Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: Celestial Wonders, Confessional Conflicts and Apocalypticism
- 1 Exploring the World of Wunderzeichen
- 2 Lutheran Clergy and Wunderzeichen Discourses
- 3 ‘An Eagle Hurting Himself’: Flacius's Tract against the Interim
- 4 Irenaeus against ‘Spiritual Wolves’: Polemical Use of Wunderzeichen, I
- 5 Irenaeus against the Concord: Polemical Use of Wunderzeichen, II
- 6 Andreae's Pastoral Use of Wunderzeichen
- 7 Celestial Wonders under the Shadow of War
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
6 - Andreae's Pastoral Use of Wunderzeichen
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: Celestial Wonders, Confessional Conflicts and Apocalypticism
- 1 Exploring the World of Wunderzeichen
- 2 Lutheran Clergy and Wunderzeichen Discourses
- 3 ‘An Eagle Hurting Himself’: Flacius's Tract against the Interim
- 4 Irenaeus against ‘Spiritual Wolves’: Polemical Use of Wunderzeichen, I
- 5 Irenaeus against the Concord: Polemical Use of Wunderzeichen, II
- 6 Andreae's Pastoral Use of Wunderzeichen
- 7 Celestial Wonders under the Shadow of War
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
In the previous three chapters, we have seen examples of how Wunderzeichen were used as polemical weapons. In this chapter, we will see that these stories of wonder could also be used for pastoral purposes. The protagonist of this chapter is Jacob Andreae, Irenaeus's deadly foe. Andreae did discuss Wunderzeichen in some of his works, but when we read these discourses, we receive the impression that he was hardly enthusiastic about celestial phenomena. In this aspect, he showed a marked difference from his co-formulators of the Concord. We have seen that Selnecker published a prayer booklet on the 1577 comet, while Chytraeus compiled a tract about the 1572 nova and the 1577 comet. Musculus's interest in celestial wonders is obvious from the repeated references to Wunderzeichen in his writings. As for Chemnitz, his passion in astrology was not mere youthful dreaming. In 1576, when the University of Helmstedt was founded, Chemnitz advised his lord, Duke Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the founder of the university, to ‘give careful attention to the arrangement of the sky, to ascertain when there would be a favourable constellation’. The realistic duke had to remind him that for the future of the university, it was more important to give careful attention to finance rather than to look at horoscopes. Such an episode could hardly occur in the life of Andreae, who did not hide his suspicion of astrology.
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- Celestial Wonders in Reformation Germany , pp. 127 - 138Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014