August Hermann Francke

August Hermann Francke (22 March 1663, Lübeck – 8 June 1727, Halle) was a German Lutheran clergyman, philanthropist, and Biblical scholar.

Born at the German city Lübeck, Francke was educated at the gymnasium in Gotha before he studied at the universities of Erfurt and Kiel — where he came under the influence of the pietist Christian Kortholt — and finally Leipzig. During his student career he made a special study of Hebrew and Greek; and in order to learn Hebrew more thoroughly, he for some time put himself under the instructions of Ezra Edzardi at Hamburg. 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, 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 as assistant or curate to the learned superintendent, K. H. Sandhagen, and there his religious beliefs deepened. On leaving Lüneburg he spent some time in Hamburg, 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, 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. 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 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 (27 September 1691) to leave Erfurt within forty-eight hours. That same year Spener was expelled from Dresden.

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