Friends of God
Godfriends refers to a religious movement in the area of German mysticism of the 14th century, which was not organized in fixed structures and is therefore difficult to define in detail.
Unspecific use of the term
The term “friends of God” goes back to the Bible. There, for example, Abraham and Moses are called “friends of God” because of their godly lives (Exodus 33:11; 2 Chronicles 20: 7). The term also occurs in the Gospel of John (John 15:15): “I no longer call you servants, […] but I have called you friends.” Furthermore, in the prologue to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1., 3), “Theophilos "mentioned, which in turn should be interpreted as a reference to a" friend of God ". It is then used by Gregory of Nazianzen and Augustine in the sense of a Christian theology and spirituality. In the Middle Ages the term was used as a nickname for biblical figures and for the “truly pious”, that is, those who turn away from the world and turn to God. In this unspecific sense, in the Middle Ages a large number of people and groups referred to themselves as “friends of God”. Such as the heretical Bogumils in the Balkans . But “orthodox” Christians also used the term. In Jan van Ruysbroek's mysticism, for example, the categories of “secret friends” and “hidden sons” of God play a role.
The "friends of God" in the 14th century
The term "friends of God" implies the historical prerequisites and the aspect of self-attribution around Rulman Merswin and his student Nikolaus von Löwen, which could be characterized as follows: "Friends of God" are lay people of both sexes with secular professions, to whom one has a special relationship with God said, but they also included nuns, monks and priests. One of their characteristics is the religious appreciation of lay people living in secular professions compared to the clergy. Your literature is accordingly written in German and not in Latin. They were not an organized community, but a not clearly delimitable group of people who wanted to live their faith particularly intensely and internalized. The well-known mystic Johannes Tauler, who wrote in German and used the term “God's friends” several times in his sermons, was loosely connected to this group, above all to the Strasbourg merchant Rulman Merswin. The mystics Margareta Ebner and Heinrich von Nördlingen , who were personally known as Tauler , were also in contact with the movement, but not Meister Eckhart , even if his writings were probably read by the “God's friends”. The group did not have a long history, even if their ideas were not without influence. Peter Dinzelbacher writes: “A few decades after Tauler's death one hears nothing more from the friends of God. But their concern lives on in the edifying literature and was partly reasserted in Pietism and the revival movement . "
The "God friend from the Oberland"
As the author of several treatises that were read in the circle around Rulman Merswin, a mysterious, mystically gifted “God-friend from the Oberland” is named. Merswin claimed to have received the scriptures in question directly from this "friend of God" whom he claims to have met in 1351. However, the majority of research today assumes that the author of the said writings was not the “Godfriend”, but possibly Rulman Merswin himself. This is particularly supported by the fact that after Merswin's death no new writings by the “Godfriend of the Oberland” appeared. So it is very likely a fictional literary character. In older research, however, attempts were made several times to identify the “God's friend” with a historical person, for example with Nicholas of Basel who was burned in Vienna around 1395. However, "the identification of N (ikolaus') with the legendary friend of God from the Oberland" has long been refuted.
Distribution area of the "friends of God" of the 14th century
Distribution area was mainly the southwest German and Swiss area, especially on the Upper Rhine. There were several centers of this movement, one of which was a loose group that formed in Basel between 1339 and 1343 . There were also followers of this mystical direction in Strasbourg around Rulman Merswin, and in Cologne .
literature
- Peter Dinzelbacher (Ed.): Dictionary of Mysticism (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 456). 2nd, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-45602-8 .
- Manfred Gerwing : Article God's friends and God's friendship . In: Norbert Angermann (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 4. dtv, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-59057-2 , Sp. 1586 f.
- Bernard Gorceix: Amis de Dieu en Allemagne au siècle de Maître Eckhart . Michel, Paris 1984, ISBN 2-226-02078-0 .
- Louise Gnädinger: Johannes Tauler. Lifeworld and mystical teaching . Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-36789-5 , pp. 87-103.
- Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert: German mysticism between the Middle Ages and modern times. Unity and change in their manifestations . de Gruyter, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-11-005338-1 .
- Wilhelm Rath : The friend of God from the Oberland . Stuttgart 1985.
- Jakob Baechtold: God friend (1st article) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 456-460.
- Franz Brümmer: God's friend (2nd article) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 453.
- Pirmin Meier : I brother Klaus von Flüe . A story from inner Switzerland. A biographical discourse . Ammann, Zurich 1997; 2nd edition Zurich 2000
- Regina D. Schiewer: Vos amici Dei estis': The 'God friends' of the 14th century in Seuse, Tauler and in the' Engelberger Sermons': Religious Elite, Association or Literature Circle ?, Oxford German Studies, 36: 2, 227–246 , DOI: 10.1179 / 174592107x254940