Caspar Aquila

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Caspar Aquila (1488–1560)
illustration from the 19th century

Caspar Aquila (also Kaspar Aquila : Latin Adler, actually Johann Kaspar Adler ; * August 7, 1488 in Augsburg , † November 12, 1560 in Saalfeld / Saale ) was a Lutheran theologian of the Reformation .

Live and act

Aquila was born in Augsburg as the son of Syndikus Leonard Adler. After attending school in his hometown and the Latin school in Ulm , he began studying in Leipzig . In 1513 he moved to the University of Wittenberg . In Wittenberg he was on March 3, 1513 Baccalaureus at the Philosophical Faculty. After studying theology, he worked for the imperial knight Franz von Sickingen as a field preacher and in 1516 took over a pastor's position in Jengen . There he became familiar with the writings of Luther, married and preached in the Lutheran sense, which introduced the Reformation. This in turn aroused the displeasure of his bishop Christoph von Stadion in Augsburg, who had him imprisoned in Dillingen in 1520.

After half a year he was released and went to Wittenberg . When he had acquired the academic degree of master's degree in 1521 , Sickingen engaged him again to take over the education of his sons on the Ebernburg . After the castle was taken by the troops of the Archbishop of Trier, Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads , on June 6, 1523 and the death of his employer, Aquila went back to Wittenberg. There he preached in the castle church , gave lessons in the Hebrew language and helped Martin Luther translate the Old Testament of the Luther Bible .

In 1527 he took over the parish office in Saalfeld on Luther's recommendation and was appointed superintendent there a year later . Its effectiveness in the field of schools and poor relief is remarkable. In 1530 he was also at the Augsburg Reichstag when the fundamental confession of the Protestant estates, the Confessio Augustana , took place. Although he maintained a lively correspondence with Philipp Melanchthon , he internally represented the position of Johann Agricola in the antinomist dispute . For he regarded the ten commandments as a guide to the knowledge of God's will and its observance as proof of faith.

When, after the defeat in the Battle of Mühlberg, the Wittenberg surrender was signed on May 19, 1547 and the Schmalkaldic War ended to the detriment of his elector Johann Friedrich I , he sent him a consolation.

This also explains why he became a staunch opponent of the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Articles . When his companion Johann Agricola tried to win him over to this, he wrote a sharp text against the mocking liar and outrageous slanderer M. Islebium Agricolam against this attempt.

The emperor Charles V was angry about such resistance, so that he put 5000 guilders on Aquila's head . Fearing for his life, he found refuge with Katharina Countess von Schwarzburg . In the county of Henneberg he found shelter as dean in Schmalkalden and later went to Untermaßfeld . He refused an appointment to Prussia because, as a Gnesiolutheran, he was an opponent of Andreas Osiander and Georg Major .

After the conclusion of the Passau Treaty of 1552, Aquila returned to Saalfeld and held back more on theological questions of faith. Although he was still appointed to the Weimar consortium, he died quietly at the long-standing place of activity in Saalfeld in 1560.

Friedrich Schiller writes about him in his text “Duke Alba having breakfast at the castle in Rudolstadt in 1547”: “Among these [Protestant preachers] was a certain Caspar Aquila, pastor of Saalfeld, who was part of the emperor's army in his younger years when Feldprediger had followed to the Netherlands, and because he had refused to baptize a cannonball there, was loaded into a fire mortar by the exuberant soldiers to be shot into the air; a fate that he happily escaped because the powder didn't want to ignite. "

Works

Against the derisive liar and outrageous slanderer M. Isleblum Agricolam
  • Christian Declaration of the Little Catechism. 1538
  • A very and much needed compassion, to the little stupid, despondent little Christian, whom they are to confess in this terrible and last part of time, God's eternal word, preached against the devil's darkness, lies and murder - printed at Magdeburgk by Michel Lotther , 1548
  • Against the derisive liar and outrageous slanderer M. Isleblum Agricolam . Apologia, 1548
  • Christian concerns on the interim , 1548
  • Short, but for our salvation most necessary questions of the whole Christian. Teaching. 1547
  • Instruction for the young priests (hs .; Ausz. In: ARG 22, 1925, 10 ff.)
  • Two letters to the city council of Augsburg (in: Friedrich Roth, Augsburger Reformationsgeschichte I, 1901, 152 ff.).

literature

Web links

Commons : Caspar Aquila  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Aquila, Caspar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aquilae, Caspari; Adler, Johann Kaspar (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1488
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1560
Place of death Saalfeld / Saale