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God, the Devil, Medicine, and the Word: A Controversy Over Ecstatic Women in Protestant Middle Germany, 1691–1693

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Judd Stitziel
Judd Stitziel
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The Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

“You anti-Christian animal, what have you stung? I crush you, I the Lord crush you as you sit on My chair which you exalt up to the stars. I want to kick you into the deepest hell; now you are there and do not know what happened to you. On you, on you shall my soul take revenge; you God of the heathen who pray to you, who pray to you.” Thus began the letter dictated by Anna Margaretha Jahn and addressed to her confessor, Johann Christoph Wurtzler, pastor of the Moritz Church in Halberstadt, who had died three days earlier on 19 December 1692. The letter, transcribed by two men as Jahn spoke, closed with the commandment from God that the writing be delivered to Wurtzler's house and read aloud to his corpse, at which point he would become alive again, if that had not occurred already.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 309 - 337
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1996

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References

1. Anonymous (usually attributed to either Johann Benedict Carpzov or Gabriel Christoph Marquardt), Ausführliche Beschreibung Des Unfugs/ Welchen Die Pietisten zu Halberstadt im Monat Decembri 1692. ümb die heilige Weyhnachts-Zeit gestifftet. Dabey zugleich von dem Pietistischen Wesen in gemein etwas gründlicher gehandelt wird (n.p., 1693), 125–30.

2. Lutheran Germany in general seems to have seen a swelling in prophetic activity during these years, although quantitative measurement remains elusive. On prophecy during the Reformation and earlier in the seventeenth century, see Beyer, Jürgen, “Lutherische Propheten in Deutschland und Skandinavien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Entstehung und Ausbreitung eines Kulturmusters zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit,” in Europa in Scandinavia: Kulturelle und soziale Dialoge in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bohn, Robert (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 35–55;Google Scholar and Barnes, Robin Bruce, Prophecy and Gnosis. Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, 1988).Google Scholar

3. Deppermann, Klaus, Der hallesche Pietismus und der preussische Staat unter Friedrich III.(Göttingen, 1961), 20–21, 62.Google Scholar

4. Entzückung, the term that most frequently appeared in the sources, was used to refer to a variety of emotional and physical states, alone or in combination, including delight, joy, rapture, ecstasy, catalepsy, and paroxysm.

5. However, the five women and other women who had similar experiences from 1690–1694 were still being discussed over a decade later. See Feustking, Johann Heinrich, Gynaeceum haeretico fanaticum, oder Historie und Beschreibung Der falschen Prophetinnen/ Quäckerinnen/ Schwärmerinnen/ und andern sectirischen und begeisterten Weibes-Personen/ Durch welche die Kirche GOttes verunruhiget worden; sambt einem Vorbericht und Anhang/ entgegen gesetzet denen Adeptis Godofredi Arnoldi (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1704), 141–56, 220–22, 324–25, 362–64, 371–77, 530–31, 537–93, 601–12.Google Scholar

6. The Orthodox writers referred to the women as begeisterte Mägde. Mägde could mean maid both in the sense of an unmarried women as well as a female household servant. For reasons of convenience, for the remainder of the article I will use the German phrase in order to avoid the awkward translation of both Mägde and begeistert, with its connotations of ecstasy, spiritual possession, and enthusiasm in the religious sense. This phrase also seems less problematic and more convenient than the Latin term the Pietists frequently used to refer to the women, ecstatica.

7. Johannes Wallmann notes that “the history of Pietism is to a large extent the history of individual leading and tradition-creating figures,” Wallmann, Johannes, Der Pietismus (Göttingen, 1990), 11.Google Scholar For passing references to the begeisterte Mägde, see Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 78–81, 86–87; Ritschl, Albrecht, Geschichte des Pietismus in der lutherischen Kirche des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1880–1886; repr. Berlin, 1966), 2:183–90;Google ScholarBrecht, Martin, ed., Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1993), 360, 401, 458;Google ScholarCritchfield, Richard, “Prophetin, Führerin, Organisatorin: Zur Rolle der Frau im Pietismus,” in Die Frau von der Reformation zur Romantik, ed. Becker-Cantarino, Barbara (Bonn, 1980), 114–18;Google ScholarWallmann, Johannes, “Geisterfahrung und Kirche im frühen Pietismus,” in Charisma und Institution, ed. Rendtorff, T. (Gütersloh, 1985), 140;Google Scholar Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 67; Werner, Walter, “Der frühe Pietismus im Fürstentum Halberstadt,” in August Hermann Francke, 1663–1727, ed. Ahrbeck, R. and Thaler, B. (Halle, 1977), 89;Google ScholarWotschke, Theodor, “Der Pietismus in Thüringen,” Thüringisch-Sächsische Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst 28 (1929): 3–6;Google ScholarStoeffler, F. Ernest, German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century, (Leiden, 1973), 61.Google Scholar

8. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 127–31.

9. Ibid., 122–23.

10. Ibid., 131–37.

11. (August Hermann Francke), Eigentliche Nachricht von Dreyen Begeisterten Mägden, der Halberstädtischen Catharinen, Quedlinburgischen Magdalenen und Erffurtischen Liesen aus zehen unterschiedenen eingelauffenen Schreiben zusammen getragen von M. August Hermann Francken der Zeit Pastore zu Glaucha vor Halle (n.p., 1692), Georg Heinrich Brückner's letters to Joachim Justus Breithaupt, dated 7 December 1691 and 18 December 1691; for Schuchart's nickname, “die Pietistische Sängerin,” see Feustking, Gynaeceum haeretico fanaticum, 555.

12. Brecht, “August Hermann Francke und der hallische Pietismus,” in Brecht, Der Pietismus, 458.

13. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691.

14. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles' letters to Francke dated 16 December 1691, “Anno 1691, ” and 15 December 1691.

15. Of the five women, the most personal information is known about Jacobs. The daughter of a cooper, she was born in 1665, married at 14 years of age, was widowed, and after three years of mourning married again, this time to a knacker who died in 1689. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 109–15.

16. For the “Krise” (crisis) in the Lutheran Church see Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 12–21. For a discussion of the general “Frömmigkeitswende” (change in religiosity) see Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 12–14. This crisis was only part of a wider and still poorly understood social, political, and economic crisis of the seventeenth century see Hazard, Paul, The European Mind, 1680–1715 (Cleveland, 1964);Google Scholar and Parker, Geoffrey and Smith, Lesley M., eds., The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, Henley and Boston, 1978).Google Scholar

17. On the origins of the word and imprecise nature of the concept of “Pietism,” see Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 7–11.

18. Hinrichs, Carl, Preussentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preussen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971), 1.Google Scholar For a hostile interpretation of Pietism as a private, world-fleeing Christianity, see Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus.

19. See Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 7.

20. Ibid., 45–47.

21. Some students held meetings outside the university which included even Bürger, artisans, and women among its participants. For the proceedings, see Gerichtliches Leipziger Protocoll in Sachen die so genannten Pietisten betreffend samt Hn. Christian Thomasii berühmten JC. Rechtlichem Bedencken, darüber; und zu Ende beygefügter Apologia oder Defesions-Schriff Hn. M. Augusti Hermanni Franckens an Ihro Chur-Fürstl. Durchl. zu Sachsen. Wie solches zusammen von einem vornehmen Freund ist communicirt und hiemit getreulich zu Complirung der bißhero herauß gegebenen Actorum Pietisticorum, zum Truck befördert worden (n.p., 1692), in August Hermann Francke Streitschriften, ed. Peschke, Erhard, (Berlin, New York, 1981), 1–111.Google Scholar For the background to the Orthodox's objections, see Peschke, Streitschriften, xiii–xiv.

22. Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 3.

23. Anonymous (Johann Wilhelm Petersen), Sendschreiben an einige Theologos und GOttes-Gelehrte/ Betreffend die FRAGE/ Ob Gott nach der Auffahrt Christi nicht mehr heutiges Tages durch göttliche Erscheinung den menschenkindern sich offenbaren wolle und sich dessen gantz begeben habe? Sampt einer erzehlten specie Facti Von einem Adelichen Fräulein/ was ihr vom siebenden Jahr ihres Alters biß hierher von GOTT gegeben ist (n.p., 1691).

24. Romans 11:25f. and Hosea 3:4f. prophesy of the conversion of the Jews, and Revelations 18 and 19 the fall of papal Rome, according to Spener in Pia Desideria. Wallmann, Johannes, “Pietismus und Chiliasmus. Zur Kontroverse um Philipp Jakob Speners ‘Hoffnung besserer Zeiten’,” Zeitchrift für Theologie und Kirche 78 (1981): 248–49.Google Scholar For the Pietists' interests in spiritual experiences and the need to judge true from false prophets, see Wallmann, “Geisterfahrung und Kirche,” 141.

25. Anonymous (Albrecht Christian Roth), Imago Pietismi: Ebenbild des heutigen Pietismi. Das ist: Ein kurzer Abriss der Missbräuche und Irrthümer/ auf welche sich der Pietismus gründen soll. Aus keiner andern Ursach abgebildet/ Als dass den so genandten Pietisten/ Daren bey ihnen einige Gottesfurcht zu finden bey dieses Verwerffung/ ihre Unschuld an den Tag zu geben/ Ursache haben/ Dafern Sie aber von Gott entfernet/ dieses mit ihrem Stillschweigen behaupten mögen… (n.p., 1691).

26. Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 74; Martin Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener, sein Programm und dessen Auswirkungen,” in Brecht, Der Pietismus, 362.

27. See note 1: Thorough Description of the Mischief Which the Pietists in Halberstadt Caused in the Mouth of December 1692 Around the Holy Christmas Time. Including a More Thorough Treatment of the Pietists' Nature in General. I refer to this as Mischief in the text and Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs in the footnotes.

28. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 122–24, 109–15.

29. Peter Dinzelbacher has noted that inward-working miracles such as inspirations or feelings of sweetness were not a subject of the witch trials. Heilige oder Hexen? Schicksale auffälliger Frauen in Mittelalter und Frühneuzeit (Munich, Zurich and London, 1995), 249.Google Scholar

30. Mischief contained personal attacks on numerous individuals, both Pietists and others it associated with them. For the responses of Spener, Francke, Paul Anton, Johann Winckler, Christian Thomasius, and others, see Walch, Johann Georg, Historische und Theologische Einleitung in die Religions-Streitigkeiten Der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirchen, Von der Reformation an bis auf ietzige Zeiten, 5 vols, (Jena, 1733; repr, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1972), 1: 696–705.Google Scholar

31. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 27.

32. Ibid., 110, 114–15.

33. Ibid., 149–51. The Halberstadt Orthodox clergy's request, dated 30 December 1692, and the Helmstedt theologians' response, dated 4 January 1693, are reprinted in ibid., 144–51.

34. Ibid., 3.

35. Kramer, Gustav, ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte August Hermann Francke's enthaltend den Briefwechsel Francke's und Spener's (Halle, 1861), 283.Google Scholar Spener also wrote Francke: “One now must expect daily new difficulties from Halberstadt, which depress me more than any other things ever did.” Kramer, Beiträge, 288. For another contemporary account of the attacks and pressure of the Pietists, see Wotschke, “Der Pietismus in Thüringen,” 4–5.

36. Kramer, Beiträge, 284.

37. Ibid., 221–22, 219.

38. The other woman was Maria Graf. Ibid., 302.

39. While Jahn and Jacobs were treated in lengthy passages in Mischief, Schuchart and Elrich received only passing notice and Reinecke is not mentioned at all. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 94–95, 103.

40. Spener's reaction to the radical prophet Heinrich Kratzenstein, a Quedlinburg goldsmith and spirits distiller, parallels his thoughts on Jahn. Kratzenstein believed himself to be the last Elia, prophesied the imminent beginning of the thousand-year kingdom, considered the Bible a dead letter, advocated adult baptism, and declared his marriage to his unbelieving wife to be invalid. See Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus im 17. Jahrhundert,” in Brecht, Der Pietismus, 402 and Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 104–5. Spener worried that “where one holds on tightly to this obviously ungrounded revelation, the little remaining credibility of the other remarkable ones [der übrigen außerordenlichen] will fall away completely: to save these is much more useful than to recognize the offense [verstoß] of [Kratzenstein].” Kramer, Beiträge, 292.

41. Kramer, Beiträge, 283.

42. Ibid., 284.

43. Spener explicitly expressed this intention with respect to Kratzenstein when he wrote Francke: “I view it as a divine act of providence that I am given an opportunity to show by means of an example that [I] confidently reject the obviously false revelations which are caused by fantasies [phantasien] in this man.” ibid., 284.

44. Spener, Philipp Jacob, Gründliche Beantwortung einer mit Lästerungen angefüllten Schrifft (unter dem Titul: Außführliche Beschreibung deß Unfugs der Pietisten u.s.w.) Rettung der Warheit und so seiner als unter schiedlicher anderer Christlicher Freunde Unschuld (Frankfurt am Main, 1693), 184, 122.Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as Thorough Reply in the text and Gründliche Beantwortung in the footnotes. Spener also published a report and a sermon in which he negatively judged Kratzenstein's “supposed revelations and other gross errors” which contradicted the Bible. Philipp Jacob Spener, Erfordertes Theologisches Bedencken/Über Heinrich Kratzensteins/ Bürgers und Goldarbeiters zu Quedlinburg/Vorgegebene Offenbahrung (n.p., 1693); Spener, Philipp Jacob, Erklärung/Was von gesichten/erscheinungen und dergleichn offenbahrungen zu halten seye/In einer Predit vorgestellet: Samt Dessen Theologischem bedencken In sachen Heinrich Kratzensteins/ und dessen vorgebender offenbahrung (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1693).Google Scholar

45. See note 11.

46. Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 79. Francke's confessor, David Ehrius, a pastor in Ammendorf bei Halle, had the Leipzig theology student Johann Christoph Löser copy the letters which Francke had lent him, making Löser promise to keep the contents secret. Several weeks later, Ehrius discussed the begeisterte Mägde with two students from Halle, Hillemann and Ferber, who, according to Ehrius, secretly copied the letters without his knowledge and publicized them in Halle. Francke, August Hermann, Verantwortung Gegen die so genandte Beschreibung des Unfugs der Pietisten/und die darinnen enthaltene alte und neue Aufflagen. Dabey Zu mehrer Erbauung des Lesers angefüget ist Eine Betrachtung Von Gnade und Wahrheit (Halle, 1694)Google Scholar, in Peschke, Streitschriften, 214–16. See also Kramer, Beiträge, 243.

47. Kramer, Beiträge, 245. The emotional effect that the publication of Eigentliche Nachricht had on Francke is suggested in his comment that “the affair here has really gone to our hearts” and caused him, as the one primarily responsible for allowing the letters to fall into the wrong hands, “much humiliation, wariness, patience, and eagerness.” Francke also lamented that “Satan, through God's authorization, has given us a blow here whichcauses a lot of trouble.” Ibid., 243.

48. Ibid., 264.

49. Ibid., 273.

50. Francke, August Hermann, Entdeckung der Boßheit so mit einigen jüngst unter seinem Nahmen fälschlich publicirten Brieffen von dreyen so benahmten begeisterten Mägden zu Halberstadt, Quedlinburg und Erffurt begangen Exposing the Malice Committed with the Letters Recently Falsely Published under his Name Regarding the Three so-called Ecstatic Maids of Halberstadt, Quedlinburg and Erfurt (Cölln an der Spree, 1692)Google Scholar, in Peschke, Streitschriften, 141–59.

51. This was also the only specific error that Francke privately mentioned to Spener. Kramer, Beiträge, 243–44.

52. Ibid., 147–50.

53. Ibid., 150–51. The same passage from Luther, taken from a larger discussion in which he was far from positive in his judgment of dreams, was quoted by Spener in 1692 in one of his Theologische Bedencken. See Wallmann, “Geisterfahrung und Kirche,” 141.

54. In addition to the passages cited in other notes, see Kramer, Beiträge, 203, 206, 209, 219, 220, 224.

55. Ibid., 273.

56. Ibid., 162.

57. Ibid., 178.

58. Ibid., 264.

59. Wotschke, “Der Pietismus in Thüringen,” 3–4; Werner, “Der frühe Pietismus im Fürstentum Halberstadt,” 86–89. Eigentliche Nachricht also contains two short extracts from two separate letters concerning Reinecke written by “Frau Hoffräthin” in Halberstadt—one unaddressed concerning Reinecke and the other addressed to Francke concerning Reinecke and Elrich. I did not include these fragments in this paper because the descriptions of the two begeisterte Mägde are very similar to the other accounts and seem to be secondhand.

60. Eigentliche Nachricht, Brückner's letters to Breithaupt, dated 7 December 1691 and 18 December 1691.

61. Letter to Francke dated 21 March 1692, printed in Wotschke, “Der pietismus in Thüringen” 4–5.

62. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691. All biblical quotes are taken from the King James version.

63. Ibid., Achilles's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691.

64. These characteristics as well as others the women possessed, such as poverty, fasting, sickness, preoccupation with repentance, and knowledge of the secrets of others' souls and their states of grace had belonged to the stereotypical characteristics of holy and pious men and especially women since the Middle Ages. For example, see Dinzelbacher, Heilige oder Hexen? and Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987), chaps. 3, 9, 10.Google Scholar

65. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles's letters to Francke dated 15 December 1691 and Achilles's letter to Frau Hoffrath dated “Anno 1691.” Elrich went without food or drink for several days, saying that Christ fed her and gave her his blood to drink. Ibid., Sprögel's letter to Franckes dated 15 December 1691.

66. Francke, Entdeckung der Boßheit, 150.

67. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles's letters to Francke.

68. Ibid., Achilles's letter to Frau Hoffrath, dated “Anno 1691.”

69. Ibid., Brückner's letter to Breithaupt dated 18 D December 1691 and Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691.

70. Brückner also reported that “when people come who seem decent [anständig] to her she is healthy and speaks quite freshly, but when people who seem indecent [unanständig] to her come to her, she immediately has angst and sweats.” Ibid., Brückner's letters to Breithaupt dated 7 and 18 December 1691.

71. The possibility of two completely contrary interpretations of a single religious form of behavior was a typical ambivalence of European Christianity for centuries. Dinzelbacher, Heilige oder Hexen?, 11.

72. Friedrich Hoffmann, Unlängst gestelltes Teutsches Judicium von Quedlinburgischen Magd Magdalenen An Hn. Sprögeln/Diac. Aul. Qvedl. entgegen gesetzet seiner Lateinischen Epistolarischen Dissertation an Herm D. Vvdelium. Consel. &c (n.p., 1692); Hoffmann's report on Jahn is printed in Ausführliche Beschreibung, 162–68. Hoffmann was named the first professor of medicine at the University of Halle in 1693 and later became the personal physician to Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia. For summaries of Hoffmann's life and medical carrier see Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 56 vols., (1875–1912; repr. of the first edition: Berlin, 1969), 12:584–88Google Scholar and Panckoucke, C. L. F., ed., Dictionaire des Sciences Médicales. Biographie Médicale (Paris, 1822), 5:239–57.Google Scholar

73. Hoffmann was a friend of Spener and certainly had many inclinations toward the Pietists. However, as Roger French has argued, Hoffmann was hostile toward the radical, enthusiastic side of Pietism, preferring more rational and natural religious beliefs. “Sickness and the Soul: Stahl, Hoffmann, and Sauvage on Pathology,” in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Cunningham, Andrew and French, Roger (Cambridge, 1990), 88, 93.Google Scholar At a time when the borders between and within religious groups were relatively vague and fluid, the classification of Hoffmann as a “Pietist” is problematic. For an example of a closer alliance between medicine and Pietism, see Geyer-Kordesch, Johanna, “Georg Ernst Stahl's Radical Pietist Medicine and its Influence on the German Enlightenment,” in The Medical Enlightenment, ed. Cunningham, and French, 67–87.Google Scholar

74. For a more detailed discussion of corpuscular philosophy and Hoffmann's theory of mechanical physiology see King, Lester S., The Road to Medical Enlightenment 1650–1695 (London and New York, 1970), 186–93;Google ScholarDuschesneau, François, “La Physiologie Mécaniste de Hoffmann,” Dix-Huitième 23 (1991): 9–22;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rothschuh, Karl E., “Studien zu Friedrich Hoffmann,” pt. 1, “Hoffmann und die Medizingeschichte. Das Hoffmannsche System und das Aetherprinzip,” pt. 2, “Hoffmann, Descartes und Leibniz,” Sudhoffs Archiv 60 (1976): 163–93, 235–70.Google Scholar

75. According to traditional conceptions of the humors dating back to Aristotle and Galen, the body was composed of four humors corresponding to the four elements of the universe: blood, like air, was hot and moist; phlegm, like water, was cold and moist; yellow bile, like fire, was hot and dry; and black bile or the melancholic humor, like earth, was cold and dry. See Nutton, Vivan, “Humoralism,” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, ed. Bynum, William F. and Porter, Roy, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1993), 1: 281–91.Google Scholar Hoffmann identified his elemental particles by certain qualities, including earthy, watery, saline, volatile, fixed, branching, sulfurous. The proportion of these particles determined the primary characteristics—hot, cold, moist, and dry—which composed the temperaments. Thus, as Hoffmann wrote in 1695 in his Fundamenta Medicinae, “when sulphurous, oily, volatile and saline particles predominate over the fixed or watery, or earthy ones, the disproportion is warm, and then the resulting temperament is called warm or sanguine; and if the excess is too great, then a choleric temperament results.” Quoted in King, The Road, 187.

76. Ibid., 181, 184–86.

77. Hoffmann, Unlängst gestelltes Teutsches Judicium, 3–5.

78. I have chosen to translate Hoffmann's term “Affectus” as “condition.” Although the term could have any number of translations, including state of mind, mood, passion, and emotion, Hoffmann used it to refer to emotional and physical states of being or dispositions as well as both together.

79. Hoffmann, Unlängst gestelltes Teutsches Judicium, 6.

80. Ibid., 7–8. According to the author of Mischief, soon after his report was published, Hoffmann changed his mind about Elrich and published a second report in which he attributed her condition instead to natural causes, namely an illness and catalepsy. I was unable to obtain a copy of this opinion, published in Latin in Frankfurt am Main in 1692 under the title Dissertatio Epistolaris de Affectu Cataleptico rarissimo ad Dn. D. Georg Wolffg. Wedelium. See Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 162. The title also appears in the list of Hoffmann's works in Panckoucke, Biographie Médicale, 5:247.

81. In the original Latin: “prava & morbosa dispositio sangvinis Spirituum,” I am very grateful to Mack Walker and Simone Ameskamp for help with Latin translations.

82. In the original: “læsio & corruptio imaginationis aut ratiocinationis oder andere Capitis defectus aut mentis exorbitantia.”

83. The original reads: “in sex rebus non naturalibus keinen Fehler begangen.” Thanks to Mary Fissell for explaining this phrase. The six non-naturals, an ancient concept used well into the eighteenth century, were environmental, physical, and psychological factors which were part of the larger humoral system and influenced one's health. They were: air; exercise and rest; sleep and waking; food and drink; repletion and excretion; passions and emotions. See Niebyl, Peter, “The Non-Naturals,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 45 (1971): 486–92;Google ScholarPubMed and Rather, L. J., “The ‘Six Things Non-Natural’: A Note of the Origins and Fate of a Doctrine and a Phrase,” Clio Medica 3 (1968): 337–47.Google Scholar

84. In the original Latin: “æsa vel depravata phantasia, phasmatica & hysterica affectione, aut alia morbosa humorum vel spirituum diserasia.”

85. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 162–65.

86. Jeremiah 28:9: “The prophet which prophecieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.” Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”

87. In Latin: “influxui, viribus & potentiæ dæmonis.”

88. Matthew 8:28; Luke 11:14 and 13:11, 16; Mark 5:2.

89. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 165–68. It is noteworthy that Hoffmann never mentioned the possibility of Jahn being a witch, especially since he wrote a treatise on the medical aspects of witchcraft a decade later. See King, Lester, “Friedrich Hoffmann and Some Medical Aspects of Witchraft,” Clio Medica 9 (1974): 299–309.Google Scholar A similar, yet greatly simplified approach to determining the causes of ecstasies was taken by the medical doctor Justus Vesti in his report on Schuchart dated 16 January 1692 and quoted in Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen Einiger Guten Freunde von Allerhand Büchern und andern annemlichen Geschichten. Allen Liebhabern Der Curiositäten Zur Ergetzligkeit und Nachsinnen heraus gegeben, (August 1692): 631–42. In addition to quoting Vesti's report and parts of a report on Elrich by a Dr. Meinecken, Tentzel offered a discussion of the causes of Schuchart's ecstasies in the form of a conversation between three imaginary men. This paper will not analyze the discussion since it is primarily a summary of the main medical, Pietist, and Orthodox arguments.

90. Philipp Jacob Spener, Theologisches Bedencken über einige Puncten/Nahmentlich: 1. Die gerühmte Offenbahrungen eines Adelichen Fräuleins. 2. Den D. Petersen Superint. zu Lüneburg / und das von Ihm behauptete tausend jährige Reich Christi. und 3. Die so genannten Pietisten angehende (n.p., 1692). See Wallmann, “Geisterfahrung und Kirche,” 142.

91. Kramer, Beiträge, 283.

92. Spener, Gründliche Beantwortung, 184. Spener also attributed Kratzenstein's behavior to natural, psychological causes: Kratzenstein's “confusion” was the result of his unhappy marriage. Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus,” 402, 427.

93. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 146–47.

94. Ibid., 147.

95. In the original: “eine malitiosa, homines injuriis, Deum blasphemiis onerans Calumniatrix.”

96. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 149; Matthew 13:38–39: “The field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.”

97. Sabean, David Warren, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1984), 106.Google Scholar

98. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 25, 27–29.

99. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles's letters to Francke, dated 16 December 1691 and “Anno 1691” and Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691.

100. Ibid., Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691. According to Tentzel, the Quedlinburg town clergy asked Elrich what she knew of the Bible, to which she responded: Jesus Christ's blood, the twenty-third Psalm, and similar sayings, such as Sprögel's children pray daily at the table. Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 622.

101. Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 635.

102. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691. According to Tentzel, the passage was 2 Peter 3:11–12: Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for the hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire. Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 622.

103. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 133, 129. Adelheid Sibylla Schwartz, a childhood friend of Francke's, wrote a similar letter— also as God in the first person— to August Pfeiffer, an Orthodox preacher in Lübeck and opponent of Francke. The letter begins “You, whom my soul has a loathing for, look: I throw you in a bed that burns with pitch and sulfur, so that you do not turn back and [instead] truly repent.” Ibid., 48–49.

104. Ibid., 115.

105. Eigentliche Nachricht, Brückner's letters to Breithaupt dated 7 December and undated.

106. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 27.