Kaspar Olevianus
Caspar Olevian, Kaspar Olevianus (* August 10, 1536 in Trier, † March 15, 1587 in Herborn ) was a German Reformed theologian and a major representative of the "Second Reformation " in Germany. He worked as a professor in Heidelberg, where he was involved as a Commissioner on the final version of the Heidelberg Catechism, and at the High School Herborn.
Life
Caspar Olevian was born the son of a baker, guild master, councilman and urban Rentmeisters. His mother was the daughter of a butcher's guild master and alderman. The name Olevian initiated from the father of today's Trier district Olewig from which the family originally came from. Caspar Olevian visited various schools in Trier. With only 13 years he left the city; he was sent for further training to Paris at the upper classes of the high school and the study of Artes. Later he studied in Orléans and Bourges Law, where he under the civil lawyer Franciscus Duarenus doctorate in 1557 for Dr. juris.
During the study years of Caspar Olevian of French Protestantism had its early spread wide and his first level of organization in secret communities. In Bourges for the life orientation of Caspar Olevian finds its reason, here it was coined in the spirit of Calvinism and permanently aligned. The student Olevian was there in a secret Protestant Huguenot community. Two of his professors were personally Protestants, his doctor father Duarenus with alignment to the prevailing Catholic relations.
1556 was Caspar Olevian in great danger. High-spirited students had brought on a river near Bourges their boat capsized and were doing all drowned. Caspar Olevian, who had been watching from the shore the accident was advised in trying to provide aid yourself in danger. In agony, he vowed to devote himself to the study of theology and the spreading of the Gospel, if he would come out with their lives.
Because of this vow Caspar Olevian decided to prepare in Switzerland on the Reformation ministry and take up the study of theology. In March 1558 he traveled for this purpose via Strasbourg to Geneva, where he heard of John Calvin theology. Because of Calvin's disease, he joined the Schola Carolina to Zurich to Peter Martyr Vermigli. There he heard Heinrich Bullinger, in Lausanne, he was a pupil of Theodore Beza.
In June 1559 he returned to Trier. From the City Council, he was initially set formally as Latin teacher and taught at the Burse. Later he established a German catechism, and increased from August 1559 as a public preacher by his powerful presence and his rousing evangelical preaching the inlet to the initially small Protestant community at the site tremendously, so that within a short time about a third of the population of city of Trier was one of the municipality.
In the same year Trier was at the instigation of Archbishop John VI. von der Leyen to the Catholic side. A majority of the Council as the guilds of the city did not ban Caspar Olevian preaching in urban areas, but in another place. Such a ban, however, was expressed by the councils of the Archbishop and Elector of Trier and justified, Trier was no imperial city, the provisions of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 ( " cuius regio eius religio " ) not träfen to be heading for the town and its magistrates. The Supreme Court has confirmed this argument later.
Several Trier Protestants, among them Caspar Olevian were imprisoned during this time and released only after they had vowed to either return to the rightful Catholic faith or to leave the city. Many said they would be Catholic again, a considerable number of citizens emigrated. The Reformation in Trier was failed.
Caspar Olevian also left the city after ten weeks ' imprisonment. He was appointed professor of the Elector Frederick III. of the Palatinate (1559-1576) to Heidelberg, where he was employed first at the Collegium Sapientiae, a kind of seminary as a teacher. 1560 he took over briefly a theology professor at the University of Heidelberg, was this spot on, however, because it corresponded more of its kind to be in the practical church service. 1561 married Caspar Olevian the Philippine Widow of Metz. The marriage produced three children, two sons and a daughter. Olevian then worked as a parish priest at St. Peter's Church and later at the Holy Spirit Church, as well as court preacher. The Elector gave him his full confidence and appointed him a member of the 1562 newly built Church Council. From this position, he was instrumental in the reorganization of the Palatine church after being reformed Calvinist principles.
" Not more durable is the old thesis that Olevianus was a co-author of the Catechism, not even the recent hypothesis that the final version of the German text goes back to him. Olevianus was a Commissioner among others. With the final catechism he was personally not satisfied. He would have wanted him Calvinist. As a senior churchman but he was much involved in the introduction of the Church Catechism. " Olevianus prompted the elector to supplement the Catechism to the question 80, which " was in the spirit of Frederick. "
Strict at the Reformed church order for the Palatinate, which was released on November 15, 1563, the monitored with their presbyteries synodical elements next to the sovereign consistory, with its new practice of Abendmahlsausteilung and especially with their the presbytery instead of the sovereign police power and controlled rules of church discipline, he played a decisive role. As an influential confidant of the Elector Palatine, he traveled with this to the religious discussions in Maulbronn ( 1564), in Oppenheim ( 1565) and in Amberg in the Upper Palatinate ( 1566). Olevian accompanied Elector Frederick or more often if waivers of monasteries and in the Palatinate, where it not infrequently led to violent attacks, so on May 9, 1565 in Cyriakus pin ( Worms). There they destroyed the entire facility and burned them; Caspar Olevian broke hand at the tabernacle and the Elector crumbled under its affirmative comments encountered the consecrated hosts with the hands.
After the death of decidedly Calvinist Friedrich III. in the fall of 1576 and the accession of his Lutheran son Louis VI. (1576-1583) had to leave Caspar Olevian Heidelberg. He found 1577 recording at the court of Count Ludwig von Sayn -Wittgenstein in Berleburg, where he led the education of the sons of Count. From Berleburg out he took effect on the progress of the Reformation in the county as in the nearby Nassau principalities and counties of the Wetterau until after Solms- Braunfels and Wied. So he wrote in those years one suited to the needs of the country people, "Bauer Catechism " and participated engaged in meetings and synods.
1584 appointed him Count Johann VI. of Nassau- Dillenburg in his territory and entrusted him with the establishment of the High School in Herborn, which was created in the same year. Caspar Olevian became its first rector, and was, besides Johannes Piscator, their leading theologian. One last point in the life of Caspar Olevian was Herborner General Synod in 1586, which he directed and in which the Reformed churches of Nassau- Dillenburg, Wittgenstein, Solms- Braunfels and Wied - Runkel were represented. The 26 theologians joined to a higher territorial church together, so overcame the first time in Germany the only territorial character of a Reformation church and decided after long and heated arguments for a church constitution, which was a hybrid of presbyterial and consistorial elements.
Caspar also Olevian themselves overcame during his life many boundaries: Only the professional boundary from the baker's son to the students, then the language border from French to German, the Faculty limit of the jurisprudence on the theology and especially the denomination border from Catholicism to Protestantism. This openness to the new and the search for the truth on the one hand and the acceptance of limits by obtaining positions on the other side are essentials Caspar Olevians. So he made himself - as one of the greatest reformers of Germany - the people's church the signpost of ecumenism today's world.
Caspar Olevian died on March 15, 1587 as the result of an accident, he had already suffered on December 30, 1586. At a hospital visit, he was several times a bad fall on an icy road and had suffered internal injuries that you knew at that time neither to recognize nor deal with. Made famous is his last word: On the question of his colleagues Ulsted if he was also sure of his salvation, he replied " Certissimus ". On March 18, 1587 Caspar Olevian was buried in the Protestant town church Herborn, where he was a neo-gothic epitaph was set in 1887.
Work
As a dogmatist Caspar Olevian developed, which was acquired by Heinrich Bullinger Federal ( federal ) theology continued on and made in his major work De substantia foederis gratuiti inter Deum et Electos (1585 ) the idea of a covenant between God and mankind the basis of his biblical understanding. He understood the entire history of God with mankind under this sign: With Adam God had a natural Federation ( foedus naturae ) agreed that the people had broken through sin what God is with them a new covenant, a covenant of grace, closed, and by the have sealed his son's death. The core of this covenant of grace was the election of people through it will give assurance of salvation, in him God's rule - the kingdom of God - realized. Caspar Olevian joined the covenant of grace God with the kingdom of God, and he explained how the certainty of salvation, of belonging to the kingdom of God, the people will be awarded: by the progressive faith and through the external means of the visible Church, the word in the preaching and the sacraments.
At the exegesis of the Bible, Caspar Olevian tried only to a small extent, such as the letters of Paul. In this he differs from his teachers Calvin and Bullinger.
Remembrance
March 15 in the Protestant calendar name.