Joseph Theodor Müller

Joseph Theodor Müller (1907)

Joseph Theodor Müller (* 14. May 1854 in Niesky , † 6. August 1946 in Ebersdorf / Thuringia ) was a theologian of the Moravian Church , archivist in Unitätsarchiv in Herrnhut and church historian.

Life

Müller grew up in Niesky, where his father, Franz Heinrich Müller (1815-1894), was the director of the education department of the Brothers Unity. He attended this educational establishment from 1867 to 1873, then studied theology at the Theological Seminary of the Brethren University in Gnadenfeld / Upper Silesia.

After a job as a teacher at the boys' institution in Neuwied (1876-1879) and then at Pädagogium in Niesky (1879-1883), Müller held in the years 1883 and 1884 in Prague on to where the Czech language and the history of Bohemia to study . The reason for this was the resolution of the General Synod of the Brethren Unity in 1879, according to which a suitable theologian should be found who, after an appropriate training, should deal with the research of the history of the roots of the Brothers Union, i.e. the Bohemian Brothers . Müller's stay in Prague determined the direction of his further academic career.

After his ordination in 1884 and a job in Herrnhut, he was released from the parish service for further scientific research in 1886 and began translating the thirteen- volume Acta Unitatis Fratrum (Lissa Folianten) into German. In 1888 he married Anna Theodore Geller (1865–1940).

In 1894 he was appointed to a lectureship at the Theological Seminary of the Brethren. There he taught church history , especially the history of the Brethren Unity and practical theology .

As early as 1899, Müller returned to the pastor's service and worked as an assistant to the preacher in the congregation of the Moravian Brethren in Ebersdorf / Thuringia, where he also devoted himself intensively to historical research and completed the translation work on the Acta Unitatis Fratrum .

In 1904 Müller was awarded an honorary doctorate from the theological faculty of the University of Tübingen .

In 1905 he was appointed first archivist at the Unitätsarchiv in Herrnhut and held this position until he retired in 1922. In connection with this work he published the Zeitschrift für Brüdergeschichte from 1907 to 1920 , in which he published numerous essays and sources.

In his retirement, Müller made numerous trips to look for sources for his research in the libraries of Northern and Eastern Europe. Numerous honors followed: in 1923 honorary membership in the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences (member since 1905), in 1932 appointment as a foreign member of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences , in 1934 an honorary doctorate from the Evangelical Theological Hus Faculty in Prague.

After he had lost his eyesight at the age of 90 to such an extent that he could no longer write and read himself and thus no longer pursue his numerous scientific work, in February 1945 he was together with the hospital and the old people's home in which he had lived since 1939, evacuated from Niesky in a four-day train journey to Ebersdorf / Thuringia. Joseph Theodor Müller died there on August 6, 1946 and was buried in the churchyard of the Brethren.

Works

The written, academic legacy is in the Unitätsarchiv in Herrnhut (signature: NMJT), among the numerous excerpts, copies and translations, most of which are preparatory work for the three-volume history of the Bohemian Brothers , there is also the translation of the Acta Unitatis Fratrum (7 volumes of the manuscript / Typescript).

Publications

• The German Catechisms of the Bohemian Brothers. Critical text edition with church and dogma historical studies and a treatise on the school system of the Bohemian brothers , Berlin 1887.
• The Bishopric of the Brethren Unity. A historical investigation , Herrnhut 1889.
• Zinzendorf as a renovator of the old Brethren Church , Leipzig 1900.
• Origin and development of the fraternal church litany. In: Monthly for worship and church art. 5, 1902, pp. 152-158.
• The Brethren Singing Lesson. In: Monthly for worship and church art. 6, 1903, pp. 197-202; 7, 1903, pp. 230-232.
• Hymnological manual for the hymn book of the Brethren , Herrnhut / Gnadau 1916.
• History of the Bohemian Brothers . Volume I: 1400–1528 , Herrnhut 1922, Volume II: 1528–1576 , Herrnhut 1931, III. Volume: The Polish University 1548–1793. The Bohemian-Moravian University 1575–1781 , Herrnhut 1931.