Peter Aloys Gratz

Who was Peter Aloys Gratz?

Peter Aloys Gratz was a German schoolmaster and widely published Biblical scholar, who contributed to debates within Catholicism in the early nineteenth Century.

He was born in Mittelberg, Allgäu, Bavaria, and received his elementary training in the monastic school in Füssen. He studied classics in Augsburg, and in 1788 entered the clerical seminary in Dillingen, to take up the study of philosophy and theology. After his ordination to the priesthood, in 1792, he held the office of private tutor, and in 1796 was placed in charge of the parish church of Unterthalheim, near Horb, on the Neckar. As well as his parochial duties he found time to prepare several textbooks and other small works on Christian instruction, for use in elementary schools. He also entered the field of New Testament exegesis. In 1812 he published Neuer Versuch, die Entstehung der drei ersten Evangelien zu erklären, in which he adopted the hypothesis of a Hebrew original as the basis of one of the Synoptic Gospels. This work attracted the attention of scholars, and won for him on 28 September of the same year the chairs of Greek language and Biblical hermeneutics in the University of Ellwangen. Recognizing his abilities, the University of Freiburg, in 1813, conferred on him the doctorate in theology.