Heinrich Stilling's apprenticeship years
Heinrich Stilling's apprenticeship is the fifth part of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling's autobiography . It appeared in 1804, after Heinrich Stilling's youth (1777), Heinrich Stilling's youth (1778), Heinrich Stilling's wandering (1778) and Heinrich Stilling's domestic life (1789). Heinrich Stilling's age (fragmentary) and Heinrich Stilling's end of life (through his grandson) followed posthumously .
Overview
The apprenticeship years , the last complete autobiographical section published during his lifetime, describe his time as professor of economics in Marburg 1787–1803 with his second wife Selma and from 1790 with his third wife Elise. The children from the first marriage Hannchen (* ~ 1774) and Jakob (* ~ 1774) live in the household, from the second marriage Lisette (~ 1786–1801), Karoline (* ~ 1787) and Franz (1790–91), as well as the third Marriage to Lubecka (* 1791), Friedrich (* 1795), Amalie (probably * 1796) and Christine (* 1799). After the death of the parents-in-law, their children also live with them from 1792, from 1796 Stilling's father (dies around 1802) and from 1801 Julien Eicke. In addition to teaching, Stilling travels as a star engraver, which brings friendships and repayment of debts, and has his greatest successes as a religious writer.
content
Convinced that the professorship for state economy is now his life's work, Stilling works hard, writes books, reads lectures, exchanges correspondence, continues to do eye treatments. He feels at home in Marburg, and the professor of theology, Johann Franz Coing and his family are particularly friends . In the first winter, Stilling's stomach cramps were bad, when his wife Selma talked him about an Easter visit to relatives in Franconia and Ottingischen (spring 1788). He meets Odensänger Uz, brother Hohbach in Kemmathen near Dinkelsbühl, who is Selma's brother-in-law, and Prince Kraft Ernst von Öttingen-Wallerstein, who at his request releases the writer Wekherlin from the prison he was serving for insulting. In Frankfurt he meets his daughter Hannchen at his friend Kraft's and travels with her home to Marburg. Raschmann, a theology candidate and expert on people from a secret society, introduced him to ideas that threatened to relativize the meaning of Jesus' sacrificial death. At the same time he got to know the Kantian philosophy through Church Councilor Mieg. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason finally frees Stilling's thinking from Wolff's determinism . Kant confirms him in a letter to seek reassurance in the gospel. But the rest of his writings seek truth in a moral principle instead.
In 1789 he visited Countess von Stollberg-Wernigerode at Easter and operated on blind people, including a 28-year-old who had snowed in on the Brocken and became star-blind, and two old siblings who were then surprised at their old appearance. The count family comes for a return visit after a few weeks and again for Stilling's 50th birthday on September 12, 1789.
Stilling travels to the blind in Rüsselsheim, where Pastor Sartorius helps him again to the right belief in reconciliation, then Darmstadt, where someone wants to remain blind in honor of God. From Mainz he travels with Count Maximilian von Degenfeld to Neuwied to the musician Herr von Dünewald, then on the Rhine to Neuwied, where he is deeply impressed by the Moravian community and visits Prince Johann Friedrich Alexander, with whose wife he henceforth conducts pious correspondence. Selma dies after giving birth to a son in 1790.
Stilling is hit, but also accepts Selma's statement that it no longer fits into his résumé. According to Selma's urgent request, he marries Elise Coing on November 19, the day of St. Elisabeth. In the meantime, Hannchen (16) runs the household, Lisette (4) lives with friend Mieg's in the Kraft house in Frankfurt, Karoline (2) with mother Coing, Stilling himself and the infant Franz with Government Councilor Riess and his wife. Father Wilhelm Stilling comes to visit.
Stilling notes that he learned a great deal of secret knowledge from Raschmann, who is now moving away after three years.
The marriage is happy except for Stilling's stomach ailments and Hannchen's lichen on the cheek, while a doctor prescribes sublimate, which leads to cramps. Hannchen is pursued by a theology student's wish to marry, who, rejected several times, dies abroad.
In 1791 the infant Franz died, then mother Coing. The seventeen year old son Jakob is fetched. Lisette stays with Mieg, who is attached to her. Elise has daughter Lubecka. In 1792 Stilling becomes Vice Rector. Hannchen marries Preacher Schwarz in Dexbach near Marburg, brother of her friend Karoline, to whom she had fled from the theology student. The cathedral dean von Vincke zu Minden, father of a student at Stilling's, comes to visit with the Duke of Weimar on the campaign to France. Father Coing dies, his children move to Stilling.
Stilling travels as prorector with the princely commissioner Riess to Niederhessen to collect the tithe, then to a blind man in Frankfurt. On the way they learn that the French are already on their way. Elise, who accompanies him, gets bad convulsions.
At Easter he visits the Vinck family in Minden (Prussia) and at their knight seat in Ostenwalde near Osnabrück, and makes many new acquaintances. In 1793 Coing also began his preaching office in Gemünd. Stilling writes the scenes from the spirit realm and Homesickness . The response is overwhelming. It dawns on him that this must be his true calling. Lavater comes to visit. A hint of Stillings in front of students on a forestry excursion to a new institute leads to the false rumor that he was to blame for the transfer of a popular professor. The students want to storm his house. Son Jacob prevents it by appearing to join the student order.
Jacob and Amalia (Elish's sister) decide to get married as soon as Jacob earns money. The young Coing becomes a legation preacher in Regensburg.
Son Friedrich is born in 1795. Uncle Kraft dies, his widow moves in with Stilling's family. Stilling rents a summer apartment in Ockershausen near Marburg. He receives a visit and letters from people who know a secret society in the Orient, just as Stilling described it in Das Heimweh without realizing it, as well as news of ghostly apparitions (1796). From 1795, Stilling published the magazine Der graue Mann , which was unexpectedly well received. He makes more friends, including a. by refugees before the French War.
Father Wilhelm Stilling is impoverished, has venous disease and dementia. When Stilling found out about it in 1796, he took it to himself. Elise takes care of him happily. Daughter Amalie is born. Two uncle-in-law and aunt Kraft die. A money letter comes from a Swiss lady when Stilling and Elise are currently in financial distress. In 1798, Stilling wrote The Victory History of the Christian Religion in a non-profit declaration of Revelation John . He is influenced by an explanation of the Apocalypse by Prelate Bengel, and he also interprets the Moravian Church and the unexpected English revival movement as preparation for God's kingdom. From 1797 onwards, Stilling describes a "void of joy" which robs him of all pleasure and alienates him from everything, although the family is good for him and the stomach cramps subside.
In 1798, Stilling and Elise visit Elise's two cousins in Bremen, at the request of eye patients who also pay well, whereas Stilling in Marburg often has to pay for accommodation for poor blind people from near and far.
Daughter Christine is born in 1799. While writing a letter to the Antistes Hess in Switzerland about collecting money for the Unterwaldners, Stilling had an inspiration of Lavater's imminent torture, with whom he exchanged letters until he was deported to Bern. During a visit to Butzbach with son-in-law Schwarz, Stilling learns that Lavater was actually shot.
In 1800, Stilling visits Frankfurt, Offenbach and Hanau again during the Easter holidays, and operates blind people. In Hanau he visits government councilor Rieß, at the Frankfurt trade fair he meets the famous businessman Wirsching, who became rich as an orphan with piety and diligence. Stilling corresponds with and about the fatally wounded Lavater and publishes a poem Lavater's Transfiguration .
In 1801, Stilling and Elise travel to Switzerland to operate a widow Frey in Winterthur. In Basel, apparently by chance, a person is donating the approx. 1650 guilders that make up their debts, plus many other donations.
The loan that Stilling received after his studies under the guarantee of his father-in-law, and all others are now being repaid. Jacob and Amalie are married. The second volume of Scenes from the Spiritual Realm appears. In this, as in the poem, Lavater appears in a fitting way that Stilling could not have foreseen.
They do another eye treatment for free, but they get a lot of money again. Stilling's melancholy turns into extreme fear, which suddenly disappears in a carriage accident. Heal the wounds.
Lisette dies. After Mayor Eicke zu Münden dies, his daughter Julien moves into Stilling's family. Stilling and Elise travel to Fulda for four weeks and meet old and new friends. Amalie has a daughter. Fourteen-year-old Karoline is confirmed. Stilling continues to suffer from the conflict between his job as a professor on the one hand and his ophthalmic and religious work on the other. After his father Wilhelm Stilling's death, he made another trip to Switzerland in 1802. On the way he had to ask the Elector of Baden in Karlsruhe to employ his son Jakob, which he found very difficult. He is also promised help himself. It turns out that in Basel he helps the children of his former master tailor Isaak with a collection of debts.
During a visit to Brother Coing's wedding in the spring of 1802, a connection between Maria and the widowed Rat Cnyeim emerges. Johann Stilling's second son, chief miner von Dillenburg, comes to visit.
Stillings magazine Der graue Mann triggers a censorship law in Marburg in 1803, which hits him hard. Erxleben calls him to the blind in Herrnhut. The Karfeier there seems to him like the initiation to a new purpose.
Stilling and Elise travel with their eight-year-old son Friedrich to friends in Wittgenstein in order to visit Stilling's home from there, but an inexplicable fear, unlike the one on the Brunswick trip, holds him off. The elector appoints Jakob as counselor and offers Stilling a livelihood. Stilling sees the providence of being useful from now on through eye cures and writing.
style
Stilling's text is a uniform portrayal that lists travel destinations and names of acquaintances as meticulously as feelings in the event of death. Towards the beginning, a secret guilt is mentioned about which the reader should not even speculate. The river scene alludes to the misfortune in domestic life when Selma almost had an accident. For him, the French way of life is morally decaying, for which further mentions in Das Heimweh . Depression goes hand in hand with satanic fear. Crises serve to purify it through the "big smelter". Songs are sprinkled in praise of God, typical images are again spring, dawn and flower path.
Spiritually, Stilling develops into a Christian mystic here. He takes Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as a comment on Paul ( 1 Cor 2:14 ). He describes this as spiritual liberation from Wolff 's determinism. He does not mention the noble names of his acquaintances out of vanity, but to show that good Christians also live in the higher classes. The ideas of the secret society Raschmann and the reading of Barruels may also have influenced his work, although he found his way back to his Christianity. He corresponds with Johann Caspar Lavater , among many others.
He also mentions reading Georg Rodolf Weckherlin's Das graue Ungeheuer and Die Hyperborean Letters , Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Religion within the Limits of Reason , Prelate Bengel's writings. Son-in-law Schwarz later wrote The Moral Sciences , The Religious Teacher and Educational Pamphlets . Lorenz Sternes Tristram Shandy and résumés influenced stillings Das Heimweh .
Stilling writes the following books: Textbook for the State Police ; Finance ; Camerale practicum ; Basic theory of the state economy ; Heinrich Stilling's domestic life ; Treatises and pamphlets; Scenes from the spirit realm ; Homesickness ; The victory story of the Christian religion in a non-profit declaration of Revelation John . He publishes the magazine The Gray Man . His poem Lavater's Transfiguration is first printed separately, then in scenes from the spirit realm from the 3rd edition.
In a review of Stilling's previous life story , he notes that everything is quite true to his life story, apart from lyrical "ornaments" that from home life does not happen again. With the exception of Raschmann and the theology students, all real names are given in the apprenticeship years to make the facts verifiable. On this basis his biography is an example of how God leads people in life, in contrast to the determinism of the Enlightenment (see the initiation mysteries in Das Heimweh ).
literature
- Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich: life story. Complete text after the first prints (1777–1817). With an afterword by Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli. Pp. 345-466. Munich, 1968. (Winkler Verlag; ISBN 3-538-06037-1 )