| Notes |
- The following was written by Wilbur Kalb:
Jodok Mörlin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Jodok Mörlin, also known in Latin as Jodocus Morlinus or Maurus ( ca 1490, Feldkirch, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire - 15 September 1550, Westhausen bei Hildburghausen, Electorate of Saxony ), was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wittenberg, the Lutheran Pastor of Westhausen bei Hildburghausen, and a Reformer. He is famed as one of the first witnesses, allies and participants of the Reformation and as the father of two Lutheran theologians, Joachim Mörlin and Maximilian Mörlin.
Contents
1 Life
1.1 Before the Reformation
1.2 During the Reformation
1.3 After the Reformation
2 Family
3 References
4 External Links
5 Bibliography
Life
Before the Reformation
Jodok Mörlin was born in or around 1490 in Feldkirch in the Vorarlberg, the westernmost part of the Archduchy of Austria. He was the son of Hugo Mörlin ( 1446 - 1518 ) and his wife, Lucia Ebenko ( d. 1513 ), the grandson of Johann Mörlin, and the great-grandson of another Hugo Mörlin. The name, Jodok, was not Germanic; it was Breton. Jodok might have gotten his rare name if he was baptized on 13 December, the feast day of St Judoc, a 7th Century noble from Brittany.
Nothing is known about his early years. But in 1508 he was studying at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, with Johann Eck as one of his teachers, and then, on a scholarship, at the University of Leipzig in 1509 and the University of Wittenberg in 1510. Here in Wittenberg his career was made. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree after only a few months in 1510 and a Magister’s degree in 1512 and became the Professor of Metaphysics in 1514 and then the Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 1516, all at the University of Wittenberg. In 1517 and 1518, he taught an introductionary course about “the three principal languages, Latin, Hebrew and Greek, and the ‘Luther College’ grammar [ der dreier vornehmsten sprach, der lateinischen, jüdischen und kriechischen, und der Kollege Luther grammatica ].”
During the Reformation
Three years after the beginning of the Reformation, in the spring of 1521, Mörlin was appointed as the pastor of Westhausen. His post had been left vacant in 1520 with the death of the last Catholic priest, Henningus Gode. By then, Mörlin was a presbyter at the Diocese of Magdeburg and already the Conventor [ parish administrator ] of Westhausen. He was recommended to replace Father Gode by Martin Luther and presented by two brothers, Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony, and John the Steadfast, the Duke of Saxony, to the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, Konrad von Thüngen. Mörlin was accepted and installed on 9 April 1521.
By then, Mörlin already had a wife and at least five sons, including Joachim and Maximilian, so he was, as Luther had noted in March 1521, “impotent and very poor [ unvermögend und sehr arm ]”, in need of a better income. The appointment did improve his financial prospects because Westhausen was one of the several parishes assigned to the University of Wittenberg so that the professors would have steady income from them. But, as both the pastor and a resident, Mörlin still had to deliver his parish’s annual fees to the University. He himself was not able to obtain his own exemption until 1528. So his financial problems continued, forcing his sons to learn their trades. Joachim was apprenticed as a potter, and Maximilian, as a tailor. Nevertheless, their father proved to be popular as a preacher. Residents came from all over the Heldburger Land to Westhausen to hear his sermons for years before they even got their own Lutheran pastors. This was precisely what the Elector and the Duke wanted, to limit the Catholic influence of the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg over the Heldburger Land.
In 1528, the Electorate of Saxony had its first Visitation of the East Country [ Ostland ] of Franconia. When the Visitors came to Westhausen, the parishioners told them that “he was doing all the hard work in the preaching of the Divine Word, and they had no lack of it, but they complained that he would be overcome with drink and pick fights [ er In predigung gotlichs worts allen vleis thue und hetten an Ime kein Mangel, allein wes er sich den trunk überwindten und betryegen Iyeß ]”. Mörlin, threatened with dismissal, promised to improve. In the following Visitations, he kept his word, and he was allowed to keep his offices. But he still had to keep a chaplain and pay him an annual salary of 40 guilders.
After the Reformation
Mörlin died in Westhausen on 15 September 1550 after 29 years as the town’s pastor.
Family
Jodocus was married twice. His first wife was Margarete, the daughter of the administrator of the Elector of Saxony’s vineyards, and she died in either 1514 or 1515. Mörlin then married Anna Hausknecht, perhaps a native of Wittenberg, in 1515 and they had 12 children, including two of their eight sons, Joachim and Maximilian.
References
1)The surname was also spelled in German before and during the Reformation as Morle, Mohr, Mörtle, Mörlein and Morlin. They all mean the same thing in German, “Little Moor”, in honor of St Maurice the Moor. The coat-of-arms of Joachim Mörlin shows a Moor’s head.
2) Although he was with the Reformation from the beginning, Mörlin was not the first Reformer to have come out of Feldkirch. When he came to Wittenberg in 1510, there was already a group of Feldkirchers studying and teaching there. They were led by Bartholomäus Bernhardi ( 1487 - 1551 ). He had made the trip to Wittenberg in 1504 with fellow Feldkirchers, Johannes Dölsch and Christoph Metzler, the future Bishop of Constance. Their biographies can be read online at “Feldkircher Reformatoren [ Feldkirch Reformers ]” in Vorarlberg Reader.
3) Gruner, “Meine Mörlin-Vorfahren.
4) Krauß, “Die Mörlin”, page 158.
5) See Günther Drosdowski, Duden Lexikon der Vornamen [ Duden Dictionary of Forenames ] ( Mannheim, Vienna and Zürich : Dudenverlag, 1974 ), page 123, for more details. The Saint had been venerated in Germany since the 19th Century. According to Duden Lexikon der Vornamen, his name is a Celtic word for “warrior”.
6) Clemen, “Briefe Mörlin”, pages 220 - 221.
7) “Feldkircher Reformatoren”
8) Fox, Drei Vorarlberger, pages 26 - 32.
9) Also known as Henningus of Havelberg, Father Gode, a native of Werben (Elbe) in the Electorate of Brandenburg, joined the University of Wittenberg in 1511 as a Professor of Law. He had been the Rector and a Professor at the University of Erfurt, from which he graduated in 1489 with a Doctorate in jurisprudence. See Richard Thiele, editor, Erphurdianus Antiquitatum Variloquus, Incerti Auctoris, [ Latin, Etymological Antiquities of Erfurt, Author Unknown ] ( Halle an der Saale, Saxony : Otto Hendel, 1906 ), page 149, footnote 5 for more details.
10) In early 1521, Luther wrote three letters, all in Latin, to Georg Spalatin in an attempt to improve Mörlin’s career and financial prospects. They were dated 29 January, 17 February and 19 March. See Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, Dr. Martin Luthers Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken, Erster Theil [ Letters of Luther, First Part ] ) ( Berlin : Georg Reimer, 1825 ), pages 553, 559, 574 ff.; Ernst Ludwig Enders, Dr. Martin Luthers Briefwechsel, Band 3 : Briefe vim Dezember 1520 bis August 1522 [ Dr. Martin Luther’s Handwritten Letters, Volume 3 : From December 1520 to August 1522 ] ( Leipzig : Heinsius, 1889 ), pages 78 and 81; Karl Eduard Förstemann, editor,Neues Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchen-Reformation [ New Book of Documents of the History of the Evangelical Reformation of the Church ] ( Hamburg : Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1842 ), page 12, Item 20.
11) Albert, “Magister Mörlin”, pages 68 - 70.
12) Georg Berbig, “Die erste kursächsische Visitation im Osterland - Franken [ The First Visitation of the Electoral Saxony in the East Country of Franconia ]”, Archiv für Reformation-Geschlichte [ Archives of the History of the Reformation ], Vol. III, pages 377 ff.
External Links
1) (German) Ancestry and family of Jodocus Mörlin at Andreas Gruner’s online essay, “Meine Mörlin-Vorfahren [My Mörlin Ancestors]”
2) (German) Biography of Jodocus Mörlin in “Feldkircher Reformatoren [Feldkirch Reformers]” at the Vorarlberg Reader website.
The Letters of Jodocus Mörlin as Transcribed by Wilbur Hanson Kalb.
These letters were published by Dr. Walter Heins.
All the letters are done except for one little word, “bülhin”. This little pesky word doesn’t seem to exist today, not even in the dialect of Saxony, and I don’t know the dialect of Voralberg. It’s not even in the online dictionary of Middle High German. As far as I have been able to decipher, it’s supposed to mean, basically, “big and strong as an oak” or, in other words, “heartiness”. Otherwise, it’s done. I could have done that section leading to the letters but you probably would say, “To hell with that! I wanna see the letters!!!” So here they are, with the footnotes at the bottom and a little correction to the first letter’s last sentence. Your friend, Herr Reuther, is right. Jodocus’s personality as well as the family tensions really do come through his letters. I had fun with the translation; it didn’t even feel like work. No wonder you are so excited about those letters! I had a late start this morning but I finished much sooner than I’d thought. I just hope that Jodocus didn’t embarrass his children when they were teenagers . . . “Mother was fine; she didn’t cry. Father did all the crying . . . ”
1. Undated ( to Wittenberg )
The address : "where the most esteemed Master of hol. Theology . . . ”, and the remark, which Joachim had added underneath to prove “to my Doctorate”, places this letter in 1540. On 18 September this year Joachim Mörlin was a Doctor of Theology in Wittenberg.
Grace and Peace of the Christ! Dear Son! I would have written to you more, but as things stand now, I cannot write to you more than I could to send with this messenger, Joh. Schlesinger, the 10 Gulden to satisfy your earnest request for now. Your thesis 1) is worth more than 10 Hungarian florins to me. May The Almighty support your beginning! O my Joachim, my son Joachim, how much I would be with you! The messenger will show you my heart. Farewell! I can not and will not you write more now. Your brother 2) has put himself in trouble, but to which you seem to be quite indifferent.
2. 19 June 1543 ( to Arnstadt )
Grace and Peace of Christ our Savior, I wish you and all of yours, Doctor and my dear son! First of all I will not deny to you that I have been twice to Schalkau ; the first time, when your brother received the parish, and now for the second time, when he moved there with his whole family. May the Almighty GOD bless his beginning! But how do you like this fact, let me know by letter, my Doctor! For out of your Brother's words, I realized that you're not quite agreeable with it. But this is certainly true that, when the parish gained your brother as its pastor, I was so pleased that I was moved to flow with steams of tears. How did the plague happened to us, I will tell you, when I am come to you. I want Brother-in-law Wolfgang as a companion. But by foot I can not come, a horse I do not have, and with business it is not possible. As for your sister Katherine, know that, on Wednesday after midnight, in the same hour as your Anna, my dear granddaughter, had in the night before, that is, on Tuesday ( as your letter reports ), fell asleep in the Christ in the presence of us parents and the family. How I felt there, you can imagine yourself. That distinguished aristocrat Nicholas von Heßberg has proven to be very impressed with your benevolence, as he has expressed personally to me. How is your mother doing, you’ll hear from our Wolfgang. May the Almighty GOD bring her 3 ) and her two daughters-in-law or better daughters in grace a safe delivery for His praise and for the propagation of Christianity and of the family of the, blissfully and gently resting in the Christ, Hugo Mörlin! "I think that the Mörlin clan will not wither away. It would be too damaged, because ( Thank God forever ) they [ are ] too healthy." 4 ) Farewell! Greetings to you and all of your Mother, Sisters and the whole family . . .
3. 24 January 1546 ( To Göttingen )
Grace and Peace of the Christ, whose blessing be with your new mother, my dear daughter, and with the grandson and the whole family, my best son and Reverend Doctor! The paper of Dr. Luther, which I have forwarded in accordance with the Brother regarding the Doctorate 5 ), may do him good. He will do so on the advice of the others, who are smarter than I am. In the past year, he has had to depend upon mine, his father’s, advice, [ and ] celebrated his wedding for the second time 6 ), but, from from the letters you had sent to him, I have seen that I had advised him badly. I hoped that your Reverence had graced the wedding with your presence. But, deceived in my hope, I myself thought that, if you had been invited to the wedding of a relative, you would have willingly gathered yourself a single piece of gold and endowed it on the bride and groom, like your Brother, yet you still preferred to wait for a whole year. What is this meanness, not to say this greed, in you, My Lord? On the top of that, it has made me a little upset that your Brother had to pay the messenger. Such unseemly behavior does not become a Doctor of Theology and even less for such a wonderful Bishop, who knows exactly how the chosen Armor of St. Paul makes a Bishop. 7 ) This admonishment, my son, take it as fatherly and friendly [ advice ]! With us, everything is healthy, but everything is also quite expensive. With strong and good wine, the LORD has blessed me. Mother, Brother and Sisters are well, thank GOD. The Mother gave birth on 13 July to a son, who is named after my dear late father Hugo. It is in the childbed the wife of Maximilian has had a daughter Apollonia. So our family increased to the Glory of the Almighty GOD. As for me, it is just bad. Because since Easter I have been in bed three times and in such a way that everyone said unanimously that I was out of it, and was sure in several places [ = times ] that I was already dead. May the Almighty GOD bless me with His Father’s favor and calls me, if it seems good to Him, from this evil world with a good and happy “little hour” [ Stündlein = death ]. What you write about the Duchess 8 ), I do not like. I fear that she limps with her son 9 ) with both legs. 10 ) She wants to serve the Christ and Belial. 11 ) They say, they are weighted with the Gospel, but they resent the Brunswicker oppression and imprisonment. 12 )
If I were like you, I would give them passages from the Gospel to keep in mind - Matthew 10, Verse 37 : “Whosoever loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me”. Likewise, Matthew 16, Verse 24 ; Mark 8, Verse 34 ; Luke 14, Verse 26, etc. You may handle them as you wish, as it befits a true Servant of the Word! As for the partridges, I have nothing at hand. I have been to the [ partridge ] house in this year only five times.
On 26 January, your Mother and I were invited by your Brother, but, because of the flooding, we could not go to the first church service of his wife in Coburg. There are greetings in my and your Mother’s name to all of you, your wife, children, Wolfgang and the whole family, especially the Administrator Simon, “with my bülhin”.
4. 13 July 1546 ( to Göttingen )
Grace and Peace from GOD the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ to you and yours, my dear son and Doctor! There is nothing more than what I would rather have, that you would be provided by us with a superintendent or any other position worthy of you, especially since I see that you are reluctant to tarry among the Saxons, perhaps because of the coarseness of the food and the greed of the people. Oh, how I wish that you still had that position in Arnstadt! 13 ) The whole city, indeed the whole area, is waiting for you with such longing! But enough of it! As for my situation, so everything is in order, except that I am very often plagued by [ a kidney ] stone. And that we are floating in the greatest dangers because of the chaos of war in your and other nations. May the Almighty GOD turn them to good and destroy with His powerful arm all enemies of the Gospel! That this may be done, let us pray steadfastly through our unremitting and pious prayers! As for my position, as you were told by our dear brother-in-law Wolfgang, GOD will lead you back to health. So farewell, my son, and keep me fondly as your Father in the flesh, as you tend! Greetings to you and all of yours, Mother, Brother and Sisters . . .
5. 3 July 1548 ( to Göttingen )
. . . I have received your letter in which you comfort me, your father, s you can, as would a pious son with his father. For you know my innate timidity, so I need your much needed consolation from you and your brother. The Almighty GOD will send me, you and the brother, as well as all ministers of the Word His Holy Spirit, this true Comforter, Who consoles us in this very dangerous time, and shows us His Grace, so that we may prove to remain steadfast in the Confession of his Word. Because there is nothing in the whole world, that would be exposed to greater and heavier dangers than the pulpit of the preacher and the ministry of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as I see from your letter : May the LORD be with you as He had been with the divine Peter and Paul, as He was in the Acts of the Apostles! Know also, my son, that the LORD has blessed me with His abundant blessings on June 1 with a son . . .
6. 18. March 1549 ( to Göttingen )
, , , I have received from you two letters, in which you wish to report at first, that the delivery of your wife has gone bad. How much that has pained me, I can not express to you by mail. I fear that those dangerous times have caused the event. But again, I am comforted by Luther’s and Bugenhagen's writings on the 29th Psalm about unbaptized children. How it has pleased the LORD, whose will shall be done and has been done. Know also that I have endured great pain for the whole Advent season, because of the [ kidney ] stone and other diseases. I have taken only a little bit of food to me the potion gets me. I see furthermore, my son, that you are very worried about your father . . . Because you want to know what secret I hold, if I want to stand firm in the pure and fair teaching of the Gospel. 14 ) I, although a very timid and pusillanimous man, have decided and asked with other ministers of the Word of the Superintendent, who replied that I would not fall off the pure and true doctrine of the Gospel . . . You pray for me, your aged father who is now in his 60th year, to the LORD that He would send me His Holy Spirit, which will make bold and brave to withstand all dangers for the sake of the Gospel. I can not and do not know no more to write. Because I do not read "because the Teutonic kathenfftlin". . . 15 )
7. 1 October 1549 ( to Göttingen )
. . . There is nothing I wanted more now than I ever have to have you with us . . . I was recently in Coburg with Maximilian, who treated me most honorably and had invited several highly respected men to honor me, and most magnificently and brilliantly hosted them. From what I hear from Master Simon and others, I believe that you will not remain long in Göttingen. 16 ) The LORD do it with you, as it will be good and healthy for you and yours and the Church of Christ. The LORD is the Earth and its bounty. 17 ) If they persecute you in this city, flee to another! 18 ) Show yourself only as a brave soldier of Christ! . . . I am no longer on the side of Wittenberg. It seems to me that they are flattering the Emperor, especially Bugenhagen. But you stand firm in the faith, be manly and be strong in the LORD! 19 ) How do I feel, as you would say, “my buolhin”. . .
Remarks :
1) Probably Disputatio ad dictum Luc. XIX : Vade, vende, relique omnia! Wittenbergae 1540 [ Latin, “Discussion of the Theme of Luke 19 : Go Thy Way, Sell, Leave the Rest! Wittenberg, 1540” ] ( Altpreußische Monatsschrift [ Old Prussian Monthly ], Vol. 44, p. 297).
2) Maximilian.
3) According to Letter No. 3, Jodocus Mörlin, who was in his 60th year in 1549 according to Letter No. 6, had a son born on 13 July 1545 and, according to Letter No. 5 another son born on 1 June 1548. He had 12 sons altogether. Except for Joachim und Maximilian who were born in Wittenberg, we know of only the one born in Westhausen, Stephan, who was Deacon from 1554 to 1561 in Coburg, then Pastor in Hildburghausen and died on 10 June 1604, and of a Georg, who was a schoolmaster in Westhausen in 1582.
4) These two sentences [ are ] also in German.
5) Maximilian Mörlin was the Doctor of Theology in Wittenberg on 15 March 1545.
6) That is not true. Realencyklopädie, Vol. 13, p. 249, states that Maximilian’s first wife was a Wittenberger, who bore him two daughters and twelve sons, and, at the beginning of 1531, he was, as a 65-year-old widower, “was married for the second time to a good peasant”. The Wittenberger probably was already the second wife.
7) I Timothy 3:3 : “Not stingy”.
8) Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg [ 2nd wife of Eric I, the Elder, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneberg and Prince of Calenberg-Göttingen ]
9) Eric the Younger [ Eric II, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneberg and Prince of Calenberg and, since 1495, Göttingen. Unlike his mother and first wife, Eric did not stay loyal to the Lutheran Church. ]
10) See I Kings 18:21.
11) See II Corinthians 6:15.
12) Henry the Younger, the [ last Catholic ] Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, in an attempt to recapture his country in the autumn of 1545, was captured by the Landgrave Philip [ “the Magnanimous” ] of Hesse [ one of the leaders of the Reformation ].
13) The Count of Schwarzenburg [ Gunter XL “the Rich” or “With the Fat Mouth” ] deposed Joachim Mörlin as the Superintendent of Arnstadt on Martini [ St Martin’s Day, 11 November ] 1543 but he was still allowed to preach and officiate until Easter 1544.
14) Joachim Mörlin seems to have added to his father that, as he himself did, he had to protest the Interim and also to condemn every flexibility in the Mitteldingen [ “neutrality” ] ( in rebus adiaphoris [ Latin, “in the matters of indifference” ] ). Jodocus gets him to understand that he had no desire to interfere in the theological disputes and ecclesiastical politics.
15) Probably = Catonian, see Endres, Luthers Briefwechsel [ Luther’s Correspondence ] pages 15, 317, 154, Footnote No. 14 on p. 318 says : “from Cato, Disticha Catonis [ Latin, “Distichs of Cato” ], or from Catena [ not a real author, just a pen name to cover all the nameless commentators ], Bibelauslegungen [ Interpretations of the Bible ] (?)“. The latter appears to be more correct.
16) In December 1549 Duke Eric ordered the Council of Göttingen to expel Joachim Mörlin. On 18 January 1550 he was released and had to get out of the city. ( Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte [ Journal of the Society of the Church History of Lower Saxony ], pages 34, 35, 37 ff ).
17) Psalms 24:1.
18) Matthew 18:23.
19) I Corinthians 16:13.
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1489 - 1550 (62 years)
[1, 2, 3, 4] 
