Johann Franz Buddeus or Budde (sometimes Johannes Franciscus Buddeus; 25 June 1667,

Anklam Anklam (), formerly known as Tanglim and Wendenburg, is a town in the Western Pomerania region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is situated on the banks of the Peene river, just 8 km from its mouth in the , the western ...

– 19 November 1729,

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

) 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 ...

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 ...

theologian and philosopher.

Early life and education

Buddeus was a descendant of the French scholar

Guillaume Budé Guillaume Budé (; Onomastic Latinisation, Latinized as Guilielmus Budaeus; January 26, 1467 – August 20, 1540) was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de Fra ...

, also known by the

Latinized name Latinisation (or Latinization) of names, also known as onomastic Latinisation (or onomastic Latinization), is the practice of rendering a ''non''-Latin name in a modern Latin style. It is commonly found with historical proper names, including p ...

Budaeus; the

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

family fled France after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and those who emigrated to Pomerania Germanized their name as Budde, the Latin equivalent of which was Buddeus.George Ripley and Charles Anderson Dana, ''The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge'', Volume 3 (Appleton, 1873), pp. 393, 404. He was born at

Swedish Pomerania Swedish Pomerania (; ) was a dominions of Sweden, dominion under the Sweden, Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815 on what is now the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish-Swedish War, Polish War and the Thirty Years' War ...

, where his father was pastor. He early received a thorough education in classical and Oriental languages, and had read the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

through in the original before he went to the

University of Wittenberg Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

in 1685. He was appointed adjunct professor of philosophy there soon after taking his master's degree in 1687, and in 1689 exchanged this for a similar position at

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

, where he also paid much attention to the study of history.

Career

In 1692, he went to

Coburg Coburg ( , ) is a Town#Germany, town located on the Itz (river), Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Ernestine duchies, Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only ...

as professor of Greek and Latin in a Gymnasium, and the next year to the new

University of Halle Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

as professor of moral philosophy. Here he remained until 1705, when he went to Jena as second professor of theology. His lectures embraced all branches of this science, and frequently touched on philosophy, history, and politics. He remained at Jena for the rest of his life, several times acting as rector of the university temporarily and being head of his department and an ecclesiastical councilor from 1715. He was considered the most universally accomplished German theologian of his time. In philosophy he professed an

eclecticism Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...

which rested on a broad historical foundation; but he recognized in Descartes the originator of a new period, and in attacking the "atheist"

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

followed especially the upholders of the

law of nature Law of nature or laws of nature may refer to: Science *Scientific law, statements based on experimental observations that describe some aspect of the world *Natural law, any of a number of doctrines in moral, political, and legal theory Media * ...

, such as

Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius ( ; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Hugo de Groot () or Huig de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft an ...

, Puffendorf, and Thomasius. His theological position was determined by the tradition of Johannes Musäus at Jena, partly through his close relations with Baier; but on another side he was inclined toward

Pietism Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life. Although the movement is ali ...

Works

His works number over a hundred. Those published during the Halle period include ''Elementa philosophiæ practicæ'' (1697) and ''Elementa philosophiæ eclecticæ'' (1703). To the second Jena period belong among others the ''Institutiones theologiæ moralis'' (1711; German transl., 1719), a work strictly in accordance with his philosophical ethics; the ''Historia ecclesiastica veteris testamenti'' (1715–18); ''Theses theologicæ de atheismo et superstitione'' (1716), which, directed especially against

, attracted much attention; ''Institutiones theologiæ dogmaticæ'' (1723), a work once very influential, obviously founded on Baier's Compendium; ''Historische und theologische Einleitung in die vornehmsten Religionsstreitigkeiten'' (1724, 1728), edited by Walch; ''Isagoge historico-theologica ad theologiam universam'' (1727), dealing with the problems methods, and history of theology in a way remarkable for that time; and ''Ecclesia apostolica'' (1729), intended as an introduction to the study of the

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 ...

Collected works

* ''Gesammelte Schriften''. Reprint Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1999–2006 (10 vols.)

Notes

References

*
"Johannes Franciscus Buddeus"
* Vladimir Abashnik, Johann Franz Budde. In: The Dictionary of eighteenth-century German philosophers. General editors: Heiner F. Klemme, Manfred Kuehn. In 3 vol. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2010, Vol. 1: A – G, pp. 164–169.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Buddeus, Johann Franz 1667 births 1729 deaths People from Anklam People from Swedish Pomerania 17th-century writers in Latin 18th-century writers in Latin German Lutheran theologians People from the Province of Pomerania 18th-century German Protestant theologians German male non-fiction writers 18th-century German male writers 17th-century German male writers