Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau

Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau (* 1670 in Lauenburg / Elbe , † beginning of January 1721 in Schwarzenau ) was a German mystical-separatist Pietist .

Life

He was born in 1670 in Lauenburg / Elbe as the son of a family of officials from Saxony-Lauenburg . The graduate of the Melanchthon High School in Nuremberg began studying law in 1687 , which he continued in Gießen and Halle (1693). There, the acquaintance with August Hermann Francke and Christian Thomasius led to the connection to Pietism and henceforth to freelance preaching. Soon, however, under the influence of Johann Wilhelm Petersen and Johann Georg Gichtel , Hochenau increasingly turned to “Philadelphian” (especially the Englishwoman Jane Leade ) and mystical - spiritualistic ideas. Its dedicated church criticism and contempt for the church as well as the traditional pietistic proximity to apocalyptic - chiliastic ideas already led to the gathering of like-minded people in Halle and to initial conflicts with ecclesiastical and secular authorities.

With the expulsion from Halle, the unsteady wandering life typical of almost all separatists of the early 18th century began, partly driven by one's own sense of duty, partly under the pressure of constant expulsions up to and including imprisonment. Hochenau had a due share in both. His preaching activity as a popular and revival preacher led him a. a. to the Lower Rhine and Bergisches Land , the Palatinate , Leipzig , Nuremberg and Franconia . He was imprisoned almost thirty times by both clerical and secular authorities, for example in Detmold in 1702, in Nuremberg from 1707 to around October 1708, and in Halle and Leipzig in 1711.

After a trip to Switzerland with other like-minded comrades and the failure of an attempt to convert the Jews in Frankfurt am Main (1699), he stayed at the pious count's court of Laubach (Upper Hesse). After his first preaching activity in Berleburg (1700), he found something of a temporary home at Biesterfeld Castle (Lippe), interrupted again and again, of course, by preaching trips. The "Detmold Confession of Faith" (see below "Works") was created in Biesterfeld in 1702 and was widely distributed.

Memorial stone in Schwarzenau opposite the presumed site of the "Friedensburg".

In August 1703, Hochenau, like so many separatists and mystics (such as Johann Konrad Dippel ) from the Pietist environment, returned to the county of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and founded a communist one in Schwarzenau near Berleburg around the turn of the year 1703/04 House community of the "consecrated to Christ". From then on, Schwarzenau became a permanent home for him, between "church storms and loneliness" ( Heinz Renkewitz ), so not under the surrender of his travel preaching activities. In Schwarzenau he built the hut called "Friedensburg" in 1709, where he spent the last years of his life as a hermit. His influence on the separatist groups of Pietism was and remained throughout Germany, in cities and in the countryside.

Hochmann was not a dogmatist. However, if one wants to classify him in the classic categories of theological doctrine, his contribution to Christian ethics is considerable. In addition to the strict rejection of the military service, the death penalty and the oath, his great interest is in the "marital status", from the "imperfect marriage" in five steps up to the "perfect marriage":

• animal marriage, which unites people solely through their sexual instinct;
• the “honorable and moral” marital status, as it was legally regulated in Roman antiquity and among the Jews, but not indissoluble and only provisional with regard to earthly life;
• Christian marriage, the indissoluble union of man and woman as the image of Christ's love for his community (Eph 5:25) and for the purpose of fathering children, as “young Tobias (Tob 8: 9) godly began his marital status”;
• the "virgin marriage", in which two people join together in a spiritual community;
• Finally, the perfect “marriage”, namely the surrender of a single soul to God, who joins the “bridegroom of the soul” Christ as a bride in order to father spiritual children.

Incidentally, for all marriages concluded among the “not true Christians”, Hochmann demanded a “ civil marriage ” - which made him nearly 150 years ahead of his time.

Text of the memorial stone in the Hüttental, Schwarzenau

Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling , who grew up a few decades later in Hilchenbach in the vicinity of Berleburg, characterizes Hochenau with admiration:

“Everywhere he looked for opportunities to teach; He gathered a few and many people, as the opportunity arose, and taught them the purest mysticism, a complete change of mind, complete moral improvement, following the example of Christ, etc. Vernacular, and everything he taught he animated himself; Very master of his heart and of his passions, humble and serene in the highest degree, he stole the heart of everyone who dealt with him; in a word, he was a wonderful man! "

His grave in Schwarzenau was adorned with a verse by Gerhard Tersteegen :

"How tall is the man who was otherwise a child, even / Simple-minded, full of love, and full of faith / He fought for his kingdom and suffered for it / His spirit finally flew there, and here the hut fell apart."

Works

• E. Chr. Hs v. H. Confession of Faith ... Together with a speech given to the Jews ..., 1702.
• Letters to the Counts of Lippe, 1703.
• Epistles, From the false anti-Christian, in pale outward child baptism, Lord's Supper and church-going so-called church services ..., 1707.

literature

• Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling : Theobald or the enthusiasts. All writings, vol. 6, Stuttgart 1838, 24 ff.
• Max Goebel: History of Christian Life in the Rhenish-Westphalian Evangelical Church II. Coblenz 1852 (ND Gießen / Basel 1992), 809–855
• Heinrich Heppe:  Hochmann, Ernst Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 523-525.
• Ernst Annemüller, Der Schwärmer Hochmann von Hochenau 1670–1719, in: Lippischer Dorfkalender NF 16, 1931, 97–100
• Heinz Renkewitz : Hochmann von Hochenau. Source studies on the history of Pietism (Diss. Breslau), 1935 (Neudr. Witten / Ruhr 1969; catalog of the publications Hs and the legacy of the letters)
• Hans Schneider: Gottfried Arnold's alleged visit to Switzerland in 1699 . In: Theologische Zeitschrift 41, 1985, 434-439.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 914-915.
• Ulf Lückel: Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau (1670 / 1–1712). In: Andreas Kroh, Ulf Lückel (eds.): Wittgensteiner Pietismus in Portraits. Bruchsal 2003.
• Ulf Lückel: nobility and piety. The Berleburg Counts and Pietism in their territories. Vorländer Verlag, Siegen 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulf Lückel: Nobility and piety. The Berleburg Counts and Pietism in their territories. Verlag Vorländer, Siegen 2016, pp. 45, 49, 51–52, 56, 65–67, 77.
2. ^ Johannes Wallmann: Der Pietismus , Göttingen 2005, p. 168.
3. ↑ Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling: Theobald or the enthusiasts. All writings, vol. 6, Stuttgart 1838, p. 25.