LOBSTEIN, lob'stain,
PAUL: German Protestant; b. at Epinal (264 m. e.s.e. of Paris), Department of the Vosges, France, July 28, 1850. He was educated at the universities of Strasburg,
Tubingen, and Gottingen, and in 1878 became
privat-docent at the first-named institution. In
the following year he was appointed associate professor of theology at the same university, where he has been full professor since 1884. In theology he is a disciple of Reuss, A. Sabatier, and Ritschl.
He has been associate editor of the works of Calvin in the
Corpus Reformatorum, xxiii.-xxxii.,
xlv., and has written
Die Ethik Calvin's in ihren
Grundzugen entworfen (Strasburg, 1877);
Petrus Ramus als Theolog (1878);
La Notion de la preexistence du Fils de Dieu (Paris, 1883);
Etudes christologiques (5 parts, 1885-94; the second part,
La Doctrine de la naissance miraculeuse du Christ,
1890, was translated into English by V. Leuliette
under the title
The Virgin Birth of Christ,
London, 1903);
La Doctrine de la Sainte-Cene
(Lausanne, 1889);
Reflexions sur le bapteme des enfants
(Paris, 1892);
Essai d'une introduction a la dogmatique
prostestante (Paris, 1896; Eng. transl.
Introduction to
Protestant Dogmatics, Chicago, 1902);
Etudes sur la doctrine chretienne de Dieu (Lausanne, 1906).
LOBWASSER, 18b-v8s'ser,
AMBROSIUS: Author
of the well-known " Lobwasser Psalter "; b. at
Schneeberg (20 m. s.s.w. of Chemnitz) Apr. 4, 1515;
d. at Konigsberg Nov. 27,1585. He was educated at
Leipsic, especially in jurisprudence (under his elder
brother Paul, then professor of that subject); took
his master's degree at twenty, and worked as a
lecturer till 1550. During the next seven years he
traveled as tutor to some young men of rank, and
in 1557 became court councilor and chancellor at
Meissen. At Bologna, in 1562, he attained the
degree of doctor of laws. From 1563 to 1580,
when he retired from active life, he was assessor
and professor of law at Konigsberg. He was a
thorough and versatile scholar, and more than
once filled the office of rector of the university.
Although a Lutheran by conviction, he was vievwed
askance by his coreligionista for the reason that he
based his translation of the Psalter of Beza and
Marot not on the original text, but on the Reformed French Psalter. His object was to popularize in Germany the melodies of the French
Psalter, of the beauty of which he had received a
deep impression during a long sojourn in Berry;
and thus he adhered to the texts which served as
channels for these melodies, in order that the meter
and versification might accord with the French
model. His work was primarily designed for private edification. Accidental circumstances, above
all a pestilential epidemic, afforded him the requisite leisure for the undertaking; a " noble Frenchman," Gaurier, gave him encouragement, and thus the Psalter was completely rendered into German
by 1562. Duke Albert of Prussia, on whose patronage Lobwasser had doubtless reckoned, died in 1568, and the publication was deferred till 1573. The title reads:
Der Psalter des konigliechen Prophden Davids, In deutsche reyme verstendiglich and deutlich gebracht, mit vorgehender anzeigung der reymen weiae, such einea jeden Psalmes inhalt: Durch
den ehruesten Hochgelarten Hewn Ambrosium Lobwasser, der Rechten Dodorn and Fiirstlicher Durchlauchtigkeit in Preussen Rathe. Und hieriiber beg einem jeden Psalmen seine zegehdrige vier stimmen:
Ynd taut der Paalmen arideclitige schne Gebet (Leipsic, 1573).
The prayers appended to every psalm are translations of the
Oraisons of Augustin Marlorat,
preacher at Rouen. The summary preceding each
psalm and the appended prayer stamp the work as
a manual of edification. Although but a mediocre
performance in point of language and practical objectiveness, the Psalter enjoyed a success not much
inferior to that of the Huguenot Psalter itself. For
nearly two hundred years, Lobwasser had almost
unlimited sway in the German Reformed Church;
and to this day, he is not quite out of date. He
owed this success distinctly to the verbally exact
adaptation of his version to the French melodies.
These melodies formed the common musical language of the Reformed of all tongues.
The work was recast musically in 1607 by Landgrave Maurice of Hesse, who sought to bring it into harmony with the declamatory style of singing at that time coming into fashion, and again by
Samuel Marschall (Basel, 1606); by Cruger (Berlin, 1656); by Sultzberger (Bern, 1675) and others.
The teat was also rendered into other languages:
Latin, by Andrews Spetke, 1596; Danish, 1682;
Italian, by Planta, 1740, as well as earlier; by the
daughter of Landgrave Maurice of Hesse, 1608; by
Casimir, 1753; Nicolai, .1762, etc. The attempts
of eighteenth-century taste to improve and expand
the Lobwasser Psalter led gradually to its disuse.
The appendix, which had at first comprised only
the Decalogue Hymn (" Erheb' dein Herz, thu' auf
dein Ohren ") and the Song of Simeon, and had then
been enlarged by the addition of German hymns,
many of them Lutheran, grew continually stouter
and heavier, till at last the "appendix" swallowed
up the Psalter, and new hymnals arose in which
only selected psalms were retained.
As the melodies lost their distinctive rhythm,
their charm likewise vanished which the Lobwasser
text, notwithstanding its stiff and far from poetic
language, had possessed. The German hymns
which had flourished, indeed, in the sixteenth century, although through the importance attached to Scriptural language and the charm of the French psalm melodies it had yielded to the latter, now
gained the supremacy.
Besides his Psalter, Lobwasser also published a
collection of Hymni patrum und anderer gottseliger
Manner, welche durchs ganze Jahr in den Kirchen
gesungen werden, aus dem Latein ins Deutsch mit
gleichen Reimen gebracht (Leipsic, 1578-79). Some
of these translations found acceptance in the Lutheran Church.
H. A. KOSTLIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Sources are: J. C. Wetzel, Hymnopoepraphia,
ii. 79 sqq., Herrnstadt, 1721; M. Adam, Vitae Germanicorum jureconsultorum pp. 267 sqq., Heidelberg, 1620; C. Hartlknoch,
Preussische Kirchenhistorie. pp. 498 sqq., Frankfort 1866.
Consult: P. Wackenagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied, i. 509 eqq., iv. 844 sqq., Leipsic, 1863-76; G. Doring, Choralkunde, pp. 52-57, 234, Danzig, 1865; E. Hopfner, Reformbeatrebungen auf dem Gebiet der deutschen Dichtung, Berlin, 1866; E. Koch,
Geschichte des Kirchenliedes, ii, 594-597, Stuttgart, 1867;
F. Bovet, Hist. du psautier des eglises reformees, Paris,
1872; O. Douen, Clement Marot et le psautier huguenot,
ib. 1872; P. Wolfrum, Die Entstehung ind erste Entwickelung des
deutschen evangelischen Kirchenliedes, pp. 134 sqq.,Leipsic. 1890: J. Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen Kirchenlieder, vi. 56 sqq., Gutersloh, 1893; ADB, xix. 56-58; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 683-684.
