Theodor Haak

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Theodor Haak

Theodor Haak (* 1605 in Worms-Neuhausen , † 1690 in London ) was a learned German Calvinist .

Live and act

At the age of 20 he moved to England, where he is known under the English name form Theodore Haak . He worked as a translator . His most outstanding work was the Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible ( Dutch Commentaries on the Whole Bible ), the translation of the commentary on the Dutch Bible edition " Statenbijbel " into English , on which he worked from 1645 to 1657.

He studied at Oxford , Cambridge and Leiden . In 1626 he was in Cologne. Apart from his short time in the Netherlands and the Rhineland, he lived in England, but he still had international correspondence, including with Mersenne . He was secretary to Karl I. Ludwig , the Elector of the Palatinate, when he was in England from 1644 to 1649. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, this Haak offered continued employment in Germany, which Haak refused. Nevertheless, he remained a representative of the elector. 1643/1644 he was a diplomat in Denmark for the British government .

Haak was admitted to the Royal Society on May 20, 1663 and was one of the first official members ("Original Fellow"). He had previously participated in the "Invisible Council" (active since 1645) and was the initiator of these meetings. The idea of ​​founding the company is ascribed to him. This is apparently based on a remark made by John Wallis at the end of the century. Lisa Jardine described the situation at that time as follows: Haak stayed in London during the war because the court of the Palatinate resided there, while others, who later belonged to the royal society, stayed in loyal Oxford. Haak taught at Gresham Puritan College .

Haak translated, among other things, part of The Lost Paradise into German. However, the translation was not published. He tried Henrich Ludolff Benthem , but to no avail.

literature

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Footnotes

  1. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  2. [1]
  3. [2]
  4. JT Young (1998), Faith, Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle , p. 12.
  5. Lisa Jardine , On a Grander Scale (2002), p. 66.
  6. Pamela Barnett: Theodore Haak and the early years of the Royal Society , Annals of Science, Volume 13, Number 4, December 1957, pp. 205-218.
  7. See entry in the archives of the Royal Society.
  8. [3]
  9. PDF , p. 2.
  10. [4]
  11. On a Grander Scale , p. 111.
  12. Pamela R. Barnett, Theodore Haak (1605-1690): The First German Translator of Paradise Lost
  13. ^ Christopher Hill : Milton and the English Revolution (1977), 391.