Publisher's Synopsis
English summary: From 1805 to 1820, Bernard Bolzano was professor of religious doctrine (Religionslehre) at the University of Prague. The lectures he had to deliver were part of the so-called Philosophical Studies that every student of the university had to complete before he entered the higher studies, i.e. the studies of medicine, law or theology. As professor of religious doctrine, Bolzano also had the duty to deliver the homilies on Sundays and holidays during the academic year to all the students of the Philosophical Studies. This explains the enormous influence Bolzano exerted through these homilies on the intellectual and political life of Bohemia in his time, whose offshoots reached even the Charta 77 movement in former Czechoslovakia. The chairs of religious doctrine were established by the Austrian emperor Franz at all universities of the Austrian empire in order to shape the students into good Christians and law-abiding citizens as it was ordered in a decree. The homilies Bolzano had to deliver at the University of Prague (as did all professors of religious doctrine at Austrian universities) were called Erbauungsreden (edifying addresses) or exhortations. There is evidence for 582 Erbauungsreden Bolzano delivered as a professor at the University of Prague of which 414 are extant; of these, 153 have not yet been published at all. The 414 Erbauungsreden that are extant have survived in different form: some of them (70) as autographs, i.e. in Bolzano's own handwriting, others in handwritten copies of Bolzano's manuscripts, others in notes taken by Bolzano's students. Several collections of Bolzano's Erbauungsreden have already appeared in print, some of them during Bolzano's lifetime, while others were published posthumously by his students or other editors. - The new critical edition of Bolzano's Erbauungsreden presents all of them in chronological order. Those which are extant will be edited on the basis of the best version which has remained. Those Erbauungsreden which are not extant will be documented and described according to an index Bolzano himself has prepared. German description: In den Sommerferien 1819 erfuhr Bolzano vom Absetzungsverfahren, das gegen ihn eingeleitet worden ist. Unbeeindruckt davon hielt er am 14. November seine erste Erbauungsrede im Studienjahr 1819/1820 zum Thema: Auch die geringfugigsten Versuche haben oft durch Gottes Segen die herrlichsten Wirkungen. Ob Zufall oder Strategie - Bolzano vermeidet nunmehr jedenfalls brisante Themen fur seine Erbauungsreden. Seine Absetzung wird mit kaiserlichem Dekret vom 24. Dezember 1819 angeordnet, wovon er bereits in den Weihnachtsferien auf halbamtlichem Weg informiert wird. Dennoch halt Bolzano auch noch am Anfang des Jahres 1820 seine planmassigen Erbauungsreden, bis ihm am 20. Janner offiziell das Absetzungsdekret uberreicht wird. In seiner letzten Erbauungsrede am 16. Janner spricht er uber die Notwendigkeit und rechte Art der Verehrung des Namens Jesu, die darin bestehe, das grosse Werk der Aufklarung des Menschen, das Jesus begonnen und den Menschen aufgetragen hatte, ernsthaft und selbsttatig weiterzufuhren. - Mit diesem Band wird die vollstandige kritische Edition der von Bolzano gehaltenen Erbauungsreden abgeschlossen. Aus diesem Grund enthalt er auch Ubersichts-Material uber die bisherigen Bande: Eine Gesamt-Ubersicht uber alle Erbauungsreden, ein Gesamt-Sachregister sowie eine Liste mit Korrigenda zu allen bisherigen Banden dieser Edition.
