Johann Wilhelm Petersen
Johann Wilhelm Petersen ( born July 1, 1649 Osnabrück, † January 31, 1727 on the estate Thymern ( Thümern ) at Luebars ( Möckern ) ) was a German theologian, mystic and Chiliast. It is attributed to the radical Pietism.
Life
Johann Wilhelm Petersen grew up in Lübeck and visited the Katharineum to Lübeck. Even as a schoolboy wrote Petersen 1668 a wedding poem for Dietrich Buxtehude. This later set to music Petersen O how blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb in a cantata ( BuxWV 90). It has recently been assumed that Petersen also wrote the libretto of the evening music of Buxtehude of 1678 The marriage of the Lamb.
He studied theology in Giessen, Rostock, Leipzig and Wittenberg and Jena. In November 1671 he entered the University of Rostock, where he - after his promotion to Master in casting in the spring of 1672 in absentia and his inclusion in the Faculty of Arts in Rostock - also chaired in disputations. In Giessen, where he returned to the annual change of planes 1672/73, he also held rhetorical and natural law lectures. Since 1675 he was a friend of Philipp Jakob Spener in Frankfurt am Main. Through him he won access to pietism.
1677 Petersen was initially a poetics professor in Rostock and then became pastor at Aegidienkirche to Hanover, but appointed the following year to the court chaplain and superintendent of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck in Eutin. 1686 he received his doctorate in Rostock. From 1688 to 1692 he was superintendent in Lüneburg.
In 1680 he married so that class barriers border, the noble Johanna Eleonora of Merleau. Together with her, he developed an independent, radical spirituality in affinity for extravagant forms pietistic mysticism, which came to light first published in 1685 saying catechism. Later he got because of his advocacy of millenarianism and because of his links to the visionary Rosamunde Juliane von der Asseburg with his fellow bishops in conflict and was relieved of his duties in January 1692 and had to leave Lüneburg.
The rest of his life he spent as a theological writer, in close working relationship with his wife, on his estates in Niederndodeleben near Magdeburg, from 1724 in the now-defunct Thymern ( Thümern ) near Great Luebars and made several trips to his followers.
Teaching
Petersen's teaching radicalized starting from Spenersche pietism. About chiliasm he came to a Apokatastasislehre since 1695. Thus, the evil was purified and overcome over a thousand years, not only in one but in the three kingdoms of repentance, grace, and glory. This approach is evaluated Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz as interesting theological design for theodicy.
Works (selection)
- Urania qua Dei opera magna. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1720 urn: nbn: de: gbv :9 -g- 140,006th