Christian Heinrich Heineken or Heinecken (February 6, 1721 – June 27, 1725), also known as "the infant scholar of Lübeck", was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

who lived only to the age of four.

Life

He was born in the

Prince-Bishopric A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to ''Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the Bi ...

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

, Germany, the son of

Paul Heinecken Paul Heinecken or Heineken (9 December 1674, Riga - 1746, Lübeck) Alken Bruns: "Heineken, Paul", In: ''Lübecker Lebensläufe aus neun Jahrhunderten'', Karl Wachholtz Verlag, 1993 was a German painter, architect, and graphic artist. He enjoyed ...

(1674–1746), a painter and architect, and Catharina Elisabeth Heinecken (1683–1757), an artist and alchemist. His brother, Carl Heinrich von Heineken, became an art historian and collector and was later knighted. It is said that when he was ten months old, he could speak

. He read the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

at age one, and between the ages of two and three, he read the Old and

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

s in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. When he was three years old, he was said to have recited his own ''History of Denmark'' when visiting the

King of Denmark The monarchy of Denmark is a constitutional political system, institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes Denmark proper and the autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Is ...

. Also at three, he testified in court concerning the murder of his friend, another boy named Reid. He died at age four of

celiac disease Coeliac disease (British English) or celiac disease (American English) is a long-term autoimmune disorder, primarily affecting the small intestine. Patients develop intolerance to gluten, which is present in foods such as wheat, rye, spel ...

. He was breastfed until close to his death, which was caused very likely by the ingestion of grain products. In 1726, his tutor (a man named Schöneich) published a study of Christian entitled ''The Life, Deeds, Travels and Death of the Child of Lübeck''.

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

, in his book ''

Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View ''Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View'' (German: ) is a non-fiction book by German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The work was developed from lecture notes for a number of successful classes taught by Kant from 1772 to 1796 at the Albertus U ...

'', cited Heineken as an "ingenium praecox" (someone "prematurely clever"). Kant, Immanuel, ''Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View'', Victor Lyle Dowdell, transl.
p.127
(Carbondale, Illinois:

Southern Illinois University Press Southern Illinois University Press or SIU Press, founded in 1956, is a university press located in Carbondale, Illinois, owned and operated by Southern Illinois University. The press publishes approximately 50 titles annually, among its more th ...

, 1978) (retrieved Jan. 28, 2024).

References

Other sources

* Barlow, F. ''Mental prodigies''. New York: Philosophical Library, 1952. * Hollingworth, Leta S.,
Children Above IQ 180 Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development
', Part One, Chapter 3 (1942) (retrieved Jan. 28, 2024). * Long, G. (ed.)
''Penny Cyclopaedia''
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1838. * Guido Guerzoni: The Wonderboy of Lübeck. The extraordinary life of Christian Heinrich Heinecken (English Edition). Turin 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heineken, Christian 1721 births 1725 deaths People from Lübeck 18th-century German scholars Child deaths from disease German children

Life

See also

References

Other sources