Duo cuique curanda sunt, Conscientia et Fama. Conscientia propter Deum, Fama propter Homines. Eph. IV. 15. Nobilissimo D[omi]no Possessori, Benedictionem Divinam cumulatissimam, & prospera quaeque, tam extra, quam intra Patriam, ex animo apprecatur, Daniel Ernestus Jablonski D. S[e]r[enissi]mo. Prussorum Regi à Sacris Min[ister] Berolini d. 16. nov. 1711.    * The quotation from St. Paul (Eph 4:15) is originally: alêtheuontes en agapê. It is also quoted by Fabricius on p. 253.

p. 121. Berlin, November 16, 1711

Jablonski, Daniel Ernst
(1660-1741), German Reformed theologian and Hebraist

Daniel Ernst Jablonski was born on November 26, 1660 in the village of Hochzeit near to Danzig, a son of Peter Figulus (1617-1670), and grandson of Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius). His elder brother was the historian Johann Theodor Jablonski (1654-1731). His father was yet a child when in 1629 the “Edictum restitutionis” of Emperor Ferdinand II. made the community of Czech Brethren, including his family, flee from Bohemia. The young Peter Figulus followed Comenius, and became his student in the high school of Lissa (Leszno, Poland). In 1649 he married the daughter of his professor, Elisabeth, and in 1650 he accompanied his father-in-law to Hungary. From 1654 he was a court preacher in Danzig. His son Daniel Ernst, who changed the name of his father for the old name of the family, first learned in Lissa like his father, between 1677 and 1680 he attended theology, philosophy and Oriental languages in Frankfurt an der Oder, and later he visited the universities of the Netherlands and Britain together with his brother. After his return to Germany he became pastor of the recently established Reformed community in Magdeburg. From 1686 he was pastor of Lissa and rector of the local school. In 1691 he was appointed court preacher in Königsberg, and two years later in Berlin. Thanks to his Prussian relations he managed to seize some help for Lissa in the Northern war, and its inhabitants found refuge in Prussia after the devastation of the town in 1707. Jablonski also organised a fundraising for the rebuilding of the school and the church. He also took part in the direction of his Church. From 1718 he was a member of the German Reformed church council, and from 1729 of the directory of the church. He made efforts for the union of the Reformed and Lutheran churches; on the relative conferences he also represented the united Czech Brethren, who had elected him their bishop in 1699. At that time he and Leibniz cherished such plans of union that would have also included Catholics. He greeted the formation of the community of the Brethren of Herrnhut, and he managed to assign the right of the consecration of their bishops from 1737 to Count Zinzendorf. He was in close relation to Leibniz. They composed together the charter of the Scholarly Society of Berlin and its deed of foundation signed by Prince-Elector Frederick III (later Frederick I King of Prussia).  At the foundation in 1700 Leibniz became the president of the Society, while Jablonski the president of the department of Oriental languages. In 1733 he became the third president of the Society. He was in correspondence with several outstanding scholars of the age, including the elder Ferenc Pápai Páriz, with whom he conferred about the composition of a work of church history. He won several stipends for Hungarian students in Frankfurt an der Oder. In 1706 he was granted the degree of doctorate of divinity by the University of Oxford. He published the Hebrew Tanach, the Talmud of Babilon, and Hebrew prayer books. He run a Hebrew print for a long time, albeit at the end with remarkable deficit. He died in Berlin on May 25, 1741. His son Paul Ernst Jablonski (1693-1757) also followed his orientalist career. Some of his important works: Stultitia et irrationabilitas atheismi … a Richardo Bentley … in latinum vertit Daniel Ernestus Jablonski. Berlin, 1696. (The folly and unreasonableness of atheism). – Biblia Hebraica cum notis Hebraicis et lemmatibus Latinis. Berlin, 1699. – Jura et libertates dissidentium in religione Christiana in regno Poloniae et in M. D. Lithuaniae … Berlin, 1708. – Sammlung einiger vertrauten Briefe … zwischen … Leibnitz und … Jablonski, auch andern Gelehrten … Hrsg. Johann Erhard Kapp. Leipzig, 1745. – Das Babilonische Talmud. 1715-21. 12 Bde.

Paul Ernst Jablonski, the son of Daniel Ernst made his note in the Album in July of 1713 (p. 361).

• ADB • Jöcher • Krollmann 294 • Michaud • NDB • PSB X 253