Peter von Osterwald

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Peter von Osterwald (born December 25, 1718 in Weilburg , † January 19, 1778 in Munich ) was a German Catholic theologian and statesman. He was the Bavarian secret council and director of the spiritual council in Munich.

Life

Peter von Osterwald was the son of middle-class, Protestant parents; his father was a tailor. He was able to devote himself to the sciences thanks to the support of patrons. After getting to know the Roman and Greek classics at the grammar school in his hometown, he attended universities in Leipzig , Jena , Halle and Strasbourg , where he studied law , mathematics , history and philosophy . Because of his talents and knowledge, he earned the respect of his teachers and the admiration of his fellow students.

As early as the age of 14, Osterwald had publicly converted to the Catholic Church for reasons that were not precisely known. In order to be able to live the sciences undisturbed, he decided to go to a monastery and in 1740 entered the Benedictine order in the Gengenbach monastery . There he began to study theology and taught the young priests in mathematics. During his probationary year, however, he convinced himself that he had made mistaken ideas about monastic life. Therefore, after eight months, he left Gengenbach again and went to Augsburg , where he came into contact with the then city architect, former prelate of the Scots in Regensburg , Bernard Stuart , and the well-known mechanic Georg Friedrich Brander .

From Augsburg, Osterwald went to Regensburg in 1744 and became a French language teacher in the Schottenstift and a mathematics teacher in the Abbey of Sankt Emmeram . At the same time he diligently continued to study classical studies, jurisprudence, as well as German and literary history and took the opportunity to learn the English language from the Scots . The Bishop of Regensburg, Johann Theodor , appointed him his secretary in 1745 and court counselor and paymaster in 1749. In 1757 he was promoted to cabinet secretary, in 1758 to the real secret council and raised to the nobility and employed in the government in Freising (Johann Theodor was also Bishop of Freising, from 1744 also of Liège ).

The elector Maximilian Joseph von Bayern summoned the meanwhile married Osterwald to Munich in 1760 and made him secret councilor and secular director of the electoral spiritual council in 1761. The Kurdish Academy of Sciences gave him a pension of 800 guilders and on May 27, 1762 elected him director of the philosophical class, which he held until 1768 and again from 1774 to 1778. In his position at the spiritual council, he played a decisive role in the church political reforms undertaken by the elector, in that he justified and justified them not only through his official work, but also in publications. The institutions under the reign of Elector Maximilian Joseph to restrict monasticism and the excessive immunity of the monasteries stem largely from him. He also initiated many reforms of the monasteries and the training of clergy, as well as measures to improve teaching in rural schools. Osterwald died on January 19, 1778 at the age of 59 in Munich of a sticky cough.

Fonts

The text Reasons for and Against spiritual immunity in temporal matters , written on behalf of the Elector of Osterwald under the pseudonym Veremund von Lochstein , was significant (Munich 1766). The writing initially develops objectively the reasons for spiritual immunity put forward by the clergy and then turns with sharp reasons against the curialist theory, especially of Cardinal Bellarmine , according to which the Pope is the king of kings, prince of princes, sovereign ruler of all states. Then the work states that the clergyman cannot claim an exception in worldly matters either for his person or for his goods , that the state is sovereign and completely independent of spiritual power. His arguments are essentially borrowed from Febronius .

The Scriptures caused a storm of indignation among the Catholic clergy. The Prince-Bishop Clemens Wenzel von Freising, however, issued a public ban on August 13, 1766, which was also posted on the church doors in the Electorate. With a decree of August 29th, the elector conceded this ban as “a strange encroachment on our state sovereignty”, threatened the clergy with a temporary ban and the worldly an arbitrary punishment if they did not accept it. He justified the book because it dealt with "no matters of faith and religion, but only sovereign rights and powers", banned the counter-writings and Bellarmine's treatise on papal violence in temporal matters, looked through the second edition himself and appointed Osterwald on August 30, 1768 as the first director of the electoral clergy. The work was placed on the index on May 26, 1767.

The same subject concerns Osterwald's work Answers to the questions of an unnamed member of the Kurdish Academy of Sciences because of the spiritual immunity in temporal matters (Strasbourg [Munich] 1767), another concerns the anonymous text Near Illumination of Those Objections which some canonists against the Kurdish Sponsorship Act of July 24, 1769 (Munich 1770), then, according to some, also the writing De religiosis ordinibus et eorum reformatione, liber singularis, quem e germ. In Latin. traduxit suisque auxit animadversionibus TR a. G. in Germ. (1781).

The Bavarian files also contain many reports from Osterwald. Various speeches given at the Academy of Sciences are printed under his name. These fonts include:

  • Academic speech on the interrelationship and order of all sciences, together with the benefits that they confer on people's social life , Munich 1762
  • Speech of the teaching of Latin , Munich 1765
  • Talk of the use of logical rules, especially against free spirit and superstition , Munich 1767
  • Academic speech on the natural antipathy between the geometric and the counterpart spirit , Munich 1771
  • Academic speech in praise of astronomy , Munich 1774

From the French, Osterwald translated the Chronological Introduction to Church History , which appeared in 3 parts in Munich from 1767–1774, for which Ferdinand Sterzinger wrote a 4th and 5th part from 1776–1778. Osterwald also produced the map Ducatus Baioriae universae atque superioris palatinatus delineatio , published by Lotter in Augsburg in 1766 .

Osterwald was a thoroughly ecclesiastical man, regularly attended public services until the end of his life, was, as Lorenz von Westenrieder states, met by the housemates who unexpectedly came into his room, "not infrequently kneeling and in silent prayer" and met afterwards Witness the clergy in the best possible way. His writings and activities only attack abuse without being radical.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ For example, Baur ( General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts , 3rd Section, 7th Part, p. 50) states January 19, 1778 as the date of Osterwald's death, whereas Johann Friedrich von Schulte (ADB, Vol. 24, p. 525) gives it January 19, 1776.
  2. ^ Johann Friedrich von Schulte:  Osterwald, Peter von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 526.
personal data
SURNAME Osterwald, Peter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic theologian and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1718
PLACE OF BIRTH Weilburg
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1778
Place of death Munich