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The Kabbalistic “Teaching Panel” of Princess Antonia Divine Knowledge for Both Experts and Laity*

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The Kabbalistic “Teaching Panel” of Princess Antonia Divine Knowledge for Both Experts and Laity* Church History Church History and and Religious Culture 98 (2018) 56–90 Religious Culture brill.com/chrc The Kabbalistic “Teaching Panel” of Princess Antonia Divine Knowledge for Both Experts and Laity* Elke Morlok Goethe-University Frankfurt a.M. [email protected] Abstract This article explores the complex interweaving of kabbalistic and Christological con- cepts within the kabbalistic “teaching panel” (Lehrtafel) of Princess Antonia of Würt- temberg. The essay discusses the artwork in the context of visual representations of the ten sefirot, the divine attributes or vessels in Jewish mysticism. Executed as an altarpiece for the church in Bad Teinach in Southern Germany, the work integrates the sefirot into a pansophic concept that served devotional and educational purposes with a salvific goal. The article argues that, with the Lehrtafel, Antonia and her teachers created a devotional object that could be accessed by both regular Christian laity and experts who possessed deeper knowledge of Kabbalah. Keywords Christian Kabbalah – sefirot – lay theology – symbolism – Philosophia Perennis – Arbor Sephirotica * This article is being published within the framework of the loewe-funded Hessian Ministry for Science and Art research hub “Religious Positioning: Modalities and Constellations in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Contexts” at the Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Justus- Liebig-University Giessen. All photographs of the altarpiece have been taken by Friedrich Wirth (Germany), with whose kind permission they are reproduced in this article. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/18712428-09801005Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 09:54:33AM via free access the kabbalistic “teaching panel” of princess antonia 57 1 The Trinity Church in Bad Teinach and Princess Antonia of Württemberg (1613–1679) Situated in the Black Forest hamlet of BadTeinach, the LutheranTrinity Church (Dreifaltigkeitskirche) houses a jewel of German Baroque art, the so-called “teaching panel” (Lehrtafel) of Princess Antonia of Württemberg. The Lehrtafel is actually not just one panel, but a monumental altarpiece, consisting of a large outer painting as well as a large inner painting and two side panels. The outer doors of the altarpiece could be opened on holidays to reveal the central inner painting which was more opulent than the other paintings of the triptych.1 Employed to educate and aid laity in devotions, the most common scenes depicted on such altarpieces were the last supper, the crucifixion, Christ’s ascension or his resurrection, but the retables could also include allegories of Christian virtues and widespread Christian symbols. The late Renaissance Trinity Church in Bad Teinach contains other (lesser) works besides Princess Antonia’s “teaching panel,” but it is the unusual altarpiece that has captured the attention of both scholars and regular visitors to the church from the seventeenth century up to the present day. What makes the artwork so special is, above all, its combination of Christian motifs with kabbalistic ideas and symbols from the Jewish tradition. Old and New Testament subjects are conceived and visualized as one unity, an expres- sion of the early Baroque influence of pansophic thought. Yet there are other stylistic and historical factors that set the artwork apart. Most of the faces of people in both the outer and inner paintings can be identified with members of the house of Württemberg.2 In their iconography, the retables also drew on 1 The church was erected by the reigning duke Eberhard iii of Württemberg (1614–1674) in the years 1662–1665 after the Thirty Years’ War (1613–1643), during which the family had lived in exile for four years in Strasbourg. The duke and his sister, Princess Antonia had lost their parents at a young age. The family could only return to Württemberg in 1638. The church served as vestry for the ducal family and their guests, which used to spend their summer holidays in the spa town of Bad Teinach. For a detailed description of the church and the teaching panel from the perspective of an art historian, see Eva Johanna Schauer, “Dramaturgia Pietatis im Württemberg des 17. Jahrhunderts: Prinzessin Antonia und ihre kabbalistische Lehrtafel” (Diss., Hannover, 2003). On the kabbalistic material, see mainly Otto Betz, Licht vom unerschaffnen Lichte. Die kabbalistische Lehrtafel der Prinzessin Antonia in Bad Teinach (Metzingen, 1996). 2 Reinhard Gruhl, Die kabbalistische Lehrtafel der Antonia von Württemberg: Studien und Doku- mente zur protestantischen Rezeption jüdischer Mystik in einem frühneuzeitlichen Gelehrten- kreis (Boston / Berlin, 2016), 2. Church History and Religious Culture 98 (2018) 56–90Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 09:54:33AM via free access 58 morlok various disciplines of the time, from oriental studies to theology to the natural sciences and even mathematics, making the altarpiece a truly unique snapshot of Early Modern intellectual and religious culture.3 The altarpiece’s conceptualization has been attributed to Princess Antonia of Württemberg and her teachers. Antonia, the elder sister of Duke Eber- hard iii, was obviously fascinated by kabbalistic symbols and their power. Johann Jakob Strölin (†1663)4 and Johann Lorenz Schmidlin (1626–1692),5 grandfather of the well known Pietist Johann Albrecht Bengel, were her teach- ers in kabbalistic and Hebrew learning. The artwork itself was constructed between 1659 to 1663 according to their sketches and finally realized by the court painter Johann Friedrich Gruber (1620–1681) on the occasion of the princess’ 50th birthday in 1663.6 The altarpiece was kept in Stuttgart for ten years and then installed in the church in Bad Teinach, where it occupies the entire right side of the altar area at the southern wall of the small church.7 On 4 June 1673 it was inaugurated with a sermon by Balthasar Raith (1616–1683), pastor and professor of theology and oriental languages in Tübingen. Raith’s sermon centered around the work’s imagery and was immediately put into print.8 As early as 1662, Antonia’s tutor Schmidlin had composed an encyclopedic poem on the “teaching panel” with the title Pictura Docens,9 explaining the 3 Ibid., 55. 4 Ibid., 33–125. On Strölin’s Turris Antoniae as matrix for both Schmidlin and later Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782), who wrote an elaborated commentary on the altarpiece, see Gruhl, Kabbalistische Lehrtafel, 33–37. 5 On the complex relationship between Schmidlin’s rhymed description of the “Lehrtafel” with the title Pictura Docens, as well as his relationship with Antonia and Strölin, cf. Gruhl, Kabbalistische Lehrtafel, 28–53; Johann Lorenz Schmidlin, Pictura Docens, ed. and trans. Fritz Felgentreu and Widu-Wolfgang Ehlers (Stuttgart, 2006). For the source material for the altarpiece, the correspondence between Schmidlin, Strölin and other scholars of this period, see the collection of 40 documents in Codex Hist. 551, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart. 6 The painting was not created by Gruber alone. The last third of the outer artwork was executed by a less gifted artist. See Gruhl, Kabbalistische Lehrtafel (see above, n. 2), 226. 7 The shrine measures 5.1×6.5 meters. 8 See Gruhl, Kabbalistische Lehrtafel (see above, n. 2), 4–7. The text of the sermon with critical notes has been printed: ibid., 239–253. On Raith, see ibid., 254 n. 1. 9 Friedrich Häussermann, “Pictura Docens: ein Vorspiel zu Fr. Chr. Oetingers Lehrtafel der Prinzessin Antonia von Württemberg,” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 66/67 (1966/7), 65–153; see also above, note 5. Church History and ReligiousDownloaded Culture from 98 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2018) 56–90 09:54:33AM via free access the kabbalistic “teaching panel” of princess antonia 59 symbolic background of this pansophic artwork as the summa of Christian soteriology. The poem discusses the kabbalistic sefirot, or attributes of God, through a Christian lens, assuming that Jewish Kabbalah had predicted the Christian faith. This was a commonly held belief of Early Modern Christian Kabbalists and Antonia obviously held to this notion as well, since the harmo- nization of Christianity and Kabbalah was a major theme in the writings that she has left behind. The combination of Christian Kabbalah and Lutheran theology present in the altarpiece also found expression in Antonia’s prayers and poems.10 In a social context dominated by men, Antonia joined a very select few female con- temporaries in learning Hebrew.11 She also carried on a correspondence with the scholar Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), who was deeply involved in kabbalistic and Rosicrucian theology and who put the feminine in the center of his own theology.12 Although Antonia and Andreae exchanged letters, it is difficult to discern what role he may have played in influencing Antonia or her “teaching panel.”13 Along with her sisters, Anna Johanna and Sibylla, Antonia dedicated herself to the study of the arts and sciences, but despite achieving a high level of education and competency in different languages, Antonia regarded herself as an amateur.14 In her prayers and poems she stresses her lay status, her devotion and her modesty, even her incompetence, all of which she hopes will “save her” from exaggerated self-esteem.15 At the same time, these arguments give her the 10 Antonia’s extant papers are found in Codex 551, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stutt- gart. For details see Reinhard Gruhl and Matthias Morgenstern, “Zwei hebräische Gebete der Prinzessin Antonia von Württemberg (1613–1679) im Kontext der Einweihung der kabbalistischen Lehrtafel in Bad Teinach,” Judaica 62,2 (2006), 97–130. 11 Among them were Anna van Schurman (1607–1678) and Ursula Margarethe Schickard (1618–1634), daughter of the famous Hebraist and professor of oriental languages,Wilhelm Schickard from Tübingen. 12 See for example, Johann Valentin Andreae, Ein geistliches Gemälde, entworfen und aufge- zeichnet von Huldrich StarkMann, Diener des Evangeliums, nach dem wiedergefundenen Urdruck Tübingen 1615, ed. Reinhard Breymayer (Tübingen, 1992). 13 Some of his letters are preserved in the hab Wolfenbüttel.
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