Quirinus Kuhlmann

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Quirinus Kuhlmann, called "Chiliast" and "False Prophet".

Quirinus Kuhlmann , also: Culmannus, Kühlmann, Kuhlman (born February 25, 1651 in Breslau , † October 4, 1689 in Moscow ) was a German writer and mystic .

Life

Kuhlmann was the son of the merchant (harness maker?) Quirinus Kuhlmann the Elder and his wife Rosina, née Ludewig.

In his hometown of Wroclaw he attended the Maria Magdalenen grammar school . As a sickly child who also had trouble speaking, he spent a lot of time in the well-stocked city library. His first works date from this time. In 1669 he played a female role in the "Alexandrian Drama" performed annually by the grammar school; he became seriously ill; this is also the time when his first visions fall. For five years he believed he had two angels by his side.

In 1670 Kuhlmann published his Sprouted German Palms , an almost ecstatic song of praise for the Fruitful Society . The Pegnesian Flower Order and with him its President Sigmund von Birken , whom Kuhlmann venerated, are celebrated in the following year with his heavenly Libes kisses . Because of this collection of sonnets, he was raised to the rank of imperial poeta laureatus and found a noble patron.

From 1670 to 1673 he studied law in Jena . Further volumes of poetry ensure that his fame as a poet spreads further. During this time he was also very concerned with religious issues. His early work is still noticeably attached to the baroque ideal of education. His main work, Der Kühlpsalter, began with the time in Jena .

From 1673 he lived in Leiden . There his views changed radically. Under the influence of Jacob Böhme he wrote to the new enthusiasts Böhme and soon declared war on Lutheranism. The enthusiastic king Johannes I. Johann Rothe also had a great influence on Kuhlmann during this time. Because of his public appearances, Kuhlmann was expelled from Leiden.

Kuhlmann went to Amsterdam to see Friedrich Breckling and Johann Georg Gichtel . His first missionary attempts took him to Lübeck and Hamburg in March 1677 . From there it went on to London . Here he soon found a small circle of like-minded followers.

By turning away from Lutheranism, he developed his doctrine of the "cooling monarchy". In it he himself held the function of a new Son of God (God as a "cool man" against the hellish heat of the devil). It was Kuhlmann's goal to unite the various religions and thus to create a spiritual realm. Visionaries like Christoph Kotter , whose visions he related to himself, should figure in it as "cool princes". Similar pan-religious considerations were generally numerous during this period, especially among Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , who, however, did not dare to make them public.

At the beginning of 1678 Kuhlmann set out for Paris, from there to Constantinople . The Turkish sultan, to whom Kuhlmann wanted to hand over an edition of the visions compilation Lux e tenebris by Johann Amos Comenius , was absent and therefore could not receive him. Without having achieved anything, Kuhlmann had to return home.

Kuhlmann went back to London and married the doctor (?) Mary Gould in 1682 . But after four years of marriage, Mary died, who was called "Maria Angelica" (the English / Angelic) by her husband. Further trips took Kuhlmann u. a. to Switzerland , Troy and Berlin , a trip to Jerusalem , but only to return after a week.

Because of his increasing self-deification, he lost more and more support among his followers. Even his long-time colleague Friedrich Breckling gradually turned away from him. After the death of his wife in 1686, Kuhlmann waited for the obligatory year of mourning. In 1687 he married Esther Michaelis . He had a daughter with her, but she died as a child.

In 1689 Kuhlmann tried again to spread his ideas and set out to proselytize the Church of Tsarist Russia . After the first sermons, he was denounced by the Lutheran pastor Joachim Meincke . As a result, Kuhlmann was arrested for rioting and tortured in a horrific way - glowing crosses were burned in his back. On October 4, 1689, on the orders of Patriarch Joachim, he was publicly burned alive as a heretic in Moscow .

Works

  • Selected seals . Potsdam: Hadern, 1923.
  • Descrown Teutsche Palmen , ed. Robert L. Beare, in: Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 52: 346-371 (1953).
  • Heavenly Libes kisses. ed. Birgit Biehl-Werner. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1971. (Repr. Of the Jena 1671 edition)
  • Chilled psaltery. ed. Robert L. Beare. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1971. (Repr. Of the Amsterdam 1684–86 edition)
  • Newly enthusiastic Bohemian . Literary. Verein, Stuttgart 1995. (Repr. Of the Leiden 1642 edition)
  • D. Fifteen chants . Bear Press, undated, undated (Bayreuth 1992?). (Reprint of the Amsterdam 1677 edition)

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Quirinus Kuhlmann  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Kuhlmann, Quirinus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Culmannus; Kühlmann; Kuhlman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1651
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH October 4, 1689
Place of death Moscow