David Joris

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Jan van Scorel's portrait by David Joris

David Joris , also called Joriszoon or David Georgssohn (* 1501 or 1502 in Bruges , † August 28, 1556 in Basel ), was a glass painter and a leading figure in the enthusiastic wing of the Anabaptist movement of the 16th century. His followers were called Davidites or David-Jorists .

Life

David Joris was the son of the grocer and master singer Georg (or Joris) van Amersfoordt. After his apprenticeship as a glass painter and the journeyman's years in France and England, he settled in Delft , where he married. There he probably came into contact with the ideas of the Reformation .

He first became conspicuous in 1528 because of the mockery of the monstrance during an ascension procession . For this he was punished with whipping , sticking the tongue and three years of banishment from Holland. Joris moved to Emden in East Frisia, where he met Jan Volkertsz Trypmaker and probably also Melchior Hofmann . Back in Holland, in The Hague at the end of 1531, he witnessed the execution of Jan Volkertsz Trypmaker and nine other Melchiorites and was impressed by the martyrdom of the Anabaptists . However, since Hofmann stopped baptizing after these executions of his Amsterdam followers, Joris was only baptized by Obbe Philips in 1534 or 1535 . He was named an elder shortly after he was baptized .

He distanced himself from the Anabaptist Empire in Münster because he rejected violence. After its catastrophic failure, the Anabaptist movement was fragmented. Joris succeeded in Bocholt in 1536 at a meeting of various Anabaptist groups, followers of Jan van Batenburg , who justified the use of violence as divine vengeance, pacifist obbenites and the Jorites, to find a compromise to push back the revolutionist currents in Anabaptism. A vague agreement was reached that God's angel would carry out divine vengeance, but no permanent agreement was reached. No agreement was reached on the question of polygamy either. A consensus was only reached when assessing the baptism of believers .

After the meeting in Bocholt, Joris received an enthusiastic letter from the Baptist Anneken Jansz , in which she praised his attempt at mediation and praised him as a prophet of the end times. As a direct result of this letter, Joris had visions at the end of 1536 , which he made known in letters and on which he based his theology. From these visions he derived both his calling to "prophetic-charismatic leadership" and his idea that true Christians who had acquired the Holy Spirit through repentance and public confession of sin, possessed Adam's innocence before the fall and should therefore have no sexual shame . Joris concluded from this that the biblical marriage regulations were abolished for the true believer. In addition to his wife, with whom he had eleven children, he himself had a “spiritual bride”, Anna von Berchem, the sister of his future son-in-law, with whom he also had several children and whom he later married to one of his followers.

He found followers in East Friesland , Oldenburg and Holland and was for a time the most important Anabaptist leader in the Netherlands. But as early as 1538 individual groups turned away from him again. In the same year he traveled to Strasbourg and looked in vain for recognition by Hofmann's supporters.

Jan van Batenburg was arrested in 1538 and named a. a. Joris as an Anabaptist leader. This led to the persecution of Anabaptists, to which many of his followers, including Joris' mother, fell victim. Joris fled Groningen back to Emden, where his community the protection of tolerant Countess Anna of Oldenburg until they enjoyed, under pressure from the Emperor Charles V was reported. Joris himself was in Antwerp . Under the pressure of the persecution, the focus of his teaching shifted. The focus was no longer on the apocalyptic influenced by Hofmann , but on the increasing internalization of faith, which made it possible to show conformity with the established churches to the outside world.

During this time, the dispute with Menno Simons , another important representative of Anabaptism in the Netherlands, came about about the spiritualistic or literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. While Simons was able to unite most of the Anabaptists with his rigorous moral concepts and accused Joris of entering into too many compromises, Joris and his followers as a mystical sect of the Davidites (also Jorists or David-Jorists ) became a marginal group. Despite severe persecution, this community existed in the Netherlands and northern Germany until the 17th century and had a formative effect on Pietism even later .

While some of the David Jorists remained in secret in East Friesland, Joris and parts of his community moved to Basel in 1544 under the pseudonym Jan van Brugge or Johann von Bruck , where he posed as a persecuted noble Zwinglian . He was accepted because of his fortune, which he owed to his noble son-in-law Joachim von Berchem and other followers. One saw in him a strict Zwinglian and showed him great respect. He acquired real estate, including the Spießhof in Basel as a city residence, and built the Holeeschloss near Binningen , while his son-in-law Joachim von Berchem bought Binningen Castle . He and his followers lived there unobtrusively. They regularly attended Reformed services, had their children baptized, and were considered benefactors of the poor. Joris made friends with various important humanists who lived in Basel, a. a. with Sebastian Castellio , who translated some of Joris 'writings into Latin and was probably one of the few who knew Joris' true identity. He also had contact with Kaspar Schwenckfeld and Johann Weyer , who opposed the witch hunt. At the same time he wrote many tracts on Anabaptism and corresponded with his followers who lived at a safe distance. However, his posh lifestyle brought him criticism from within his community. His long-time colleague and son-in-law Nicolaus von Blesdijk also turned away in 1554 and became a preacher of the Reformed Church.

The Spießhof in Basel, where Joris lives in Basel

David Joris died on August 28, 1556, three days after his wife Dirckgen. Both were buried in the Leonhardskirche in Basel. After his death there was a dispute over the inheritance. In this context, his true identity came to light three years after his death. Joris was tried posthumously, his body exhumed on May 13, 1559, and cremated along with his books. The members of his congregation were condemned to public atonement and then accepted back into the Protestant church. Most of them left Basel soon afterwards and returned to the Netherlands.

theology

Joris represented the mystical or spiritualistic side of Anabaptism. He saw the devil only as an allegory for the inner evil drives of man. Baptism and the Lord's Supper as well as every form of worship were irrelevant to him, which is why he had no difficulty in posing as a follower of the Reformed Church . What mattered was that man inside the Passion of Christ nachempfand, so as a perfect, free from desires new man reborn to become. In doing so, he subordinated the letters of the Bible to the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. In this way he was able to reconcile his demand for mystical asceticism with his own way of life as a wealthy bigamist.

He divided the story into three epochs, divided according to the structure of the Jerusalem temple : first the forecourt , the time of the Old Testament, then the temple itself, the age of the New Testament, and finally the most holy place , the period of the Holy Spirit. He saw himself as the third David , who alone could spiritually interpret divine wisdom in the sense of the second David Jesus Christ and thus played a decisive role in salvation history. Instead of the apocalyptic expectation that dominated the teaching of Melchior Hofmann, for example, he set the spiritual renewal of the individual.

Fonts

Joris wrote far more than the more than 200 writings that Antonius van der Linde cataloged, including, in addition to his main work, the multiple revised book of wonders , primarily tracts and letters. Many of these were reprinted well into the 17th century.

  • t 'Wonderboeck , 1st edition 1542, 2nd edition 1551
  • Verklaringe der Scheppenisse , 1553
  • Een geestelijck liedt-boecxken: Inholdende veel schoone sinrijcke Christelijcke liedekens .. , Rotterdam, Dierck Mullem , c. 1590

pendant

Joris corresponded with his supporters who remained in the Netherlands. In accordance with his example and instructions, they adapted their way of life externally, attended church services in the state church, brought their children to be baptized and attended confession and the Lord's Supper. At the same time, however, they met in secret, taught their children the doctrine of David Joris, and spread his writings. In the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein , especially on Eiderstedt , where a number of David-Jorists had emigrated as dike workers and merchants, lawsuits were brought against them several times in the first half of the 17th century (see Anabaptists on Eiderstedt ).

literature

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography of David Joris at: altbasel.ch
  2. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hofmann. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation , Göttingen 1979; P. 315ff
  3. ↑ Stayer: Art: Joris, David in TRE 17, p. 239
  4. ↑ Stayer: Art. Anabaptist / Anabaptist Communities 1 , TRE 32, pp. 599–617; P. 611
  5. ^ Stuart Clark: Thinking with demons: the idea of ​​witchcraft in early modern Europe 1999, page 543; Gary K. Waite: "Man is a Devil to Himself": David Joris and the Rise of a Skeptical Tradition towards the Devil in the Early Modern Netherlands
  6. ^ Antonius van der Linde: David Joris'Bibliographie , 's Gravenhage 1867
personal data
SURNAME Joris, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Representative of the Anabaptist movement, glass painter and self-appointed Messiah
DATE OF BIRTH 1501
PLACE OF BIRTH Bruges
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1556
Place of death Basel