Ursula Jost

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Ursula Jost (* around 1500; † before 1539 in Strasbourg ) was a visionary of the Anabaptist movement .

Life

Melchior Hofmann's work on Ursula Jost's visions: Prophetic face and revelation [...] (1530)

Melchior Hofmann published a book in Strasbourg in 1530 with 77 visions of an anonymous “God lover”. From this scripture it appears that the visionary's husband had just been released from prison and was receiving visions of his own before she did. In the afterword Hofmann announced that a book with the husband's visions would appear shortly; this together with a mention by Martin Bucer (1533) identifies the husband as Lienhard Jost. Hofmann had to answer to the Strasbourg city council on April 23, 1530, among other things because he had published the visions of a woman in book form. The book printers Balthasar Beck and Christian Egenolff were also arrested and questioned, but stated that they did not even know the (nameless) woman. In 1532, however, Hoffmann had a vision from the book of 1530 reprinted and stated that it came from the "Prophet Ursula, wife of the prophet Lienhard Jost of Strasbourg." Strasbourg ”the speech.

Ursula's husband Lienhard Jost was a day laborer and woodcutter. He came from the village of Illkirch near Strasbourg. The couple lived in Krutenau near the Strasbourg Metzgertor, in the parish of the Stephanus Church . In 1539 an Agnes is referred to as the wife of Lienhard Jost, so that Ursula had apparently already died at this point. In 1543 a daughter of Ursula and Lienhard Jost is mentioned, Elisabeth (Elsa), who had recently married. Lienhard was still alive in 1549.

With Ursula Jost's visions, it remains uncertain how much Hofmann revised them when they were written. They had an apocalyptic character and put the events from 1524 to 1530 in a great historical plan of God: the tithe that weighed on the peasants, the catastrophe of the peasant war , the loss of control of the papal church over many cities, the persecution of religious minorities. The vision of God is that of an angry judge who sovereignly directs history. Therefore it makes sense for the visionary to be patient and persevere, because in the end God will save his chosen people . With their visions, Lienhard and Ursula Jost stood in a pre-Reformation, mystical-spiritual tradition. Hofmann linguistically matched it to the Revelation of John and was also of the opinion that God spoke through the Josts in his presence as well as through the seer John in early Christianity . At the same time, Hofmann saw himself as an interpreter of these visions and from then on represented an apocalyptic view of history: "Led by the imperial city of Strasbourg and with the significant participation of the Anabaptists ... a theocratic community , an earthly rule of the saints, will soon emerge."

Web links

literature

  • Lois Yvonne Barrett: Ursula Jost and Barbara Rebstock of Strasbourg . In: C. Arnold Snyder, Linda A. Huebert Hecht (Eds.): Profiles of Anabaptist Women: Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers . 5th edition Waterloo (Ontario) 1999, pp. 273-287.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lois Yvonne Barrett: Ursula Jost and Barbara Rebstock of Strasbourg , Waterloo 1999, p. 273 f.
  2. ↑ a b Thomas Kaufmann : The Anabaptists. From the radical reformation to the Baptists . CHBeck, Munich 2019, p. 53.
  3. ↑ Lois Yvonne Barrett: Ursula Jost and Barbara Rebstock of Strasbourg , Waterloo 1999, p. 274.
  4. ↑ Lois Yvonne Barrett: Ursula Jost and Barbara Rebstock of Strasbourg , Waterloo 1999, p. 277 f.
  5. ↑ Thomas Kaufmann: The Anabaptists. From the radical reformation to the Baptists . CHBeck, Munich 2019, p. 54.
personal data
SURNAME Jost, Ursula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Visionary and member of the Anabaptist movement
DATE OF BIRTH around 1500
DATE OF DEATH before 1539
Place of death Strasbourg