Tobias Hess

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Tobias Heß or Hess, (born January 31, 1558 in Nuremberg ; † November 24, 1614 in Tübingen ) was a German lawyer, theosophist and physician in Tübingen who also dealt with theology. He was one of the central figures of a group of scholars in Tübingen from which the Rosicrucian Movement emerged.

The group included Lutheran theologians and lawyers, for example the law professor Christoph Besold (he was also an avid book collector and inherited the library from Hess), Tobias Adami , Wilhelm Bidembach von Treuenfels , the doctors Samuel Hafenreffer and Samuel Frey, the alchemist Christoph Welling , Pastor Johann Vischer, Johann Jakob Heinlin , the Austrian nobleman Abraham Hölzel , Thomas Lansius , Wilhelm Schickard , Johann Ludwig Andreae and his older brother Johann Valentin Andreae , who is credited with the authorship of the most important writings of the Rosicrucians, a probably fictitious secret society that at that time met a zeitgeist and met with great public response. Her manifesto appeared in Kassel in 1614, but was already in circulation in manuscript form beforehand. Ideas from alchemy, Kabbalah, Lutheran reformist spirit and Christian utopia flowed into the movement.

Hess studied law in Altdorf near Nuremberg from 1583 and in Tübingen from 1588 , where he received his doctorate in 1592. jur. received a doctorate (in ecclesiastical and secular law). For a while he was a lawyer in Tübingen and Speyer, but then turned to the study of medicine, alchemy and pharmacy as part of the Paracelsus school and also practiced as a Paracelsian doctor (which brought him into conflict with the local doctors, the followers of the traditional teaching of Galen and complained about him). Oswald Croll praises him in his Basilia Chymica as a representative of the Paracelsian doctrine and he is said to have given lectures on the doctrine of Paracelsus in his house. Together with Johann Valentin Andreae's father, he carried out alchemical experiments in his house and some recipes have been preserved from both of them. According to Andreae's obituary, he was known for his great learning, in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, history, mathematics, natural philosophy, but also well versed in mechanical arts.

He was a follower of the Marbach theologian Simon Studion , who read chiliastic revelations about a golden age of Christ's reign that was about to dawn (1603, 1613 or 1620) through letter calculations (Naometria) , similar to the visions and teaching of the three ages by Joachim von Fiore . In 1605 he described his chiliastic visions in a letter to Duke Friedrich von Württemberg in order to defend himself against attacks by the theological faculty. Andreae was deeply impressed by the utopian and alchemical ideas of Hess.

Andreae dedicated two texts to him, published under his name Thecla gladii spiritualis (Strasbourg 1616) and published an obituary (Tobiae Hessi, Viri imcomparabilis, immortalitas. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner 1619, written as early as 1614). There are also interrogations about Hess from Tübingen from 1605 on charges of chiliasm . In the last years of his life he got into financial difficulties in Tübingen. According to Andreae's obituary, he was attacked and mocked as a dreamer and liar.

literature

  • Martin Brecht : Johann Valentin Andreae. Path and program of a reformer between Reformation and modernity. In: Martin Brecht (Ed.): Theologians and theology at the University of Tübingen. Contributions to the history of the Evangelical Theological Faculty. Tübingen, 1977, pp. 270-343
  • Carlos Gilly (Ed.): Johann Valentin Andreae. The manifestos of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood 1586–1986, catalog of an exhibition at the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Hermes 3, Amsterdam 1986,
  • Carlos Gilly, F. Niewöhner (eds.): The Rose Cross as a European Phenomenon in the 17th Century , Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Pimander, Volume 7. Pelikaan, Amsterdam, Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart 2002.
  • Carlos Gilly (Ed.), Cimelia Rhodostaurotica. The Rosicrucians as reflected in the manuscripts and prints created between 1610 and 1660, Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan 1995 (exhibition catalog of the Bibliotheca Hermetica in Amsterdam and the Herzog August Library Wolffenbüttel).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. For other members also from the time after the death of Hess see the article Johann Valentin Andreae
  2. ^ Martin Brecht The emergence of the new piety movement in Germany , in: Martin Brecht, History of Pietism, Volume 1, The early 17th and 18th centuries, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1993, p. 154
  3. He used the name after the death of his friend, because B. expressed sympathy for Kaspar Schwenckfeld and did not want to endanger his position as a theologian.
  4. Martin Brecht, Chiliasmus in Württemberg in the 17th Century, Pietism and Modern Times, Volume 14, 1988, pp. 25–49
  5. Research in the University Archives Tübingen, Martin Brecht: Christoph Bezold, attempts and approaches of an interpretation, Pietism and modern times, Volume 26, 2000, p. 11f