An important and unpublished 1860 German manuscript volume of lectures on Dogmatic Theology recorded at the Evangelisches Missions-Seminar (Basel Mission Seminary) in Switzerland. The extensive notes were transcribed by Johann Christoph Feil based on lectures delivered by Professor Frion. A small late pencil note at the bottom right records that the volume was bound on July 14, 1865, by binder C. F. Otte.
The main text is written in a neat 19th-century German Kurrent hand, arranged in systematic numbered paragraphs and extended commentary notes, with wider right-hand margins containing running study prompts, summaries, and lecture headings in German cursive. The content covers core Protestant systematic theology and dogmatics, defining the nature of evangelical doctrine, its relation to divine revelation, and the distinction between dogmatics and practical catechisms. The pages explore philosophical and organic analogies of life, comparing physical structures like stones and plants with animal souls and human spiritual organization, before transitioning into theological anthropology, human consciousness, sin, and the soul’s relationship to God. A superb example of evangelical divinity, enhanced by the grounded mysticism of the German pietists.
Johann Christoph Feil (born October 8, 1837, in Schorndorf, Württemberg) trained at the Basel Mission Seminary in the late 1850s and 1860. While the Basel Mission primarily sent workers to Africa and Asia, it also supplied German-speaking pietist pastors to immigrant communities in North America. Feil was sent to North America in 1861 under the auspices of the St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission and Basel network, serving German Evangelical congregations in the American Midwest, including Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
The lecturer, referenced as P. Frion, refers to Pastor / Professor François-Henri Frion (1803–1884), a French-born Lutheran theologian, pastor, and instructor who taught dogmatics and theological subjects at the Basel Mission Seminary during the mid-19th century.
Dogmatik fur Joh. Chr. Feil. *** Pr. Frion in Ev. Miss. Semin. 1860. 333pp.
Good - in original manuscript ledger. Boards nearly detached, backstrip lacking. Textually clean and crisp and entirely legible.
