Thomas Venatorius

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Thomas Venatorius (* around 1488 in Nuremberg ; † February 4, 1551 there ) was a mathematician as well as Protestant theologian and reformer .

Life

Venatorius was a student of the mathematician Johannes Schöner , as he himself writes in the preface to his Archimedes edition. However, he cannot have been his pupil in his youth, since Schöner was not in Nuremberg at the time, and perhaps did not study with him until the mid-1520s. Venatorius turned to theology and possibly entered the Dominican order .

As a young humanist, Venatorius moved to Italy at an early age . He studied in Padua . He latinized his German name Gehauf or Jäger, following the custom of the time. After his return he was in the church service in his hometown from 1519. He can be traced back to Kornburg as an early knife since 1519 . In 1522 he became a preacher at the Heilig-Geist-Spital in Nuremberg on the recommendation of Willibald Pirckheimer . He was there until 1533 "south preacher". In 1532 he became a preacher in the nunnery of St. Katharina. From 1533 until the end of his life he was a preacher at the Jacobin Church. In addition, he maintained his humanistic inclinations, even when he had joined the evangelical movement.

He remained connected to Pirckheimer even when the other Protestant pastors in Nuremberg moved away from him. From 1534 he was in charge of the city's school system. In this context, he edited numerous Latin poems, translations of Greek tragedians and astronomical works. Venatorius held a respected position among the Nuremberg preachers and took part in church life without being a leader.

From 1544 to 1554 he was involved in the implementation of the Reformation in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Donauwörth .

In the dispute over the "open guilt" he took a position against Andreas Osiander . Basically, however, he remained the scholar who did not like to take part in the polemics. Only when Johannes Haner fell away did he write a harsh pamphlet against him in Nuremberg in 1534, "De sola fide iustificante nos ... ad Joannem Hanerum epistola apologetica". His theological works were popular and have outlived the author. In addition to Latin writings on basic evangelical truths, there were mainly consolation writings for the community.

Martin Luther published the text “A brief lesson for dying people comforting” in 1527 with a preface. In 1530 the book “Ermanung zum Creutz in the time of persecution” appeared. Not to be forgotten is his book “De virtute christiana”, published in Nuremberg in 1529, which stands at the beginning of Protestant ethics, without having received any real attention. Venatorius also wrote exegetical and dogmatic writings, some of which are no longer preserved, including an interpretation of the psalms that he dedicated to the council of Rothenburg and the abbot of Heilsbronn monastery . During the time of the Augsburg interim , Venatorius, like other Nuremberg preachers, offered valiant resistance. Soon after, he died.

In 1544 he published the first printed edition of Archimedes' works in Basel , with a Greek / Latin text. The Greek text came from a manuscript that Pirckheimer had brought with him from Rome, the Latin text from Regiomontanus . Also based on a manuscript by Regiomontanus, he brought out the Liber de pictura by Leon Battista Alberti in Basel in 1540 .

In his first marriage he was married to Margarethe Zeckendorfer, a former nun, from August 11, 1527. She died in 1542. On July 17, 1542 he married Margaretha Kobolt, with whom he had at least one son. He lived in Nuremberg on Zistelgasse (today's Albrecht-Dürer-Strasse). The Kirchenweg in Kornburg was renamed after him in 1974.

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