18 Facts About Theodore Haak

Theodore Haak was a German Calvinist scholar, resident in England in later life.

Young Theodore Haak's relatives included Friedrich Spanheim, professor of theology at Geneva and Leyden; Ezechiel Spanheim, counselor and ambassador for the Elector Karl Ludwig; Friedrich Spanheim, a professor of theology at Heidelberg; and Dr J F Schloer who together with his son Christian occupied high positions in the Palatinate court.

In 1625, at the age of twenty, Theodore Haak embarked for England where he visited Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Theodore Haak brought back from England a copy of Daniel Dyke's Mystery of Self-Deceiving, which he shared with his Protestant spiritual circle.

In 1628 Theodore Haak returned to England and spent the following three years at Oxford, but left in 1631 without a degree.

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Theodore Haak lived for a short time in Dorchester but by 1632 left the countryside for London with the intention to return to Germany.

Theodore Haak's plans were interrupted when he received a letter from the exiled ministers of the Lower Palatinate seeking his assistance with raising funds and influencing English Protestant clergymen in their cause.

When this task was completed, Theodore Haak returned to Heidelberg in 1633; but, with war still ravaging Germany, Theodore Haak again, left this time for Holland.

In 1638 at the age of thirty-three, Theodore Haak enrolled at the University of Leyden, where many of his relatives had already studied.

In 1634, Theodore Haak had formed an advantageous and lifelong relationship with Samuel Hartlib, a fellow German expatriate in London.

In 1638 when Theodore Haak returned to England, he found his friend Hartlib engaged, intellectually and logistically, with Comenius and another Calvinist intellectual, John Dury .

Theodore Haak initiated a correspondence with Mersenne in 1639, likely at the request of Hartlib.

Mersenne replied almost immediately and although he briefly commented on Pell and Comenius, it was his request to Theodore Haak to send further scientific information that sustained their corresponding relationship.

Mersenne showed greater interest in English scientific experiments and results, and the correspondence between Mersenne and Theodore Haak did serv to connect a small group of interested philosopher-scientists in London to Mersenne's scientific group in Paris.

Letters in 1647 indicate that Theodore Haak was writing on behalf of the group, to ask Mersenne about developments in France, and requesting an exchange of knowledge, even asking for a report when others from the Paris group returned from their scientific travels.

One year after the founding of the Society, Theodore Haak was formally entered as a member in 1661 and in fact is listed as one of the 119 original fellows.

Theodore Haak acted as an intermediary on behalf of his old friend Pell, and communicated to the Society Pell's studies, including observations of a solar eclipse.

Theodore Haak's life is "a study of the seventeenth century world in all its complexities of politics, new scientific discoveries, and intellectual strivings" both in England and abroad.