Joseph Wolff


Joseph Wolff, a Jewish Christian missionary, was born at Weilersbach, near Bamberg, Germany, and was named Wolff after his paternal grandfather. He travelled widely, and was known as “the missionary to the world”. He published several journals of his expeditions, especially Travels and Adventures of Joseph Wolff.

Early life

Wolff was born to David Wolff and his wife in 1795. David Wolff became a rabbi in Weilersbach in 1794, and also served in Kissingen, Halle upon Saale and Uehlfeld, moving to Jebenhausen, Württemberg in 1806, from where he sent his son to the Lutheran lyceum at Stuttgart.
Wolff’s initial interest in Christianity came about through hearing conversations between his father and Jewish friends, but since he was not happy with his father’s concept of Jesus, he began standing outside churches and listening to the sermons. In his writings, Wolff told about his early conviction that Jesus is the Messiah:
'When only seven years old, he was boasting to an aged Christian neighbour of the future triumph of Israel at the advent of the Messiah, when the old man said kindly, “Dear boy, I will tell you who the real Messiah was: he was Jesus of Nazareth, whom your ancestors crucified, as they slew the prophets of old. Go home and read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and you will be convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Conviction at once fastened upon him. He went home and read the scripture, wondering to see how perfectly it had been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Were the words of the Christian true? The boy asked of his father an explanation of the prophecy, but was met with a silence so stern that he never again dared to refer to the subject. This however only increased his desire to know more of the Christian religion.'
At the age of eleven a conversation with a Christian neighbour led to Wolff's decision to leave home in order to find truth for himself, resulting in six years of travel, visiting various Christian establishments and learned theologians and teachers, including Christian Frederick of Stolberg-Wernigerode. He became a Roman Catholic near Prague in September 1812, taking on the name Joseph. Four years later he arrived in Rome, where he began training as a missionary at the seminary of the Collegio Romano. His frequent arguments and outbursts led to him being escorted from the Holy City in 1818 at the dead of night by twenty-five gendarmes for attacking the doctrine of infallibility and criticizing his tutors.
Whilst in Rome, Joseph had met Henry Drummond, an Englishman who was to influence his future. Drummond invited Joseph to England and encouraged him to go to Cambridge university in order to train as a missionary, paid for by the Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. By this time Joseph had become a member of the Church of England, and following his first missionary journey he was invited by Drummond to join a select group of Adventists, including Edward Irving, at Drummond's country residence, Albury Park. Joseph’s belief that Christ would return in 1847 no doubt originated through his association with Drummond and Irving.

His travels

In 1821 Wolff began his mission's work in the East by visiting Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Mesopotamia, Persia, Georgia, and the Crimea. He returned to England in 1826.
In 1828 he set out to search for the Lost Tribes of Israel, traveling through Anatolia, Armenia, Turkestan and Afghanistan to Simla and Calcutta. Although he suffered many hardships, he preached with enthusiasm. He visited Madras, Pondicherry, Tinnevelly, Goa and Bombay, returning home via Egypt and Malta.
In 1836 he found Samuel Gobat in Ethiopia, took him to Jeddah, and visited Yemen and Bombay. He continued to the United States, where he was ordained deacon on 26 September 1837 at Newark, New Jersey. Trinity College Dublin awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Laws. Wolff was ordained as a priest in 1838 by Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor. In the same year he was given the rectory of Linthwaite in Yorkshire.
In his travels in Bukhara, he found the doctrine of the Lord's soon coming held by a remote and isolated people. The Arabs of Yemen, he says, "are in possession of a book called 'Seera,' which gives notice of the coming of Christ and His reign in glory, and they expect great events to take place in the year 1840." "In Yemen I spent six days with the Rechabites. They drink no wine, plant no vineyards, sow no seed, live in tents, and remember the words of Jonadab, the son of Rechab. With them were the children of Israel of the tribe of Dan,... who expect, in common with the children of Rechab, the speedy arrival of the Messiah in the clouds of heaven."
In 1843 Wolff went to Bukhara to seek two British officers, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly, who had been captured by the Emir, Nasrullah Khan in June 1842. He learned that they had been executed, and he was spared death himself only because the Emir laughed uncontrollably at Wolff's appearance in full canonical garb. His Narrative of this mission sold well and was printed in seven editions between 1845 and 1852. Fitzroy Maclean, then a junior diplomat travelling incognito, retraced Wolff's trip in 1938. He wrote of Wolff in his memoir, Eastern Approaches. Almost fifty years later, Maclean contributed a foreword to a biography of the missionary.

Personal life and legacy

He met his first wife in 1826 through Edward Irving, who introduced him to Lady Georgiana Mary Walpole, a descendant of Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain; the couple were married on 26 February 1827.
In 1845 he was presented to the vicarage of Isle Brewers, Somerset. After the death of his first wife on 16 January 1859, in May 1861 he married Louisa Decima, daughter of James King, rector of St. Peter-le-Poer, London. He was planning another great missions tour when he died at Isle Brewers on 2 May 1862.
A patron when he was a young man was the eccentric politician, Henry Drummond, a member of the Catholic Apostolic Church. Wolff named his son Henry Drummond Wolff; the boy grew up to be a noted diplomat and Conservative politician who founded the Primrose League.

Works

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