Martin of Nathusius

Martin Friedrich von Nathusius, around 1880

Martin Friedrich von Nathusius (born September 24, 1843 in Althaldensleben , † March 9, 1906 in Greifswald ) was a German university professor and conservative reform theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran creed.

Life

The second of eight children of the couple Philipp von Nathusius and Marie Nathusius geb. Scheele first grew up in the former monastery in Althaldensleben, which his father temporarily managed, and later in Neinstedt ; there, from 1849 onwards, the parents established what would later become the Neinstedt institutions . From 1856 Nathusius attended the grammar school in Quedlinburg . In 1862 he passed his Abitur and began studying theology in Heidelberg, which he continued in Halle (with the pietistic theologian August Tholuck , who was to have a formative influence on him). After his father's death in 1873, he was transferred from the Evangelical Parish of Wernigerode to Quedlinburg to the St. Benedict Church in the Evangelical Church in Prussia ( Misericordias Domini introduced as the second parish priest) in order to be able to better perform the post of head of the Nostedter Institutions that had been transferred to him can. He held this office until his death.

In 1879 he became the co-founder and editor of the General Conservative Monthly for Christian Germany , a successor to the Volksblatt für Land und Stadt, founded in 1844 for instruction and entertainment , which his father had already directed from 1849 to 1871 and which he then took over as editor . Instead of the weekly frequency in which the Volksblatt appeared, the Allgemeine Konservative MONTHLY was only published on a monthly basis. Like its predecessor during the Kulturkampf , the title often distanced itself from Bismarck 's politics, but - unlike the Kreuz-Zeitung headed by his brother Philipp von Nathusius-Ludom - it did not become a pure opposition newspaper . Martin von Nathusius regularly published his monthly church reports in the General Conservative Monthly . In 1882, alongside Nathusius, long-time employee Dietrich von Oertzen became co-editor.

General conservative monthly

In 1885 Nathusius was transferred to Barmen- Wupperfeld as pastor , in 1888 he was appointed professor of practical theology at the University of Greifswald , and in 1889 the University of Greifswald awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 1897 he was one of the founders of the Free Church-Social Conference . In 1898 he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, 4th class, as a " scientifically competent representative of practical theology ". In November 1904 he suffered a stroke from which he was not to recover until his death in 1906. His grave is in Neinstedt.

Advocate of socially conservative positions

Shaped by the Christian-social ideas ( inner mission ) of his parents and their very practical implementation, initially in Althaldensleben (founding a rescue facility for neglected children ) and later in Neinstedt (founding a boy rescue house and a brothers' house on the Lindenhof ), Nathusius represented one throughout his life very conservative and practice-oriented pastoral theology. He combined the strongly pietistic and awakening biblical piety that his mother Marie Nathusius showed in her numerous works with a critical present-day diagnosis of the demand for active action by the church in the social field. In this respect he was close to the Greifswald school of Otto Zöckler and the Swiss theologians Samuel Oettli (1846–1911) and Christoph Riggenbach (1810–1863). In the thirty years of his activity as head of the Neinstedter Anstalten he was able to implement many of his convictions in favor of the needy. As a conservative, however, Nathusius rejected socialist developments in state and church; he also persisted in a very conservative understanding of the role of women.

Nathusius' guiding Christian worldview was based on the belief that paradise could not be reached on earth, but only after death and resurrection. He saw the awakening of hope for a better position for those in need in earthly existence as a danger, since such hopes would have to be disappointed. He saw the practical support of the class in need as an obligation based on faith, but it must be combined with the proclamation of the hope for an afterlife. He saw a dilution of the early Christian doctrine up to the demand for “human-carnal well-meaning” as a great danger: “The theoretical standpoint, which opposes ours, was perhaps most clearly revealed at the end of Harnack's lecture in Frankfurt ( see also ESK below , note. d. author .), where the latter was removed from the early Christian trilogy of faith, love and hope and education was put in its place. The annihilation of Christianity could not be expressed more strikingly. "

Nathusius formulated his old-conservative worldview elsewhere as follows: “ ... first, that there is an order determined by God ... for the world, a divine world order that is disturbed in essential points - and second, that it is a divine act gives the redemption of Jesus Christ, which the divine world order is destined to restore. All disaster lies in the disruption of the divine order and the detachment from his will. All salvation consists in returning to the same . "

Evangelical Social Congress and Free Church Social Conference

Nathusius was a leading member of the Evangelical Social Congress (ESK) founded in 1890 . After there had been increasing struggles for direction between the social-conservative and a more progressive-liberal wing of the majority within the Congress since 1894, Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne gave a lecture (on the social situation of women) at the Erfurt annual meeting in 1895 the right wing under the leadership of Nathusius out of Congress. In the Conservative Monthly , Nathusius justified his withdrawal from the Congress, which had been supported for five years. He complained there that the representatives of Ritschl's theology (named after Albrecht Ritschl ) were unwilling to compromise and increasingly tried to determine the congress with their “modern theology” conception. The wish of the conservative wing not to admit women as speakers at the Frankfurt Congress (1894) was not only not taken into account by the Action Committee, which was enforced by Ritschlians, but was understood as a direct provocation by the handing over of the main speech at the following Erfurt Congress to a woman. In 1896, Nathusius' resignation was followed by Adolf Stoecker , another prominent co-founder of the ESK .

Together with Nathusius and other conservative reform theologians ( Ernst Böhme - as the first general secretary, Hermann Cremer , Ludwig Weber ), Stoecker founded the Free Church-Social Conference (FKSK) a year later (on April 24, 1897) in Kassel - as a countermovement to as zu liberally classified ESK . The FSFK was closely associated with the Christian Social Party and rejected socio-political cooperation with the Church Liberals. On the other hand, it wanted to include all who “consider the Church's collaboration to be essential in solving the social question ”.

Theologically, the FKSK orientated itself on the conservative-orthodox position of the Positive Union founded by Leopold Schultze and Rudolf Kögel , but clearly distinguished itself from the cautious opening up to social democratic positions in parts of Protestantism, especially represented by Friedrich Naumann . In contrast to the more theoretically oriented ESK , the FKSK pursued a more practice-oriented approach and wanted to counteract the declining influence of the church in the population with the so-called "re-Christianization". At the general assembly of the FKSK in April 1899, Stoecker prevailed over the main speaker Nathusius with his demand for women to participate in church social work.

family

Nathusius married Helene von Stosch in Wernigerode in 1872 , with whom he had three children: Marie Helene (1874–1915), Hannah (1875–1946) and Marie Helene Auguste (1878–1950). After the death of his first wife in 1881, he married Elisabeth von Wissmann (1854–1923), daughter of Gustav von Wissmann , a landowner from Western Pomerania in 1883 . The four other children Dorothee (1884–1947), Siegfried (1886–1916), Christian Albrecht (1889–1916) and Renate came from this marriage. Both sons died in the First World War. The daughter Dorothee was the wife of the theology professor Julius Kögel , son of the court preacher Kögel, who taught in Greifswald and Kiel .

The eldest brother of Martin von Nathusius was the aforementioned Philipp von Nathusius-Ludom (1842-1900), a publisher and politician, whose daughter was the writer Annemarie von Nathusius (1874-1926). Another brother was the historian and archivist Heinrich von Nathusius-Neinstedt .

The main work of Martin von Nathusius: The cooperation of the church in the solution of the social question. On the basis of a concise economics and a system of Christian social doctrine (social ethics) presented by Martin von Nathusius, D. theol. u. Professor at the University of Greifswald

Book cover of the work Christendom en Maatschappij-Leer (about: Christianity and Social Teaching ) by Martin von Nathusius, published around 1905 by GJA Ruys in Utrecht , with a preface by Jan Rudolph Slotemaker de Bruine (1869–1941), theologian and from 1626 to 1939 three times Dutch minister for labor and social affairs in the cabinets of Ruijs de Beerenbrouck and Colijn

Works

• Sermon for the Sedan celebration held at Quedlinburg in 1874 . Vieweg, Quedlinburg 1874
• Timothy. A guide for young theologians in pictures from life . JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1881
• Five sermons by Martin von Nathusius from Pentecost 1881. Our walk is in heaven . Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1881
• Sermon on the feast of the dead in 1882 held in the S. Benedicti Church . Vieweg, Quedlinburg 1882
• From 1st Advent to Quasimodo . Leipzig 1883
• Science and philosophy. To illuminate the latest materialistic rallies du Bois-Reymonds u. a ., Heilbronn 1883
• Catechism sermons according to the order of the church year . JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1884
• From the Sunday Misericordias Domini to the 27th Sunday after Trinity . Leipzig 1884
• Biblical sermons go on May 10, 1885 at the feast of the Wupperthaler Bible Society . DB Wiemann printing works, Barmen 1885
• The essence of science and its application to religion, empirical foundation for theological methodology . JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1885
• Science and Church in dispute over the theological faculties . Henninger, Heilbronn 1886
• The constitution of the Evangelical Church and the latest attempts to improve it in Prussia . Henninger, Heilbronn 1888
• A German poet 100 years ago, from the life of our grandmother and great-grandmother Philippine Engelhardt geb. Gatterer . Unequally, Leipzig 1890
• The cooperation of the church in the solution of the social question, on the basis of a brief economics and a system of Christian social doctrine (social ethics) . 2 volumes, JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1892 and 1894
• The key question in the struggle for the apostolic against the Ritschl school . Chr.Belser'sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart 1893
• The inspiration of St. Scripture and historical criticism . Chr.Belser'sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart 1895
• What is Christian Socialism? Guiding points of view for Protestant pastors and those who want to become one . Berlin 1896
• The Christian-social ideas of the Reformation and their origins . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1897
• The expansion of practical theology to systematic science, a contribution to the reform of theological studies . Hinrichs, Leipzig 1899
• Bible and women's movement, lecture and discussion, from the negotiations of the women's course of the free church-social conference in Berlin on April 13th to 15th, 1899 . Verlag der Buchhandlung der Berliner Stadtmission, Berlin 1899
• The immorality from Louis XIV to the present . Stuttgart 1899
• Fifty years of inner mission, commemorative publication to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the boy rescue and brothers house on the Lindenhof in Neinstedt am Harz . Lindenhof publishing house, 1900
• On the characteristics of the circumcellions of the 4th and 5th centuries in Africa. In: Scientific supplement to the course catalog of the University of Greifswald for the winter semester 1900/1901. ( Digitized in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Digital Library)
• Christian love and social help. Lecture given at the 7th General Assembly of the Free Church and Social Conference in Düsseldorf on April 30, 1902, with discussion and press votes . Verlag der Berliner Stadtmission, Berlin 1902
• About scientific and religious certainty . Chr.Belser'sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart 1902
• Handbook of ecclesiastical teaching according to aim, content and form . Leipzig 1903
• About the importance of Christian knowledge . Wuppertal Tract Society, Barmen 1903
• Christian teaching according to Luther's Small Catechism . JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1904
• The pedagogical-didactic procedure . JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1904
• The Christian-social ideas of the Reformation and their origin . Gütersloh 1907

Translations

• Pyhan raamatun inspiratsiooni ja historiallinen kritiikki . WSOY, Porvoo, 1907 (Finnish)
• Christendom en Maatschappij-Leer , after het hoogduitsch van † Dr. M. von Nathusius door HC Ruys, GJ A Ruys, Utrecht, undated (Dutch)

literature

• Gustav Adolf Benrath: The revival within the German regional churches . In: History of Pietism . Volume 3: 19th and 20th centuries . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, ISBN 352555348X , pp. 184-185
• Stephanie Braukmann: The “Jewish Question” in the Socialist Women's Movement 1890–1914 . Campus Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3593381842 , p. 314ff.
• Eckhard Lessing: History of the German-speaking Protestant theology from Albrecht Ritschl to the present . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, ISBN 3525561962
• Harry Liebersohn: Fate and Utopia in German Sociology, 1870-1923 . MIT Press, 1990, ISBN 0262620790
• Martin von Nathusius: The Lindenhof zu Neinstedt am Harz 1850–1925, commemorative publication to celebrate the seventy-five years of existence of the boy rescue and brothers house on the Lindenhofe zu Neinstedt am Harz . revised and continued by Otto Steinwachs, Verlag des Lindenhofs, Neinstedt am Harz 1925
• Dietrich von Oertzen: Memories from my life . Runge, Berlin undated
• Klaus Erich Pollmann : Sovereign Church Regiment and Social Question. The Evangelical Oberkirchenrat of the Old Prussian Regional Church and the socio-political movement of the clergy after 1890 , from the series: Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin (Volume 44), de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1973
• Thomas Schlag : Martin von Nathusius and the beginnings of Protestant economic and social ethics . DeGruyter, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-11-015862-0
• Thomas Schlag: Martin von Nathusius, the free church-social conference and the "solution" of the social question . In: Klaus Tanner (ed.): Gotteshilfe - Selbsthilfe - Staatshilfe - Bruderhilfe, contributions to social Protestantism in the 19th century . Hostels of Christianity, 4th special volume, Leipzig 2000
• Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing (Ed.): Lexicon of Conservatism . Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz-Stuttgart 1996
• Alfred Uckeley : Martin of Nathusius . In: Anton Bettelheim (Hrsg.): Biographisches Jahrbuch and German Nekrolog . Volume XI, published by Georg Reimer, Berlin 1908, pp. 55–57

Web links

Commons : Martin von Nathusius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short portrait on the Nathusius family website ( Memento from January 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ according to Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing (Ed.): Lexicon of Conservatism . P. 388, see bibliography
2. ↑ General conservative monthly for Christian Germany, fifty-second year. Founded in 1843 as a people's newspaper for town and country . Continued by Martin von Nathusius. Editor: D. von Oertzen, Schwerin i. M. and Prof. Dr. Martin von Nathusius, Greifswald, here: collective binding, January – June 1895, Verlag von E. Ungleich, Leipzig, undated
3. ↑ according to Heinrich Walbaum: Stammreihe Nathusius , sources GES 2000, Rothenburg / Wümme, June 4, 2004 (Str 25)
4. ↑ according to Heinrich Walbaum: Stammreihe Nathusius , sources GES 2000, Rothenburg / Wümme, June 4, 2004 (Str 25)
5. ↑ according to Hedwig Dohm : The anti-feminists . Berlin 1902 (pp. 80–138) named Nathusius women as the "weaker moral vessel". It is there that Nathusius is quoted as follows on the upbringing of girls: "A good slap, the Schnorr 's picture Bible, not spread out too much at breakfast, and not lounging around too often in concerts."
6. ↑ Martin von Nathusius: The Evangelical Social Congress. A rejection . In: General Conservative Monthly for Christian Germany. 52nd year, 1895, January – June, Verlag von E. Ungleich, Leipzig 1895, p. 562
7. ↑ according to Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing (Ed.): Lexicon of Conservatism . P. 388, see bibliography
8. ↑ Martin von Nathusius: The Evangelical Social Congress. A rejection . In: General Conservative Monthly for Christian Germany. 52nd year, 1895, January – June, published by E. Ungleich, Leipzig 1895, pp. 561–564
9. ↑ here: Third edition (the first edition of the first volume was published in 1892 and that of the second volume in 1894. The second, combined and completely revised edition appeared in 1897), JC Hinrich'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1904, with imprint: Price 5 Mark, b. in linen 6 marks