Toleration and Tolerance in Medieval European Literature
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Fighting the Turks would be a contradiction to the universal theological concept pursued by Franck, according to which all people are God’s creation. Christ did not only die for the Christians, but for humankind, so the Turks would be as much loved by Him as the Christians (100 r). Drawing on a proverbial saying, he stresses that it would be better to save a citizen than to kill a thousand enemies (100 v). Whoever wants to profit from war would act like the one who tries to sail full force against the wind (101 r). But his criticism is really directed against the princes who launch their wars for personal profit, while it would be much more preferable to try to convert a Saracen (Arab) to Christianity (100 r). A true Christian would demonstrate his inner value system by acknowledging Muslims as equal people here on earth for whom Christ also had suffered His death (100, 5). The war against the enemies of Christianity would be a ploy by the princes who stand to profiteer from all military efforts (101 r). In old times, the heathens tried their hardest to avoid war and so turned over every possible stone to find alternatives before they turned to weapons (101, v). Franck does not really defend the heathens or Muslims, but he acknowledges them as members of the human family against whom no war should be undertaken. Theology would be the discipline with which the individual can aim for perfection and higher gifts, not for war and killing the heathen opponents (123 v). Looking backward, and beyond the pale of Christian Europe, the author also observes that “die Heydenn on grosse not vnd vrsach krieg nit zuo gelassen” (133 v; the heathens did not start a war without being forced to do so and with good reason). And: “Dise Heiden haben die krieg neher angesehen mit den augen des geists denn vnserer Theologen vnd bluotigen Evangelisten etliche” (134 v; Those heathens evaluated wars more through the spiritual eyes than our theologians and bloodthirsty evangelists). Insofar as Franck wants to condemn war altogether, he projects the non-Christians as role models since they operated more through the understanding of the spirit than through material objectives. This does not necessarily mean that he intended to idealize them, but within his treatise, he is constantly prepared to give them more credit than most of his contemporaries. The only justification for war would be an emergency, when an attack is imminent, for instance, and it should not be pursued for frivolous purposes, such as conquering another country (171 r). The Christian faith by itself would not legitimize any military operations against the Turks, for instance, which would be nothing else by tyranny, robbery, and murder (171 v). Without going into further details, Franck, thus, argues for a peaceful engagement with the Muslim world and urges his contemporaries to treat them in a true Christian spirit, with love, humility, and patience. As much as he is mostly concerned with the problems of war itself, he strongly suggests that the non-Christians would deserve respect and could be potential converts if treated correctly. Referring to the Old Testament, Franck even goes so far as to justify the Israelites’ wars against their enemies because they followed God’s command (173 r). He is, of course, mostly concerned with the Christian kingdoms and their wars, but he uses the Turks and even the Tartars as a foil against which the Christian rulers, or their generals, would have to be measured. The way of how the Christian soldiers would abuse captured women, rape them, and this in front of their own husbands or parents, could not be discovered among the non-Christians (188 v). Although the Christians use the cross as a sign of their pious intentions, in reality it would prove to be a signal of their own brutality and violence: “zu zeichen daz sie marterer woellen machen / arme witwen vnd weysen / vnd selbst des Teuffels marterer werden” (188v–189r; as a sign that they want to make the poor widows and old people to victims of martyrdom and wand to become the devil’s own torture slaves).
Altogether, Franck made numerous significant observations in his treatise; first, that no faith can be forced upon anyone, and second, that everyone should be treated as God’s creation. War against non-Christians should be avoided since physical hostility would be against the divine will. And, in many respects, the Muslims or the Jews emerge as ethically superior to the Christians, especially in terms of their attitude toward war. While the Europeans tend to pursue extreme aggression in order to conquer lands or to gain power, the Turks, above all, would abstain from such strategies and would only take to arms if absolutely necessary. This might well be an idealized impression, but Franck formulated his basic ideas with the direct intention of condemning all wars, especially by Christians, which, hence, entails that for him, the non-Christians should be treated with respect and even love, since they are God’s creatures as well.
However, in Franck’s Chronica: Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel, we notice a different take, insofar as the desired peace appears as one imposed by the pope and based on repressive measures. The Reformation, on the other hand, had allowed Christ to return to the people who were hence forced to argue vehemently against each other and to probe the meaning of the biblical message (CCII v), which he as a Spiritualist definitely favored. The war of the sects against each other would be tantamount to the work of a gardener who would have to weed his patch and remove the undesired plants (id.). Those who argued against the intellectual and theological exchange would simply not understand what the issues prove to be, that is, to recover Christ’s own words. He concludes with the observation: “Das sag ich darumb / das vil Secten den Christen nit allein on schad sind / sonder auch ein fuerderung vnd uebung jrer Ritterschafft vnd Sieg” (CCII v; I am saying that because many sects are not simply a danger for Christians, but also a challenge for their knighthood and their victory). Nevertheless, at the end, even Franck laments the war of the various sects against each other and compares it with a fight of a blind person who hits both his friends and his foes (id.).
Valentin Weigel
Let us now turn away from Franck to one of his secret but subsequently most influential followers, Weigel, who was a very prolific writer as well, but much more careful in his approach, making his texts known to hardly any audience. Although he also focused primarily on theological issues, he approached them also from a position that we could only call ‘toleration’, if not even ‘tolerance’, here meaning a deliberate move away from the institutional church to a mostly spiritual approach to God, which was, hence, open to all people.
Born on August 7, 1533 in Naundorf outside of Großenhain near Meißen in Saxony as the son of poor parents, he was promoted by the Councilman Georg von Kommerstadt, who facilitated his enrollment at the prestigious ducal school St. Afra in Meißen from 1549 to 1554, where he turned to philosophy, mathematics, and the natural science, later also theology at the university of Leipzig (1554–1558), regularly guided by outstanding professors who seem to have recognized in him a gifted person. He received a scholarship from the Prince Elector August, which allowed him to attend the university for nine years. In 1558, he earned his baccalaureus and shortly thereafter the master of arts. Since November 1, 1564, he studied and also taught in Wittenberg and was ordained on November 16, 1567 as Pastor Primarius in Zschopau, south of Chemnitz, by the Wittenberg General Superintendent Paul Eber.
He married his first wife, Katharina Beuche, in 1568, with whom he had three children. Zschopau is today a tiny town in the Erzgebirge and located right in Northeastern Germany on the border of the Czech Republic. Weigel held that position there until his death on June 10, 1588, although he was examined on occasion regarding the orthodoxy of his faith and his performance as a Protestant minister. The reports about him, however, seem to have been positive, and no further actions were taken against him because he appeared as non-suspect, despite some rumors against him. In particular, he enjoyed great respect in his community for his honesty and generosity in terms of money. With the approval of his superintendent, he abandoned the practice of exorcism at an infant’s baptism, although the population was strictly opposed to this decision. In 1571, Benedikt Biedermann was assigned to Weigel as a deacon and soon turned into one of his strongest supporters who later assured the publication of many of Weigel’s works after his death.62
Nevertheless, as it turned out later after his death, Weigel produced a large corpus of theological texts in secret and practically never shared his true ideas with his social environment. In those treatises, he voiced a rather critical perspective against the Church doctrine and the Lutheran Church hierarchy, and advocated a Spiritualist perspective, which he derived from Franck, but also from earlier medieval mystics, such as Tauler. Undoubtedly, there are strong intellectual-religious parallels with his role model, and in both cases, we can detect intriguing elements of an early form of tolerance within the Christian context.64
Only a few years after his death, on June 10, 1588, a general visitation in 1598, and then again in 1599, focusing on Weigel’s successor in his office as minister, Biedermann from Chemnitz, revealed severe theological issues that the official Church was not willing to tolerate, since he was associated with the revolutionary theology pursued by Schwenckfeld.65 Similarly, Weigel’s sons Joachim and Nathanael became targets of serious official investigations, since their faith did not seem to be in conformity with the Church teachings. Biedermann lost his position as minister in the city of Zschopau and was transferred to the village of Neckanitz, between Leipzig and Dresden, probably because there he could be controlled better by the authorities. Nevertheless, he played a major role in the dissemination and publications of Weigel’s work.66 He died in 1621.
While Weigel maintained a very quiet profile during his lifetime, he was actually a highly prolific author and formulated many most meaningful concepts about Christianity, the Protestant Church, the individual versus the authority, and a quasi-mystical approach to God.67 In the following years, Weigel’s secret followers came forward more vociferously, until finally a synodal report from August 18, 1624 alarmed the Saxon Prince Elector John George (1611–1656) who immediately ordered the Zschopau minister to carry out a thorough investigation of all of Weigel’s writings and subsequently to collect and ban any possible manuscript or publication. All city council members and teachers were questioned, but all efforts to eliminate Weigel’s texts and to repress his ideas basically failed because they were already being published in Halle a. d. S. since 1609, and since 1618 in Neustadt near Magdeburg; subsequently, new editions appeared at the turn of the seventeenth century in Amsterdam, and Frankfurt a. M. Philosophers such as Johann Arndt, Gottfried Arnold, and Gottfried Leibniz were influenced by Weigel and spread his ideas further.
The forty-fifth volume of the famous encyclopedia by Johann Heinrich Zedler (1747) even includes a lengthy article on this minister and his rather critical stance opposed to Luther and Zwingli, and especially against the Lutheran Book of Concord (1580), which he regarded as intellectual repression. As the anonymous author (if not Zedler himself) opines, “Demnach ist kein Wunder, daß man bey seinen Lebzeiten nicht findet, daß er der Ketzerey beschuldiget, oder in oeffentlichen Schrifften vieles wider ihn erinnert worden. Der Saame lag verborgen, und das ausgebruetete Ungeziefer blieb in seinen Loechern stecken” (295; It is no wonder that there was nothing in his lifetime that allowed anyone to accuse him of heresy, or that his published work incriminated him. The seed was hidden, and the hatched vermin remained undetected in its holes).68
The author demonstrates a considerable discomfort, more or less calling Weigel a heretic, especially because he rejected, as documented by a quote here, both Luther and the pope, both Zwingli and Münzer, Schwenckfeld and Mohammed, while he favored the Anabaptists (295). Altogether, he calls Weigel a heretic who betrayed the true Lutheran faith, but he acknowledges, though with explicit disagreement, the large corpus of texts from Weigel’s pens, which he lists in detail (296–303). The subsequent article, focusing on Weigel’s followers (“Weigelianer”), then deals with his “fanatische[ ] Lehrsaetze und Irrthuemer” (303; fanatic teachings and errors). Studying his works, one would quickly realize his “voelligen Fanaticismum” (304; complete fanaticism) and “Irrthuemer” (304; errors).
It cannot be the purpose here to evaluate Weigel’s theological position or the correctness of his teachings, but Zedler’s vehement opposition to him and at the same time his lengthy article confirm that this Zschopau minister must have exerted a considerable influence on his contemporaries and posterity, as other highly critical publications directed against Weigel confirm.69 For Zedler, there was no alternative but to quote Weigel at length in order to demonstrate why and how he was a victim of errors, concluding, for instance, that one would find many “ungereimte und einander wiedesprechende Dinge” (309; nonsensical and contradictory aspects).
In other words, Weigel severely provoked and challenged his readers and found numerous detractors and supporters, whom Zedler lists at great length.70 After all, his secret teachings were soon compared to those by other radical reformers, such as Thomas Münzer, and both were strongly condemned for their unorthodox thinking and opposition to the official Lutheran Church. Weigel influenced the famous Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) and many other Spiritualists well into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.71
Although this Zschopau minister proved to be a very quiet person during his life who could evade official criticism, he composed numerous treatises that soon enjoyed considerable success on the book market, such as: Unterrichts-Predigt: Wie man christlich trauern und täglich solle im Herrn sterben, 1576; Libellus de vita beata, 1609; Ein schön Gebetsbüchlein, welches die Einfältigen unterrichtet, 1612; Der güldene Griff, alle Ding ohne Irrtum zu erkennen, 1613; Ein nützliches Traktätlein vom Ort der Welt, 1613; Dialogus de Christianismo, 1614; Erkenne dich selbst, 1615; Informatorium oder Kurzer Unterricht, 1616 (expanded in 1618 under the title Soli deo gloria, 1618); Kirchen- oder Hauspostill, 1617; Libellus disputatorus, 1618; De bono et malo in homine, 1618; Zwei schöne Büchlein, 1618; Studium universale, 1618; and Tractatus de opere mirabili, 1619.
It has been only in recent years that Weigel’s work has been made entirely available through a historical-critical edition prepared by Horst Pfefferl. The online announcement offers a concise summary of Weigel’s philosophical-theological concept and identifies the critical issues that make this writer to such an essential catalyst for future intellectual and theological issues in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
Auf der Grundlage einer lutherisch-reformatorischen Frömmigkeit vereinen sie unter anderem neuplatonische und mittelalterlich-mystische Einflüsse mit Ideen des Renaissancehumanismus, des Spiritualismus Sebastian Franckscher Prägung und der Philosophie des Paracelsus. Durch die nachhaltige Wirkung auf spätere geistige Strömungen wie das Rosenkreuzertum, den Pietismus mit seinen Wegbereitern und den deutschen Idealismus kommt dem Weigelschen Œuvre eine Schlüsselstellung in der Geistes- und Ideengeschichte der frühen Neuzeit zu.
[On the foundation of a Lutheran-Reformed piety the works by Weigel, which are determined by a combination of Neoplatonic and medieval-mystical influences with Renaissance humanism, spiritualism in the vein of Sebastian Franck, and the philosophy of Paracelsus, enjoy a key role in the intellectual and spiritual history of the early modern period. The reasons are their long-lasting impact on later spiritual mov
ements, such as the Rosicruceans, Pietism and its leading path blazers, and on representatives of German Idealism.72]
Recent research has certainly recognized the true importance of Weigel’s work, which represents a strong alternative voice within the sixteenth-century theological discourse, as quiet as he tried to remain during his lifetime.73 Both Franck and Weigel, among others, demonstrated that the Protestant Reformation was not at all completely dominated by Luther’s teachings, especially in the second half of the sixteenth century. While his central concern focused on the reform of the traditional church and then on the effort to establish a new one, which ultimately implied very similarly rigid constraints and regulations, many of his contemporaries and particularly the subsequent generation broke free from Luther’s dominance and found alternative ways toward individualized spirituality. That, in turn, became, as we have already seen in the case of Franck, the critical stepping-stone for the emergence of toleration and then tolerance, especially because Weigel insisted on a spiritual epistemology for spiritual matter, as Hugo of St. Victor had already promoted in the high Middle Ages, and on sensuous, or rational, epistemology. But people would be prone to error, both in intellectual and spiritual terms, but they command over an internal organ, the “Gülden Griff” (the golden handle), which could compensate for this shortcoming. Consequently, Weigel demanded that the worldly authorities should abstain from church affairs and spiritual issues, especially because the human individual would not need the confession, the Eucharist, and other sacraments. After all, he would have the inner capacity to turn into God himself, which would make all people ultimately equal.74
Here I will consult, above all, Weigel’s Vom wahren seligmachenden Glauben (1752), Daß das Wort Gottes in allen Menschen sei (ca. 1573/1574), Wie der Glaube aus dem Gehör komme (1574), and Daß Gott nicht geunehret werde (between 1572 and 1578).75 The first text has survived only in one manuscript, today held in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (Cod. Guelf. 918 Helmst. 1r–55v).