Nobility Sibylla Schwartz

Adelheit Sibylla Schwartz , née Röther , (* 1656 or later, probably in Zellerfeld ; buried on March 29, 1703 in Berlin-Friedrichswerder ) was a German pietist .

Live and act

Nobility Sibylla Schwartz was a daughter of Valentin Röther (* around 1615/20, probably in Quedlinburg ) and his wife Katharina, née Schlotterbeck (* December 28, 1627 in Tübingen ). Her father worked as an organist in Tübingen from 1650 and as an organist in Zellerfeld from 1656 to 1666. The maternal grandfather was the Tübingen shoemaker Hans Schlotterbeck.

How Schwartz spent childhood and adolescence is not well documented. However, it is likely that her parents pietistically influenced her during these years. Sources mention her for the first time in 1677/78 when she devoted herself to language studies with August Hermann Francke . Francke, with whom she remained lifelong friend, referred to her amicably as "Debora". During this time, Philipp Jacob Spener suggested in his Pia desideria that the Church be reformed. In addition, in 1677 Spener wrote of the "Spiritual Priesthood", in which he took up Luther's ideas and wanted to strengthen the will to reform. Schwartz attached central importance to this font. It can be assumed that in the following period she lived in the vicinity of Spener and Johann Jakob Schützes in Frankfurt.

Schwartz may have met the painter Johann Heinrich Schwartz in Frankfurt around 1675 , who lived in Lübeck from 1679 . Both married around 1683 and had seven children between 1684 and 1698. They lived in Lübeck's Hundestrasse and held house devotions there, which the police observed in 1692. Schwartz had her children baptized in St. Mary's Church and wrote a letter to Superintendent August Pfeiffer on February 16, 1692 , the content of which shows that Schwartz, according to Spener's definition, lived her faith as “ecclesiola in ecclesia”, ie not separatist.

While Spener rejected efforts to break away from the church and to form sects, people in the Schwartz area sometimes referred to the church as "Babel" and considered separating from it. Her friend Johanna Eleonora Petersen and Balthasar Jauert, who, as her husband's father-in-law, co-founded an outreach group for Pennsylvania settlers, discussed an “Exodus from Babel”. Schwartz's friendship with the Petersen couple probably led to the Pietist Rosamunde Juliane von der Asseburg taking over the sponsorship of their fourth child.

When the persecution of the Pietists reached Lübeck, Superintendent Pfeiffer spoke out expressly in his sermons against "false teachings" and published publications that were also noticed beyond Lübeck. In addition, Francke had to leave Erfurt and JW Petersen was removed from office in Lüneburg . On February 16, 1692, Schwartz wrote a letter to Pfeiffer, triggering an open battle. The letter itself had harmless content that should not have sparked any conflict. However, it contained the “testimony” of an anonymous author as an attachment, which Schwartz described as a “serious revelation from God”. She wrote explicitly that the letter was not her own and that she would not give the name of the author. The author could have been the enthusiast Margarethe Jahn from Halberstadt . The "testimony" contained a threat to the superintendent with God's judgment and abuse. Pfeiffer published the letter amid protests by Schwartze, followed by public discussions that were also held in the city council and the clergy ministry. Since Schwartz refused to retract her views, she had to leave Lübeck in August 1692.

In the five years that followed, Schwartz traveled through central and northern Germany, sometimes living apart from her family and being in contact with various Pietists. In Halle she found spiritual support from Justus Breithaupt and Christian Thomasius and especially Francke. In the autumn of 1692 she talked to him almost every day about the state of the church. She ignored Spener's advice to be cautious when dealing with enthusiasts and enthusiasts, and associated with prophetic-visionary pietists. This included Margarethe Jahn in December 1692 in Halberstadt and again in Lübeck in 1697. Francke made Schwartz understand that he did not approve of this company; the discussion on this, however, facilitates the demarcation between Pietism and its radical forms.

At Spen's intercession, the city of Lübeck allowed Schwartz to re-enter the city in December 1693. At the beginning of 1694, the leading Pietist Johann Salomon Hattenbach brought her and her two youngest children to the Hanshagen estate, where his family lived. She continued to have contact with the other members of her family and went on further encouragement trips to meet persecuted Pietists. In 1695 the married couples Hattenbach and Schwartz met the persecuted Johann Heinrich Horb in Hamburg , who died a little later. In Halle, Schwartz regularly supported Francke's educational initiatives by encouraging him, soliciting donations and praying. She tried to ensure that Francke's dependent cousin got an education and became the godmother of Francke's oldest child.

At the end of 1697 the Schwartz family went to Berlin , where there was a policy of tolerance towards Reformed and Pietists. The family met Francke and many friends here, such as Karl Hildebrand Freiherr von Danstein, Georg Rudolf von Schweinitz, Dodo von Knyphausen and the wife of Eberhard von Danckelmanns . Schwartz was in contact with Jane Leade , which made von Knyphausen, who paid for translations of Leade's works, important to her. In Berlin, the Schwartz family's economic situation did not improve. Since Johann Heinrich Schwartz only had irregular income as a painter, the family had to go into debt. Adelheit Sibylla Schwartz died after several months of illness. At the time, her six living children were between five and eighteen years old.

literature

• Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, nobility Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 342-345.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 342.
2. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 342.
3. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 342-343.
4. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 343.
5. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 343.
6. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 343.
7. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 343-344.
8. ↑ Ernst Fritze: Schwartz, Adelheit Sibylla . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 344.