Paul Felgenhauer

Paul Felgenhauer (born November 16, 1593 in Puschwitz , Bohemia, † around 1677 in Bremen ) was a German controversial theologian and chiliast of the Baroque period .

biography

As the son of the Bohemian Lutheran pastor Nikolaus Felgenhauer (1549–1597), Felgenhauer matriculated at the University of Wittenberg in 1608 , where he even worked temporarily as a deacon at the castle church. Back in his native Bohemia, he published his first chiliastic controversy in Prague in 1620 , which were sharply attacked by the Lutheran orthodoxy there, but found strong echo in northern Germany, where an anti-orthodox counter-movement was already in existence at that time.

After the Battle of the White Mountains in 1621 he fled Bohemia and wandered all over Germany to finally gain a foothold in Bremen. 1638 he settled in the city of Bremen's office Bederkesa down as Medicus and wrote numerous prophetic writings in Amsterdam were printed. He gathered a secret community of followers without appearing in public. The Debstedter pastor Krägelius publicly denounced him in 1653 as a false teacher, but the Bremen council did not allow persecution. During the siege of Bederkesa Castle by Swedish troops, the place caught fire and Felgenhauer became homeless. On the run again, he was finally arrested in 1657 and sentenced to expulsion from the country after a church heresy trial in Syke . His writings were publicly burned. After his expulsion from the Guelph lands, he returned to Bremen in 1658, where he spent the rest of his life as a doctor.

Similar to Johann Jacob Zimmermann , Felgenhauer also tried to mathematically calculate the date of Judgment Day in advance. He is the author of 50 mostly anti-orthodox and chiliastic writings, many of which had to be printed in tolerant Amsterdam because of their dangerous content.

family

He married Margarete Junkhusen († after 1658) on June 19, 1631 in Ottensen . The couple had 3 sons and a daughter.

Works (selection)

• The mystery of the Lord's temple. Amsterdam 1631
• Mirror of wisdom and truth. Amsterdam 1632
• The Little Book of Iehi Or, or Dawn of Whiteness. Jansson, Amsterdam 1640. Digitized and full text in the German text archive
• Harmonia fidei et religionis, harmony of faith. Amsterdam 1654

Literature (selection)

• Hans-Joachim Schoeps : Baroque Jews, Christians, Jewish Christians . Bern 1965
• Ernst Georg Wolters: Paul Felgenhauer's life and work , in: Yearbook of the Society for Lower Saxony Church History 54 (1956), 63–84
• Johannes Göhler: Paul Felgenhauer - Prophet and Medicus. His work in Bederkesa, his conflict with Matthäus Krägelius and his condemnation in Syke, in: Ways of faith, contributions to a church history of the country between the Elbe and Weser. Regional Association of Stade 2006.
• Peter Poscharsky:  Felgenhauer, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 69 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Julius August Wagenmann:  Felgenhauer, Paul . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1878, p. 278 f.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Felgenhauer, Paul. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , column 8.

List of works and references

• Gerhard Dünnhaupt : Paul Felgenhauer , in: Personalbibliographien zu den Druck des Barock , Vol. 2. Stuttgart: Hiersemann 1990, pp. 1457–1477. ISBN 3-7772-9027-0

Web links

• Publications by and about Paul Felgenhauer in VD 17 .
• Digitized prints by Paul Felgenhauer in the catalog of the Herzog August Library