Jeremias Drexel, S.J. (also known as Hieremias Drexelius or Drechsel) (15 August 1581–19 April 1638) was a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

writer of

devotional literature Christian devotional literature (also called devotionals or Christian living literature) is religious writing that Christianity, Christian individuals read for their personal growth and spiritual formation. Such literature often takes the form of ...

and a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

and

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

. He served for 23 years as court preacher in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria Maximilian I (17 April 157327 September 1651), occasionally called the Great, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which he obtained the title of a prince- ...

and his wife Elizabeth of Lorraine.

Life

Jeremias Drexel was born in

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

and was raised as

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

. However, he was converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

in his youth and educated by the Jesuits before entering the Jesuit Order. He taught the Jesuit seminarians at Dillingen as professor of rhetoric, and then for 23 years he was a

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who Open-air preaching, preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach com ...

to Maximilian I, the

prince-elector The prince-electors ( pl. , , ) were the members of the Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which elected the Holy Roman Emperor. Usually, half of the electors were archbishops. From the 13th century onwards, a small group of prince- ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. It is said that his voice was strong enough to be heard in every corner of the church and that his sermons were such that an hour would seem like a few minutes. During this period he accompanied Maximilian on his

Bohemian campaign Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a fa ...

. He died in

Works

Drexel gave up preaching in 1621 and devoted himself to writing a biography of the Duchess and composing theological works redolent of his

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

preaching fervor. Drexel was fond of pictorial

symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concep ...

to make his teachings concrete and thus most of his books are elegantly illustrated. Jeremias is the author of some 20 works that were widely read and translated. His writings on the eternal truth, the virtues and the Christian exemplar were popular; hundreds of thousands of copies of his works were printed. By 1642 in Munich alone, 170,700 copies of his works had appeared. His first work, ''De aeternitate considerationes'', concerned various representations of

eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...

. Another of his works, ''Heliotropium'', discussed man's recognition of the

divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

will and conformity to it.

Bibliography

* 1620 De æternitate considerationes (Considerations on Eternity). Munich. * 1623 Infernus damnatorum carcer et rogus. * 1624 Cultus tutelaris angeli, ex horologio. (Translated anonymously in 1630: ''The Angel-Guardian's Clock'' (reprinted in ''English Recusant Literature'', vol. 298)). * 1627 Heliotropium or "Conformity of the Human Will with the Divine Will", (Later edition 1634 Cologne). * 1628 Aeternitatis prodromus, mortis nuntius, quem sanis, aegrotis, moribundis sistit Hieremias Drexelius. * 1630 Gymnasium Patientae ("The School of Patience").Dedicated to Prince Radziwell, this disquisition on the exercise of patience demonstrates the vastness of Drexel’s learning by quoting examples not only from the Bible and Church Fathers, but also from ancient authors such as Livy and Suetonius and from near contemporary scholars such as Lipsius. * 1631 Trismegistus christianus, seu Triplex cultus conscientiae, caelitum, corporis. * 1626 Nicetas, seu Triumphata incontinentia. * 1631 Orbis Phaëthon, hoc est de Universis vitiis linguae, libro de emblemas y vicios universales del lenguaje.1. * 1632 Jeremias Drexel
The Considerations of Drexelius upon Eternitie
Nicholas Alsop (Further editions 1636, 1658, 1661, 1672, 1694). * 1633 Jeremias Drexel
The Christian Zodiac
John Coustourier, Rouen (Second edition 1647). * 1633 Jeremias Drexel
Nicetas or the Triumph over Incontinencie
?Rouen or ?Douai. * 1636 Caelum, beatorum civitas aeternitatis, pars III. * 163
Recta Intentio: Omnium humanarum actionum Amvssis Auctore Hieremia Drexelio e Societate Iesu
Monachii: Formis Cornelii Leyserii, 1636. 668 p. * 1638 Aloe amari sed salubris succi jejunium, quod... latine scripsit Hieremias Drexelius. * 1640 Noe, architectus arcae in diluvio navarchus descriptus, et morali doctrina illustratus * 1641 Aurifodina artium et scientiarum omnium, excerpendi solertia. * 1641 Daniel, Prophetarum Princeps (print post mortem). * 1641 Joseph Aegypti Prorex. * 1655 Antigrapheus, sive Conscientia hominis. * 1643 Hieremia Drexel, David Regio Psaltes, Munich.

References

Sources

* Roger Paultre, ''Les Images du livre'' (Paris: Hermann, 1991), p. 185.

External links

*
''The Heliotropium: or Conformity of the human will to the divine''
translated from the Latin (1917)
The Considerations of Drexelius upon Eternity by Jeremias Drexel

* [http://gso.gbv.de/xslt/DB=1.28/REL?PPN=004055748&RELTYPE=TT&COOKIE=U999,K999,D1.28,Ea4d622b8-27c,I0,B9994++++++,SY,A\9008+1,,0,H12-23,,30-31,,73-77,,80,,88-90,NGAST,R188.123.237.30,FN&COOKIE=U999,K999,D1.28,Ea4d622b8-27c,I0,B9994++++++,SY,A%5C9008+1,,0,H12-23,,30-31,,50,,60-61,,73-77,,80,,88-90,NGAST,R186.221.44.120,FN Search of German library union catalog for Drexel's works]

Илиотропион, то есть обращение Солнца, или созерцание воли человеческой с волею божескою.

Иезуит Иеремия Дрексель
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drexel, Jeremias 1581 births 1638 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism 17th-century German Jesuits Early modern Christian devotional writers