Samuel Gottlieb Wald

Samuel Gottlieb Wald (born October 17, 1762 in Breslau , † February 22, 1828 in Königsberg (Prussia) ) was a German Lutheran theologian.

Life

The son of a businessman received his first scientific education at the Elisabet-Gymnasium in Breslau . His mental faculties and especially the inclination for historical-critical research developed early. Equipped with thorough previous knowledge, he started his academic career at the University of Halle in 1782 . Here Georg Christian Knapp , Johann Salomo Semler and Johann August Nösselt were his main teachers in the field of theological knowledge. Nösselt, with whom he lived, opened his library to him for free use, accepted him into the theological seminary and, through advice and instruction, had a positive effect on his scientific progress in several ways. In the first year of his academic career, Wald taught Hebrew in the first grade of the orphanage school. At the University of Leipzig , where he had continued his studies in 1783, he obtained the academic degree of Master of Philosophy by defending his dissertation Curarum in historiam textus vaticiniorum Danielis Specimen primum .

In the exegetical lectures that he has held since then, Wald, who had been formed by Semler and had shaken off the fetters of rigid Lutheran orthodoxy early on , pursued the path of grammatical and historical interpretation. On the recommendation of Johann Christoph Adelung , to whom he had become known through his overview of general literary and art history published in 1786 , he was offered a professorship in the Greek language at the University of Königsberg that year . He was reluctant to part with the conditions he had come to love in Leipzig, where he had become an early preacher at the university church, member of the women's college and assessor of the academic courts. He had also received an extraordinary professorship in philosophy in Leipzig and took it over with his inaugural address in 1786 through the program Controversio de bonorum operum necessitate, inter Musculum et Praetorium agitata . However, there was no salary associated with that teaching post. He therefore accepted the call to Konigsberg in order to gain an outwardly more favorable position. He left Leipzig not without a keen desire to return there soon.

Soon, however, he was chained to the place of his new calling by friendly family relationships, especially his marriage to a daughter of the consistorial councilor and chief pastor of the cathedral , Johann Hartmann Christoph Graef . The sphere of activity in which Wald was previously active as an academic lecturer was expanded when he was given the office of first inspector at the Collegium Fridericianum in Königsberg. With tireless zeal he devoted himself to this new and difficult task. In addition to teaching eight classes, Wald was also supervised by a boarding school connected to the Fridericianum. He gained the most beneficial influence on the education of his pupils. In particular, he was a living example to them through restless activity, denial of himself and all claims to leisure and relaxation, which he would have needed in overflowing official business. In 1793 the theological faculty of the University of Erlangen , to which he had sent his treatise de vita scriptis et systemate mystico Sebastiani Franci , appointed him doctor of theology.

In the same year he received a theological professorship, while retaining the teaching post he had previously held for the Greek language in Königsberg. At that time he made a great contribution by founding a school teachers' seminar, which he brought into connection with the Collegium Fridericianum and which he himself gave lessons in that school, something that no chief inspector had done before him. In fair recognition of his multiple services, Wald was appointed to the South Prussian Consistorial Council after taking possession of Poland in 1796 , while retaining his previous offices in Königsberg. The position he received obliged him to assist the newly established government in Thorn and later in Warsaw with the establishment of the church and school system in the individual provinces by obtaining written advice. Given the great distance from his actual sphere of activity, this office had little encouragement for him. After he had put the same down in 1800, he was a church and school councilor at the Consistory of East Prussia.

After the death of Karl Ehregott Andreas Mangelsdorfs he was transferred to the professorship of history and rhetoric. In 1806 he resigned the above-mentioned teaching posts, as well as the professorship in Greek literature, because his increased professional business had a negative impact on his health. At his request, he was given the professorship in oriental languages ​​at the theological faculty, previously held by Johann Gottfried Hasse (1759–1806). He had also been exempt from the general inspection of the Collegium Fridericianum since 1806, with the maintenance of his income and with all the signs of satisfaction in his twenty years in office. Since then he devoted himself, less disturbed, to academic and business life as a clergyman and school councilor. He spent a number of years in uninterrupted activity until he died of a heart attack.

Act

Wald earned the fame of a man with a wide range of education and very thorough knowledge. None of the individual branches of theological knowledge had remained completely alien to him. Evidently the weakest was his inclination towards the practical part of theology. But in earlier and later years he had often preached to applause in the cathedral church. His personality reinforced the impression of his lectures in the pulpit. On the anniversary of the Reformation in 1817, he vividly recalled Martin Luther through his shape, gestures, tone and dignified expression . Through Semler and Nösselt he had gained the opinion early on that in his academic lectures Christianity should preferably be viewed from the critical-historical point of view. Later he was more inclined to supranaturalism and supported theologians who sought to bring about an agreement between the aforementioned system and rationalism.

Research in the field of church history and linguistics was very attractive to him. In later years he recorded the results almost exclusively in individual festival programs, since his increased professional demands did not allow him sufficient leisure for larger literary work. His program De haeresi abjuranda quid statuat Ecclesia romano-catholica, printed in 1821, caused a sensation . Apart from several counter- writings , especially from Pius Brunnquell and Alexius Jordansky, which defended the real creed when converting from other Christian denominations to the Roman Catholic Church, there was even a motion in 1822 at a Hungarian national synod to make a complaint known . There was hardly any need for such a thing, as Wald had hardly had the intention to accuse individuals of the entire Catholic Church for the offensive creeds, which were written in a genuinely Jesuit sense.

He was known to the learned world since 1783 through critical investigations into the basic text of the Book of Daniel . For the purpose of this work he had used several rare manuscripts in the library of the Elizabethanum in Breslau and had developed a thorough knowledge of the oriental dialects in all their ramifications. In a large part of his writings he dealt with pedagogical problems, especially with suggestions for improving the school system in Prussia. As a member of the board of directors of the free society, of which he had become president in 1809, he took an active part in the publication of the Prussian archive from 1790 to 1798. He worked with rare ease, with precise knowledge of the state constitution and with the striving to do good. Always ready to please others, he did not shy away from sacrifice in this regard.

Fonts

• Historiae artis musicae Specimen I. Halle 1783
• Diss. Curarum in historiam textus vaticiniorum Danielis Specimen I. Leipzig 1783
• Attempt to introduce the history of knowledge, science and fine arts to academic lectures. Hall 1784 ( online )
• Progr. Spicilegium variarum Lectionum Codd. IV Veteris Testamenti hebr. Vratislaviensium. Leipzig 1784
• M. Antonii Flaminii in librum Psalmorum brevis explanatio et in eorum aliquot paraphrases luculentissimas; ad editionem Aldinam recudi curavit et praefatus est. Hall 1785
• Improvements and additions to its introduction to the history of knowledge and s. w. Hall 1786
• Progr. Controversio de bonorum operum necessitate, inter Musculum et Praetorium agitata. Leipzig 1786
• Theologiae symbolicae Lutheranae descriptio. Hall 1786 ( online )
• Overview of the general history of literature and art. 1st part hall 1786 ( online )
• About the spirit of Christianity, a sermon. Hall 1786
• Preaching on false religious terms. Hall 1787
• De vituperio Neologorum. Koenigsberg 1787
• History of Christianity, to academic lectures. Königsberg and Leipzig 1788
• Diss. De vera vi vocabulorum. . . et. . . in Epistola Pauli ad Romanos. Königsberg and Leipzig 1788
• Prussian monthly. Elbingen 1788–1789, 2nd year.
• Platonis Phaedon, in usum scholarum. Hall 1789
• News from the boarding school of the Collegii Friedericiani since April 1, 1791. Königsberg 1791
• About the lessons at the Collegio Friedericiano. Königsberg 1791–1793, 4th pieces
• On the first director of the Collegii Fridericiani, D. Heinrich Lysius, a lecture in the Royal German Society. Koenigsberg 1792
• German Chrestomathy, for the formation of the taste and for the practice in declamation for the youth collected. Koenigsberg 1792
• Diss. Inaug. de vita, scriptis et systemate mvstico Sebastiani Franci. Erlangen 1793 ( online )
• About the appropriate establishment of public school exams, a program. Koenigsberg 1793
• History and constitution of the Royal German Society of Königsberg; a lecture. Koenigsberg 1793
• Progr. Commentationis in locum Paullinum. Hebrew 9, 11-14. Pars I. Königsberg 1794
• About the lessons in the German school of the Königl. Collegii Fridericiani; a program. Koenigsberg 1795
• Christian doctrine in context; reworked on the highest orders for the needs of the present time, and made into a general textbook in the lower schools of the royal family. Prussia. Land set up. Along with Luther's catechism and a collection of sacred songs. Koenigsberg 1795
• Disciplinarum et artium descriptio. Lectio I and II. Königsberg 1796
• News from the schools in East Prussia. Königsberg 1800–1804, 18th pieces
• Progr. Descriptio constitutionum Synodalium Warmensium. Koenigsberg 1802
• Progr. Ecclesiarum et scholarum, quae in Borussia orientali nunc sunt, conspectus. Koenigsberg 1802
• A program on the growth and population of all the Prussian states. Koenigsberg 1803
• Progr. Constitutionum synodalium Culmensium et Pomesanensium descriptio. Koenigsberg 1804
• Of the merits of the first three Prussian kings for the Protestant churches and schools of their states; a program. Koenigsberg 1804
• Contribution to the biography of Professor Kant, a program. Koenigsberg 1804
• Progr. Augustus Caesar Christi nascituri forsan non ignarus ad Luc. 3rd Sectio I. Königsberg 1805
• First and second contribution to the knowledge of the Silesian church constitution. Koenigsberg 1805
• Progr. Analectorum litterariorum Specimen I. Königsberg 1805
• Contributions to Prussian history and statistics. Königsberg 1805, 4th pieces
• Contributions to the history of Prussian legislation in church and school matters. Königsberg 1806, 6th pieces
• Progr. Supplementorum ad Buxtorfii et Wolfii diatribas de abbreviaturis hebraicis Sylloge I. Königsberg 1810
• Topographical overview of the administrative district of the Königl. Prussia. Government of Königsberg in Prussia. Koenigsberg 1820
• Progr. De haeresi abjuranda quid statuat Ecclesia Romana exponitur. Koenigsberg 1821
• On the difference between the Roman and Jesuit convertite creeds. Koenigsberg 1822
• Quaestiones theologicae de origine religionis christianae vere divina. Koenigsberg 1825

literature

• Heinrich Doering : The learned theologians of Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Verlag Johann Karl Gottfried Wagner, 1835, Neustadt an der Orla, vol. 4, p. 641, ( online )
• Intelligence sheet of the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. October 1828, p. 493, ( online )
• Friedrich August Schmidt: New necrology of the Germans. Bernhard Friedrich Voigt, Ilmenau, 1830, vol. 6 (1828), 1st part, p. 145, ( online )
• Georg Christoph Hamberger , Johann Georg Meusel : The learned Teutschland, or lexicon of the now living German writers. Schwickert, Lemgo, 1800, Vol. 8, p. 315, ( online ); 1803, Vol. 10, p. 786, ( online ); 1812, vol. 16, p. 140, ( online ); 1827, Vol. 21, p. 333, ( online );
• Paul Tschackert :  Forest, Samuel Gottlieb . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 659 f.