From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann August Ernesti (August
4, 1707 –
September
11, 1781),
was a German
theologian
and philologist.
He was born at Tennstadt in Thuringia,
where his father was pastor, besides being superintendent of the electoral
dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen. At the age of sixteen he was
sent to the celebrated Saxon cloister
school of Pforta
(Schulpforta). At twenty he entered the University
of Wittenberg, and studied afterwards at the University
of Leipzig. In 1730
he was made master in the faculty of philosophy. In the following year he
accepted the office of conrector in the Thomas school of Leipzig, of which JM
Gesner was then rector, an office to which Ernesti succeeded in 1734. He
was, in 1742,
named professor extraordinarius of ancient literature in the university of
Leipzig, and in 1756
professor ordinarius of rhetoric.
In the same year he received the degree of doctor of theology,
and in 1759 was appointed professor ordinarius in the faculty of theology.
Through his learning and his manner of discussion, he co-operated with S.
J. Baumgarten of Halle
(1706-1757) in disengaging the current dogmatic theology from its many
scholastic and mystical excrescences, and thus paved a way for a revolution
in theology. He died, after a short illness, in his seventy-sixth year.
Apart from the quality of his own writing, Ernesti is notable for his
influence on sacred
and profane criticism in Germany. With JS
Semler he co-operated in the revolution of Lutheran
theology, and in conjunction with Gesner he instituted a new school in
ancient literature. He detected grammatical niceties in Latin,
in regard to the consecution of tenses which had escaped preceding critics.
As an editor of the Greek classics, Ernesti does not compare with his
Dutch contemporaries, Tiberius
Hemsterhuis, L.
C. Valckenaer, David
Ruhnken or his colleague JJ
Reiske. The higher criticism was not even attempted by Ernesti. But to
him and to Gesner is due the credit of having formed, by discipline and by
example, philologists greater than themselves, and of having kindled the
national enthusiasm for ancient learning.
It is chiefly in hermeneutics
that Ernesti has any claim to eminence as a theologian. But here his merits
are distinguished, and, at the period when his Institutio Interpretis
Nove Testamenti (Principles of New Testament Interpretation) was
published (1761), almost peculiar to himself. In it we find the principles
of a general interpretation, formed without the assistance of any particular
philosophy, but consisting of observations and rules which, though already
enunciated, and applied in the criticism of the profane writers, had never
rigorously been employed in biblical exegesis. He was, in fact, the founder
of the grammatico-historical school. He admits in the sacred writings as in
the classics only one acceptation, and that the grammatical, convertible
into and the same with the logical and historical. Consequently he censures
the opinion of those who in the illustration of the Scriptures refer
everything to the illumination of the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others
who, disregarding all knowledge of the languages, would explain words by
things. The "analogy of faith," as a rule of interpretation, he
greatly limits, and teaches that it can never afford of itself the
explanation,of words, but only determine the choice among their possible
meanings. At the same time he seems unconscious of any inconsistency between
the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his
principles of hermeneutics.
Works on classical literature:
Works on sacred literature:
- Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus
liturgicis (1755-1758)
- Neue theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1760-1769)
- Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd ed., 1775)
- Neueste theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1771-1775).
Besides these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of
which have been collected in the three following publications: Opuscula
oratoria (1762); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764); Opuscula
theologica (1773).
[edit]
References
Storia dell'ermeneutica
