GENERATION III: ESDRAS EDZARD (1629-1708)

Esdras Edzard was born 28 June 1629 in Hamburg, the son of Jodocus Edzardi and Barbara Graveley.  He received a “careful” early education both from his father and at the Johanneum in Hamburg.  A period at a Hamburg gymnasium or high school completed Edzardi’s early instruction by 1647.  These learning experiences were accomplished at a time just prior to the end of the Thirty Years War (1648) and the start of his father’s Michaelis church cathedral building project (construction began in 1649).

Immediately after his early education, Esdras was sent by his father pastor Jodocus Edzardi (Glanaeus) to universities in Liepzig, Wittenberg, and Tübingen.  His training during this time was focused on theology and oriental languages.  Also, Esdras spent half a year at Zwickau where he studied under local rectors Johann Zechendorf (1580-1662; orientalist) and Christian Daum (1612-1687; philologist).  At Basel in 1650 and barely 21 years old, he became a disciple of the famous Johannes Buxtorf (1599-1664), chair of Hebrew language at the University of Basel.  Under Buxtorf at Basel, Esdras acquired a deep knowledge of the nature and language of Rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud.   After his work with Buxtorf was complete and with a bit more travel to broaden his knowledge (Strasbourg, Giessen, and Greifswald), Esdras returned home in 1655 at the request of his parents.  His “extraordinary thirst for more extended knowledge” compelled him to then journey to Rostock where he studied at the Protestant and Lutheran-supporting University of Rostock.  While at Rostock, Edzard made known his views about the Christian doctrine controversy between the Lutherans and the Jews.  His boldness earned him the privilege of holding theological public lectures at the university.  In 1656, he earned his doctorate from Rostock in theology and then returned to his home and his family in Hamburg permanently where he had departed nearly 10 years earlier.

Christian Daum (1612-1687) and Johannes Buxtorf the younger (1599-1664)

Esdras applied for many offices but never actually ran.  He was presented various faculty positions at universities but did not accept any of the propositions.  He was offered a professor position at the Johanneum in Hamburg but declined.  Instead, Esdras chose to serve as a “voluntary soldier of Christ serving the church.”  In other words, he worked unhindered as a missionary without salary.  His goal was to bring religious truth (according to Lutheran beliefs) to Catholics, Reformed, Anabaptists, Turks, Negroes, and especially Jews.  Perhaps his interest became focused on the conversion of Jews during his time spent with Buxtorf or any of the other men from whom he gained knowledge of the Jewish people, their history, and their language.   Note: some have stated that his interest in converting Jews and supporting Jewish converts was connected to a personal Jewish ancestry.  However, there is no credibility to that assertion and almost certainly a false legend.

To fulfill his religious objectives, Esdras was aided financially by his father Jodocus Edzardi’s estate (the Hamburg pastor of St. Michael’s Church), a vicarie (foundation) at the St. Michael’s church cathedral, and a rich maiden he made his wife on 26 January 1657.  This woman, also identified as a “rich virgin,” was named Angelika Leß, the daughter of George Leß (1604-1649) who was a businessman in Hamburg (he was originally from Goslar).  Her mother was a female in the merchant business named Amalie or Amelia (Pilgrim) Leß.  A Protestant history was passed to Amalie Pilgrim Leß from her father and Angelika Leß Edzard’s grandfather Pancratius Pilgrim.

Esdras and Angelika Edzard would have 10 children, including eight sons and two daughters.  However, only four sons and one daughter survived to become adults:

·         Jodocus Pancratius Edzard, born 1659 Hamburg

·         Georg Eliezer Edzard, born 22 January 1661 Hamburg

·         Johann Esdras Edzard, born 23 June 1662 Hamburg

·         Sebastian Edzard, born 1 August 1673 Hamburg

Edzard perfected his knowledge of the Hebrew language and the Talmud under the guidance of the chief Rabbi of Hamburg.  Because of Edzard’s developed Hebrew skills, many men visited him in Hamburg to perfect their own Hebrew efficiency.  They flocked to him in large numbers from Hamburg, across Germany, and beyond Germany’s borders.  Visitors included Lutheran clergyman August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), Lutheran theologian and oriental linguist Johann Andreas Danz (1654-1727), German linguist and Lutheran theologian Theodor Dassov (1648-1721), oriental linguist Hermann von der Hardt (1660-1746), and oriental linguist Johann Jakob Schudt (1664-1722).  Edzard would often speak to his visitors in the afternoons during which 50 to 60 listeners gathered to hear their teacher.

Francke (top), Danz (middle), and von der Hardt (lower) were students who visited Edzard to learn Hebrew

Edzard offered instruction in eastern languages to all those who were interested and would accept no compensation.  In addition to teaching oriental language, Edzard also preached regarding correct Lutheran understanding of sacred texts and of the evangelical Lutheran faith.  Because he was so popular, Edzard was involved in publishing several books.  Probably the most famous was the Consensus Antiquitatis Judaicae Super Locum Jerem (Consensus of the Place of Jewish Antiquity), published in 1670 at Hamburg.  Another book known as “the richly described Edzardian handbook of Yalkut Shimoni” was preserved at the Library of Inchsen.  The Yalkut Shimoni (or Yulkut) was a compilation or abridged version of the books of the Hebrew bible.

Beginning in 1671 and to 1708, Edzard led at least 148 Jews to baptism within his church.  Legend records that he steered as many as 100 Jews to Christianity between 1691 and 1698.  Many Jews across Germany verbally converted to avoid prosecution and then later apostatized (or reverted back to Jewish faith which meant they were never really convinced that their Jewish belief was incorrect in the first place).  However, Edzard’s converts consistently remained practicing Christians proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (only about one out of 40, on the average, apostatized).  Hamburg was a perfect location for Edzard’s work since so many Jews called Hamburg home.  Unlike many Lutheran theologians who converted Jews, Edzard cheerfully, laboriously, and lovingly cared for his own Jewish converts.  Loyal Jews were known to have guarded their own, fearful that Edzard would convert members of their community, especially their impressionable children.  One rabbi sent his son to Barbados yet upon his return, met Edzard and was “won to Christ.”  Another apostatized dying Jew and his children were reenergized by Edzard and the old Jew died soon after “rejoicing in the faith of the true God (in the form of the trilogy).”  Jesper Swedberg also reported that “he was much impressed by (Edzard’s) daily blessing his children by laying his hands on their head” (A Study of the Documentary Sources of His Biography, Covering the Period of His Preparation 1688-1744, Alfred Action, 1958).

Hamburg, Germany in the 1600s

Hamburg, Germany in 1680

To further support his converts, Edzard started a Hamburg foundation in 1677 called Proselyte-Anstalt (roughly translated Religious Convert Institution) that provided funding to care for Jewish proselytes (converts).  The foundation still exists and is commonly known as The Esdras Edzard Asylum for Jewish Proselytes.  During his fifty years as a Jewish missionary among the Jews of Hamburg, he was called “a veritable apostle to the children of Israel."

Edzard survived the 1664 Hamburg plague.  His father Jodocus Edzardi (called Glanaeus) died in 1667 and his wife Angelika died in 1688 after 31 years of marriage.  Fifteen years later after his mother’s death, he lost an adult son Jodocus Pancratius Edzard in 1703, the sixth child who had passed to heaven.  Edzard enjoyed exceptional health in his old age, which was a change from the ill health he often experienced during his youth.  Old age eventually affected his strength in the last two years before his death.  He remained professionally active even through sleepiness and loss of appetite in his last two weeks when he became bed ridden.  In his final days, he was delivered the Lord’s Supper by Pastor Hieronymus Pasmann (1641-1716), appealed to his sons to continue his Lutheran works, and charged his Jewish converts to remain faithful Christians.  About midday on 1 January 1708, Edzard fell into a soft sleep and never woke.  At the time of his death at age 78, Edzard’s congregation of Hebrew Christians in Hamburg numbered more than 500 members.