Callenberg, Johann Heinrich

Professor of theology and philology, and promoter of conversionist enterprise among the Jews; born of peasant parents at Molschleben Jan. 12, 1694; died July 11, 1760. In 1735 he was appointed professor of philology in the University of Halle, and in 1739 professor of theology. From his youth he cherished the idea of working for the conversion of the Mohammedans; but later he devoted himself to missionary work among the Jews, and established, in 1728, the Institutum Judaicum, to which he attached a printing-office. In this office he printed the Gospel and other Christian books in the Judæo-German dialect, and distributed them among the Jews. He also sent missionaries to other European countries, and was a patron of converted Jews. His plans for the conversion of Mohammedans were resumed some what later, but in these he utterly failed. The Institutum Judaicum existed until 1791.

Bibliography:

  * Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie;
  * Herzog-Plitt, Real-Encyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, see Missionen Unter den Juden;
  * Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica.



T. A. R.