credible people orally Story, ... put on; Translated from the Dutch original and the French translation, provided with necessary annotations and registers by Wigand Kahler The holy scripture Licentiate, as well as the same, Mathematic and Poetry Professore zu Rinteln. Meyer, Lemgo 1734 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Johannes Ernst Bernard Blase: Johannes Colerus en de groote twisten in de Nederlandsche Luthersche kerk zijner dagen . Ten Brink & De Vries, Amsterdam 1920 (=  Nieuwe bijdragen tot kennis van de geschiedenis en het wezen van het Lutheranisme in de Nederlanden , 8) ( digitized version ).
• Hubertus G. Hubbeling: Johannes Colerus, defender of Christian truth and honest fighter of Spinoza . In: Düsseldorf in the German intellectual history (1750–1850) . Edited by Gerhard Kurz . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-590-30244-5 , pp. 67-77.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See bladder: Johannes Colerus .
2. ↑ Cf. Michael Czelinski-Uesbeck: The virtuous atheist. Studies on the prehistory of the Spinoza Renaissance. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8260-3536-4 .