August Hermann Francke

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For his descendant, see August Hermann Francke (Tibetologist).
August Hermann Franckecentered
Part of a series on
Lutheranism
Background
Doctrine and theology
Bible
Creeds
Book of Concord
  • Formula of Concord
    		•
    Distinctive theological concepts
    Other relevant topics
    Organization
    Movements
    Key figures
    Missionaries

    Bible Translators

    Theologians

    August Hermann Francke (German:

    Biblical scholar
    .

    Biography

    Born in

    Leipzig. During his student career he made a special study of Hebrew and Greek; and in order to learn Hebrew more thoroughly, he for some time put himself under the instructions of Ezra Edzardi at Hamburg. He graduated at Leipzig, where in 1685 he became a Privatdozent.[1]

    A year later, with the help of his friend P. Anton, and with the approval and encouragement of

    Philipp Jakob Spener, he founded the Collegium Philobiblicum, at which a number of graduates met regularly for the systematic study of the Bible, philologically and practically. He next spent some months at Lüneburg as assistant or curate to the learned superintendent, K. H. Sandhagen, and there his religious beliefs deepened. On leaving Lüneburg he spent some time in Hamburg, where he became a teacher in a private school, and made the acquaintance of Nikolaus Lange.[1]

    After a long visit to Spener, at that time a court preacher in

    Roman Catholics, but at the same time excited the anger of his opponents; and the result of their opposition was that after a ministry of fifteen months he was commanded by the civil authorities (27 September 1691) to leave Erfurt within forty-eight hours. That same year Spener was expelled from Dresden.[2]

    In December, through Spener's influence, Francke accepted an invitation to fill the chair of Greek and oriental languages in the new

    University of Halle, which was at that time being organized by the elector Frederick III of Brandenburg; and at the same time, the chair having no salary attached to it, he was appointed pastor of Glaucha in the immediate neighbourhood of the town. He afterwards became professor of theology. Here, for the remaining thirty-six years of his life, he discharged the twofold office of pastor and professor with energy and success.[3]

    At the very outset of his labours, he had been profoundly impressed with a sense of his responsibility towards the numerous outcast children who were growing up around him in ignorance and crime. After a number of tentative plans, he resolved in 1695 to institute what is often called a "ragged school", supported by public charity. A single room was at first sufficient, but within a year it was found necessary to purchase a house, to which another was added in 1697.[3]

    In 1698, there were 100 orphans under his charge to be clothed and fed, besides 500 children who were taught as day scholars. The schools grew in importance and were later known as the

    manual trades. He ran an apothecary's shop and, having assisted his friend Carl Hildebrand von Canstein in founding the first modern Bible society, a printing press for publishing cheap copies of the Bible for mass distribution. At the time of Francke's death, the schools were frequented by more than 2,300 pupils.[4][5] Francke's schools provided a prototype which greatly influenced later German education.[6]

    In his university teaching as well, he gave great emphasis to religion. Even as professor of Greek, he had given great prominence in his lectures to the study of the Scriptures; but he found a much more congenial sphere when, in 1698, he was appointed to the chair of theology. Yet his first courses of lectures in that department were readings and expositions of the Old and New Testament; and to this, as also to

    Danish-Halle Mission to India.[10][11]

    Works

    Francke's principal contributions to theological literature were: Manuductio ad Lectionem Scripturae Sacrae (1693); Praelectiones Hermeneuticae (1717); Commentatio de Scopo Librorum Veteris et Novi Testamenti (1724); and Lectiones Paraeneticae (1726-1736). The Manuductio was translated into English in 1813, under the title A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scriptures.[3]

    An account of his orphanage, entitled Segensvolle Fußstapfen, (1709), which subsequently passed through several editions, has also been partially translated, under the title The Footsteps of Divine Providence, or, The Bountiful Hand of Heaven Defraying the Expenses of Faith.[3]

    • Francke, August Hermann (1704): August Hermann Franckes Schrift über eine Reform des Erziehungs- und Bildungswesens als Ausgangspunkt einer geistlichen und sozialen Neuordnung der Evangelischen Kirche des 18. Jahrhunderts: der Grosse Aufsatz. Mit einer quellenkundlichen Einführung. Hrsg. v. Otto Podczeck. Berlin. Akademie 1962.

    Notes

    1. ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 4.
    2. ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 4–5.
    3. ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 5.
    4. ^ Rines 1920.
    5. ^ Ripley & Dana 1879.
    6. ^ Latourette 1967, p. 412.
    7. ^ a b Latourette 1967, pp. 46–47.
    8. ^ Gawthrop 2006, pp. 171–173.
    9. ^ Rouster 2000, p. 28.
    10. ^ Lueker, Poellot & Jackson 2000.
    11. ^ Klosterberg, Brigitte (2020). "The "Mission Archives" in the Archives of the Francke Foundations in Halle". MIDA Archival Reflexicon: 1.

    References

    Attribution

    Further reading

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to August Hermann Francke.
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=August_Hermann_Francke&oldid=1214678121"