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Quirinus Kuhlmann: The Religious Apprenticeship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2021
Extract
Rudolf Borchardt once referred to Quirinus Kuhlmann as the greatest and most dangerous poet in German literature. Whether we agree with such a sweeping judgment or not, we can at least safely describe him as one of the most completely neglected of all important German poets. This neglect is partly the result of the rarity of most of his works and partly the result of the persistence of the eighteenth-century lack of sympathy for the problems of religious mysticism and illumination. The source for almost all of the studies of Kuhlmann has been the essay by J. C. F. Adelung in his Geschichte der menschlichen Narrheil. The title reveals clearly the partisan nature of his work. In this study, one of a series on Kuhlmann, we shall attempt to cast light on bis early years and on the gradual progress of his religious thought until he becomes converted to the belief in the imminent coming of the millennium.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953
References
1 For the remark by Borchardt I should like to thank Professor Curt von Faber du Faur, to whom this essay owes much. Also I am deeply Indebted to the Polish Embassy, the Bibliotheka Univerytetu b Wroclaw, and Dr. Wladyslaw Chojnacki of the Instytut Zachodni in Poznań, as well as to Dr. Rolf Flechsig, the British Museum, and all the other libraries, too numerous to mention, which have been of help to me.
2 Leipzig, 1785-89, v, 2-90. Adelung summarizes well the point-of-view of the older writers and gives a list of the most relevant pieces. When we refer to older sources in general, the writers listed by Adelung are meant.
3 Two of the best śurveys of enthusiasm are R. A. Knox's Enthusiasm (Oxford, 1951) and J. Lindeboom's Stiefkinderen van het Christendom ('s-Gravenhage, 1929). Gottfried Arnold's Kirchen- und Ketser-Historie is still the most complete and sympathetic treatment of religious mysticism and remains our only source for information on the lives and thoughts of a great number of mystics and enthusiasts in the 16th sad 17th centuries. The books by Rufus Jones are also valuable.
4 “As, in his contests with Zwickau prophets, Anabaptists and Spiritualists, he [Luther] found himself foreed to produce a fixed touchstone of faith and a solid authority to take the place left by the old Chureh, he swung naturally to the dogma of the absolute authority generation of Protestantism, that the infallible Scripture is God's final communication to helpless man, and is the ultimate and only basis of authority in religion” (Rufus Jones, Spirituαl Reformers, p. 12). The question was, very simply, whose view of the Bible was infallible? To the orthodox Lutherans the problem seemed very simple. The Bible did not need interpretation as much as clarification, and this was a matter for orthodox learned Lutherans and no one else. The same principle was true of Calvinists and Zwinglians.
5 Bk. II, Chap. 41, §2. The conclusion of the “Vorrede des Autoris” shows how widespread the feeling of the millennium was and the need for moral uplift : “GOtt erleuchte uns alle mit seinem heiligen Geiste, dab wir lauter and unanstöβig seyn im Glauben und Leber, bib auf den Tag unsers HErrn JEsu Christi, (welcher rahe für der Thür ist,) erfüllet mit Früchten der Gerechtigkeit, zu Lobe und Preise GOttesl”
6 Gustav Koffmanne's Die religiösen Bewegungen in der evangelischen Kirche Schlesiens während des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (Breslau, 1880) is a valuable study of the state of religion and the religious undercurrent in Germany as a whole as well as Silesia.
7 D. Cvetajev, Pamjatniki k istorrii protestantsva v Rosja (Moscow, 1875); G. Liefmann, Dissertatio de fanaticis Silesiorum speciatim Quirino Kuhlmanno (Wittenberg, 1698); F. Lucae, Schlesischen Fürsten-Krone (Frankfurt, 1685). Lucae, who was contemporary with Kuhlmann, merely says “eines Breslauischen Bürgers Sohn.”
8 Göttliche Offenbahrung, p. 31 (GO). For complete titles and data on all of the works by Kuhlmann which I have been able to trace, see my article (“Quirinus Kuhlmann: Ein bibliographischer Versuch”) in a forthcoming number of La Nouvelle Clio (Brussels).
9 Der Kühlpsalter, v. 2961 f.
10 Quinarius Seine Schleudersteine, pp. 5-6 (QS).
11 Lutetier- oder Pariserschreiben, “Schreiben an Magdalena von Lindaw,” §11.
12 Entsprossende Teutshe Palmen, vv. 575 ff. (ETP).
13 Friedrich Lucae, Schlesiens Curiese, Denckwttrdigkeiten (Frankfurt, 1689), p. 855.
14 Professor Jantz has quite rightly pointed out that the study of music must also hava been of great Importance for him.
15 Three copies exist today of this book, two in Wroclaw and one in Dresden.
16 For a further discussion of the circumstances of this celebration and the complete text of the Entsprossende Teutsche Palmen see my article in the July 1953 number of JEGP. There ere three copies of the poem extant, two in Wroclaw and one in Strasbourg.
17 “Widmungsscnrifft,” Lehrreiche Weibheit-Lehr-Hof-Tugend-Sonnenblumen.
18 See the essay by Heinz-L. Matzig “Die Gedankenwelt des jungen Leibniz,” in Beiträge sur Leibniz-Forschung (Reutlingen, 1947).
19 Among others, Daniel Morhoff in his Polyhistor (Lübeck, 1688).
20 Friedrich Lucae, Europäischer Helicon (Frankfurt, 1711), p. 420 f.
21 The book by Müller is entitled Der Himmlische Liebeskub oder Übung des wahren Christentums, fliessend aus der Erfahrung der göttlichen Liebe (Frαnkfurt, 1659, 1666, 1704).
22 Primarily Käthe Eschrich, Studien sur Geistlichen Lyrik Quirin Kuhlmanns (Greifswald, 1929). Also Martin Goebel, Die Bearbeitung des Hohen Liedes im 17. jahrhunderi (Halle, 1914), and Johannet Hoffmeister, “Quirinus Kuhlmann,” Euphorion, XXXI.
23 The tangled history of these issue, can be solved only by a thorough collation of all the copies. The one extant copy of the 1672 issue is in the Universitätsbibliothek in Leipzig. Nowhere in any of the literature on Kuhlmann is it mentioned, and it is therefore to be assumed that it was unknown until Dr. Rolf Flechsig called it to my attention.
24 “Geschichtsgemählde xxII” comes from Harsdörffer's Der Grosse Schauplats, cxxxv.
25 The extent of his reading can be clearly seen in the quotations from Boehme's works, both in the “Schreiben an Müller” and the “CL. Welssagungen.”
26 Neubegeisterter Böhme, p. 6 (NB).
27 Letter to Kircher of 4 Jan. 1674. Quoted from photograph of MS.
28 Informatorium Novissimorum oder Unterricht von den Letzten Zeiten an Paul Käym, Erster Teil, §59.
29 Aurora, Chap. 8, §73.
30 Theosophische Sendbriefe, Der 55. Sendbrief.
31 J. Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, Chap. xxx, p. 44. This Kühlwappen forms the basis for the later plates in the Kühlpsalter.
32 Kuhlmann uses later precisely this expression, “eine Heerde.”
33 Quoted from A. Pfeiffer's Antichlilmuu (Lübeck, 1691), pp. 17 ff. The Pseudo Weigelian tracts are of particular importance for Kuhlmann's later numerical symbolism.