Jeremias Drexel S.J. (also known as Hieremias Drexelius or Drechsel) (August 15, 1581 – 19 April 1638) was a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

writer of

devotional literature Christian devotional literature (also called devotionals or Christian living literature) is religious writing that Christianity, Christian individuals read for their personal growth and spiritual formation. Such literature often takes the form of C ...

and a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

. He served for 23 years as court preacher in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria Maximilian I (17 April 157327 September 1651), occasionally called the Great, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which he obtained the title of a Prince- ...

and his wife Elizabeth of Lorraine.

Life

Jeremias Drexel was born in

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

and was raised as

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

. However, he was converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in his youth and educated by the Jesuits before entering the

Jesuit Order , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

. He taught the Jesuit seminarians at Dillingen as professor of rhetoric, and then for 23 years he was a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...

to Maximilian I, the

prince-elector The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, la, Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 13th century onwards, the prince ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...

. It is said that his voice was strong enough to be heard in every corner of the church and that his sermons were such that an hour would seem like a few minutes. During this period he accompanied Maximilian on his Bohemian campaign. He died in

Works

Drexel gave up preaching in 1621 and devoted himself to writing a biography of the Duchess and composing theological works redolent of his

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

preaching fervour. Drexel was fond of pictorial

symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

to make his teachings concrete and thus most of his books are elegantly illustrated. Jeremias is the author of some 20 works that were widely read and translated. His writings on the eternal truth, the virtues and the Christian exemplar were popular; hundreds of thousands of copies of his works were printed. By 1642 in Munich alone, 170,700 copies of his works had appeared. His first work, ''De aeternitate considerationes'', concerned various representations of

eternity Eternity, in common parlance, means Infinity, infinite time that never ends or the quality, condition, or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside time, whereas ...

. Another of his works, ''Heliotropium'', discussed man's recognition of the

divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine

will and conformity to it.

Bibliography

* 1620 De æternitate considerationes (Considerations on Eternity). Munich. * 1623 Infernus damnatorum carcer et rogus. * 1624 Cultus tutelaris angeli, ex horologio. * 1627 Heliotropium or "Conformity of the Human Will with the Divine Will", (Later edition 1634 Cologne). * 1628 Aeternitatis prodromus, mortis nuntius, quem sanis, aegrotis, moribundis sistit Hieremias Drexelius. * 1630 Gymnasium Patientae ("The School of Patience") . * 1631 Trismegistus christianus, seu Triplex cultus conscientiae, caelitum, corporis. * 1631 Nicetas, seu Triumphata incontinentia. * 1631 Orbis Phaëthon, hoc est de Universis vitiis linguae, libro de emblemas y vicios universales del lenguaje.1. * 1632 Jeremias Drexel
The Considerations of Drexelius upon Eternitie
Nicholas Alsop (Further editions 1636, 1658, 1661, 1672, 1694). * 1633 Jeremias Drexel
The Christian Zodiac
John Coustourier, Rouen (Second edition 1647). * 1633 Jeremias Drexel
Nicetas or the Triumph over Incontinencie
?Rouen or ?Douai. * 1636 Caelum, beatorum civitas aeternitatis, pars III. * 163
Recta Intentio : Omnium humanarum actionum Amvssis Auctore Hieremia Drexelio e Societate Iesu
Monachii : Formis Cornelii Leyserii, 1636. 668 p. * 1638 Aloe amari sed salubris succi jejunium, quod... latine scripsit Hieremias Drexelius. * 1641 Aurifodina artium et scientiarum omnium, excerpendi solertia. * 1641 Daniel, Prophetarum Princeps (print post mortem). * 1641 Joseph Aegypti Prorex. * 1655 Antigrapheus, sive Conscientia hominis. * 1643 Hieremia Drexel, David Regio Psaltes, Munich.

Sources

* Roger Paultre, ''Les Images du livre'', Paris, Hermann, 1991, p. 185.

External links

*
''The Heliotropium: or Conformity of the human will to the divine''
translated from the Latin (1917)
The Considerations of Drexelius upon Eternity by Jeremias Drexel

* [http://gso.gbv.de/xslt/DB=1.28/REL?PPN=004055748&RELTYPE=TT&COOKIE=U999,K999,D1.28,Ea4d622b8-27c,I0,B9994++++++,SY,A\9008+1,,0,H12-23,,30-31,,73-77,,80,,88-90,NGAST,R188.123.237.30,FN&COOKIE=U999,K999,D1.28,Ea4d622b8-27c,I0,B9994++++++,SY,A%5C9008+1,,0,H12-23,,30-31,,50,,60-61,,73-77,,80,,88-90,NGAST,R186.221.44.120,FN Search of German library union catalog for Drexel's works]

Илиотропион, то есть обращение Солнца, или созерцание воли человеческой с волею божескою.

Иезуит Иеремия Дрексель
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drexel, Jeremias 1581 births 1638 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism 17th-century German Jesuits Early modern Christian devotional writers