RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Daniel Dante
time on philosophy and linguistics and winning recognition at Jena by his exegesis of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Returning to Strasburg in 1628, he entered upon an active career as administrator, teacher, and theologian. Made seminary inspector in 1628, he became in the following year professor of oratory, and in 1633 professor of theology, pastor of the cathedral, and president of the ecclesiastical assembly. Although the judgment of his contemporaries, Bebel, Spener, and others, placed him in the front rank of the theologians of the time, Dannhauer has recei^^ed scant justice at the hands of posterity. The influence exerted upon Spener by his teacher must not be underestimated because of the formal tone of the poem dedicated by the founder of the Pietists to his teacher's memory. Their relations were certainly not characterized by the warmth of personal friendship, but were rather in the nature of an intercourse based on common interests. Dannhauer ordained Spener, and in all probability secured for him the post of private tutor at the court of the elector palatine. Spener, in return, seems to have been connected with the preparation of the second edition of the Hodosophia for the press and to have acted as critic of another work of Dannhauer's which has not yet been identified. The estrangement between the two was apparently caused by Dannhauer's nephew, Balthasar Bebel, who was in control of the theological faculty at Strasburg at the time of the publication of Spener's Pia desideria. Dannhauer was a prolific writer, his principal works being as follows: Hodosophia Christiana sive theologia positiva (1649); Katechismusmilch oder Erklarung des kirchlichen Katechismus (1657-78) and Liber conscientice apertus sive theologia conscientiaria (1662-67).
(F BossE.)
Bibliography: The best source is J. Reisseisen, Strasaburgische Chronik, 1657-77, ed. R. Reuss, Strasburg, 1879. Consult; E. L. T. Henke, Georg Calixtus, Halle, 1853; ADB, iv. 745-746; P. Grunberg, P J. Svener, vol. i., Gottingen, 1893.
DANOVIUS, da-no'vi-us, ERNST JAKOB: Lutheran; b. at Redlau or Kleinkatz (near Danzig) Mar. 12, 1741; d. at Jena Mar. 18, 1782. He was educated at Danzig, Helmstadt, and Gottingen, and in 1765 accompanied Abbot Schubert to Greifswald as tutor to his sons. Thence he was called to the rectorate of the Johannisschule at Danzig, and in 1768 went to Jena. His specialties were New Testament exegesis, symbolics, moral theology, and, most of all, dogmatics, but he felt little sympathy with historical theology. His point of view may be characterized as modern supernaturalism, substituting for inspiration a miraculous guidance of God, which gave protection against all error, yet by no means denying the human element in the sacred writings He avoided the excessive concepts of the divine likeness, denied that original sin was actual guilt in the descendants of Adam, and identified justification, in the widest sense of the term, with predestination. Danovius was prevented from giving expression to his views both by his faculty and by the government, and when he finally enunciated them in two Christmas programs of 1774-75 he was publicly opposed by III.— 23
the theological faculty of Erlangen. He defended himself in a number of pamphlets (Drei Abhandlungen von der Rechtfertigung des Menschen vor Gott, Jena, 1777, and Kurze Erklarung uber die neue von D. Seiler der Lehre von der Rechtfertigung halber herausgegebene Schrift, 1778). While he desired a union with the Reformed, and while he did not regard their doctrines of the absolute decree and irresistible grace or their views of the Lord's Supper as grounds of hindrance, he feared their teaching concerning the incarnation, since it rendered doubtful the efficacy of the meritorious works and death of Christ.
The delivery of Danovius was admirable in the professorial chair, though unpopular in the pulpit, but his literary style was crabbed, and he wrote slowly and with difficulty. His melancholy nature, aggravated by excessive work, led him to take his own life. In addition to the works already mentioned and a number of programs, he wrote Schreiben an Herrn D. Semler, dessen neuere Streitigkeiten betreffend (Jena, 1770) and Super libro Torgensi Censura Holsato-Sleswicensis variis observationibus illustrata (1780). He also edited the Opuscula of J. D. Heilmann (1774-77), and made a translation of a work by A. J. Roustan (pastor of the Swiss church in London) under the title Briefe zur Vertheidigung der christlichen Religion (Halle, 1783). (G. FRANKf.)
BiBLioaRAPHT: C. G. F. Schiitz, Leben . des E. J. Danovius, appendix to A. J. Roustan, Briefe zur Vertheidigung der christlichen Religion, Halle, 1783; G. Frank, Getchichte des Rationalismus, pp. Ill sqq., 127-128, Leipsic, 1875.
DANTE, dOn'te or dan'te, ALIGHIERI, a"li-gi-e'ri. I. Life.
Education and Early Life (§1). Florentine Parties (§ 2). Dante's Banishment (§ 3). His Wanderings. Later Life (§ 4). II. Literary Works.
I. Life: Dante, the greatest poet of Italy and one of the greatest of the world, was born at Florence between May 18 and June 17, 1265, and died at Ravenna Sept. 14 (13?), 1321. The name Dante is a contraction of Durante. He was the son of a notary. Nothing is known of his schools or teachers. Stories of his studies at the universities of Bologna, Padua, and Paris lack confirmation. He was an omnivorous reader, and compassed most of the learning of his age. He was a master of Latin, but knew neither Greek nor Hebrew. He was versed in dialectic, rhetoric, grammar, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, and in the Provengal and Old French literature. He drew, I. Educa- and had some knowledge of painting, tion and He was thoroughly acquainted with Early Life, the writings of Aristotle, through Latin translations, and derived from him his whole system of physics, physiology, and meteorology. He was familiar with the Bible, and with the writings of Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Albertus Magnus, and with those of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. He knew Ptolemy and Euclid in astronomy and mathematics, and was not ignorant of the Arabian philosophers Averroes and Avicenna. Of the Latin classical writers he
Dante