Ignaz Kögler

Ignaz Kögler (called Lai in Chinese) (born 11 May1680, at Landsberg in Bavaria; died at Beijing, 30 March1746) was a German Jesuit missionary in China.

Life

Along with Adam Schall he was a leading figure tamong the fifty German Jesuits who between 1650 and 1750 worked in the Chinese missions. He entered the Society of Jesus on 4 October, 1696, and taught mathematics and Hebrew from 1712 to 1714 in the University of Ingolstadt. [cf. Mederer, "Annal. acad. Ingolstadt.", III, 130 sq. ; Romstöck, "Die Jesuitennullen Prantl's" (Eichstätt, 1898), 178-84] .

He went to China in 1715. On account of his wide learning he enjoyed consideration at the imperial court, and held the office of president of the mathematical astronomical tribunal for thirty years. He was a mandarin of the second class, and was from 1731 a member of the supreme court of equity (Li-pu), a position which had never before been held by a foreigner ("Welt-Bott", No. 676). In accepting these positions he refused the stipends attached to them.

Father August von Hallerstein, his co-operator and successor, considers him "one of the most cultivated minds that ever came into these countries" (ibid., No. 587). Kögler carried on a brisk scientific correspondence with a number of European scholars, such as Eusebius Amort and T. S. Bayer, the Orientalist, sending Bayer many contributions for his "Museum Sinicum" (St. Petersburg, 1730) (cf. "Miscellanea Berolinensia", 1737, pp. 185, 189 sqq.; Gottfr. von Murr, "Journal", VII, 240 sqq.; IX, 81 sq.; "Neues Journal", I, 147 sqq.; II, 303, sqq.).

He was twice visitor of the mission, and provincial of the Chinese and Japanese province, and, during the persecution which began under Emperor Yung Cheng, he was the main support of the mission, through his influence at court.

References

*Manuscript Letters in the Vienna State Archives, Geistl. Angelegenheiten No. 419 IV;
*Correspondence with Amort and numerous other letters, part in Munich State Library, MSS lat., t. I, p. 1 no. 1396-1407; part in Reichs-Archiv, Jesuitica in genere, NN. 278-81.
*Printed letters in Welt-Bott, nn. 157, 162, 190, 196, 198, 202, 228, 575, 578, 669;
*LIPOWSKY, Geschichte der Jesuiten in Bayern (Munich, 1816), App. nn. 3 and 4;
*VON LAIMBECKHOVEN, Reise-Beschreibung (Vienna, 1740), 47.

The catalogue of Kögler's astronomical, mathematical, and historical writings is given in Sommervogel, Bibl. des écrivains de 1a c. de J. For biographical information consult:

*PLATZWEG, Lebensbilder der deutschen Jesuiten (Paderborn, 1882), 272;
*VON RICHTHOFEN, China, I (Berlin, 1877), 688;
*Welt-Bott passim;
*HUONDER, Deutsche Jesuitenmission re des 17. u. 18. Jahrh. (Freiburg im Br., 1899), 189.