Wessel Gansfort
Johann Wessel (* 1419 in Groningen, † October 4, 1489 ibid, also under the nickname Gansfort, Goes Fort, Gösevort or basileus, the Greek word for Wessel ) was a famous Platonist and humanist, forerunner of the German Reformation, by his contemporaries ingenious because of its demonstrations against all authority, especially Thomas Aquinas, entitled Lux mundi (Light of the world) and Master of contradiction ( Master of contradiction ) honored.
Life
Johann Wessel Gansfort was the son of a baker. Early orphaned, he came up with the famous school in Zwolle ( Netherlands today ) and lived in the boarding school of the Brothers of the Common Life in the nearby monastery on the Agnetenberg. There he met the Augustinian monk and mystic Thomas a Kempis, who wrote the most widely according to the Bible book of the late Middle Ages, the Imitation of Christ ( Imitation of Christ ) and many ascetic, historiographical and biographical works. Wessel worked intensively with Thomas von Kempen inward deepening and devout healing Constitution. He combined this experience with the sharpness of his logical thinking and the joy of dialectical investigations and disputes. He received in Zwolle after a short time a teacher.
Further studies and more intensive training in dialectics he went to Cologne in 1449 and came under there in the Bursa Laurentiana who had founded a compatriot of him. The former teacher at the university were almost universally supporters of realism. Also Wessel sympathized with this philosophical mindset and began at the same time his humanistic studies. An ancient languages he studied Greek and - probably under the guidance of Jewish teachers - Hebrew. The accumulated from lectures and reading material of knowledge he laid out in a collection, which he called mare magnum.
In Cologne, he earned his master's degree. Recommended by confessor of the Archbishop of Cologne, he received a professorship at the University of Heidelberg. He sat 1456/57 there continued the study and also taught in the Faculty of Arts.
After a short stay in Leuven he moved to further scientific training to Paris, the intellectual center of the time. There was just starting to tackle the universals of the advocates of nominalism against those of realism, in particular the country people Wessels Heinrich von Zomeren and Nicholas of Utrecht, violently underway. Wessel wanted to participate on the side of realism in the philosophical debate. During the preparations but convinced him the argument of nominalism. Although he maintained his attitude to Plato, Augustine and the Scholastics, however, is to assume that changed his attitude to church policy. The nominalists were disposed almost entirely antipäpstlich and Wessel turned gradually to this attitude.
Wessel was 16 years in Paris. Whether he worked there as an academic teacher, is controversial. Finally, nominalism was banned and Wessel, the clashes tired, was devoted mainly to the support of humanism
Temporarily he was in Angers. After Rome drew him in 1470 his friendship with Cardinal Bessarion and his interest in further studies. From Pope Sixtus IV offered offices he struck out. His other stations were Venice and Basel. In Basel, he met Johann Reuchlin and Rudolf Agricola and chatted with them a lively scientific relationship. 1474 Johann Wessel Gansfort swept over Heidelberg and Cologne to his home -
His last years lived in different monasteries Wessel partly in Groningen and partly on the Agnetenberg in Zwolle under the protection of his patron, the Bishop of Utrecht David, because ever since you watched men like the theologian Johann Rucherath ( Wesel ), he also did not feel more sure .. After his death, his remains were buried first in the Groningen Klarissenkloster. 1862 were then transferred to the Martinikerk. As an epitaph was erected against the west wall, at the foot of the old grave stone was laid. In 1962, the remains were dug up during the last restoration of the church. The grave stone was then walled up next to the epitaph.
Effect on the Reformation
Under the influence of the Brothers of the Common Life and the writings of Aurelius Augustine himself Wessel dealt with certain views of the Bible.
Martin Luther was referring to in his 1522 preface to a collection of smaller treatises and letters Wessels on its very aligned to the Bible faith and his teaching:
However, the church Bibliographical Lexicon makes the statement, Wessel was a forerunner of the Reformation, only conditionally valid and justified this by saying Wessel stands in fundamental ways in the article of justification quite on the floor of the medieval doctrine.
Most of the Wessels writings were destroyed by the Inquisition.
Characteristic of his theological conception is his confession on his deathbed:
His friends were like-minded theologian and humanist Heinrich von Rees, Abbot of Advert, Rudolf Lange, Johann Agricola, Hermann of the bush.
Works / writings
Main headings: (in addition to the lost )
- De oratione
- De sacra eucharistia
- De passione Christi
- De purgatorio et indulgentia
Expenditures:
- Farrago rerum theologicarum, with preface by Martin Luther ( Wittenberg, 1522), also (Groningen, 1614 ) and (Amsterdam, 1617)