Fragments dispute
The title Fragmentenstreit denotes the most important theological dispute of the 18th century in Germany and probably the most important controversy between the Enlightenment and Orthodox Lutheran theology .
procedure
The Hamburg high school professor for oriental languages Hermann Samuel Reimarus wrote between 1735 and 1767/68 an apology or protective script for the sensible worshipers of God . With this scripture the " natural religion " should be defended against the traditional biblical belief in supernatural revelations and miracles. Reimarus did not dare to publish the scriptures. A common thesis is that Reimarus' heirs made parts of an early version of the "Apology" available to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, on condition that the anonymity of the author was preserved. From 1770 Lessing was the director of the ducal library in Wolfenbüttel and in this function from 1773 published the journal Zur Geschichte und Litteratur. From the treasures of the ducal library in Wolfenbüttel , for which he enjoyed freedom from censorship. In it the Enlightenment published between 1774 and 1778 seven of the passages accessible to him from the "Apology" in several contributions under the title Fragments of an Unnamed . Using misleading allusions, Lessing also tried to hide the true author.
The fourth contribution from 1777 in particular provoked strong reactions. In 1777/78 alone, 30 counter-writings against the “fragments” appeared (in total there are more than 50 writings). Lessing was held responsible for the content of the fragments, although he only partially shared the positions represented therein and accompanied the publication of the fragments with his own objections and counter-drafts ( contrasts of the editor ). Lessing's position in these “opposites” was also sharply attacked. His main opponent in the dispute was the Hamburg chief pastor Johann Melchior Goeze , against whom Lessing published 15 writings in 1778 (including the eleven anti-Goeze writings). In 1778 Lessing was denied censorship for the "contributions" by the Duke; at the same time he received a general publication ban for the field of religion. He continued the discussion with the drama Nathan the Wise in the field of literature.
The rhetorical aggressiveness with which all those involved led the fragments dispute can only be understood against the background of the concrete historical situation: Almost parallel to Lessing's publication of the "Fragments", one of the most important religious and political controversies of the 18th century took place - the dispute over Karl Friedrich Bahrdts rationalistic translation of the New Testament, which was published under the title The latest revelations of God in letters and stories (1773/1774). On February 4, 1778, the Reichshofrat took action against Bahrdt - probably also at the request of the aforementioned Lessing opponent Goeze. In the case of Lessing, who sided with Bahrdt in his controversy with Goeze, there was thus the possibility of political persecution.
The “fragments” were reprinted several times in the following period; but it was not until 1813 that the “Apology” became known as a complete work and Reimarus was proven to be the true author. The first complete edition did not appear in print until 1972.
Chronology of the fragments dispute
The following overview of the individual pamphlets by Goezes and Lessing and their respective party members is based on the chronological overview in Volume 9 of the series Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Works and Letters edited by Klaus Bohnen and Arno Schilson .
| Fall 1774 | First publication of fragments: From Tuldung der Deisten: Fragments of an Unnamed |
| Early January 1777 | Second publication in fragments: Several from the papers of the unnamed concerning the revelation
This includes:
With comment added by Lessing to the fragments: Opposites of the editor |
| September 1777 | Johann Daniel Schumann: On the Evidence of Evidence for the Truth of the Christian Religion (dated 1778) |
| October / November 1777 | On the proof of spirit and strength (Lessing's answer to Schumann) |
| October / November 1777 | The will of St. John's |
| November / December 1777 | Johann Heinrich Reß : The resurrection story of Jesus Christ defended against some of the recent objections made in the fourth contribution to history and literature <…> |
| December 1777 | JD Schumann: Reply to the letter addressed to him from Braunschweig about the proof of spirit and strength (dated 1778) |
| December 17, 1777 | Johann Melchior Goeze in: Voluntary contributions to the Hamburg news from the realm of erudition, 55th and 56th pieces; Reprinted in: Something preliminary <...> I. (against Lessing's contradictions of the editor ) |
| 5th - 15th January 1778 | Reprint of Goezes first attack in: Beytrag zum Reichs-Postreuter, 1. – 4. piece |
| January 1778 | A duplicate (answer to Reß) |
| January 30, 1778 | JM Goeze in: Voluntary contributions <…>, 61.-63. Piece; Reprinted in: Something Preliminary <…> II. (Review by Reß) |
| February 26, 1778 | Imperial Court Council resolution against Carl Friedrich Bahrdt's translation of the New Testament |
| Late February / early March 1778 |
Friedrich Wilhelm Mascho: Defense of the revealed Christian religion against some fragments from the Wolfenbüttel library |
| before March 16, 1778 |
1. A parable (first writing against Goeze; contains; the parable; the request; the letter of rejection) |
| March 17, 1778 | Goeze threatens Lessing at the end of an article on the Reichshofrat ruling against Bahrdt in the 71st part of the voluntary contributions. In the same piece there appears a benevolent review of Mascho's writing. |
April 5, 1778 at the latest |
Anti Goeze. D. i. Compulsory contributions to the voluntary contributions of Mr. Past. Goeze first (answer to the 71st piece of the voluntary contributions ) |
| Spring 1778 | Georg Christoph Silberschlag: Antibarbarus or defense of the Christian religion and the process of the Protestant teaching post in religious instruction against and against the objections of recent times |
| Late March / early April 1778 |
Friederich Daniel Behn: Defense of the biblical story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; a fragment |
| no later than early April 1778 |
Johann Balthasar Lüderwald : The truth and certainty of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. . . |
April 16, 1778 at the latest |
JM Goeze: Something preliminary against Hofrat Leßing's direct and indirect hostile attacks on our most holy religion and on the single doctrinal basis of it, the holy scriptures |
| April 16, 1778 | Advertisement , in: Beytrag zum Reichs-Postreuter, 30th piece (clarification on the authorship of the Mascho review) |
| shortly after April 19, 1778 |
Anti-Goeze ... Second |
| April 24, 1778 | JM Goeze in: Voluntary contributions <…>, 75th piece; Reprinted in Leßing's weaknesses I. Chapter 1 (content of a review by Lüderwald) |
| May 4, 1778 | Albrecht W. Wittenberg (published anonymously): Doctor Schrill , in: Beytrag zum Reichs-Postreuterl, 34th piece (an epigram against Lessing) |
| May 1778 | JM Goeze: Lessing's weaknesses. The first piece |
| Late April / early May 1778 |
3. Anti-Goeze (with a "reply" to the advertisement in the Reichs-Postreuter) |
| Early May 1778 | 4. Anti-Goeze |
| Mid-May 1778 | 5. Anti-Goeze |
| May 21, 1778 | 6. Anti-Goeze |
| May 21, 1778 | Third and final publication of fragments from the scriptures of Reimarus: On the purpose of Jesus and his disciples |
| Late May 1778 | 7. Anti-Goeze |
| Early / mid-June 1778 | 8. Anti-Goeze |
| June 1778 | JM Goeze: Lessing's weaknesses. The second piece |
| probably June 1778 | FD Behn: Anti-Leßing against the 4th Anti-Goeze |
| about 2nd half of June 1778 | 9. Anti-Goeze |
| towards the end of June 1778 | 10. Anti-Goeze |
| probably early July 1778 |
11. Anti-Goeze |
| July 6, 1778 | The Duke's cabinet order to the director of the orphanage bookstore leads to Lessing's freedom from censorship being withdrawn |
| July 11, 1778 | Lessing's letter to the Duke with the request that the Anti-Goeze be published without censorship |
| July 13, 1778 | Confirmation of the withdrawal of the freedom from censorship in a letter from the Duke to Lessing combined with the demand for the handwriting of Reimarus |
| July 20, 1778 | Another letter from Lessing to the Duke with similar content as in the letter of July 11th, with the handwriting of Reimarus being sent |
| July 1778 | AW Wittenberg: Letter to Councilor Lessing against the 8th Anti-Goeze with a reprint of the epigram |
| Early August 1778 | Necessary answer to a very unnecessary question from Mr. Goeze in Hamburg (contains the answer to Goezes' questions in Leßing 's weaknesses II. ) |
| August 3, 1778 | The Duke's negative answer to Lessing's two submissions |
| August 8, 1778 | Lessing's letter to the Duke with the request to be able to print abroad without censorship, as has already happened with the necessary answer . |
| August 8, 1778 | Announcement from Nathan the Wise |
| 2nd half of August 1778 | JM Goeze: Lessing's weaknesses III. , the last writing against Lessing and a reply to the necessary answer |
| 17th August 1778 | The Duke forbids Lessing to print abroad without censorship. |
| September 18, 1778 | Johann Salomo Semler: Announcement of an own writing against the last fragment in the 38th issue of the Hamburg bookseller newspaper |
| 2nd half of September or 1st half of October |
The necessary answer to a very unnecessary question from the main pastor Göze in Hamburg first episode (against Goezes last pamphlet) |
| Spring 1779 | JS Semler: Answering the fragments of an unnamed person, in particular about the purpose of Jesus and his disciples (a sharp attack against Lessing appears in an anonymous appendix) |
| Late April 1779 | Nathan the wise. A dramatic poem in five acts |
| October 23 and 27, 1779 | In the 85th and 86th parts of the Wienerisches Diarium the rumor was spread that Lessing had received money from the Jews for the publication of the fragments. |
| November 4, 1779 | The same message is taken over in the 86th piece of the Reichs-Postreuter . |
| December 3, 1779 | The message is also printed in pieces 73rd and 74th of the voluntary contributions . |
| December 1779 / January 1780 |
More detailed correction of the fairy tale of 1000 ducats, or Judas Ischarioth the Second (contains an answer to the rumor and a summary of the fragments dispute) |
| 1780 | Johann Daniel Müller : The victory of the truth of God's word over the lies of Wolfenbüttelschen Bibliothecarii, [Gotthold] Ephraim Lessing, and his fragment writer [ie Hermann Samuel Reimarus] in their blasphemy against Jesus Christ, his disciples, apostles, and the whole Bible. 1780. |
Contents of the fragments dispute
The deist positions, and even more so the radical criticism of the Bible in Reimarus' "Apology" aroused strong indignation. Some important statements:
- The existence of miracles is denied and prophets , apostles and also Jesus Christ are called deceivers when they claim to work miracles.
- The moral integrity of biblical persons is disputed because "their actions so often deviate from the rules of virtue, indeed of natural and international law "
- The apostles are charged with corrupting the history and teaching of Jesus.
- The resurrection accounts are accused of inconsistency.
- The resurrection and the sonship of Jesus are denied.
The pioneers of the Enlightenment Reimarus and Lessing turned against “letter-hearing” and made a distinction between the letters and the Bible on the one hand and the spirit or religion on the other. According to Lessing, necessary rational truths could not be made dependent on fortuitous historical truths.
Lessing's main opponent, Goeze , held on to verbal inspiration . His central concern was the defense of the significance of historical events and their truthfulness for the faith. Christian faith cannot exist if essential content of ( New Testament ) history is denied. Lessing placed the belief based on reason above someone who only refers to accidental historical events. Goeze, on the other hand, argued that truths of faith do not necessarily have to be truths of reason, and repeatedly accused Lessing of having left the framework of Christian faith.
However, there was no real dialogue between Goeze and Lessing. Both opponents became increasingly involved in a polemic that was also characterized by personal attacks. Orthodoxy basically did not have the opportunity to react to Lessing's theses, and on the other hand, Goeze did not understand how to prove the weaknesses in Lessing's argumentation. For Goeze the dispute was a serious matter of the heart; Lessing, however, referred to it as "katzbalgerei" and emphasized several times that he did not want to formulate dogmas but to present contributions to the discussion. Although Goeze was a respected scholar, his linguistic and argumentative abilities could not stand against Lessing.
Reflection of Judaism
After Jobst Paul, Lessing aimed to put the rationalist position of the Enlightenment up for debate with the anonymous publication of the fragments of a Wolfenbüttel unnamed . Against an enlightenment "who derived their doubts about 'religion in itself' from their resistance to the dogmas of the Christian churches" (Paul). In line with the considerations for a unification religion that should be Christian, Lessing and Reimarus saw “an important, argumentative unevenness in this - religion-critical - position. Should the equation of a fraudulent Christian church with religion per se, i. H. function as an argument critical of religion, then of course no other religion, especially Judaism, must be 'better' ”(Paul). Accordingly, it was initially obvious for Reimarus to "also tend to depict Judaism as an archaic, backward religion of domineering priests" (Paul). Obviously, according to Paul, Reimarus saw through this problem of "overstretching himself." By rejecting Christian anti-Judaism, takes sides with persecuted Judaism ”.
Effects
The fragments dispute was the last great dispute in orthodoxy. The turning away from dogmatism and the turning to ethics in the age of enlightenment become recognizable . The fragments dispute shows that a critical examination and questioning of the Bible with the means of reason and historical research was now possible. The positions represented by Reimarus and Lessing had an influence on the further development of intellectual history and theology (e.g. historical-critical method in exegesis and initiation of the life of Jesus research ).
Research approaches
In researching the history of German discourse since the Enlightenment (1800–1870), Jobst Paul suggests considering the dispute over the “fragments of a Wolfenbüttel unknown” in the context of the debates about a religion of humanity or unification religion and to examine the effects on German idealism as it is shown in the fragment of text The oldest system program of German idealism ( Hegel and others, cf. Rosenzweig 1917). In his study of the Convergence Project - Religion of Humanity and Judaism in the 19th Century , the Reimarus fragments are the subject of consideration of these discourses. One of the questions asked is the hierarchy of the discourses. The question of which religion is the starting point for a united religion reveals a Christian-Orthodox hierarchy. Also the “suggestion of Lessing, which was to become the leitmotif for many subsequent decades: With the ring parable in Nathan (1779) Lessing left the question of whether the convergence of religions towards an ideal of humanity for the extinction of religions, or whether precisely clinging to them would lead to the common ideal of humanity ”(Paul). In his parable of the Ring, Lessing “hierarchizes the three great religions”. For Christianity the following questions arose in this debate: “How could it exist as a religion in the face of untenable dogmas? How should you name what was left? And how can one endure the fact that Judaism has long been where one was striving? ”(Paul).
The rationalistic relativization of Christian dogma also led in the humanity literature after 1800 "to ethical drafts" in which, as with Reimarus, the Jewish question "necessarily had to come into play", in which ultimately "two options remained, either the religion-critical and anti-Jewish the identifying position is shown by the literature on Jewish emancipation during the following decades ”(Paul).
Jens Lemanski followed the suggestions of Jobst Paul, who sees the fragmentation dispute as a crucial starting point for the development of German idealism, Schopenhauerianism and left Hegelianism (from Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi to Friedrich Engels ).
literature
- William Boehart: Politics and Religion. Studies on the fragments dispute (Reimarus, Goeze, Lessing). Martienss, Schwarzenbek 1988, ISBN 3-921757-26-6 (also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1982).
- Klaus Bohnen: Coping with suffering. The Lessing-Goeze dispute on the horizon of the hermeneutics of “spirit” and “letter”. In: Heimo Reinitzer , Walter Sparn (Ed.): Belated Orthodoxy. About D. Johann Melchior Goeze (1717–1786). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-447-02976-5 , pp. 179-196 ( Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 45).
- Klaus Bohnen and Arno Schilson (eds.): Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Werke 1778–1780. Volume 9, pp. 760-767. In: Wilfried Barner et al. (Ed.): Gotthold Ephraim Lessing works and letters. German Classic Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main. 1993.
- Bernd Bothe: Belief and knowledge. Study on Lessing's philosophy of religion. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1972, ISBN 3-445-00847-7 ( monographs on philosophical research 75). (At the same time: Rome, Univ., Diss.)
- Reinhard Breymayer : An unknown opponent of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The former Frankfurt concert director Johann Daniel Müller from Wissenbach / Nassau (1716 to after 1785), alchemist in the vicinity of [Johann Wolfgang] Goethe, Kabbalist , separatist chiliast , friend of the Illuminati of Avignon ("Elias / Elias Artista"). In: Dietrich Meyer (ed.): Pietism - Herrnhutertum - Awakening Movement. Festschrift for Erich Beyreuther . Köln [Pulheim-Brauweiler] and Bonn 1982 ( Series of the Association of Rhenish Church History , Volume 70), p 109-145 [to S. 108: " silhouette of [Johann] Daniel Müller"].
- Dirk Fleischer: In search of the truth. Johann Salomo Semler's position in the fragmentation dispute. In: Johann Salomo Semler : Answering the fragments of an unnamed person in particular about the purpose of Jesus and his disciples (Halle 1779). Spenner, Waltrop 2003, ISBN 3-89991-004-4 , pp. 1–106.
- Gerhard Freund: Theology in Contradiction. The Lessing-Goeze controversy. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1989, ISBN 3-17-010577-9 (also: Heidelberg, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1986).
- Jens Lemanski: Philosophia in bivio. About the importance of the fragmentation dispute for the differentiation of rationalism and irrationalism. In: Christoph J. Bauer, Britta Caspers (Eds.): Georg Lukács. Critic of Unclean Reason. Duisburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-940251-78-7 , pp. 85-107.
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : Theology-critical writings. Hanser, Frankfurt am Main 1989ff.
- Jobst Paul: The “Convergence” project. Religion of Humanity and Judaism in the 19th Century. In: Margarete Jäger , Jürgen Link (Hrsg.): Power - Religion - Politics. On the renaissance of religious practices and mentalities. Unrast, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-89771-740-9 ( Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research. Edition DISS 11).
- Helmut Schmiedt : Connected and free poetry. On the rhetoric in the Goeze-Lessing dispute. In: Lessing Yearbook. 23, 1991, ISSN 0075-8833 , pp. 97-110.
- Rolf Specht: The rhetoric in Lessing's “Anti-Goeze”. A contribution to the phenomenology of polemics. Lang, Bern a. a. 1986, ISBN 3-261-03604-4 ( European university publications . Series 1: German language and literature 937), (At the same time: Zürich, Univ., Diss., 1984).
- David Friedrich Strauss : Hermann Samuel Reimarus and his protective script for the reasonable admirers of God. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1862.
- Helmut Thielicke : Revelation, Reason and Existence. Studies on Lessing's philosophy of religion. 5th edition. Gütersloh publishing house Mohn, Gütersloh 1967.
- Johannes von Lüpke: Ways of Wisdom. Studies on Lessing's criticism of theology. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989, ISBN 3-525-87395-6 ( Göttingen Theological Works 41), (At the same time: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 1985/86).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hannes Kerber: "The Enlightenment in front of the court. On the historical background of GE Lessings 'Comments on an expert report on the itzigen religious movements' (1780)", in Germanisch-Romanische monthly 68: 1 (2018), pp. 27-72.
- ^ Jobst Paul: The 'convergence' project , in: Jäger / Link (ed.): Power - Religion - Politics. On the renaissance of religious practices and mentalities. Münster 2006, with references to: Strauss (1862), Lessing (1989).
- ↑ Jens Lemanski: Philosophia in bivio. About the importance of the fragmentation dispute for the differentiation of rationalism and irrationalism , in: Bauer / Caspers (ed.): Georg Lukács. Critic of Unclean Reason. Duisburg 2010, 85-107.