To be distinguished from his descendant August Hermann Francke (Tibetologist)

August Hermann Francke (Tibetologist)

August Hermann Francke was a German Tibetologist.His grandfather was Christian Friedrich Francke, a descendant of the eighteenth-century theologian August Hermann Francke , after whom August was named. He married Anna Theodora Weize whom he met in Kleinwelka, Saxony...

 (1870-1930), Moravian missionary to Indian Tibet.

August Hermann Francke (22 March 16638 June 1727) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Lutheran churchman.

Biography

Born at the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 city Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

, Francke was educated at the gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Gotha before he studied at the universities of Erfurt

University of Erfurt

The University of Erfurt is a public university located in Erfurt, Germany. Originally founded in 1379, the university was closed in 1816 for the next 177 years...

 and Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

 - where he came under the influence of the pietist

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

 Christian Kortholt - and finally Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. During his student career he made a special study of Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 and Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

; and in order to learn Hebrew more thoroughly, he for some time put himself under the instructions of Ezra Edzardi at Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. He graduated at Leipzig, where in 1685 he became a Privatdozent.

A year later, by the help of his friend P Anton, and with the approval and encouragement of Philipp Jakob Spener

Philipp Jakob Spener

Philipp Jakob Spener was a German Christian theologian known as the "Father of Pietism."...

, he founded the Collegium Philobiblicum, at which a number of graduates met regularly for the systematic study of the Bible, philologically and practically. He next spent some months at Lüneburg

Lüneburg

Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...

 as assistant or curate to the learned superintendent, KH Sandhagen, and there his religious beliefs deepened. On leaving Lüneburg he spent some time in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, where he became a teacher in a private school, and made the acquaintance of Nikolaus Lange.

After a long visit to Spener, at that time a court preacher in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Francke returned to Leipzig in the spring of 1689, and began to give Bible lectures of an exegetical and practical kind, at the same time resuming the Collegium Philobiblicum of earlier days. He soon became popular as a lecturer; but the peculiarities of his teaching almost immediately aroused a violent opposition on the part of the university authorities; and before the end of the year he was interdicted from lecturing on the ground of his alleged pietism

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

. That was how Francke's name first came to be publicly associated with that of Spener, and with pietism. Prohibited from lecturing in Leipzig, Francke in 1690 found work at Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

 as "deacon" of one of the city churches. Here his evangelistic fervour attracted multitudes to his preaching, including Roman Catholics, but at the same time excited the anger of his opponents; and the result of their opposition was that after a ministry of fifteen months he was commanded by the civil authorities (September 27, 1691) to leave Erfurt within forty-eight hours. That same year Spener was expelled from Dresden.

In December, through Spener's influence, Francke accepted an invitation to fill the chair of Greek and oriental languages in the new University of Halle, which was at that time being organized by the elector Frederick III of Brandenburg

Frederick I of Prussia

Frederick I , of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia in personal union . The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia . From 1707 he was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

; and at the same time, the chair having no salary attached to it, he was appointed pastor of Glaucha in the immediate neighbourhood of the town. He afterwards became professor of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

.

Here, for the remaining thirty-six years of his life, he discharged the twofold office of pastor and professor with energy and success. At the very outset of his labours he had been profoundly impressed with a sense of his responsibility towards the numerous outcast children who were growing up around him in ignorance and crime. After a number of tentative plans, he resolved in 1695 to institute what is often called a "ragged school," supported by public charity. A single room was at first sufficient, but within a year it was found necessary to purchase a house, to which another was added in 1697.

In 1698 there were 100 orphans under his charge to be clothed and fed, besides 500 children who were taught as day scholars. The schools grew in importance and were later known as the Franckesche Stiftungen. The education given was strictly religious. Hebrew was included, while the Greek and Latin classics were neglected; the Homilies of Macanus took the place of Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...

. The same principle was consistently applied in his university teaching. Even as professor of Greek he had given great prominence in his lectures to the study of the Scriptures; but he found a much more congenial sphere when, in 1698, he was appointed to the chair of theology. Yet his first courses of lectures in that department were readings and expositions of the Old and New Testament; and to this, as also to hermeneutics, he always attached special importance, believing that for theology a sound exegesis was the one indispensable requisite. "Theologus nascitur in scripturis," he used to say; but during his occupancy of the theological chair he lectured at various times upon other branches of theology also. Amongst his colleagues were Paul Anton

Paul Anton

Paul Viorel Anton is a Romanian professional soccer player, currently at Gloria Bistriţa in Liga I.- References :* *...

, Joachim J Breithaupt and Joachim Lange -- men who shared his beliefs. Through their influence upon the students, Halle became a centre from which pietism became very widely diffused over Germany. Under Francke's influence, Halle also became the center for Danish-Halle Mission to India.http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=f&word=FRANCKE.AUGUSTHERMANN

Francke's principal contributions to theological literature were: Manuductio ad lectionem Scripturae Sacrae (1693); Praelectiones hermeneuticae (1717); Commentatio de scopo librorum Veteris et Novi Testamenti (1724); and Lectiones paraeneticae (1726-1736). The Manuductio was translated into English in 1813, under the title A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scriptures.

An account of his orphanage, entitled Segensvolle Fußstapfen, (1709), which subsequently passed through several editions, has also been partially translated, under the title The Footsteps of Divine Providence: or, The bountiful Hand of Heaven defraying the Expenses of Faith.

Private library

• Reinhard Breymayer: Zum Schicksal der Privatbibliothek August Hermann Franckes. Über den wiedergefundenen Auktionskatalog der Privatbibliothek seines Sohnes Gotthilf August Francke. 3., verbesserte Auflage. Tübingen: Noûs-Verlag Thomas Leon Heck 2002. – 32 S. – ISBN 3-924249-42-3.