Siegfried Sack (theologian)

Contemporary portrait (beech woodcut)

Siegfried Friedrich Sack , Latinized Saccus (* March 12, 1527 in Nordhausen ; † September 2, 1596 in Magdeburg ), was a Lutheran theologian and first Protestant cathedral preacher at Magdeburg Cathedral .

Life

Sack came from a respected bourgeois family . His grandfather, Heinrich Sack, was decidedly anti-clerical (a "Pfaffenfeind" in the parlance at the time), his father, Thomas Sack, was a cutler, councilor and later mayor. Saccus received his first school lessons until he was 14 years old in Nordhausen . Since his parents' financial circumstances were poor, Siegfried was dependent on the mild support of charitable citizens at the schools in Wernigerode and Magdeburg . Soon after his father's death on July 30, 1547, he enrolled at the University of Wittenberg , where he heard, among other things, the lectures of Philipp Melanchthon .

From Wittenberg he was appointed rector to Nebra (Unstrut) . He initially turned down the appointment of Prince Georg von Anhalt to the ministry because he wanted to remain a school teacher for a while. From Nebra, Sack went to Jena , where he heard Erhard Schnepf and gave private lessons in Hebrew . In 1554 he went to Wittenberg and received his master's degree there, financially supported by the council of Nordhausen. As a result he managed the vice rectorate , from 1559 the rectorate of the school in Magdeburg. When Joachim Friedrich von Brandenburg, a Lutheran administrator, had been elected in 1566 after the death of the last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Magdeburg , the way was clear for a Lutheran to also fill the cathedral preacher position at Magdeburg Cathedral . So Sack was appointed in July 1567 and introduced into his new office on November 30th. Martin Gallus became his assistant preacher . In 1570 Sack received his theological doctorate from the University of Wittenberg , on which occasion he again received grants from the Nordhausen council. Sack died on September 2, 1596, after giving the weekly sermon that morning, and was buried in the cathedral on February 6.

It is also believed that Sack comes from the noble family of Sacks . This is what his father Caspar Sack is said to have been, a chamber secretary of Albrecht the Courageous .

meaning

Sack is one of the leading figures in Magdeburg who helped the Reformation to break through. His sermons were so famous that they gave rise to the saying: He preaches real, who goes to the pulpit with bag and back. It also indicates Reinhard Backius, a well-known preacher who died in Magdeburg in 1657. Saccus was very careful to structure the sermons well. He even put a treatise in front of his gospel postil with the title: Brief Lessons of Order, So Preaching Can Be Preached. In this he strongly opposed an unmethodical way of speaking. With regard to the method he wrote: It also serves to explain that the sermon is divided into certain pieces. Some have the use of telling the most noble doctrinal points, but others that they take the order out of the text. Although the first way is also good, so that the listener can hear what one should learn from the Gospel as soon as possible, the other way is not bad either. Because there the text or the historia is divided into several pieces and the teaching points are then taken from the text, which is easier for the simple-minded to remember. Sack makes use of both methods, but sometimes even the formally synthetic manner of preaching.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Christoph Iselin : General Historical Lexicon , Volume 4, Leipzig, 1732, p. 220.

Fonts

• Brevis Summa Doctrinae de Iustificatione, de Orine ... Magdeburg 1567.
• Propositiones de praecipuis doctrinae articulis. Wittenberg 1570.
• Declaration on the Sunday Evangelia and the most noble festivals. Magdeburg 1589. 3 parts
• Sermon of the resurrection on Ezech. Cap. 37.1567 .
• Three sermons at Pentecost. Eisleben 1581.
• Twenty sermons on eternal life. Magdeburg 1594.
• Last sermon of the venerable etc. Siegfridi Sacci. Edited by Langius. Magdeburg 1596.
• Funeral sermons. Consider whether the right Christians can be, who seldom or never for good. Evening meals are coming. Req. 1591.

literature

• S. Christian funeral sermon over the burial of the venerable etc. D. Siegfridi Sacci, former Thumpredigers in the Primat und Erzstift Magdeburg, given by Laurentius Sebaldus, deacon in Thumb there (about 1. Cor. 3,16). Magdeburg 1596. See also Fritz Roth : Complete evaluations of funeral sermons and personal documents for genealogical purposes . Volume 1, Boppard 1959, p. 318
• Karl Janicke:  Sack, Siegfried . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 30, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 161.
• Saccus, Siegfried. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 33, Leipzig 1742, column 168.
• Gottfried Wuttke: Siegfried Sack, the first Protestant cathedral preacher in Magdeburg (1567–1596). In: Hostels of Christianity. Yearbook for German Church History 1971, pp. 155–173.

Web links

• Saccus, Siegfried in the database of the Controversia et confessio project . Source edition on confession formation and confessionalization (1548–1580)