Peter Aloys Gratz

Alois Peter Gratz ( born August 17, 1769 in Mittelberg, Allgäu, † November 1, 1849 in Darmstadt ) was one of the most important Catholic biblical scholars in the early 19th century. He was particularly known for his critical and historical commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which was published in two volumes in Tübingen from 1821 to 1823.

Born the son of a teacher in Mittelberg, Peter Alois Gratz grew up in Stötten am Auersberg on Market Oberndorf. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Dillingen, where the pastoral theologian Johann Michael Sailer (1751-1832) was one of his teachers. In 1792 he was ordained a priest and entered on Sailer's recommendation his first job as a tutor ( tutor ) at the wide castle not far from Horb am Neckar to. In 1795 he became pastor of the nearby village sub Talheim. Because of disputes with his congregation, he withdrew from spring 1805 to autumn 1807 to the wide- castle back and was now able to dedicate themselves to the study of Scripture.

Meanwhile fell far county Austrian Hohenberg, to the sub Talheim and the Far castle belonged to Württemberg. In the fall of 1812 a Catholic State University was built to the Wurttemberg training candidates for the priesthood by the state in Ellwangen. Gratz, who had already brought the beginning of 1807 to the authorities as a possible Professor week and five years later published a work on the origin of the synoptic gospels, here was appointed Professor of New Testament. 1817 laid the Württemberg State Catholic Theological Faculty of Ellwangen to Tübingen. Together with the colleagues of Johann Sebastian Drey (1777-1853), Johann Georg Herbst (1787-1836) and Johann Baptist Hirscher (1788-1865) called Gratz here in 1819 the Theological quarterly magazine to life, as its first editors, he served for a short time.

That same year, followed Gratz a call to the newly founded University of Bonn. As a professor primarius he was entrusted with the organization of their Catholic Theological Faculty. From 1820 to 1824 Gratz issued a magazine entitled The apologist of Catholicism in which he compared his church - as he said - unfair attacks from the Protestant side defended. In 1821 he published the first volume of a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, the doubts about his orthodoxy has raised the Prussian Ministry of Culture. Therefore it took a report from other faculties to this comment, which were negative. As a result, the Ministry sought from 1822, Gratz to remove from the Magisterium and to give him a different location.

Gratz 1828 clergyman Council and School Board at the Prussian government district in Trier. Here he deployed once again a fruitful occupation and made himself especially to the threatened closure of the school teacher seminar deserves. From 1839 on, he spent his retirement on the mountain road.

Main works

  • New attempt to explain the origin of drey first Gospels. Fues, Tübingen 1812.
  • About the limits of the freedom they deserve a Catholic in regard to the explanation of the Scriptures. Ritter, Ellwangen 1817.
  • Critical studies of Marcion's Gospel. Osiander, Tübingen 1818.
  • The apologist of Catholicism. A journal for correction varied distortions of Catholicism. For friends of truth and brotherly love. 9 books, Kupferberg, Mainz from 1820 to 1824.
  • Novelty testamentum Greco- latinum. 2 volumes, Fues, Tübingen 1821.
  • Critical and historical commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. 2 volumes, Laupp, Tübingen from 1821 to 1823.
  • Novum Testamentum Grace et latine. 2 volumes, Kupferberg, Mainz 1827 (2nd edition 1851).
  • Nova collectio dissertationum Selectarum in jus ecclesiasticum Potissimum anglicum. Kupferberg, Mainz, 1829.
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