L'auteur | |
Hans Lietzmann was born in Dusseldorf in 1875, but spent the formative years of his youth at Luther's town of Wittenberg. The father having died before the boy was ten years old, the family was very poor. Only the heroic self-sacrificing ambition of his mother made it possible for the boy to remain at school, even when helped by a scholarship. Here his interests were mainly concentrated on the classics, in which he showed great ability, but his eager mind was almost equally attracted to the physical sciences. Indeed, practical astronomy was one of his most cherished relaxations. After studying a short time at the University of Jena, he transferred to Bonn and made classical philology and ancient history his main interests. In 1896 he published a prize essay on the term "Son of Man", in which the young scholar tried to show that its technical sense was due not to Jesus Himself, but to its strangeness when translated into Greek. Needless to say, discussion of the matter still proceeds. After some experience as an assistant schoolmaster, in 1900 he became Lecturer in Church History in the University of Bonn. During this period, he conceived the plan of the Kleine Texte now known throughout the world as reliable critical editions of important, and often otherwise inaccessible, source-material. In 1905, he became Assistant Professor of Church History in Jena, and about the same time issued the first volumes of the Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, a commentary which, in continually renewed editions, represents the finest scholarship of our day. Here Professor Lietzmann is himself responsible for the major Pauline Epistles, which he has dealt with in masterly fashion. In 1908, he was raised to the rank of full professor, and, in lecturing on Church History, made it his ideal to show with what good reason history has followed its course, and to maintain that we should use the present as a preparation for the future, and that a Christian should view everything sub specie aternitatis. Meanwhile, his interests in paleography deepened, and resulted in many volumes of the greatest value to both young students and ripe scholars. His publications in this field are based on numerous first-hand researches in the Mediterranean lands, and these researches have brought forth some of their ripest fruit in his writings on the liturgies, the history of the sacraments, textual criticism and many other studies. Particularly important are his monographs on Peter and Paul in Rome, and on the Mass as related to the Lord's Supper. In 1924, Professor Lietzmann succeeded to Harnack's famous chair in Berlin, an honour which was indeed his due. His labours became more diverse and important than ever. He was the editor-in-chief of numerous, learned journals and book-series, a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and chairman of the section dealing with the Church Fathers. He was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy and of the Gottingen Science Association. |
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