Valentin Weigel

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Valentin Weigel (also Weichel ; born August 7, 1533 in Naundorf , † June 10, 1588 in Zschopau ) was a German mystical - theosophical writer.

Life

At the mediation of the Georg von Komerstadt council , Weigel attended the princely school St. Afra in Meißen from 1549 to 1554 and studied first at the artistic, later theological faculty in Leipzig . In 1558 he became a baccalaureus and master's degree. From 1564 he studied and taught in Wittenberg and was ordained on November 16, 1567 by the Wittenberg general superintendent Paul Eber as pastor primary surgeon in Zschopau .

In 1565 he married Katharina Beuche, with whom he had the children Theodora (born 1569), Nathanael (born 1571) and Christian (born 1573).

Weigel only distributed his handwritten works to a small group. However, this was not done to hide his mystical views, which were close to Sebastian Franck and Jakob Böhme , but apparently because he published mainly on occasion. Despite a complaint from the Augustusburg pastor Matthias Seidel (1528–1602), no further harassment of Weigel's administration can be proven, on the contrary, he actively participated in the local visitation of the Chemnitz ephoria . During his lifetime, only a funeral sermon was printed for Martha von Rüxleben, the wife of the Zschopau Landjägermeister Cornelius von Rüxleben . It was not until twenty years after Weigel's death that many of his writings reached printing , promoted by his successor in office Benedikt Biedermann , the Zschopau cantor Christoph Weickhart (active from 1577 to 1583) and his sons Joachim and Nathanael. It is unclear which writings were written by Biedermann himself. Other arrangements and foreign texts also found their way uncritically into the printed complete works. In 1626 these books were publicly burned .

Weigel fought anti-grassroots potentates , princes and preachers, according to the complete works . He mainly referred to Meister Eckart and Johannes Tauler . Thomas Müntzer , Andreas Bodenstein , Kaspar Schwenckfeld and the Anabaptist Empire of Münster were like-minded to him. His ideas, linked to Neo-Platonism and German mysticism , became part of the German heretic movement and had an impact on poets such as Angelus Silesius and Daniel Czepko .

Only after his death - when the publication became known - the term Weigelians was formed , and weigelianism could then be used to describe any form of heterodoxy throughout the 17th century.

Works

  • Teaching Sermon: How to Mourn Christianly and Die Daily in the Lord , 1576
  • Libellus de vita beata , 1609
  • A beautiful prayer book that teaches the simple , 1612
  • The golden grip to recognize all things without error. Krusicke, Hall 1613 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
  • A useful treatise from the place of the world , 1613
  • Dialogus de Christianismo , 1614
  • Know yourself. 3 vols. Knuber, Neustadt 1615 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive vol. 2)
  • Informatorium or Short Lessons , 1616 (extended: Soli deo gloria , 1618)
  • Church or house postil " , 1618
  • Libellus disputatorus , 1618
  • De bono et malo in homine , 1618
  • Two beautiful little books , 1618
  • Studium universale , 1618
  • Tractatus de opere mirabili , 1619

expenditure

  • Valentin Weigel: The book of prayer , ed. and gently modernized by MP Steiner, Edition Oriflamme, Basel, ISBN 3-9520787-5-1
  • Valentin Weigel: Selected Works , ed. and introduced by Siegfried Wollgast . Union Verlag, Berlin 1977; therein: Know yourself, the other little book about the knowledge of oneself, a useful treatise from the place of the world, the golden handle, sermon from poor Lazarus, dialogue about Christianity

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Pfefferl: Weigel, Valentin (1533-1588) . In: Horst Balz (Hrsg.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie . tape 35 . Berlin 2003, p. 448 .
personal data
SURNAME Weigel, Valentin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mystical-theosophical writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1533
PLACE OF BIRTH Naundorf
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1588
Place of death Zschopau