Johann Eberlin von Günzburg
Johann Eberlin of Günzburg (* 1470 in Kleinkötz near Günzburg, † October 1533 in Leutershausen at Ansbach ) was a German theologian of the Reformation and social reformer in Franconia.
Life and work
Eberlin had already lost his parents early. Despite the help of his relatives, he experienced his youth in difficult conditions. Through the hardships of life, he got early a feel for what it is in need to share the suffering and to be as helpful towards the sufferer.
Its promoters recognized immediately the skills of the young man and allowed him to study at the University of Ingolstadt. After the acquisition of Baccalaurats he was first priest in Augsburg. In the summer of 1489 he nam again to study at the University of Basel, where he earned the degree of Master of Arts in the following year. On wanderings he came to Heilbronn, where he entered upon the advice of his relatives in the Franciscan monastery and vehemently advocated the old Catholic doctrine.
1519 he moved as a reading master and preacher to Tübingen and received by the local Humanist circle first contact with the reformist ideas of Martin Luther. Subsequently, he was reading Master and preacher in Freiburg im Breisgau. In this function, he was active in Ulm beginning in 1521 and began to preach in the Lutheran sense. This in turn called his monks to the plan, hostile to him vehemently. Because of the conflict he took the consequences and left the order.
He went on tour to Lauingen, Baden, to Augsburg and Bern. During this time, he saw it as his duty to stand up in sermons and pamphlets of the Reformation faith. So in Bern he published his first book "Fifteen allies ". However, its activity in Switzerland did not satisfy him really, so it does to Wittenberg, the birthplace of the Reformation came to pass.
Registered in the matriculation of the University of Wittenberg, he experienced a time in which the Wittenberg movement subsided by the influence of Luther. This soothing environment also had an impact on Eberlin. Strongly influenced by Luther, Philipp Melanchthon and Andreas Bodenstein, his writings were moderate. In his writings he turned still against the ceremonies of the Catholic Church and his enmity to the monastic life, however, urged it to be closer to the people viewing sense for rational tangible style.
In the summer of 1523 he went again on the move to Ulm, Basel, Rheinfelden and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. However, he was never home. This seemed to change until he married in 1524 in Erfurt, and there found employment as a preacher. Eberlin had a very fine observation skills and a strong sense of social needs. These gifts enabled him during the unrest of the German Peasants' War, to appease the public elementary excitation in Erfurt and Ilmenau.
1526 he was appointed the Count George II of Wertheim to Franconia. In Wertheim he reformed the county and wrote his major writings " faithful warning to the Christians in the burgauischen Mark " and the German translation of " Germanica " of Tacitus. As written by him in 1529 his church order for the County of Wertheim appeared, he was also the first superintendent of the same. However, he could not enjoy the fruits of his success.
When George II died in March 1530 Eberlin was dismissed from the service. Therefore, he took a job as a parish administrator in Leutershausen. Here he summarized but not more right foot since its hardness encountered in church discipline with resistance. After an illness he died in October 1533.
Eberlin was next to Luther as the most eloquent and spoke sprachgewaltigste theologian of the early Reformation period. The social ideas that he preached in his sermon in the 20s of the 16th century with great force, making this Swabian reformer to the most interesting and appealing appearances of his time.
His thinking
In view of the celibacy Eberlin has very clearly taken a position. A font of 1522 bears the telling title: How do dangerous it is when a priest has no wife! He reaches there with biblical and historical reasons, celibacy and describes its public harmfulness. He called on the bishops to abandon their opposition to the marriage of priests.