Maximilian Albert Landerer

Prof. Maximilian Albert Landerer, photograph by Friedrich Brandseph , 1861

Maximilian Albert Landerer (born January 14, 1810 in Maulbronn , † April 13, 1878 in Tübingen ) was a Protestant theologian from Württemberg .

Career

According to family tradition, determined to be a clergyman from his youth, Maximilian Albert Landerer went through the usual academic career of the Württemberg theologians with great diligence and faithful conscientiousness when he attended the lower and higher seminars. As a schoolboy in Maulbronn in 1824, he had eight of fourteen grades in the areas of "low", "more than mediocre" and "mediocre", but he completed his studies in Tübingen with supposedly brilliant grades.

From 1832 to 1834 he was the clerk of his father, Philipp Gottlieb Landerer, pastor in Walddorf . His brother was Philipp Heinrich Landerer , who became a doctor and psychiatrist. In 1852 he founded the clinic in the Christophsbad in Göppingen, which still exists today.

Maximilian Albert Landerer became a repetitionist in Maulbronn in 1834 and a repetitionist at the Tübingen monastery in 1835. The four years of eager learning and teaching he spent there were interrupted by a trip to northern Germany, including Berlin, where he met Daniel Amadeus Neander , August Twesten , Henrich Steffens and others.

In 1839 he was appointed the first deacon in Göppingen . In 1840, after the resignation of Eduard Elwert, he was appointed associate professor of theology and early preacher in Tübingen. Quietly, without many changes and wanderings, his life has now passed there, in rare simplicity, the image of a real Swabian scholar and professor's life. He turned down a call to Kiel in 1843, as well as one to Göttingen in 1862.

He has not left Tübingen and while generations of students sat at his feet, he gradually advanced to higher positions and dignities, borne by the current of time and his own merits. In 1842 he became a full professor, in 1860 the first inspector of the theological seminary (Stift), and in 1844 he was appointed doctor of theology honoris causa by the theological faculty in Königsberg.

His tireless work was halted by a serious fall in 1875 in which he sustained a chest injury. From then on he was ailing, in 1877 he resigned; the numerous friends and pupils who hurried to Tübingen from all parts of the fatherland for the university anniversary in 1877 met him fresh and cheerful, but increasing sickness thwarted his plan to publish his scientific works or to prepare them for publication.

On April 13, 1878, a lung hemorrhage unexpectedly put an end to the dwindling life. He was buried in the Tübingen city cemetery.

dig

family

His first marriage to Emilie geb. Pistorius 1839 ended after a few weeks with the death of the young woman. For the second time he married Emma born in 1845. Werner, his sister-in-law and the sister of his fellow student Gustav Werner . One daughter and three sons survived the father.

Act

Landerer was a scholar in the best sense of the word. He was seen as amiable, humane and courteous with tireless friendliness towards the student world crowding around him. His ethically refined character was expressed outwardly in the personality that commanded his respect - in the dark, intelligent eyes that gleamed benevolently and humorously from under his glasses.

Eine Anekdote weiß zu berichten, er habe einmal sein eigenes Exemplar seiner Dogmatik verlegt und einen Studenten gebeten, ihm das seinige auszuleihen. Dieser habe sich erst gesträubt, weil er einige freche Anmerkungen hinzugefügt hatte, dann aber wohl oder übel nachgegeben. Landerer aber habe sich damit aufs beste amüsiert. 

Quiet and undemanding, like his life, was also his character, something of the well-known Swabian reticence clung to him. He would hardly have felt at home at another German university, just as he never extended his vacation trips far beyond his closer home. Every mere pseudo-being was contrary to his thoroughly straight and just nature. He never appealed to his most extensive erudition, which extended not only to the disciplines close to him, theology and philosophy, but also to the natural sciences and literature.

A hearing disorder that began as a boy and increased with age, and which made it very difficult to have intercourse with him and also had a disruptive effect on his lecture as a teacher and preacher, made him neither suspicious nor sensitive. In the student years this suffering kept him from the actual boyish hustle and bustle, but the joy of the lively social intercourse was not only granted to him, but through his never-ending, accurate, but not malicious humor, whose most succinct utterances as winged words from mouth to mouth he was mostly the center of the circle.

He was not the ideal of an academic teacher: despite an eminent memory, which was also reflected in a great knowledge of people, he read all of his lectures from paper. His voice was not a pleasant one, and it was not possible for him to give a moderate restriction of the material with a firm, final result. Some of his publications are notable for their subtle psychology and the beautiful flow of language that was less prominent in the oral presentation.

It was a deeply rooted peculiarity of his being and also of his teaching that he could never get enough of his science, that he was never satisfied with himself. He was first and foremost a critic, and the sobriety, clarity, and objective justification of his criticism made it immensely valuable. A dialectician who was looking for his own he found all sorts of reasons and counter-reasons, and when he looked at the grandly designed architecture of his lectures, e. B. his dogmatics, vividly reminded of the old scholastics, he lacked the necessary, secure end to the systematic conclusion.

His lectures, which covered the broad spectrum of dogmatics, the history of dogma, symbolism, religious philosophy, exegesis of the New Testament and biblical theology of the New Testament, were a treasure trove of knowledge, but were mainly stimulating and stimulating for your own research. Even if he did not leave behind a school in the sense that Baur did, his theological influence on the student world, on the generation of the Württemberg clergy, whose academic years fell between 1850 and 1870, was quiet, but deeper and very far-reaching.

His theological standpoint was that of mediation theology, since he was essentially a critic and an eclectic. When he entered the university as a student, the old supranaturalist tendency was dying out, the new directions Schleiermacherscher and Hegelian theology were increasingly asserting themselves: in 1831 Ferdinand Christian Baur emerged with his critical activity, in 1834 David Friedrich Strauss with his life of Jesus. All these factors made their influence felt on the young theologian who was so receptive to the critical and dialectical. Thetically and antithetically, he has dealt with everyone and preserved the independence of his point of view.

He was a decidedly positive theologian in full recognition of the concept of revelation and miracles, of sin as an act of human freedom. If Landerer had to bear his fair share of the disregard which mediation theology is shown from many sides and outside his closer fatherland never enjoyed the esteem he deserved, then he was thanked by innumerable people who discussed him more closely highly paid.

Much of what he first said and taught in his chair has been given orally and in writing by others as their own wisdom. Landerer was not fond of writing; he was peculiarly shy of literary publications and of criticism - here, too, the better was the enemy of the good. His modesty turned into a lack of self-confidence, just as he was impressed in many ways where it should not have been expected.

Works

• 13 articles in Herzog's real encyclopedia , 1st edition, a. a. "Canon of the New Testament" (Vol. VII), "Melanchthon" (Vol. IX), "Scholastic Theology" (Vol. XIII), "Tübingen School" (Vol. XVI).
• The relationship between grace and freedom in the acquisition of salvation . In: "Yearbooks for German Theology", Vol. II.
• To dogmatics. Two academic speeches by Dr. Maximilian Albert Landerer
• Commemorative speech for Ferdinand Christian Baur (1860), edited by Weiß and Buder, Tübingen 1879
• Memorial speech for his colleague Oehler 1872
• The latest dogma history (from Semler to the present day) . Lectures by Landerer, edited by P. Zeller, Heilbronn 1881;
• Landerer's sermons . In a selection published by P. Lang, Heilbronn 1880.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eberhard Zwink: Johanneisches Christianentum with Gustav Werner , p. 8.

literature

• Theodor Schott :  Landerer, Maximilian Albert . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 588-591.

Web links

Commons : Maximilian Albert Landerer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files