Johannes Aepinus

John Aepinus also: Johann Hoeck, also Huck, Hugk, high or Aepinus; (* Around 1499 in Ziesar, † May 13, 1553 in Hamburg ) was a German Protestant theologian and reformer.

Life

Career to the reformer

Aepinus was born as the son of the alderman Hans Hoeck in Brandenburg Ziesar 1499. Already in his early youth he entered the Premonstratensian Belbuck in Treptow an der Rega. Among his teachers Johannes Bugenhagen and Hermann Bonnus he was educated in the ancient languages ​​and operating first theological studies. In 1518 he went to Wittenberg, where he enrolled at the University on October 1. He soon became familiar with the ideas of the Reformation by his teacher Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, and acquired on March 13, 1520 the academic degree of bachelor.

Following his studies, he went back to his home and was head of a school in Brandenburg. He was of the Protestant doctrine, and thus earned the animosity of the Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg to the who followed him at the instigation of his theological opponents and Jailed. When he was able to escape through friends captivity him a return to the Mark Brandenburg was denied.

Probably back in the Saxon area, Hoeck took on the advice of Melanchthon 's Greek scholar named Aepinus ( = αίπεινός = high ) to. Returned from exile taught Aepinus in Greifswald and Stralsund. In Stralsund he was 1524 - 1528 principal of a private school on the St. John's Cemetery. The Council of the City of Stralsund Aepinus was charged with developing an evangelical church order, which was introduced on November 5, 1525 and is known as the first Protestant church order.

In April 1529 came in Flensburg to a disputation with the Anabaptists Melchior Hofmann about the doctrine of the Eucharist. This drew Johannes Bugenhagen Aepinus added. As Bugenhagen had in June 1529 reformed the church being in Hamburg, was the first Lutheran pastor at St. Peter's Church to his office. As his successor was appointed Aepinus. In Hamburg, the cathedral chapter violently opposed the Reformation, so that Aepinus with two writings, which he dedicated to the city council, was counteracted. This papal heresies were listed, touted the epitome of the Lutheran faith and led a discussion about the right understanding of the doctrine of the Eucharist.

As part of the reform of the church and education in Hamburg Bugenhagen had designed a church ordinance, which was adopted on May 15, 1529. It also called for a Superintendent for Hamburg, which office was first transferred Aepinus on May 18, 1532. With the superintendency he took over at the same time the place of a pastor and lecturer primarius am Dom. This meant that the report drawn up by Bugenhagen church order for the superintendent provided for a significant teaching and Predigtätigkeit for the city as well as the proposal, supervisory and disciplinary law for all offices in the church and school service in Hamburg. This office should be filled by a qualified person who possessed the degree of Doctor of Theology.

Since Aepinus had only the academic degree of Baccalaurus, he turned to Wittenberg. There he acquired on 17 June 1533 a disputation on Melanchthon's theses the academic degree of licentiate. On the following day, 18 June, he received his doctorate together with Johannes Bugenhagen and Caspar Cruciger in a solemn act as doctor of theology. The Elector John Frederick of Saxony had reimbursed the cost of promotion and lived like Martin Luther at the solemn act, followed by a feast in the castle of Wittenberg joined.

Aepinus had substantially in the following years to be taken for State and Church to share important decisions. He now came soon in faith and doctrine issues forth throughout the Lutheran Church in Germany. In the city of Hamburg, his negotiating skills was taken over again by the Council to complete. Still took to the dispute with the cathedral chapter and could not be resolved. On July 7, 1533 in a condemnation of the Imperial Supreme Court against the city of Hamburg, with the imperial penal mandate of 1528 was confirmed. The ensuing situation led to the accession of Hamburg on January 25, 1536 in the Schmalkaldic covenant.

Accompanied by a delegation of the Council of the City of Hamburg Aepinus traveled to the court of Henry VIII of England, where he took part in negotiations on matters of divorce of the king and the reorganization of ecclesiastical affairs in England. However Aepinus denied Henry VIII the hoped-for positive theological opinion on divorce and had to experience that during his stay in the parliamentary negotiations, which then led to the 1534 Act of Supremacy, with no word of faith matters was talk. Rather, but it was ultimately just a question of supremacy and the confiscation of Church property. Aepinus, of Henry the VIII had given two copies of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, left London in January disappointed in 1535.

When he returned to Hamburg in the north German cities were troubled by the establishment of the Baptist reign in Münster. Therefore, he dedicated himself to strengthening the North German churches against the radical Anabaptists. On April 15, 1535 first Evangelical Synod of Lower Saxony took place in Hamburg on which the cities of Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Lüneburg, Rostock and Stralsund were represented. It was decided to leave no preacher on the pulpit, which was not tested by the Augsburg Confession and the Apology and had committed itself by signing to preach only the sound doctrine. After seizure and embarrassing questioning some Anabaptists were punished through the intercession of the preacher only with the expulsion from the city.

In February 1537, the Protestant representatives to the Bundestag in Schmalkalden consulted about their possible participation in the Pope Paul III. for May 1537 advertised to Mantua Council. Aepinus took part in the negotiations and signed for Hamburg, the Smalcald Articles and the Tractatus de potestate et primatu Papae.

Also wrote Aepinus 1539 for Hamburg a new church order, since the first church order Bugenhagen had practical problems. However, since in this elaborate church order came to disagreements with the city council, this was not enforced. Also for the office Bergedorf worked Aepinus from a church order, which came into force in 1544. 1552 Buxtehude was a church ordinance, which had also been drafted by Aepinus.

In the following years Aepinus was always drawn from his evangelical religionists in theological questions and the ensuing political action strategies to rate. As in 1538 in Braunschweig and later in Hamburg in the presence of King Christian III. was negotiated by Denmark, Aepinus was involved to avert the threat of war, which was caused by the creation of the Nuremberg-based Federal. 1546, there was, however, after the inconclusive Regensburg Colloquy for Schmalkaldic war. In 1552 he traveled to Copenhagen, Rostock and Lübeck, where the Council of the Hamburg superintendent was sought in ecclesiastical and theological questions.

Work as a theologian

As Aepinus senior pastor in Hamburg, the city had 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. In four parishes weekly church services were held 80 that were held alternately by himself, by the pastors and chaplains in the exchange. Since 1534 preached at St. Peter's Church, and with the acquisition of the superintendent stood him all the pulpits of the city, one of which he preached especially on the Domkanzel.

In his sermons and writings he took to practical- theological questions: the shape of the church wedding, for church discipline and how " wicked people buried with Christian psalms and songs [ are ] they have despised in life ." As a lecturer at the Cathedral he regularly gave lectures for scholars and preachers in Latin. Have become known Aepinus ' Psalm Interpretations ( 1544), where the interpretation of the 16th Psalm by the flared because the dispute over the doctrine of the Descent into Hell has gained particular publicity within the history of dogma and long belonged to the iconographic program of Christian art. His opponents led rightly argued that the Reformer had represented in a sermon at Torgau in 1533, the common dogmatic conception of the descent into hell, without, however, skip over it, " as such, but may be received ."

1548 began a dispute Hamburg pastors, where there was excessive polemics and mutual denunciation. The City Council intervened and demanded in 1550 by Melanchthon a report, which was drafted with great care and gentleness and demanded that the public discussion of the disputed article had to be omitted from the pulpit. As the opponents of Aepinus gave no rest, they were shocked by the Council from office and expelled from Hamburg. A sequel was the unfortunate dispute still in the imperial instructions to the Diet of Augsburg in 1555, where a resulting to Hamburg new sect, the speech was that had arisen over the dispute of the Descent into Hell, and were the sacramentarians, iconoclasts and other equivalent. Aepinus was based on his theory of the descent into hell, which he modified in the course of the debate, on a logically thought through satisfaction theory, with power of Christ was intended only hidden, not lost. Lutheranism is the ideas of the Hamburg Superintendent of the Descent into Hell, which show a closer relationship with the medieval world view, as is the case with Luther, not followed.

Hamburg became involved in the defeat of the Smalcald League with. Again Aepinus was the city council to the side. The Superintendent advised to peace, without revealing the cause of the Reformation: "Therefore it is necessary that we would rather lose everything to us and to remain in the correct confession of the truth, as we begin this time lucre's sake something against our could his conscience and salvation of our souls. " The decisive resistance to the forth resulting from the political events Augsburg Interim came from Northern Germany.

As Lutheran theologian from Hamburg, Lübeck and Lüneburg found together in Mölln, Aepinus was entrusted with drafting a rebuttal. In this paper ( 1548) he refutes the Augsburg Interim point by point. Melanchthon referred to them as the best thing that had been written on the matter. Similarly, Matthias Flacius expressed. Following the Leipzig article is a dispute over the Catholic ceremonies and customs it was granted. Aepinus, who with his letter to the Wittenberg theologians arose in 1549 opposition to the opinion of Melanchthon and entered along with Joachim Westphal for the offered preservation of a strict Lutheran standpoint, has been found in the Formula of Concord its doctrinal expression and thus stood on the sides of the Gnesio-Lutherans, without to quarrel with Melanchthon.

In the theological controversies that caused Andreas Osiander's representation of the relationship between justification and sanctification, Aepinus attacked by the Duke Albert I of Brandenburg -Ansbach with a written by him and Joachim Westphal writing ( 1552) a. On May 13, 1553 Aepinus died and was buried before the altar of St. Peter's Church.

Aftereffect

Valentin Ernst Löscher took 1719 his judgment on Aepinus in the sentence: " A great man in his time, and one of the best and most loyal tools of the Reformation". Aepinus has helped preserve the justification and sacraments as a center of Lutheran theology against the Roman Church and all intra- evangelical deviations energetic. His theological writings, which also from the Catholic side importance was granted to emphasize his work for the church-political reformation. His unwavering adherence to the principles of the Lutheran Church and theology has always been marked by prudence in judgment and personal gentleness and show the picture of the theological disputes, had to lead the Aepinus, and have wrought into the confessional formation of the Lutheran Church.

His church organizational activity comes to lasting significance. The written by him Stralsund church order of 1525 shows how much Aepinus had the whole of the Christian faith to be determined by public figures in mind. The core and center all ordering activity were there, which was founded on a correct understanding of Law and Gospel Lutheran doctrine. You should not only churches, but also the education shape that was intended for boys and girls, for rich and poor. This in the broadest sense social character of the religious orders was also reflected in the rules for the poor and sick care, pastoral care for the prisoners and the instructions for the care of old monks and priests.

Aepinus has set by his work a standard for the Office of the Superintendent and his episcopal character. This task was carried out over the cathedral chapter, the Council and the Office brothers Aepinus. When in 1933 the episcopate was introduced in the Hamburg Lutheran Church, one was aware in taking up the intended of Bugenhagen's church clerk's office of the Superintendent. Due to its comprehensive all areas of church life, ministry within the Hamburg Church E. Vogelsang could even come to the conclusion that Aepinus the " real reformer Hamburg " was, without thereby detracting from Bugenhagen merit.

Iconography

In Hamburg there is a painting by an unknown artist of the 16th century in the St. Jacobi Church. Furthermore, there in the sacristy of St. Peter's Church, a 17th century painting of a likewise unknown master.

Furthermore, a copper engraving by Christian Fritzsch known, which is reproduced at Staphorst. Johann wrote a Magdeburgius with his portrait provided Epitaph (Hamburg 1553). Another portrait, probably by Balthasar Mentz, is in the picture collection of the Protestant Seminary Wittenberg.

A suspected representation on the Epitaphbildnis for Paul Eber " The vineyard of the Lord" in the town church of Wittenberg indeed be a certain similarity to Aepinus recognize. Currently, however, the person depicted Georg Major is assigned.

Genealogy

Aepinus was married twice, his first wife died in childbirth in 1549, her name and his second wife are not known. Aepinus left several children. Among his descendants known theologians and jurists, as well as the well-known mathematician and physicist Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus find ( 1724-1802 ). See also Ersch - Gruber II, page 59

Works

• Pinacidion de Romanae ecclesiae imposturis. Hamburg 1530
• Benkentniss [! ] Unnd of declaration auffs interim by the Erbarn Stedte Lübeck, Hamburg, Lüneburg, etc. superintendent, Pastorn unnd gestellet preacher in Christianity and necessary untterrichtung. Magdeburg, [ca 1548 ] [ VD16 A 356 ] ( digitized )
• De justificatione hominis. ( Frankf. 1551 )
• Responsio ad confessionem Andreae Osiandri. 1552
• De rebus adiaphoris epistola ... 1549
• Responsio ministrorum ... 1552
• Formula desponsationis ...