Walter Nigg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Nigg (born January 6, 1903 in Lucerne ; † March 17, 1988 in Bülach ) was a Swiss Reformed theologian .

Life

Walter Nigg studied philosophy and evangelical theology at the universities of Göttingen , Leipzig and Zurich . There he became Lic. Theol. PhD; In 1931 the habilitation followed with an examination of Franz Overbeck . He was first pastor in Stein AR and from 1939 until his retirement in 1970 in Dällikon - Dänikon . In 1940 he was appointed adjunct professor for church history at the University of Zurich. Last but not least, his attention as a church historian was devoted to the history of piety , which was hardly noticed by many colleagues at the time. In 1955 Nigg gave up his professorship and from then on devoted himself entirely to writing. In the 1920s, Nigg had come across the book «Women of Romanticism» by the writer Margarete Susman , which represented an artistic-literary biography which was new at the time. Nigg adopted this method for his own work. Susman, who lives in Zurich, became a “consultant” and “companion of his literary work”.

In his books, Nigg portrayed many well-known and forgotten characters - saints , thinkers, artists and heretics - from the history of Christianity in a subtle way. By dealing all his life with the Catholic theme of saints, he made an important contribution in the context of the ecumenical rapprochement of the Christian denominations .

His personal library went to the Institute for Ecumenical Studies at the University of Friborg (Switzerland), where there is a research center on Nigg's life and work. Nigg received the work of Pavel Florenskij and Sergei Bulgakow intensively as early as 1925; He has dealt extensively with the writing Sincere Tales of a Russian Pilgrim in his book Des Pilgrim's Return , a script that also became of central importance for the Imjaslavie , the worship of the Name of God movement in Russian Orthodoxy at the beginning of the 20th century . In this way, Nigg contributed to the ecumenical focus of Swiss Catholic and Reformed theology. This ecumenism also takes Russian Orthodoxy into account.

Nigg was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1949 by the Theological Faculty of the University of Marburg . His around 50 books have been published by various publishers in Switzerland and Germany (including Artemis, Walter) since 1927 and are now mostly out of print. The Diogenes Verlag, Zurich, acquired world rights in 1993 and still publishes works by Walter Nigg (including “Grosse Heilige” and “Das Buch der Ketz”).

Fonts

  • Pestalozzi's religious moment . De Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1927
  • Franz Overbeck . Attempt an appreciation . (Beck, Munich 1931). Römerhof Verlag, Zurich 2009
  • Church historiography. Main features of their historical development . Beck, Munich 1934 (Diss. Theol.)
  • History of Religious Liberalism. Origin, heyday, end . Niehans, Zurich 1937
  • Church reaction. Depicted on Michael Baumgarten's fate . Haupt, Bern 1939
  • Martin Buber's way in our time . Haupt, Bern 1940
  • Hermann Kutter's legacy . Haupt, Bern 1941
  • Religious thinkers. Kierkegaard , Dostoyevsky , Nietzsche , Van Gogh . Haupt, Bern 1942
  • The Eternal Kingdom. Story of a longing and a disappointment . Rentsch, Zurich 1944
  • Great saints . Artemis, Zurich 1946
  • The Book of Heretics . Artemis, Zurich 1949
  • Prayers of Christianity . Rauhen Haus agency , Hamburg 1950
  • Painter of the Eternal. Meditations on religious art. Grünewald - Michelangelo - El Greco - Rembrandt . Artemis, Zurich 1951
  • From the mystery of the monks . Artemis, Zurich 1953
  • The pilgrim's return. Three variations on a theme . Artemis, Zurich 1954
  • The Christian fool . Artemis, Zurich 1956
  • Prophetic thinkers . Artemis, Zurich 1957
  • Secret wisdom. Mystical life in evangelical Christianity . Artemis, Zurich 1959
  • Painter of the Eternal. Volume II: Modern Icons . Artemis, Zurich 1961
  • Ambassadors of faith. The evangelists' life and word . Walter, Olten 1962
  • Shine of legend. An invitation to love simplicity again . Artemis, Zurich 1964
  • Pilgrimage to poetry. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff - Jeremias Gotthelf - Nikolai Gogol . Artemis, Zurich 1966
  • Book of penitents. Nine life pictures . Walter, Olten 1970
  • The Hidden Splendor or The Paradoxical Praise . Walter, Olten 1971
  • Three big characters. Elias - Job - Sophia . Walter, Olten 1972
  • What should stay. Ten biographical meditations . Walter, Olten 1973
  • From exemplary life. Nine guiding principles and directions . Walter, Olten 1974
  • Saints in everyday life . Walter, Olten 1976
  • Don Bosco . A timeless saint . Don-Bosco, Munich 1977
  • Saints without a halo . Walter, Olten 1978
  • Stay, you angels, stay with me (with Karl Gröning). Propylaea, Frankfurt am Main 1978
  • Gerhard Tersteegen : We are foreign guests here. A selection from his writings . 2nd edition Wuppertal 1980.
  • Great unholy . Walter, Olten 1980
  • Saints and poets . Walter, Olten 1982
  • Mary Ward . A woman doesn't give up . (Don-Bosco, Munich 1983). Römerhof Verlag, Zurich 2009
  • Felix and Regula . Appropriation of a legend . Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1983
  • The devil and his servants . Walter, Olten 1983
  • Rebels of their own kind. A Blumhardt interpretation . Quell, Stuttgart 1988
  • A little word about my books and other autobiographical texts . Reinhardt, Basel 2010, ISBN 978-3-7245-1713-9

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Jaspert: Walter Nigg and the church history . T. Bautz Verlag, Nordhausen 2017, pp. 35–45.
  2. ↑ Bernhard Lang: Stories of Saints and Heretics: What theology could learn from Walter Nigg , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung July 4, 2017 (The article is a review of the books by Bernd Jaspert and Uwe Wolff about Nigg from 2017. Nigg I had a considerable church history program.)
  3. ↑ Uwe Wolff: "The secret is mine." Walter Nigg - A biography . Theological Publishing House Zurich 2009. P. 385 f.
  4. ↑ Walter Nigg: The pilgrim's return. Three variations on a theme . Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Stuttgart 1954.
personal data
SURNAME Nigg, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Reformed theologian, professor of church history, biographer of saints
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1988
Place of death Bulach