Paul de Mathies

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Paul de Mathies, aka Ansgar Albing

Paul de Mathies , author pseudonym Ansgar Albing (* May 12, 1868 in Hamburg , † May 13, 1924 in Tunis ) was a Catholic priest and German writer who was raised to the Roman nobility.

biography

He was born civil and was the son of the Hamburg shipowner Ludwig Friedrich Mathies (1825–1898), grand-ducal Tuscan and royal Portuguese consul general , and his second wife Helene nee. Böhrt (1831–1872). The paternal shipping company was one of the most important in the city and ran its own ship's flag with a capital "M".

Paul Mathies passed the Abitur at the Wilhelm-Gymnasium at Easter 1888 . He then attended the universities of Heidelberg , Berlin , Geneva and Strasbourg as a law student . In 1890 he converted to the Catholic Church, entered the Jesuit order and studied philosophy and theology in England and Holland. Thereafter Mathies taught classical languages ​​for three years in the order's own schools in North America, but had to give up this position due to illness and went to the Mediterranean region (Palestine, Egypt, Greece and Italy) to recover. In 1898 he resigned from the Jesuit order.

In 1901 Paul Mathies was appointed by Pope Leo XIII. raised to the Roman nobility, from which point he called himself Baron Paul de Mathies . In 1902 he was promoted to serving papal chamberlain , in 1906 Mathies was ordained a priest in Rome.

As a priest he worked first in Cincinnati at St. Paul's Church, then in Florence and finally in Austria . He was also active on behalf of the Vatican on diplomatic missions.

In 1910, on the anniversary of the canonization of Charles Borromeo , Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Editiae saepe , in which he used the scriptures of St. Paul in relation to the princes who supported the Reformation in the 16th century ( Philippians 3, 18.19): “… Proud and rebellious people, enemies of the cross of Christ, earthly minded, whose god is the belly.” This triggered a storm of indignation in Germany and even the Catholic King of Saxony sent a letter of protest to the Vatican, whereupon the Pope apologized , prevented the further dissemination of the letter in Germany and made it clear that he had by no means intended to offend the non-Catholics there, especially not their rulers. Paul de Mathies defended the pontiff in his brochure We Catholics and Our Opponents and wrote about the Saxon king: “For the historians of the time of Pius XX. or Leo XXIII. one day it would have to be ridiculous that a duodec prince who ruled over a cultivated area not yet 15,000 km squares wrote the Pope a letter of protest. ”This led to a renewed, violent dispute in the newspapers. a. was picked up by the Münchner Illustrierte Jugend .

In the same year, the Basel Bishop Jakob Stammler appointed the German priest to be a student chaplain in Zurich , where he stayed until 1918 and was replaced by the Jesuit Paul de Chastonay (1870–1943). During this time he was closely associated with the "Association of Swiss Catholic Academics, Renaissance", which he helped to build. In a publication about this association it says to Paul de Mathies: “He practically wore himself out of precarious health for the student pastoral care.” On the occasion of the declaration of war by the German Reich on Belgium in 1914 , in violation of its neutrality, the clergyman gave up his German citizenship . He made friends with the author and publicist Hugo Ball , who had returned to Catholicism , a Palatine from Pirmasens , who had previously co-founded Dadaism . Paul de Mathies was involved in the creation of his free newspaper , for which he also wrote articles.

In autumn 1918 Mathies went to Satigny near Geneva as a pastor . The priest died in Tunis in 1924 , where he had returned for health reasons. He carried the title of Papal Honorary Prelate with the salutation "Monsignor". The Hamburg Senator Carl Mathies (1849–1906) was his cousin.

Book cover 1899

writer

Paul de Mathies was active - often under his pseudonym Ansgar Albing - as a theological specialist author and religious entertainment writer. His best-known works were “Moribus paternis” in 1898 , a two-volume, frequently published “Story from modern Hamburg society” and in 1899 the novel “The Pessimist” , both published by Herder Verlag Freiburg.

literature

  • Gerhard Schaub: Hugo Ball, all works and letters , letters Volume 3, Wallstein Verlag, ISBN 3-89244-701-2 , p. 298 ( digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Wühr: Ludwig von Pastor, diaries, letters, memories , FH Kerle Verlag, Heidelberg, 1950, p. 483 ( excerpt from Google Books )
  • Maria Domanig: Anthology of Catholic Narrators , F. Alber Verlag, Ravensburg, 1910, pp. 529–556
  • Schmidt-Eppendorf, Peter, Paul de Mathies, in "Farewell, you City of Fathers - Images of Life from Hamburg Catholics", Ansgar Medien, Hamburg, 2013

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical website on parents
  2. ↑ Illustration of the ship's flag of the shipping company LF Mathies ( Memento from December 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Wilhelm-Gymnasium Hamburg , 1881–1981, Höwer Verlag, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-922995-00-4 , p. 278.
  4. ^ "Archive for family history research", Starke Verlag 2006, volumes 10–11, pp. 83 and 85; Excerpt from Google Books
  5. ^ Scan of the article from the Illustrierte Jugend , 1910, with precise details of the place of publication
  6. ↑ Georg Schwaiger: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. CH Beck Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-406-44892-5 , p. 144. Digitalscan
  7. ↑ Christoph Baumer : The "Renaissance": Association of Swiss Catholic Academic Societies , 1904–1996, Verlag Saint-Paul, 1998, ISBN 3-7278-1183-8 , page 227; Digital scan
personal data
SURNAME Mathies, Paul de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mathies, Paul von; Albing, Ansgar (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic priest and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1924
Place of death Tunis