CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY

Religious Music Among the Jews WALTER E. BUSZIN

Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608) ARTHUR CARL PIEPKORN

The Church Hymn and Its Way into Music WILLEM MUDDE

Development of Worship Skills GEORGE W. HOYER

Lodge Practice Within the Missouri Synod JOHN W. CONSTABLE

Book Review

1V0l. XXXIX July-August 1968 No.7

J Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608): Theologian, Mystic, Hymn Writer, Polemicist, and Missiologist: A Biobibliographical Survey

ARTHUR CARL PIEPKORN

uring Philipp Nicolai's lifetime the gist with astonishingly ecumenical insights, D company of ministers in the city of a dedicated pastor, and a major (even Zurich referred to him as "this miserable though a long neglected) theologian of the person who goes thrashing around and Church of the Augsburg Confession. biting like another wild boar, altogether He was born in Mengeringhausen in the without reason or Christian modesty." Oth­ county of Waldeck. The family name was ers of his foes called him a lunatic who Raffienboel (or Raffienbeul). His father's ought to be chained to a wall, and could name was Theodoric; because his father's not resist the temptation of twisting his name in turn was Klaus (that is, Nicolaus surname Nicolai into "Nicolaitan." 1 His in Latin), Theodoric (1505-1590) called admirers, on the other hand, saw in him himself Nicolai, "the son of Nicholas." "a second Chrysostom." Nicolai finally superseded Raffienboel as His fame today rests securely on 2 hymns the surname. that have become an integral part of the In 1559 Theodoric became rector of the divine praises of all of Western Christen­ collegiate church at Herdecke-an-der-Ruhr dom. But his importance for the Church in the Westphalian county of Mark. Four of the Augsburg Confession and for the years later he converted to the Augsburg whole church is not exhausted by his repu­ Confession with a portion of his congre­ tation as a hymn writer. He stands as an gation. His refusal to accept the Augsburg end-of-the-16th-century :figure who epit­ Interim of 1548 led to his banishment from omizes many of the paradoxical tendencies the county in 1550. Through the good in the complex that is classic Lutheran office of Count John the Pious (died orthodoxy - a polemicist of so zealous an 1567), Theodoric received the parish of order that a landgrave of the Holy Roman Mengeringhausen in 1552. Here he mar­ Empire forbade his territorial university to ried a local blacksmith's daughter, Catha­ give Nicolai a doctor's degree, a Christian rine Meyhan (1526-1576). Over the par­ mystic of the profoundest sort, a devotional sonage door he inscribed the exhortation of writer with a perennial appeal, a missiolo- Malachi 2:7: "The lips of a priest should guard knowledge." Here his third child­ 1 The reference is to Rev. 2 :6. out of a total of eight - was born Aug. 10, 1556, and received the name Philipp in The author is graduate professor of systematic holy baptism. theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. This essay was prepared to mark the retire­ The boy combined a mighty physique ment of Prof. Buszin from the faculty. with exceptional intellectual ability, and 432 PHILIP NICOLAI 433 his parents piously determined to dedicate sources sufficiently to meet university bills. him "to the good God and his church." Philipp's stay at Erfurt was brief. The Philipp's father was his first teacher. When death of Jonah in April and his mother's pestilence broke out in Mengeringhausen death in May called the brothers home. in 1567, Philipp and his brothers began It was not until late that year that he and their pilgrimage from school to school­ Jeremy were able to return to academe, first to Rhoden, then to Kassel (1568), to this time to the venerated cathedra Lutheri, Hildesheim (1570), to Dortmund (1571 the theological faculty of the University of to 1572), to Mtihlhausen (1572),2 and to Wittenberg, where the secret supporters of Corbach (1574). Philipp's considerable skill Reformed theology had just been un­ in fashioning poems and his early interest masked and ousted, to be replaced by com­ in theology found prophetic expression in mitted defenders of the unaltered Augs­ a teen-age poem - in Latin, naturally­ burg Confession. that he dedicated to the Connt of Waldeck, With their formal theological study be­ Certamen corvorum cohabitttm colttmbis hind them, Philipp and Jeremy returned ("The Contest of the Ravens with the in the spring of 1579 to Waldeck. They Doves" ). Each word in the 174-hexameter spent some time in the empty monastery of poem begins with the letter "c," no mean Volkhardinghausen, where they read dur­ achievement! 3 In it Nicolai chronicles the ing the week and on Sundays assisted their theological controversies of the time and aging father especially by preaching in the defends himself against his defamers 10 village chapels-of-ease in the sprawling the count's retinue. parish. Here Philipp completed his first Philipp was 18 going on 19 when he published work, Commentariorum de re­ matriculated with his brothers Jonah and bus antiquis Germanicarum gentium libri Jeremy (1558-1632) at the University sex ("A Six-Volume Memoir on the An­ of Erfurt in 1575. By serving as a kind of tiquities of the German Tribes"). It has unofficial poet laureate to the community, the virtue of being an effort to get back to turning out neatly phrased poems for every the earliest accessible sources, and it fairly occasion from births to funerals, Philipp breathes the patriotic ardor of the youthful was able to supplement his meager re- author. The year 1582 brought him the oppor­ 2 Louis Hembold (1532-1598), the poet tunity to commemorate the marriage of and hymn writer, and Joachim Miiller it Burgk (l540?-161O), the musician, were among Count Francis of Waldeck. with a nuptial Philipp Nicolai's teachers at Miihlhausen. ode.4 3 He repeated the performance with another poem in which every word began with the letter 4 In nuptias inclyti, generosi, et illustris Dn. "p": Pads pietatisque periclitatio Piis pectori­ Dn. Francisci, co mitis Waldeccensis, genero­ bus pacijeroque populo producta (Wittenberg, saeque et illustris D. D. Walpurgis, generosi 1574) ("A Venture of Peace and Piety Pro­ illustrisque D. D. Christophori, comitis Plesse­ duced for Pious Hearts and a Peace-Bringing sis prim. filiae, celebratas 9 et 10 Decembris People"). Ludwig Friedrich Christian Curtze, anni 1582 (Marburg, 1582) ('"In Honor of D. Philipp Nicolai's Leben und Lieder nach the Marriage of the Renowned, Noble, and Dis­ den Quellen (Halle: J. Fricke, 1859), repro­ tinguished Lord, Lord Francis, Count of Wal­ duces an undated 23-1ine Latin poem Ad Mes­ leek, and the Noble and Distinguished Lady, siam in which all the words begin with "m." Lady Walpurgis, Oldest Daughter of the Noble 434 PHILIP NICOLAI

Philipp took holy orders in 1583. The who was like Gebhard only in priest's or­ scene of his first labors was the very Her­ ders but who could be depended upon not decke where his father had once been rec­ to scandalize the faithful by marrying his tor. The fledgling cleric's situation was mistress. (Her name was Gertrude von anything but easy. The community was Plettenberg.) An international Roman still ambivalent toward the Reformation. Catholic armed force marched against Geb­ The abbess Ida von Hafkenscheid was in­ hard with a view to driving him out of the clined toward Roman Catholicism. The electorate. Supported by the Elector Pala­ town councilors were the obedient tools of tine, Gebhard mobilized his own army, 3:nd the strongly Roman Catholic advisers of the bloody war was on. Duke John William of Cleve. The rector The incursion of the Spanish troops into of the parish, John Tacke, and the curate, Herdecke in 1586 sent Nicolai fleeing dis­ Matthias Tacke, were at best uncertain creetly to the town of Wetter. After three reeds rather than towers of strength as far weeks he was able to return to Herdecke, as their evangelical convictions were con­ only to have to leave again within six cerned. months because of his resistance to the The same year saw the outbreak of the rector's restoration of Roman Catholic Cologne War that was to sweep into Her­ practices in the parish. decke before it ran its course. The dis­ One monument to Nicolai's stay in Her­ solute archbishop-elector of Cologne, Geb­ decke survives, his first theological work, hard II (1547-1601), Freiherr Zu Wald­ published at Tiibingen by George Grup­ burg, who was only in priest's orders, had penbach in 1586, Fundamentorum Cal­ announced in 1582 his intention of marry­ vinianae sectae cum veteribus Arianis et ing his mistress, the Canoness-Countess Nestorianis communium detectio, qua Agnes of Mansfeld (at the insistence of col/atis partium argumentis neminem her brothers!) , of leaving the Roman Christianorum Calvinianis adbaerere posse Catholic Church, of becoming Evangelical, demonstratur, quin una necessariam Ari­ of secularizing the archiepiscopal lands, and anismi et Nestorianismi suscipiat de/en­ of legalizing the Evangelical religion side sionem, adhaec quaemadmodum ab Arianis by side with Roman Catholicism in his et N estorianis procreatus est Mahumetan­ domains - all without resigning his elec­ ismus, ita eundem a sacramentariis hodie toral dignity. He married his Agnes in occulta haereseon cognatione /overi et sen­ February 1583 at Bonn. Two months later sim in montes Israelitarum attrahi ("Dis­ Gregory XIII excommunicated Gebhard. closure of the Bases that the Calvinian Sect On the recommendation of the Jesuits, the Has in Common with the Ancient Arians cathedral chapter dutifully elected to the and N estorians, in Which It Is Shown by now vacant see the runner-up in the pre­ a Comparison of the Arguments of the vious election, Duke Ernest of Bavaria Parties Concerned that No Christian Can (1554-1612), prince-bishop of Liege, Belong to the Calvinians Unless He Is Likewise Ready to Undertake a Required and Distinguished Lord, Lord Christopher, Count of Plessis, Celebrated on December 9 Defense of Arianism and Nestorianism, and 10, 1582"). and in Addition How Islam Was Called PHILIP NICOLAI 435 into Being by the Arians and the Nestor­ The reviving contest between the de­ ians, with the Result that It Is Being Fos­ fenders of the theology of the Formula of tered by the Sacramentarians Through Concord and the promoters of a Reformed Their Currently Concealed Relationship approach to Christology and the Sacra­ with [These Heresies} and Gradually Be­ ment of the Altar continued to engage ing Drawn to the Mountains of the Israel­ Nicolai's attention. Two clergymen, Justus ites"), to which the dean and the professors and Henry Crane, father and son, had re­ of the prestigious theological faculty of the fused to concur in the excommunication of University of Tiibingen contributed a cor­ Nicolai's predecessor in Alt-Wildungen porately subscribed preface.5 and soon came into conflict with Nicolai. No coward, Nicolai now went to Co­ Justus took a parish outside the county in logne itself, where a paternal uncle lived. 1588. Henry was excommunicated in 1592 For a short time he was the pastor of the for "sacramentarian" teaching. The sen­ underground congregation of Christians of tence of deposition was executed in 1594. the Augsburg Confession in the archiepis­ In the meantime, Nicolai became involved copal city, for whom he conducted clan­ in another controversy because he had re­ destine services in private homes, hopefully fused to admit a county councilor, John safe from the watchful eyes of Ernest's Backbier, to the Sacrament of the Altar police. on account of the latter's advocacy of Re­ A new phase of Nicolai's career began formed views. Nicolai's zeal for orthodoxy early in 1587 with his recall to the county evoked princely displeasure. of Waldeck as curate of the parish of Nie­ Although Nicolai had passed all the der-Wildungen. His patroness was no less examinations for his doctorate in theology a person than the pious and theologically and had even published and defended his knowledgeable dowager countess Margaret. inaugural disputation,7 Landgrave William In November 1588 she had her protege IV (1532-1592) of Hesse-Kassel in 1590 transferred to the rectorate of the city par­ forbade the University of Marburg to con­ ish in Alt-Wildungen, where he could be fer the degree on Nicolai unless he dis­ of personal service to her as court preacher, avowed his Fundamentorum Calvinianae father confessor, and tutor of her son, sectae detectio. Things took an even worse Count William Ernest, distinguished both turn after William's death and the acces­ for his piety and for his intellectual gifts.6 sion of Landgrave Maurice (1572-1632). Maurice threatened Nicolai with deposition 5 Another edition came out in Hamburg in from office and imprisonment. Although in 1609 under the somewhat more provocative September 1592 Count Francis of Waldeck title Detectio fundamentorum Calvinianae sec­ tae cum Arianis et Turcis. prohibited Nicolai and three of his like- 6 He died in 1598 at the age of 15 while a student at the University of Tiibingen. The guished Lord, Lord William, Count of Wal­ following spring Nicolai composed a funeral ode deck") . of 366 hexameters published at Tiibingen in 7 De duo bus Antichristis primariis, Mahu­ 1600, Carmen exequiis funebribus generasi et mete et ponti/ice Romano, disputatio (Marburg: illustris comitis ac domini, Dn. Wilhelmi comitis P. Egenolphus, 1590) ("A Disputation on the Waldeccensis, sacrum ("A Poem Dedicated to Two Primary Antichrists, Muhammad and the the Funeral Rites of the Noble and Distin- Bishop of Rome"). 436 PHILIP NICOLAI minded colleagues from preaching, the pro· In 1593 the Waldeck clergy accepted the hibition was soon removed. What saved Formula of Concord at a synod held in Nicolai was partly the continuing inter· Mengeringhausen.1o In 1594 the Univer· cession of the dowager countess Margaret, sity of Wittenberg gave its alumnus the and partly the reaction against Reformed doctorate which the University of Marburg theological tendencies that took place in had been interdicted from conferring on the territories of the Augsburg Confession him. There is mild irony in the fact that after the death of Elector Christian I of the same teacher who had presided over Saxony in 1591 and the suppression of Re· the 1590 disputation in Marburg, Giles formed theological views in the electorate. Hunn (1550-1603), also presided over Undaunted by the rising opposition, the Wittenberg disputation, in which Ni· Nicolai in 1590 published his De contro­ colai defended a new set of theses.l1 venia ubiquitMia ... ad Danielem Hoff­ In 1596 Nicolai published his vernacular mannum epistola ("Letter to Daniel Hoff· N othwendiger und gantz vollkommener mann on the Ubiquitarian Controversy") 8 Bericht von der gantzen calvinischen Re· and his Ad duos Antonii Sadeelis libellos, ligion auss jren eygenen Buchern tmd quorum alterum de spirituali alterum de Sch1'ifften gezogen, sampt derselbigen auss sacramentali fruitione corporis Christi in· H. Schrifft Widerlegung, alles nach Ord­ scripsit, responsum Christianllm, breve et mmg des Catechismi Ltttheri ve1'fasset placidum ("Christian, Brief, and Calm Re· ("A Needed and Wholly Complete Report ply to the Two Little Books of Anthony on the Entire Calvinian Religion Drawn Sadeel, One of Which He Has Entitled 'On from Their Own Books and Writings, the Spiritual Enjoyment of Christ's Body,' Along with a Refutation of Them out of the Other, 'On the Sacramental [Enjoyment of Christ' s Body}' ").9 sadheh·'el or, more correctly, sedheh·'el ("field of God") with champs {de} Dieu. He was a French aristocrat in his twenties when Calvin 8 "Ubiquitarianism" was the growl word won him for the Genevan Reformation. He that Reformed theologians used to describe the subsequently became a Reformed minister in view held by Luther, John Brenz, James An· France and Switzerland, a chaplain to Henry dreae, Polycarp Leyser the Elder, Giles Hunn, of Navarre prior to the latter's conversion to Nicolai, and other Lutherans that the humanity Roman Catholicism, a Huguenot diplomat, and of Christ is omnipresent by virtue of the hypo. the author of a large number of tracts in which static union of the Godhead and humanity in he defended Reformed theology of the Calvin­ the incarnation. Halle·born Daniel Hoffmann ian type with tenacity, energy, and acumen. An­ (1538-1611) became professor at the Lu· theran University of Helmstedt in 1576. A other edition of Ad duos Antonii Sadeelis Ii· doughty defender of the Lutheran doctrine of bellos came out in 1594. Nicolai also added it the Sacrament of the Altar against Reformed as an appendix to his Meihodus controversiae theologians like Theodore de Beze of Geneva de omnipraesentia Christi. and John Piscator (Fischer) of Strasbourg, he 10 Later they even accepted the strongly anti­ was a vehement opponent both of the heretical Reformed Saxon Visitation Articles of 1592 to view of original sin entertained by Matthias 1593. For the text of these articles in Latin, Vlach: (Flacius) and the view of the omni· English, and German, see Triglot Concordia presence of the humanity of Christ by virtue (St.Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), of the hypostatic union. part two, pp. 1150-57. 9 Sadeel was the pseudonym of Anthony de 11 Theses de libero arbitrio .•. pro summo la Roche Chandieu (1534-1591). It may be in theologia gradu consequendo (Wittenberg, a kind of punning equation of the Hebrew 1594) . PHILIP NICOLAI 437 the Sacred Scriptures, Everything Com­ October 1596 saw Nicolai leave Alt­ posed According to the Order of the Five Wildungen to return to Westphalia, this Chief Parts of Luther's Catechism") P He time as rector of St. Catharine's Church at paired this work with a Latin counterpart, Unna. The Reformed immigrants from the Methodtts controversiae de omnipraesentia Low Countries and East Frisia had almost Christi secundum naturam eius humanam, swamped the Lutheran population of Unna. qua praetermissis difficilium terminorum et The latter had struggled back to a precari­ argutiarum subtilitatibus totum hoc mys­ ous preeminence and wanted the "archfoe terium in simpliciorum gratiam praecipue of Calvinism" as their spiritual leader. solo Dei verbo adstruitur et illustratur ("A Twice Nicolai refused the invitation, and Way of Engaging in Controversy About it finally took a visit of the lord mayor of the Omnipresence of Christ According to Unna, John Westphal, to persuade the His Human Nature, in Which the Delicate dowager countess to part with her brilliant Distinctions of Difficult Terminology and court preacher and confessor. Hair-Splitting Arguments Are Passed By The year 1597 saw the publication of and the Whole Mystery Is Built Up and Nicolai's two-volume Commentariorum de Made Clear by Means of the Word of God regno Christi vaticiniis propheticis et apos­ Alone for the Special Benefit of the Less tolicis accommodatorum libri duo, quorum Instructed") .13 Nicolai dedicated the lat­ plior hodiernam ecclesiae Christi amplitu­ ter work to his then about 13-year-old dinem propagationemque . . . explanat, former pupil, Count William Ernest, whom alter temp ora ecclesiae N ovi T estamenti in he warns against the expanding threat of Ezechiele, Daniele, et Apocalypsi revelata ("A Two-Volume Mem­ Reformed teaching. . , . commonstrat oir on the Kingdom of Christ, Adjusted to

12 Frankfurt-am-Main: Johannes Spies, 1596. the Forecasts of the Prophets and Apostles, A second edition, revised and amplified, came of ·Which the First Volume Makes Plain out the following year. the Present Extent and Propagation of the 13 Frankfurt-am-Main: Johannes Spies, 1591. Church of Christ and the Second Fully Another edition came out in the year 1609. Among the replies that this work elicited were Shows the Times of the Church of the New Entsetz des ubiquitischen Hammerschlags Testament Revealed in Ezekiel, Daniel, and D. Philippi Nicolai, Predige1"S zu Unna, durch the Revelation") ,14 etliche trewhertzige Burger daselbst, welche deT U biquitet nicht beypfiichten (Sigen-in-Nassau­ Catzenelnbogen, 1597) ("Deliverance from Emden, and rector of the Gymnasium at Bre­ the Ubiquitarian Hammer Blows of Dr. Philipp men. He replied to the Ad duos Antonii Sa­ Nicolai, Preacher at Unna, by a Number of deelis libellos that Nicolai had appended to his Sincere Citizens of That Community Who Do Methodus with a second tract, Excussio placidae Not Accept Ubiquity") and Matthias Martinius, responsionis cusae a Doctore Philippa Nicolai Methodi de omnipraesentia carnis Christi con­ ad Antonii Sadeelis . . , tractatus de spirituaU cinnata a Philippa Nicolai . .. examen (Sigen­ et sacramentali manducatione (Sigen-in-Nassau, in-Nassau, 1597) ("A Weighing ... of the 1597) ("An Investigation of the Calm Response Method Concerning the Omnipresence of the Put Out by Dr. Philipp Nicolai to the . . . Flesh of Christ Put Together by Philipp Nico­ Treatises on Spiritual and Sacramental Eating lai"). Waldeck-born Martinius, or Martini of Anthony Sadeel"). (1572-1630), a Reformed theologian, was 14 Frankfurt-am-Main: Johannes Spies, 1597. successively court preacher at the court of Nas­ The first volume had been printed in 1596, sau-Dillenburg, teacher at Herborn, pastor at but its issuance was held back for the comple- 438 PHILIP NICOLAI

Gotthard Artus of Danzig promptly pro­ were the Cleve court chaplain Winold and vided a German version, somewhat the DUsseldorf rector Muser. Both were abridged, under the title Historia dess Roman Catholics. In spite of their theo­ Reicbs Christi, das ist, gritndtliche Be­ logical disagreement with Nicolai, the rwo schreibung der wundersammen Erweite­ priests submitted a favorable report on rung, seltzamen Glitcks, und gewisser be­ him. Thereupon he was duly instituted in stimpter Zeit der Kirchen Christi im Neu­ his new office. wen Testament ("History of Christ's Nicolai responded to the harassment Kingdom, That Is, a Thorough Deseri prion with what one of his biographers, Victor of the Marvelous Expansion, Extraordinary Schultze, has called the "coarsest of all Fortune, and Certain Fixed Time of the [of Nicolai's} anti-Calvinist controversial Church of Christ in the New Testa­ works and in general one of the lowest ment") .15 products of interconfessional literary con­ The Reformed community in Unna re­ troversy in the 16th century." Published in acted promptly to the threat posed by Ni­ 1598, it bore the title Kurtzer Bericht V01t colai's coming. First they induced the ducal der Calvinisten Gott und jrer Religion in council of Cleve to advise the Unna town etliche Frage und Antwort, allen gotseli­ council not to approve the stormy petrel's gen, einfeltigen Leyen, so dieser Zeit an installation. The town council was of alle1z Orten weyt Und breyt wider jr Ge­ another mind. It demanded and received a wissen mit solcher jrriger Lere bescbweret formal hearing at Di.isseldorf for the new und allgefochten werden zu be.rser Nach­ rector. The delegates of the ducal council rich tung ulld sonderm Trost verfasset und zusammen getragen ("A Short Report on tion of the second volume. A second edition of the work came out in 1607 at Frankfurt, the God and the Religion of the Calvinists and in 1628 a third edition came out at Nurem­ in a Nunlber of Questions and Answers, berg. Composed and Compiled for the Better 15 Darmstadt, 1610. The popularity of this Information and Particular Comfort of All German adaptation can be gauged from the number of subsequent editions. The present Pious Uninstructed lay People Who at writer has catalogued editions in 1624, 1626, This Time Are Everywhere and All Over 1627,1628,1629,1639,1651, and 1664. Nico­ Being Burdened and Tempted with Such lai's fairly positive assertion that the end of the world would come in 1670 - although he Mistaken Teaching") .16 An appendix con- hedged by saying that no one knows the time of the Lord's return and that it might happen 16 A second edition came out at Erfurt in before or after 1670 - elicited some critical 1598. A third edition had a different title: posthumous replies. An anonymous author Schaffs-Peltz dess calvinischen Laster-Teuffels: wrote Bedencken uber das Buch Philippi Nico· Von den grew lichen abschewlicherl Gottesliiste­ lai vom Reich Christi (Hamburg, 1633) ("Mis­ rungen, Christ-Schanderey und Verachtung dess givings About the Book of Philip Nicolai on hochsten allmachtigen Gottes, welche die ehr­ the Kingdom of Christ"), and Daniel Spring­ suchtige, freche und grobe Calvinisten wider insgut, archdeacon at Wismar, published Theo­ die hochste Maiestat Gottes Jesu Christi unver­ logische Prufung der Zeit-Rechnung Philippi schampt aussgiessen, allen frommen Christen, so Nicolai, dass die Welt Anno 1670 ihr Ende in solcher gottesliisterlichen Lehre angefochten erreichen werde (Rostock, 1666) ("A Theo­ werden, zu Trost und Unterricht in Truck gege­ logical Testing of the Time Calculation of ben (Frankfurt: Johann Ludwig Bitsch, 1605) Philipp Nicolai, According to Which the Wodd ("The Sheep's Clothing of the Calvinian Blas­ Will Reach Its End in the Year 1670"). phemy-Devil: On the Abominable and De- PHILIP NICOLAI 439 tains a "short form for enabling an unin­ on the state of the faithful departed in the structed Christian head of a household place of celestial light and refreshment. Out faithfully to warn his children and house­ of this came a work "fragrant with the pure hold against this impious Calvinism and to aroma of heavenly flowers," Freudenspiegel hold them back from it." It was this work dess ewigen Lebem, das ist, grundtliche which elicited the wrathful reactions cited Beschreibtmg des herrlichen Wesens im at the beginning of this survey. ewigen Leben, sampt allen desselbigen Nicolai had other troubles beside his Eygenschafften und Zustanden, auss Gottes contest with his Reformed opponents. Two Wort richtig und verstandlich eyngefuhret of his sisters died at this time, and from ("A Mirror of the Joys of Everlasting Life, July 1597 to January 1598 pestilence That Is, A Thorough Description of the ravaged Unna, killing over 1,300 towns­ Splendid Existence in the Everlasting Life, people. The crisis brought out the pastor Together with All of Its Properties and in Nicolai. He withdrew from all polemical States, Correcdy and Intelligibly Introduced activities and gave himself over completely out of the Word of God"),17 dedicated to to caring for his people, to intercession, and to meditation on the everlasting life that 17 Frankfurt-am-Main: Johannes Spies, 1599. The present writer has catalogued subsequent Christians already possess in this world and editions in 1601, 1617, 1626, 1633, 1649, 1707, 1729, 1854, and 1909. Balthasar Mentzer the testable Blasphemies, the Ignominy Heaped on Younger (1614-1679) wrote the preface to Christ, and the Contempt of the Highest God an Extract aus dem Freuden-Spiegel des ewigen Almighty, Which the Honor-Seeking, Insolent, Lebens (Darmstadt, 1662) ("An Extract from and Coarse Calvinists Pour Out Shamelessly the Mirror of the Joys of Everlasting Life"). Against the Divine Majesty of Jesus Christ, Pub­ Duke Ernst the Pious (1601-1675) of Saxony lished for the Comfort and Instruction of All ordered the publication of Andachten von dem Pious Christians That Are Tempted by Such ewigen seligen Freuden-Leben, genommen und Blasphemous Teaching"). Other editions came zusammen gezogen aus dem Freudenspiegel des out in Hamburg in 1609, in Leipzig in 1620, ewigen Lebens (Gotha, 1674) ("Devotions and in 1711 under the editorship of John About the Everlasting, Blissful Life of Joy, Andrew Goebel (Flensburg: Christoph Vogel, Taken and Drawn Together from the Mirror 17ll). The replies to the 1597 edition were of the Joys of Everlasting Life"). Siegfried entitled Gegenbericht auff Philippi Nicolai Schunke, Philipp Nicolai: Ein Wachter de, Schmachbuch, das er under dem Titel, von der Kirche im Zeitalter der Orthodoxie (Gladbeck: Calvinisten Gott und jhrer Religion, dies lauf­ Schriftenmissions-Verlag, 1959), p. 30, citing fenden 97. Jars in offnem Druck aussgesprengt E. Nolte, "Lebensbild des Unnaer Stadtpfarrers hat, gestellt durch die Diener zu Zurych ("A D. Philipp Nicolai, 1556-1608," in Festblatt Counterreport Made by the Ministers of Zurich zur Nicolai-Feier in Unna 1956, p.7, lists an Against the Book of Ignominy That Philip Ni­ additional title without citation of further data, colai Published in This Current 97th Year Kurzer Bericht auf D. Philippi Nicolai Bericht Under the Title, On the God of the Calvinists von de., Calvinisten Gotte, daraus neben an­ and Their Religion") and Kurtzer Gegenbericht deren zu sehen, wie D. Nicolai tinter dem auff D. PhiliPPi Nicolai jungst aussgangen Buch, lutherischen Namen die lutherische Lehre von welches er intitulirt Kurtzer Bericht etc., ge­ der Vorsehung lastert ("A Short Report on Dr. stellet durch etliche trewhertzige Burger da­ Philipp Nicolai's Report About the God of the selbst zu Unna (Sigen-in-Nassau-Catzeneln­ Calvinists, from Which, Among Other Things, bogen, 1597) ("A Short Counterreport Made It Is Apparent How Dr. Nicolai While Claim­ by a Number of Faithful-Hearted Citizens of ing the Name of Lutheran Blasphemes the Lu­ the Same City of Unna Against the Recently theran Doctrine of [God's} Foreknowledge"). Published Book of Dr. Philipp Nicolai Which The work which initially triggered the Kurtzer He Entitled A Short Report and so on"). Bericht was Eberhardus Blyttershagius, Pseudo- 440 PHILIP NICOLAI

his sorrowing parishioners and towns­ The second was the reply to the Entsetz people. of 1597: Abtreibung dess wehrlosen, nich­ Two vehement polemical works by Ni­ tigen und mistfaulen Entsatzes, welch en die colai came out in 1599. The first was a Calvinisten zu Unna wider den Hammer­ reply to the critics of his Kurtzer Bericht schlag gottliches Worts in dem streitigen von der Calvinisten Gatt und jrer Religion. Artickel von der Ubiquitet haben aussge­ It is another "mirror," over 1,500 pages he1z lassen ("The Driving Away of the In­ long, Spiegel des bosen Geistes, der sich i1z defensible, Vain, and Dung-Putrid Deliver­ der Calvinisten Buchern reget und kurtz­ ance Which the Calvinists of Vnna Have umb fur ein Gatt will geehret seyn, darmn Allowed to Go Forth Against the Hammer­ der erste Theil des kurtzen Berichts von der blow of the Divine Word in the Contro­ Calvinisten Gatt unnd Religion wider die verted Article of the Vbiquity").19 zween ttnnutze Gegenbericht der Prediger The 44-year-old celibate entered holy zu Zurch unnd der Fleder'fi'l4usen in West­ wedlock on Jan. 8, 1600. His bride was phalen, so sich fur Unnaische Burger auss­ Catharine von der Recke, the widow of the geben, grundtlich verantwort und starck Dortmund doctor of theology Peter Dorn­ befestiget wirdt ("A Mirror of the Evil berger and a mother of twO children.20 Spirit That Lurks in the Books of the Cal­ Once more Nicolai determined to abstain vinists and Wishes in Short to Be Rever­ from polemics and began work on a major enced as a God, in Which the First Part of treatise about "God's mystical temple." the Short Report on the God and the Re­ Nevertheless, 1600 saw the publication ligion of the Calvinists Is Even More of a treatise completed the year before. It Thoroughly Defended and Strongly Forti­ was a reply to the response of the Zurich fied Against the Two Valueless Counter­ company of Reformed ministers to the reports of the Preachers in Zurich and of Spiegel des bosen Geistes, published in the Westphalian Bats That Claim to Be 1599 under the title Kurtze Abfeftigu-ng Citizens of Unna.") 18 des Lasterspiegels Philippi Nicolai durch die Diener der Kirchen zu Zurch gestellt, Christus: Grund- und eigentliche Beschreibttng darinn der erst Theil des jfes Gegenberichts auch Gegeneinanderhaltung des einigen und wahren Christi . . . und dagegen des falschen von jrem Gatt und Religion kurtz wider­ und erdichteten Christi (Hanau, 1596) ("The holet und bestattiget wirdt, darauss augen­ Pseudo·Christ: A Thorough and Proper Descrip­ scheinlich zu sehen, dass Philippus Nicolai tion and Comparison with One Another of the Unique and True Christ ... and by Contrast gantzlich uberwunden unnd sein Lehr auff the False and Fictitious Christ"). Blyttershagius describes himself as a Reformed minister at Disclosure and Revelation of the Calvinian En­ Runkel. thusiastic Spirit, the Abominable and Terrible Blasphemies, the Detestable Perversion and Con­ 18 Frankfurt·am·Main: Johannes Spies, 1599. tempt of the Divine Word ... All out of Their A second edition came out with the title Very Own W fitings") . Calvinus revelatus, das ist, Entdeckung und Offenbarung dess calvinischen Schwarmgeists, 19 Frankfurt-am-Main, 1599. grewlicher und schl'ecklicher Gottes/asterungen, 20 His brother John, his sister Catharine, abschewlicher Verkehrung and Verspottung des and other relatives of his at Wildungen were gottlichen Worts . . . alles auss ihren selbst unhappy about their brother's selection. They eygenen Schrifften (Frankfurt-am-Main: Johann would have preferred for him the rich and Spies, 1604) ("Calvin Unmasked, That Is, childless widow of a Matthew Wegener. PHILIP NICOLAI 441 lauter Lasterung unnd Verkehrung evan­ 1605) of Wittenberg, tried to have Nico­ gelischer Lehr bestehet ("A Short Finish­ lai called to Rostock either as Superinten­ ing Off of the Ubelous Mirror of Philipp dens or as a theological professor; Chy­ Nicolai, Written by the Ministers of the traeus' death ended the negotiations, to­ Church at Zurich, in Which the First Part ward which Nicolai had shown himself of Their Counterreport About Their God positively inclined. But in 1601 Nicolai and Religion Is Briefly Repeated and Con­ was called to St. Catharine's Church, Ham­ firmed, from Which It Obviously Appears burg, where Joachim Westphal (1510 to that Philip Nicolai Has Been Totally Over­ 1574), Calvin's literary opponent, had come and That His Teaching Is Based En­ once been pastor. "In the year of Christ tirely Upon Libels and Perversion of Evan­ 1601," a low German manuscript chroni­ gelical Doctrine"). Far from feeling that cle of the city of Hamburg observes, "the he had been totally overcome, Nicolai re­ doctor [Nicolai] was finally called, in a sponded with Gott sey gelobt in aile Ewig­ marvelous but legitimate way, to Ham­ keit: Die erst Victoria, Triumph und Frew­ burg, recommended to that city by strang­ denjubel der bittern und viel verhassten, ers, especially Hollanders and others, who aber doch Gottlob hocherhabener und had read his published books." unuberwindtlichen Warheit uber dess cal­ Twice a week - on Sundays and Thurs­ vinischen Geistes Niderlag, darinnen der days - Nicolai preached to congregations Zurchischen Prediger f'epetirter elender that regularly packed St. Catharine's Guckucksgesang under dem Titel, Abfer­ Church. His preaching, his personal in­ tigung des Lasterspiegels Philippi Nicolai, fluence on his colleagues, his pastoral de­ ... zur gnuge beantwortet und jhr verlorne votion to his congregation, his courageous Streitsache dem christlichen Leser hell und concern for a lively orthodoxy, and his im­ deutlich fur Augen gestellt wirt ("God pact on the life of the entire city gained Be Praised Forever: The First Victory-Cry, for him the reputation of a "second Chry­ Shout of Triumph, and Joyous Celebration sostom." During his Hamburg ministry of the Bitter and Much-Hated, Yet Still­ he received three invitations to fill a theo­ God Be Praised! - Highly Exalted and logical professorship, once at Greifswald Invincible Truth over the Defeat of the and twice at Wittenberg, but he refused Calvinian Spirit, in Which the Repeated to be allured from a form of service to the Miserable Cuckoo Call of the Zurich church to which he had now wholeheart­ Preachers Under the Title, A Finishing edly committed himself. Off of the Libelous Mirror of Philipp Ni­ In 1602 Nicolai published the work "on colai, ... Is Sufficiently Answered and the God's mystical temple" on which he had Lost Cause for Which They 'Fight Is been working. It is his most significant Placed Before the Christian Reader's Eyes contribution to systematic theology. It Clearly and Plainly"). 21 bears the. title Sacrosanctum omnipraesen­ In the summer of 1600 David Chytraeus tiae lesu Christi mysterium, commentari­ (1531-1600) of Rostock, on the recom­ orum libris duo bus solide et perspicue ex­ mendation of Solomon Gesner (1559 to plicatum, ut ab omnibus veritatem aman­ 21 Frankfurt-am-Main: Johann Spiess, 1600. tibus facile possit intelligi, et Calvinianis 442 PHILIP NICOLAI sirnul lectoribus anztco et placido sit in­ anti-Habsburg policies of the Electoral citamento ad salutarem conversionem Palatinate. All of this, plus his own ten­ ("The Most Holy Mystery of the Omni­ dency to arrogance and his autocratic be­ presence of Jesus Christ, Thoroughly and havior, made him extremely unpopular Clearly Unfolded in a Two-Volume Mem­ both with important segments of the elec­ oir in Such a \Vay That All Lovers of toral court and with the electoral estates. Truth Can Easily Understand It and That Upon the death of his patron, Christian I, It May Be a Friendly and Calm Incite­ in 1591, CreH was charged with treason, ment to a Salutary Conversion on the Part held in prison for ten years, and finally, of Calvinists as Well as of the Readers") .22 after a sensational trial that cost 118,000 The year 1603 saw the beginning of Ni­ Gulden and that reflected credit neither on colai's controversy with Urban Pierius the justice nor on the church of Saxony, (Birnbaum) (1546-1616), the deposed he was beheaded. Upon the publication professor and Generalsuperintendem of of Blume's sermon, Pierius, who had re­ Wittenberg who had been freed from pri­ ceived his appointment as court preacher son at the intercession of Queen Eliza­ and Superintendens at Dresden through beth I of England and who had become Crell, felt an obligation of piety to de­ a Reformed minister, first in Amsterdam fend his late patron. His attack on Blume and more recently in Bremen. The genesis - published in 1603 - bore the title: of this controversy is of more than passing Examen ulld Erleutemng der in der Leich­ historical interest. On the occasion of the pfedigt uber den enthaupteten D. Nicolai funeral of the unhappy jurist and Saxon Crells furgebrachten neuen Religions­ chancellor, Nicholas CreH (1550-1601), Streitigkeiten und unerfindlichen Ankla­ Nicholas Blume, a Lutheran clergyman, gen ( "A Weighing and Clarification of the preached a sermon - subsequently pub­ New Religious Controversies and Unin­ lished - in the Church of OUf Dear Lady telligible Accusations Advanced in the in Dresden. CreH had entered the adminis­ Funeral Sermon on the Executed Dr. Ni­ tration of Elector August I (1526-1586) cholas Crell"). Nicolai's reply is entitled: in 1580; under Elector Christian I he had Examen examinis Pieriani, das ist, Schul­ become chancellor. During his tenure of furung und Abfertigung des Examinis so the office he had attempted to restore the D. Urbanus Pierius, calvinischer Prediger pre-15 74 Reformed religious orientation in Bremen, wider die zu Dressden bey der of Saxony, to abolish the solemn obligation Begrebnis D. Nicolai Crellii gehalten of the Saxon clergy to the Formula and Leichpredigt dUTch offenen Druck auss­ Book of Concord, and to forbid the use gesprenget, zu nothwendiger Verantwor­ of exorcism at baptisms. Politically Crell tung reiner Lehr der evangelischen Kir­ tried to tie Saxony to the pro-French and chen in Sachs en, als auch zu rich tiger Ent­ deckung und grundlicher Widerlegung 22 Frankfurt: Matthaeus Beckerus, 1602. Another edition came out in 1609. The other­ etlicher calvinischer l"thumer ("A wise undocumented Bericht von det" Gegenwart Weighing of the Pierian Weighing, That dess Leibs und Bluts Christi im H. Abendmal Is, A Leading to School and a Finishing (Hamburg, 1603) may refer to the Sacrosanc­ tum omnipraesenliae [esu Christi mysterium. Off of the Weighing That Dr. Urban PHILIP NICOLAI 443

Pieri us, the Calvinian Preacher in Bremen, Freidige Widerkunfft D. Philippi Nicolai Has Disseminated in Public Print Against ... auff die faule Abfertigung von D. Ur­ the Funeral Sermon Preached in Dresden bano Pierio ("Happy Comeback of Dr. at the Interment of Dr. Nicholas Crell, by Philipp Nicolai ... to the Putrid Finish­ Way of a Necessary Accounting for the ing Off by Dr. Urban Pierius") .24 Pierius' Pure Doctrine of the Evangelical Church next move was the issuance of his Apo­ in Saxony, as Well as for the Correct Dis­ logia und abgenotigte Verantwortung dess closure and Thorough Refutation of Some ttber D. Nicol Crellij nach gehaltener Calvinian Errors") .23 Leichenpredigten angestellten Examinis Pierius himself replied with an Abferti­ wider die Schulfurung D. Philippi Nicolai gung des Ubiquistischen Predigers D. Phi­ ("A Defense and Necessitated Accounting lippi Nicolai zu Hamburg, wegen seiner of the Weighing Undertaken After the zmbefugten Zunotigung uber das Examen Funeral Sermon Preached over Dr. Crell, der Crellschen Leichpyedigt ("A Finish­ Against the Leading to School by Dr. Phi­ ing Off of the Ubiquistic Preacher Dr. lipp Nicolai") ,25 Anticipating the publi­ Philipp Nicolai of Hamburg, on Account cation of a further installment of Pierius' of His Incompetent Challenge in Connec­ reply, Nicolai waited until 1608 before tion with the \Xl eighing of the CreI1 Fu­ answering with his 727 -page Von Gottes neral Sermon"). Nicolai responded with Gnaden Sieg ttnd Frewdentritt der War­ heit christlicher Religion ilZ de;, evangeli­ 23 Hamburg: Philipp von Ohr, 1603. The schen und gut lutherischen Kirchen durch second edition came out in 1611. Since Nicolai Sachsen, auff die faulstinckende Apologi, had addressed himself only to the first two parts of Pieri us' book, the three Saxon clergymen damit der daumelwitzige Mammaluck zu involved undertook to complete the task with Bremen, D. Urbanus Pierius, das wolbe­ a continuation, reprinted in Nicolai's collected gt'undet Examen examinis zur vergeblicher German works under the title Examen examinis Pieriani, das ist, Schulfuhring und Abfertigung Beschirmung seines todsuchtigen Calvi­ dess vermeinten Examinis, so UrbaJ~us Pierius nismi feindtlich anschnattert und anrnaulet, D., ... wider die Leichpredigt, so dem entheup­ mit angehengter kurtzen Abfertigung dess ten D. Nicolao Crellen nachgehalten und von dreyen Predigern unterschrieben worden, durch ehrenrurigen Lesterbztchs von einem licht­ offentlichen Druck aussgespre1~get, ttnnd wird shewenden Injurianten . . . wider die darinnen furnemblich der dritte Theil reltttirt, Dressdische Leichpredight ("By the Grace und die Historica gehandelt, aUes der lauteren Warheit Ztt Stewer, gestellet dttrch die drey of God the Triumph and Joyous March of Prediger, so attff churlurstlichen Belehlfch bey the Truth of the Christian Religion in the dem gerechtfertigten D. Crellen auffgewartet haben. ( "A Weighing of the Pierian Weigh­ Evangelical and Solidly Lutheran Church ing, That Is, A Leading to School and a Finish­ Throughout Saxony, in Reply to the Foul­ ing Off of the Supposed Weighing That Dr. Smelling Defense with Which the Dull­ Urban Pierius Has Spread Abroad in Public Print Against the Funeral Sermon Which Was Witted Mameluke in Bremen, Dr. Urban Preached over the Beheaded Dr. Crell and Sub­ Pierius, Gabbles Away and Bares His scribed by Three Clergymen, and in It the Teeth at the Well-Founded Weighing of Third Part [of Pierius' Work} in Particular Is Refuted and the Historical Matters Discussed, All in the Interest of the Truth Alone, Prepared 24 Hamburg: Philipp von Ohr [1603}. Voigt by the Three Clergymen Who by Electoral Com­ in Leipzig published a second edition in 1604. mand Waited upon t-he Executed Dr. Crell"). 25 Bremen, 1604. 444 PHILIP NICOLAI the Weighing in a Vain Effort to Conceal preacher, against whom Nicolai defended His Lethal Calvinism, Together with an the Lutheran community in the Nether­ Appended Short Finishing Off of the De­ lands in his Verantwortung der Evangeli­ famatory Book of Libels of an Anony­ schen Kirchen in Hollandt wider die La­ mous Defamer . . . Against the Dresden sterulzg Petri Plancii, Calvinischen Predi­ Funeral Sermon") .26 gers zu Amsterdam, und seiner Consorten Another Reformed target of Nicolai in ("An Accounting on Behalf of the Evan­ this period was Peter Plancius (1550 to gelical [that is, Lutheran} Church in Hol­ 1622) , the Amsterdam geographer- land, Against the Libel of Peter Plancius, the Calvinian Preacher at Amsterdam, and 26 Hamburg, 1608. A second edition came His Associates"), published in both High out in 1609. For the major publications in the and Low German in Hamburg in 1603.27 Pierius-Crell controversy, which involved a con­ siderable number of theologians, see John Plancius assayed an answer, and Nicolai George Walch. Bibliotheca theolol!ica selecta, attacked it in 1604 with his Bericht von 2 (];na: Vidu~ Croeckeriana, 1758), 593-94. del' evangelischen Christen Widerwertig­ Among posthumous defenders of Nicolai's Ex­ amen was John Christian Adami (1622-1715), keit zu Amsterdam in Hollandt, dem stren­ rector of Luckau and later Generalsuperinten­ gen Calvinisten Petro Plancio daselbst zur dens of Lower Lusatia. In 1701 he published at Nachrichtzmg und der bedrangeten Ge­ Zwickau as his contribution to the "terministic" controversy which John Georg Bose (1662 to mein zu Trost und heylsamer Vormanung 1700) of Sorau had precipitated in 1698 Fr(Jt;­ kurtzlich verfasset ("A Report on the Ad­ diger Zugang zur Gnade Gottes bis ans Ende versity of the Evangelical Christians at menschlichen Lebens, bey Gelegenheit der Frage: Ob allm Sundern die Gnadenthiir bis an Amsterdam in Holland, for the Informa­ den Todt offen stehe? von Herrn D, Philipp. tion of the Rigid Calvinist Peter Plancius Nicolai in seiner so genannten Schul/Uhrung des Pieri; 1603 erwiesen und bey ietziger nelten in That City and for the Comfort and Sal­ Erregung di-eser hochwichtigen Frage mit ei­ utary Admonition of the Oppressed Com­ nigen ErZeiuterzmgen wieder/loZet und dal'gestellet munity Briefly Composed") .28 ("Joyous Access to the Grace of God Until the End of a Human Being's Life, in Reference to 27 The Low German version at least came the Question If the Door of Grace Is Open to All Sinners Until Death, Demonstrated by Dr. out again at Hamburg in 1604. Philipp Nicolai in 1603 in His So-Called Lead­ 28 Hamburg: Philipp von Ohr, 1604. An­ ing to School of Pierius and Now Repeated and other - but posthumous - Reformed opponent Set Forth with Some Clarifications in Connec­ of Nicolai was John Lampadius, M. A., who tion with the New Raising of This Highly Im­ in 1609 published at Marburg his Censura portant Question" ) . Separately published in ubiquitatis, hoc est, succincta confutatio argu­ Leipzig the same year was an extract from the mentorum ubiquitariorum et omnium Philippi Examen examinis under Nicolai's name and the Nicolai, ubiquitatis acerrimi propugnatoris, li­ title Antwort auf die Frage: Ob die Grvade1t~ brorum quibus ille corporis Christi omnipraesen­ Thure allen Sundern bis an den Tod offen tiam defendere eonatur ("An Evaluation of stehe? Theodore Oswald Weigel, Corpus dis­ Ubiquity, That Is, a Succinct Refutation of the sertationum theologicarum (Leipzig: Theodorus Arguments of the Ubiquitarians and of All the Oswaldus ~Veigelius, 1847), at No. 8657 lists Books of Philipp Nicolai, the Most Bitter Pro­ the same title as published in Leipzig in 1603; ponent of Ubiquity, in Which He Tries to De­ this is probably an incorrect dating, resulting fend the Omnipresence of the Body of Christ"). from a misreading of the data in the title. On John Affelmann (1588-1624) of the Univer­ the extensive literature generated by the "ter­ sity of Rostock rose to Nicolai's defense with his ministic" controversy, see Walch, op. cit., 2, 783 Censura censurae Lampadianae . . . seu invicta to 802. assertio doctrinae catholicae de omnipraesentia PHILIP NICOLAI 445

A related target was John Cuno of Per· on Earth"), (1604), dedicated to Princess leberg, whom Nicolai attacked in his Catharine of Sweden, dowager countess of Trewbertzige Warnung ... filr Meister East Frisia, is a translation and a rework· loban Cuno, Perlebergiscben Superinten­ ing of the Sacrosanctum omnipraesentiae denten in der Prignicieriscben Landscbafft, lesu Cbristi mysterium of 1602. wegen der calviniscben Dunsten, Grillen When the Zurich theologians published und Nattersticben, die er in seinem Buch their reply to Nicolai's Spiegel des bosen dess Tittels Passion Warnung und Oster· Geistes in den calvinischen Buchern, Sam­ trost aussgeust, durchfithrt und lossdruckt uel Huber (1547-1624), the ex-Re­ ("A Faithful·Hearted Warning . formed professor at the University of Wit­ Against John Cuno, Superintendens at tenberg, entered the lists on behalf of Ni­ Perleberg in the Prignitz Territory, on colai with his stern Sendbrieff an die ebrn­ Account of the Calvinian Vaporings, Fan­ vesten . . . Burgermeister und Rbat der cies, and Adder-Stings Which He Pours 16blichen Statt Zurich, dcwinnen sie erin­ Out, Carries Through, and Squeezes Off nert . . . werden, was ire Kirchendiener in His Book Entitled The Warning in the unter dem Schein eine1' Al1.i1(Jort auff D. Passion and the Comfort of Easter") .29 Pbilipp Nicolai Buch fur ein Werck wider Also a target was the Socinian Christo­ lesum Christtlm ... unter Handen baben pher Ostorodt (1550-1611), aimed at in ("Letter to Their Honors, . . . the Lord Nicolai's Pro divina lesu Christi gloria ad­ Mayor and the Council of the Praiseworthy versus Ebioniticos Christophori Osterodi City of Zurich, in Which There Is Called latratus libri tres ("Three Books on Be­ to Their Attention the Kind of Action half of the Divine Glory of Jesus Christ Against Jesus Christ Which Their Minis­ Against the Ebionitic Barkings of Chris­ ters ... Have Taken in Hand Under the topher Ostorodt"). 30 Pretense of a Reply to Dr. Philipp Nico­ Nicolai's Grundfest und richtige Erkle­ lai's Book"). This made it all the more rung dess streitigen Artickels von der Ge· painful for Nicolai to have to oppose his genwart unsers Seligmacbers Jesu Christi erstwhile defender because of what ap­ nacb beyden Naturen im Himmel und auff peared to be the latter's universalistic Erden ("The Foundation and the Right teachings in the areas of the divine choice Explanation of the Controverted Article of of human beings to everlasting life and of the Presence of Our Savior Jesus Christ the regeneration and justification of hu­ According to Both Natures in Heaven and man beings. Nicolai's Ad D. Samuelis Huberi confessionem de universali elec­ Christi secundum naturam eius humanam et de ea libellorum beati D. Philippi Nicolai (Ros­ tione responsum breve et Christianum ("A tock, 1610) ("An Evaluation of the Lampadian Short and Christian Reply to Dr. Samuel Evaluation . . . or, The Invincible Affirmation Huber's Confession About Universal Elec­ of the Catholic Doctrine of the Omnipresence of Christ According to His Human Nature and tion") came out in 1605. of the Booklets of the Late Dr. Philipp Nicolai Another period of pestilence evoked a About It"). Hamburg counterpart of the Freudenspie­ 29 Hamburg, 1603. A second edition came out at Hamburg in 1605. gel, written in 1605 for the spiritual for­ 30 Hamburg: Frobenius, 1603. tification of Nicolai's parishioners and 446 PHILIP NICOLAI published in 1606, Theoria vitae aeternae, Faithful-Hearted Answer, with a View to oder, Historische Beschreibung dess gan­ the Highly Necessary Removal of All Bar­ tzen Geheimnuss vom ewigen Leben ("The riers to Peace.") 33 Contemplation of Everlasting Life, or, A In 1607 Landgrave Louis V (1577 to Historical Description of the Whole 1626) of Hesse-Darmstadt founded the Mystery of Everlasting Life") in five vol­ new University of Giessen-the Ludovi­ umes.31 ciana - to provide an academic home for Another Christological inquiry came out the Lutheran tradition in his domains after in 1607: Synopsis articuli controversi de the Hesse-Kassel University of Marburg o17Z1Zipraesente Christo, qua totum hoc had become wholly Reformed. Nicolai­ mysterium ad necessariam ejus cognitio­ as ready as ever to turn out an appropriate nem intelligenter assectandam succinctis ode - celebrated the venture with his 612- et perspicuis thesibus breviter explicatur line Panegyricus in novam Giessenae urbis ("An Overview of the Controverted Arti­ academiam carmen ad Ludovicum Land­ cle About the Omnipresent Christ, in gravium Hassiae ("A Eulogistic Poem on Which for the Sake of Intelligently At­ the New University in the City of Giessen, tending Upon Getting to Know This to Louis Landgrave of Hesse") and had it Whole Mystery It Is Briefly Unfolded in printed in Hamburg. Succinct and Transparent Theses"). The Also in 1607 Nicolai wrote a preface to work is dedicated to the bishop of H61ar a work by a pastor of Soest, John (or F. in Iceland, Gudbrandur Thorlaksson J.) Schwartz, S chulfurung und W iderle­ (1542-1627) .32 gung dess stockmeister'schen Gesprechs, To promote an accommodation between welches ein lesuwiter zu Paderborn ... the Lutheran and the Reformed commu­ mit dem Burgermeister ... Liborio Wi­ nities in the face of the Roman Catholic chard . .. gehalten zu haben sich beruhmet threat to both, the Reformed theologians ("A Leading to School and Refutation of of the Electoral Palatinate published their the Jailer-Type Conversation, That a Jesuit Friedbietung der Theologen in der chur­ of Paderborn . . . Boasts That He Had furstlichen Pfaltz an alle lutherische Kir­ ... with the Lord Mayor ... Liborius Wi­ chen ("An Offer of Peace from the Theo­ chard") .34 logians in the Electoral Palatinate to All Later in the summer a casual social con­ Lutheran Churches"). Nicolai replied in tact that Nicolai had with a Florentine 1607 by reprinting the olive branch with Roman Catholic precipitated a controversy his own appended critique - mit treuhert­ between Nicolai and Henry Never (1560 ziger Antwort zu hochnothiger We grau­ 33 Fortgesetzte Sammlung von alten und mung aller Friedenshindernisse ("with a neuen theologischen Sachen, 1733, pp. 541-42, reproduces Nicolai's "VorschIage, welcher Ge­ 31 This writer has recorded subsequent edi­ stalt ein Vergleich zwischen denen Lutheranern tions from 1609, 1610, 1611, 1612, 1615, 1628, und den Reformirten kiinte getroffen werden" 1651, and 1707. In 1693 a section of the ("Proposals with Reference to the Form in Theoria was translated into Icelandic and was Which an Agreement Between the Lutherans published as part of a book by Erasmus Vinther and the Reformed Could Be Achieved"). at SHlholt. 34 Hamburg, 1607. Wichard had died in 32 Hamburg: Philippus ab Ohr, 1607. 1604 as a Lutheran martyr of the counterreform. PHILIP NICOLAI 447

to 1617), a Jesuit missionary in near-sub­ Relatively little has survived either of urban Altona who provided Roman Catho­ the sermons 38 or of the correspondence 39 lic ministrations to foreign visitors to the of Nicolai. Hamburg area. Nicolai died before he had completed the work, but his brother Jer­ graphical survey. The date of two of his works that Dedeken printed cannot be determined, emy published it posthumously in 1609 De coena Domini COn the Holy Communion") under the title Cum Loyolitana societate and Tractatus de persona et officio Christi et ejus ordinis hierophanta quodam in Al­ ( "Treatise on the Person and Office of Christ") . In 1629 Dedeken published Nicolai's Praxis tena conflictus de antichristo Romano, per­ vitae aeternae ("The Pracrice of Everlasting ditionis filio ("The Clash with the So­ Life") . Martin Lipenius, Bibliotheca realis ciety of Loyola and a Certain Hierophant theologica (Frankfurt-am-Main: Johannes Fri­ of His Order in Altona on the Roman derici, 1685), which cannot always be trusted, lists a number of works not otherwise docu· Antichrist, the Son of Perdition") .35 mented: Testamentum novum, graece et latine In mid-October 1608 a severe illness (Leipzig, 1578 and 1594); Bericht von der greatly handicapped Nicolai's speech and Gegenwart dess Leibs und Blms Christi 1m H. Abendmahl (Hamburg, 1603) CA Report on activity. His exemplary end came on the the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ 26th of the month. He participated in the in the Holy Communion"); Sieben Bucher vom morning prayers of the household, made ewigen Leben (Hamburg: Philipp [von} Ohr, 1604) ("Seven Books on the Everlasting Life"); a final confession of faith to his devoted and Drey Predigten von der englischen Schild­ friend and assistant, George Dedeken wacht (Erfurt, 1604) ("Three Sermons About (1564-1628), and died quietly at six in the Angelic Sentries" ) . Christian Gotdie b }Ocher, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, 3 (Leip­ the evening.36 zig: Johann Friedrich Gleditschens Buchhand­ Nicolai was buried in St. Catharine's lung, 1701), 911-12, attributes to Nicolai Church under the memorial tablet erected Gr1tnd heiliger Schrift von dem allgemeinen Genaden-Willen und der daraus entspringenden to his great predecessor as rector of the Genaden-Wahl Gottes ("The Biblical Basis for parish, J oachim Westphal. There was a the Universal Gracious Will of God and the kind of propriety in the fact that these two Election of Grace That Springs Forth from It"), as well as two works that Jocher himself lists men whose theological concerns had been as the work of Philipp's brother Jeremy (ibid., so similar in their lifetimes should be thus p. 905): Theologiae sacrae ad naturalis me­ united in death. thodi leges conformatae libri quattNor ("Four Books of Sacred Theology Conformed to the II Laws of the Natural Method") and Flos bib­ licus, hoc est, theologiae cum sur;s literis con­ In 1617 Dedeken edited Nicolai's sur­ formatae libri octo ("The Flower of the Bible, viving works in six folio volumes, four in That Is, Eight Books of Theology Conformed German, two in Latin.37 to the Sacred Writings"), which is presumably identical with the Theologia e solis sacris literis to which Willy Hess, Der Missionsgedanken 35 Rostock: Prelum Reusnerianum, 1609. bei Philipp Nicolai (Hamburg: Friedrich Wit­ Subsequent editions came out in 1610 and 1611. tig Verlag, 1962), p.231, refers and to which 36 Dedeken's account of Nicolai's last hours Philipp Nicolai wrote the foreword. is reproduced in Walter Lacher, Philipp Nicolai 38 Part One of Nicolai's collected German (Leipzig: Gustav Schloessmanns Verlagsbuch­ works reprints Von Christo Jesu dem Bawm handlung, 1937), pp. 36-38. dess Lebens und seinen edlen Friichten: Eine 37 See the appended bibliography for the christliche Predigt uber die Wort dess Herm exact titles. The present writer has tried to Hose. 14{,9} ... gehalten in dey /Urstlichen list all of the works of Nicolai in this biobiblio- Hofcapellen zu Wimsheim-an-der-Luhe in dem 448 PHILIP NICOLAI

THE PREACHER a worshiping congregation at any time As a preacher Nicolai was a man of his singing the 12 stanzas of "Mag ich Un­ age. There is sometimes in his sermons gluck nicht widerstahn," an autobiographi­ a bewildering wealth of metaphor, a strong cal ballad, even though Nicolai labeled it tendency to allegorize, and a too cheerful "A Complaint of the Christian Church to willingness to carry his polemics into the God About the Calvinists and the Sectarian Spirits." 40 pulpit, but there is also homiletical com­ petence and facility of a high order and "So wUnsch ich eine gute Nacht" also a stimulating imaginativeness. It is not runs to 12 stanzas. It is a Parodie-Lied 41 difficult to understand why Nicolai's con­ written to be sung to a well-known secu­ temporaries found his sermons so attrac­ lar tune of the period ("So wiinsch ich ihr tive. dn gute Nacht"). The title reads: "Der THE HYMN WRITER Welt Abdanck fur eine himmeldurstige Seele, gestelt uber den 42. Psalm Davids" To a degree almost unprecedented in ("Renunciation of the World, for a Soul hymnological history, Nicolai's reputation That Thirsts for Heaven, Based on the as a hymn writer depends on two hymns. 42d Psalm of David") .42 It was published As far as diligent research has been able in 1599 as an appendix to the Freuden­ to determine, he wrote only four. If the spiegel and has enjoyed modest popularity hymn of which Jeremy Nicolai heard their in German Lutheran and Reformed sister Margaret sing a snatch in the sum­ hymnals. mer of 1596 is really a :fifth hymn and the The other two hymns, "Wie schon snatch is not - as the meter suggests­ leuchtet der Morgenstern" and "Wachet from a later discarded draft of the Morn­ auf, ruft uns die Stimme," with their per­ ing-Star hymn, it has not survived. Again, ennially evocative content, their superb subsequent research had not sustained the

ascription of additional hymns to Nicolai 40 It was published as an appendix to his by hymnologists of the past. Nothwendiger und gantz vollkommener Bericht von der gantzen calvinischen Religion (1596). Indeed, one can say that Nicolai wrote only three hymns. It is difficult to imagine 41 Friedrich Blume, Die evangelische Kirch­ enmusik (New York: Musurgia Publishers, 1931), p.1S. Hertzogthumb Liineburgk (Hamburg: Michael Hennig, 1607), ("Of Christ Jesus, the Tree of 42 The hymn is an acrostic on the names of Life, and Its Noble Fruits: A Christian Sermon the two noblewomen to whom Nicolai dedi­ on the Words of the Lord in Hosea 14[, 9] ... cated the Bericht: M [argaretha] Geborn Preached in the Chapel of the Princely Court G[rwnJ Zu Gleich[enJ Und T[onna] G[rafinJ at Winsheim-an-der-Luhe in the Duchy of Und F[rauJ Zu W[aldeckJ ("Margaret, nee Luneburg"). Part Two contains 28 sermons Countess of Gleichen, and Tonna, Countess and that Nicolai preached on Easter Day, Easter Lady of Waldeck"). The first stanza is lifted Monday, Quasi Modo Geniti, Misericordias verbatim - not an infrequent custom of the Domini, Jubilate, and Whitsun-Monday, and time - from a hymn written by Queen Mary a series on Revelation 1-5. of Hungary, the sister of the Holy Roman Em­ peror Charles V. The Morning-Star hymn and S9 On Nicolai's correspondence see Alfred "Wachet auf" are also acrostics; the former has Uckeley, "Die Briefe Philipp Nicolais gesammelt initial letters referring it to Wilhelm Ernst und herausgegeben," Geschichtsblatter fur Graf und Herr zu Waldeck, while the latte; Waldeck und Pyrmont, 19/20 (1921),73-80. when reversed spells out Graf zu Waldeck. PHILIP NICOLAI 449

metrical structure, and their extraordinar­ But, as their original publication as appen­ ily successful wedding of the text to the dices to the Freudenspiegel and their re­ magnificent tunes - the "Queen" and flection of the eschatological language of "King" of chorales - require no praise. this work of Nicolai clearly show, the real They are not the firSt of their genre, but thrust of the Morning-Star hymn as well they are such splendid examples of their as of "Wachet auf" is eschatological. type that they can rightly be called epochal, and they provided a firm precedent for THE MYSTIC a new type of hymn which laid greater Both hymns are likewise the product of stress on the author's subjective religious a major mystic of the Lutheran tradition. experience than on the availability of the This too is an essential datum for the un­ hymn as a vehicle for the expression of derstanding of the hymns. The obvious corporate conviction. In this way they meaning of the text does not immediately helped determine the direction that Ger­ disclose and far less exhaust the experi­ man hymnody was to follow for the next ence of which the hymns are expressions. two generations, through the lifetimes of It is true that mysticism - even when it Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), John refers to a theocentric and Christocentric Franck (1618-1677), and John Schef­ mystical experience that consciously bases fler (1624-1677). The other area where itself on the Word of God and on the they exercise decisive influence is in the Christian sacraments - has been a bad introduction of new metrical patterns. word for some Lutherans since the 17th Both hymns are in their primary inten­ century and has become a worse word tion eschatological. Only in this sense can since the mid-19th century. It is particu­ they rightly be understood. It is true that larly discomfiting and threatening for the Morning-Star hymn rapidly became those who define religion wholly in cogni­ the de tempore hymn for the Second Sun­ tive and intellectual terms. Those who day After the Epiphany and for the Twen­ hold this view are likely to deny that au­ tieth Sunday After Trinity. The former thentic Lutheran theology can allow a association reinforced passages in the text place for mysticism. In opposition to this that could be construed as referring to holy view it must be stipulated that mysticism matrimony. It thus became a favorite at of the type described is an indispensable weddings, to the point where John Ave­ part of the Catholic heritage that the narius III (1653-1713) could report in Church of the Augsburg Confession shares 1711 (possibly with a little exaggeration) with every century of the church that pre­ ceded the 16th. that bridal couples "superstitiously be­ lieved that if the Morning-Star were not Philipp Nicolai does not stand isolated performed at their nuptials, they were not within the Church of the Augsburg Con­ rightly married and could expect no for­ fession in this respect. On the contrary, tune or blessing in their wedded life." 43 he is only one representative of a consider­ a ble company that has existed in the 43 Quoted in Johannes Kulp, Die Lieder unserer Kirche: Eine Handreichmzg zum B'lla'n­ Buchner and Siegfried Fornat,:on (Gottingen: gelischen Kirchengesangbuch, edited by Arno Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958) p.86. 450 PHILIP NICOLAI

Church of the Augsburg Confession from the Area a1Zimae of another great medieval its beginning as an autonomous fellow­ mystic, Hugh of St. Victor. Nicolai's own ship. His partners in this company in­ mystical experience in connection with clude Martin Luther himself; Andrew the production of the Morning-Star hymn Musculus (1514-1581), an author of the is worth recalling also.45 Formula of Concord and one of the chan­ Linked with the fact that both hymns nels through whom the medieval mystical reflect the continuing mystical element in tradition was transmitted to the post­ the Western Cluistian tradition is the fur­ Reformation church; Nicolai's contempo­ ther fact that both are "Jesus hymns." They rary Martin Moller (1547-1606), Saxon­ are not the first. Elisabeth von Meseritz born pastor and devotional writer, remem­ Cruciger (died 1535) had written "Herr bered for his influential Meditatioms sac­ Christ, du einig Gotts Sohn." There are rum patrum ("Meditations of the Holy more than traces of Christ-mysticism in [Church] Fathers") that he began to John Walter (1496-1570) and Nicholas publish in 1584; and Nicholas Herman Herman. In 1571 Martin Schalling (1532 (1481?-1561), the cantor-teacher col­ to 1608) -the ascription to him goes league of John Mathesius at St. Joachims­ back to 1627 - had written a "Jesus thaI. After Nicolai the movement in­ hymn" even more in the Nicolai style, cludes, among others, John Arndt (1555- "Herzlich lieb hab' ich dich, 0 Herr." But ]621), John Gerhard (1582-1637), John Heermann (1585-1647), and Paul them a joyous alleluia is sung in chorus with­ Gerhardt. Concretely, in Nicolai's case we out intermission. . . . There are the choruses have the demonstrable influence of a series of angels pronouncing their hymns. There is of treatises that his time - and he - at­ the society of the citizens of heaven. . . . There is the prescient chorus of the prophets. There tributed to St. Augustine, the Manuale, the is the twelvefold company of the apostles. There Meditationes, and the Soliloquia. The is the victor army of innumerable martyrs. Ma1Zuale draws heavily on the 66 sermons There is the sacred assembly of holy confessors." See also William T. Brooke, "Jerusalem, My of St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song Happy Home," A Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. of Songs, the Meditationes onglnate John Julian, rev. ed. (London: John Murray, largely from the pen of St. Anselm of Can­ 1915), p.580. terbury,44 while the Soliloquia preserve 45 In the preface to the T heoria vitae aeter­ nae, edited by John Daniel Arcularius (1650 to 1710) at Frankfurt in 1707, Nicolai is quoted as 44 They include the famous passage that be­ stating that "in the production of this hymn gins Mater Hieru.ralem, civitas sancta Dei, he was so occupied and filled with a foretaste which Nicolai quotes at length in the Freuden­ of everlasting life and with the sweetness of spiegel ("Of the Sixth Property of Everlasting Life," sec. 2 ), as well as in the T heoria vitae the powers of the age to come that he forgot his aeternae, and of which echoes are present in all regular meal, and when he was called to it by three of the hymns appended to the Freuden­ his household he had refused to come, explain­ spiegel. Kulp (op. cit., pp. 84-85) cites some ing that he was now so satisfied with an inner of the more apposite sentences: "0 Jerusalem, spiritual joy that he felt neither physical hunger holy city of God, most worthy bride of Jesus or thirst, and that he would neither eat nor Christ, I love you with all my heart and I have drink nor rest until he had ordered and com­ a very heartfelt longing for your loveliness .... pleted his thoughts of spiritual joy in connec­ Your walls are of precious stones, your gates of tion with this hymn" (quoted in Curtze, op. the best pearls, your streets of pure gold and on cit., p. 96) . PHILIP NICOLAI 451

Nicolai introduces the vogue for hymns of Burgk, highly probable.49 In the Morning­ this type, although few of the later con­ Star hymn the reminiscences of the setting structions are comparable to his own two of Psalm 100, "Jauchzet dem Herrn, aIle great chorales. Lande," by James Dachser (1486-1567) Nicolai's Christ-mysticism in these in the Psalter that Wolf Kopphel pub­ hymns as elsewhere is deliberately Biblical. lished at Strasbourg in 1538 are obvious, The Morning-Star hymn draws not only on as are the echoes of Resonet in laudibus. Psalm 45 and the Song of Songs but also "Wachet auf" exhibits affinities with Hans on Eph. 5: 22-32 and on Rev. 22: 13,16. Sachs' Silberweise (Salve, ich grus dich "Wachet auf," which shows the influence schone) and a Magnificat setting by Luke of earlier T agweisen and of the T ag- lmd Lossius in the fifth Gregorian mode.50 Wachterlieder that go back to Wolfram Noteworthy is the way in which the von Eschenbach,46 uses not only the par­ music reinforces the strong note of joy and able of the Ten Maidens but also Is. 51: 17; adoration that distinguishes Nicolai's 52:8; 62:6; 47 1 Cor.2:9; 15:55; and Rev. hymns from many others in the Lutheran 19:6-9. tradition.51 Of the two hymns, the corporate char­ Since the two hymns first found their acter of "Wachet auf" gives it an edge way into the Hamburg Melodeyen-Ge­ over the more individualistic formulation sangbuch of 1604, they have achieved all of the Morning-Star hymn. 49 Otto Brodde, "Philipp Nicolai," Monats­ THE HYMN-TUNE COMPOSER sehri!t fur Gottesdienst und christliche Kunst, 42 (1937), 92-93. The meters and tunes show the same 50 See Walter Blankenburg, "Die Kirchen­ talent for creative adaptation of inherited liedweisen von Philipp Nicolai, gestor ben am p~tterns and motives.48 The influence of 10. August 1556," Musik und Kirche, 26 Nicolai's old teacher Helmbold is strong, (1956), 172-76, and Gesehiehte der Melo­ dien des Bvangelischell Kirchengesangbuches: that of the latter's colleague and Nicolai's Bin Abriss (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rup­ preceptor in music at Miihlhausen, a recht, 1957), pp. 92-94. 51 See Paul Gabriel, Das deutsche evange­ 46 Johannes Westphal, Das evangelische lische Kirchenlied (Leipzig: Qudle und Meyer, Kirchenlied nach seiner geschichtlichen Ellt­ 1935), pp.48-49. Oskar S6hngen, "Theolo­ wieklung, 6th. ed. (Berlin: Union Deutsche gische Grundlagen der Kirchenmusik," Leitur­ Verlagsgesellschaft, 1925), p.94; Kulp, op. cit., gia: Handbueh des evangelisehen Gottesdienstes, p.197. ed. Karl Ferdinand Millier and Walter Blanken­ 47 The watchman motive had appeared in burg, 4 (Kassel: Johannes-Stauda Verlag, two Wachterlieder in John Walther's Gesang­ 1961), 249, n. 619, observes that in Nicolai's bliehlein of 1551. Paul Althaus, Der Friedho! hymns there is a repeated paraphrastic expres­ unserer Vater: Bit. Gang durch die Sterbe- und sion of what the New Testament calls agalliasis Bwigkeitslieder der evangelischen Kirche, 4th ("joy"). As examples he cites: "Singet, sprin­ ed. (Giitersloh: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1947), get, jubilieret, triumphieret, dankt dem Herrn!" pp.119-20. "Des klopf ich in die Hande," and "Des jauch­ 48 If one assigns a dash to each syllable of zen wir und singen dir das Halleluja fUr und the Morning-Star hymn and centers the lines fiir." Considering the circumstances in which over one another, the shape of a chalice emerges Nicolai wrote these hymns, this stress on spiri­ clearly (see Kulp, op. cit., p. 86). tual joy is doubly significant. 452 PHILIP NICOLAI but universal acceptance 1fi Western as he had committed himself to it both at Christendom,53 his ordination and through his oath as a doctor of sacred theology. It must not be THE POLEMICIST forgotten that as he saw them the Re­ As a polemicist Nicolai is typical of formed and Roman Catholic religions led the era, One needs only to read the com­ with logical inevitability to a denial of the plete titles of his published polemical very fundamentals of the historic Catholic works to catch their acid flavor, But the faith. At stake for him were ultimately the counter-barrages of his adversaries used no essential nature of God, the reality of the kinder or less vulgar language. The ecu­ incarnation, the truth of the atonement, menical temper of our times finds this the kingly rule of the incarnate Word, and kind of polemics embarrassing. The 16th the accessibility of the grace of the Holy and 17th centuries did not. In part, the Spirit in the Word of God that Nicolai age was accustomed to the use of language and his colleagues preached and the sac­ of this kind and rarely reflected on its pro­ raments that he and his colleagues admin­ priety when Christian theologians took it istered.54 With this understanding of Ni­ on their lips. In polemics theologians sim­ colai's mindset his vehement polemics are ply used - unsmilingly - words that they no less scandalous, but they do become would probably have avoided in normal more intelligible. discourse. In a sense, the vocables of this theological billingsgate had lost some of One need not extenuate or exculpate their meaning, just as other and nonpro­ either the vocabulary or the vehemence of fessional profanities, obscenities, and vul­ Nicolai's polemics to stress that it does garities (then as now) were not intended not depict the image of the total man or to be taken with strict literalness. of even a significant part of that image. Nicolai's intrepid opposition to the Re­ One can likewise concede that his determi­ formed and Roman Catholic religions re­ nation and steadfastness of purpose some- ceived enthusiastic praise from his core­ 54 In the preface to the Spiegel dess bosen ligionists, few of whom seem to have seen Geistes he concludes that '"according to Calvin­ anything improper either in his method or ian theology our good Lord has in the Decalog neither covenant nor mouth nor virtue; in the in his vocabulary, By the same token, his articles of the Creed God the Father is power­ adversaries - especially the Reformed less, fatherless, and graceless; Jesus Christ has theologians - were vehemently critical of no person, no salvation, no scepter, no crown, no throne; the Holy Spirit is defenseless, peace­ both. In his own defense against their ac­ less, and groundless; in prayer they make Mary's cusations, Nicolai urged the seriousness of Son heedless, unhearing, and thoughtless; in the issues at stake and his own concern for holy baptism they make Him without blessing, without juice, without might; in the Holy Com­ the divine truth as he understood it and munion wordless, bodyless, bloodless. From which it follows that the poor layman who is 53 The half a hundred imitations of the taken in by the Calvinian religion can and must Morning-Star hymn that came out by 1650 is finally end up as nothing but godless, Christless, an impressive indication of its appeal. See Wil­ ruthless, heavenless, and comfortless." T etttsche helm Nelle, Geschichte des deutschen evange­ Schriften, ed. George Dedeken (Hamburg: lischen Kirchenliedes, 4th ed. (Hildesheim: Heinrich Carstens [Michael Hering}, 1617), 3, Georg Olms, 1962), p.89. 225. PHILIP NICOLAI 453 times through excess bordered on inflexi­ ecumenical thinking of Nicolai and of his bility. But he was also gentle, modest, Lutheran contemporaries. friendly, and humble, a dependable friend Nicolai shared the conviction of his and a trusted colleague, free of inordinate dme that the divine injunction to the ambition and lust for glory, a faithful pas­ apostles to go into the world and teach all tor who reinforced his admonitions with nations the Gospel had been fulfilled. The a life that was consistent with them, con­ demonstration that he provides in the scientiously dedicated to his priestly ser­ opening section of his Comrnentarii de vice, marked by devotion to truth, honesty, regno Christi illustrates this.57 Defective and integrity as well as by prudence, and as further experience proved Nicolai's devoted in his personal life to the expres­ world-picture to be, it represented the best sion toward his fellows of the love that geographic and cartographic information he found to be God's inmost essence. It accessible to a German clergyman of the i~, not '\vithout its significance for the eval- laSI decade of the 16th century for writing uation of his pacific Christian character his chronicle of the mag1zalia Christi, and that his colleagues in the ministry in Ham­ more recent research attests the conscien­ burg applied to him the self-description of tious and critical use that Nicolai made of the Doctor melli/ltttt.r of Clairvaux: his available sources. Nullum turbavi, discordes pacificavi; The line that leads to the 20th-century Laesus sustinui, nee mihi eomplaeui.55 missiological interest in the Commelltarii THE MrSSIOLOGIST de regno Christi represented by such per­ Although Nicolai's concern for the mis­ sons as Werner Elert (1885-1954), sion of the church is part of the ground Walter Holsten, and Willy Hess runs via bass of all his writing, even of his polem­ Wilhelm Lohe (1808-1872), who in his ical works, it comes out most clearly in his time derived mighty insight and inspira­ Commentarii de regno Christi. To dis­ tion from them. miss this work as only the deplorable aber­ The Commentarii de regno Christi are ration of a theologian-turned-apocalyptic­ an integral part of the rebuttal of the con­ date-setter 56 would miss its real import­ tendon that 16th and 17th-century Lu­ ance. Actually it is a document with sig­ theran orthodoxy was not interested in the nificant insights into the missiological and mission of the church. Essential to an understanding of Nicolai's predenomina­ 55 "Statement of the Senior of the Minis­ tional concern is the realization that for terium, the Pastors and All the Clergy of Ham­ him the Church of the Augsburg Confes­ bur," ibid., 1, folio biij verso. The Latin can be rendered: "1 upset no one, 1 brought peace sion is an integral part of the one holy to those in discord; when I was wounded, I con­ catholic and apostolic church of the tained my soul in patience, nor did I please my­ self." Creeds, not a new denomination with about a human lifetime of history behind 56 Comparable to Luther's venture into pro· phetic historiography near the end of his life iL As a part of the universal church, the in his SUjJputatio annorum mUlldi (Weimarer Ausgabe, 53, 22-184), which sees the end 57 The German version of Gotthard Artus of the world probably coming around the mid- regrettably abridges the Latin at a number of 16th century. points. 454 PHILIP NICOLAI

Church of the Augsburg Confession par­ Holy Roman Empire, he is sensitive to the ticipates in the total mission of the church. missionary opportunities that exist within The ecumeniciiy of the church is in turn Lutheran lands, notably Sweden-Finland a function of the divinely ordered means and Denmark-Norway-Iceland, where the of salvation through which God communi­ evangelization of unconverted tribes is still cates the Holy Spirit to human beings. a possibility. Wherever the Gospel is communicated in Nicolai has a sturdy faith in the evan­ such a way that it is recognizably still the gelistic effectiveness of the one mass me­ Gospel of God's redemptive and recon­ dium of the times, the printing press, and ciling act in Christ and the sacraments are he takes heart from the efforts of Primoz administered in such a way that Christ's Trubar (1508-1586) 58 and from the intention in instituting them is conserved translation of the Augsburg Confession and the faithful respond with their con­ into Georgian at the request of Joachim fession of the catholic faith, there is the von Sintzendorff for the information and one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. instruction of the Georgian prince Qar­ To the extent that these criteria of the qaras Hodabeg.59 He also sees the Lu­ church are present in the Roman Catholic theran community as being able to engage ecclesial community, in the Eastern Ortho­ in an international mission of evangeliza­ dox communion, and in the uN estorian" tion and renewal through the foreign stu­ and non-Chalcedonian churches, these are dents attending the Lutheran universities for Nicolai part of the church. By that of the empire. Through the Reformation token the missionary activity in which they and its stress on the forgiveness of sins by engage - even though none of them is grace for Christ's sake through faith, God, the church and all of them are only par­ as Nicolai views the situation, made the ticular churches - is authenic missionary Church of the Augsburg Confession the activity. Nicolai's overarching eschatologi­ spiritual center of the church and the theo­ cal orientation gives this insight an added logical arsenal for the church's mission to dimension. The entire reality of the church the world.60 never appears within a single narrow time frame but must be seen in the total­ 58 A Roman Catholic priest who converted partly still future - history of the holy to the Lutheran religion and became the creator community on earth. Again Nicolai recog­ of literary Slovenian through his translation of Lutheran literature into that language. nizes, as he observes in his evaluation of 59 Nicolai adds the touching suffrage: "I the Eastern Orthodoxy of the time, that pray for the Georgians with my whole heart, the world that the church must conquer and I have nothing so much in my prayers as may sometimes be limited by external cir­ that the unalloyed doctrine of the Gospel might be spread far and wide throughout Asia and cumstances to the world within the em­ the whole world." Opera latina, ed. George pirical church. Dedeken (Hamburg: Henricus Carstens [Mi­ chael HeringiusJ, 1617), 2, 10. While Nicolai sees political factors lim­ 60 See Willy Hess, Das Missio1ZSde1Zke1Z be; iting the foreign missionary activity of the Philipp Nicolai (Hamburg: Friedrich Wittig Lutheran territorial churches within the Verlag, 1962), especially pp. 159-65. PHILIP NICOLAI 455

THE THEOLOGIAN ical and patrIst1c learning and he was While the eschatological stress for thoroughly acquainted with the theological which Nicolai is best remembered may be literature of the times. He had an avid lacking somewhat in appeal for segments curiosity and a bent for originality that did of the church whose theological concern not shrink from novel theories or from is exhausted in an activistic program of new positions. His writings gained wide renewal and service - essential as such currency and exerted demonstrable influ­ programs are to the church's life - it is far ence.63 from precluding a theological concern with Nicolai is in many ways the kind of the here and now. Possibly it is the added theologian that we should expect in the dimension of Nicolai's eschatological stress second last decade of the 16th century in that the church most direly needs precisely Germany. His humanistic formation, his when the times require it to involve itself philosophical and theological training at in activistic programs. Erfurt and Wittenberg, and his contacts with Marburg under Giles Hunn show Although Nicolai receives only the through even in such works as the Freud­ barest mention in anything but highly spe­ enspiegel. To cite one instance, he begins cialized histories of religious thought,60 he this work with the questions An sit vita is no mean theologian."2 He possessed ex­ aeterna? ("Is there such a thing as ever­ ceptional qualities of mind and spirit. As lasting life?") and Quid sit vita aeterna? a scholar he drew on a rich store of class- ("What is everlasting life?"). He dis­ 60 Otto W. Heick, A History of Christian cusses the causa {malis of the divine in­ Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), dwelling in God's chosen ones under the 1, 471 and n. 3, merely mentions Nicolai's third property of everlasting life. Under name in connection with "the classic period of the Lutheran chorale." Eight lines farther on the fourth property the section headings he continues: "The chorale, as well as the music are all in Latin - God as objecturn viJUJ, of Schuetz and Bach, have [sic!] a mystic un· auditus, laetitiae, gusttts, odoratus, tactus, dertone. As a matter of fact, the language of Nicolai's hymn, '0 Morning Star, so Pure and summi amoris, beatissimae cognationis so Bright; is so saturated with the erotic lan­ ("the object of sight, of hearing, of re­ guage of Bernardian mysticism that, in an un· joicing, of taste, of smell, of touch, of the altered form, it is totally unacceptable today. But at the same time Nicolai ranks among the highest love, and of the most blissful foremost defenders of Lutheranism over against knowledge"). The third book of the T he- Calvinism." To this the footnote adds that Ni­ colai is also the author of the Freudenspiegel, 63 Sven Goransson, for instance, sees the "a devotional book written in the same erotic impact of Nicolai's theology on the politically language." Bengt Hagglund, History 0/ The­ and ecclesiastically influential Danish Chancellor ology, trans. Gene J. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia Holger Rosenkrantz (1575-1642) as a tan­ Publishing House, 1968), does not even refer gible factor in the transition of Danish-Nor­ to Nicolai. wegian Lutheranism from the moderate Mel· 62 The most recent survey of Nicolai's the­ anchthonianism of Nicholas Hemmingsen ology is that by Martin Lindstrom, Philip Ni­ (1513-1600), Curt Aslaksen (1564-1624), colais kristendomsolkni1Zg (Stockholm: Svenska and Bishop Mogens Madsen (1527-1611) to Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokforlag, 1937) , the Formula of Concord type orthodoxy repre· translated into German as Philipp N ieolais Ver­ sented by Bishop Hans Poulsen Resen (1561 to standnis des Christentums (Giitersloh: C. Bert­ 1638) and Bishop Jasper Rasmussen Brochmand elsmann Verlag, 1939). (1585-1652) . 456 PHILIP NICOLAI

oria vitae aeternae, to cite another exam­ church in general but for specific persons ple, which treats of rebirth, asks an et whom they knew in life and who are still quid sit regeneratio? and inquires into on the way. He naturally operates with the father (Christ) and the mother of the body-soul terminology, and his analo­ rebirth (the holy catholic church), the gies of theological truth that he derives "matter" of rebirth (the law and the Gos­ from the science of his day are as opaque pel), the causa administra ("the assisting and unpersuasive to the 20th century as cause") of rebirth (the sacred ministry), those of the ancient fathers or of the 16th­ the "form" of rebirth, the causa finalis of century reformers, but the process of the rebirth, the "effect" of rebirth, which it de­ individualization of the faith and of reli­ scribes as "the life of the reborn in the gion has not in Nicolai as yet crowded out lap of the church," the "object" of rebirth, the sense of community, even with refer­ the "accidents and concomitants" of re­ ence to his doctrine of the last things. birth (the daily bread of the Christians The theory of two primary Antichrists to and the cross that befalls them), the ad- which Nicolai stands consistently commit­ 1)ersantia of rebirth (Belial and his hosts), ted and which sees not only the Roman and the tempzts et exitus ("time and final papacy but also Islam as a primary Anti­ departure") of rebirth. christ is a significant qualification of the But Nicolai is no dry-as-dust theologian view that reads classic Lutheran thinking operating with inherited methods on in­ in the 16th and 17th centuries as demand­ herited questions to which he gives in­ ing the exclusive identification of the Anti­ herited answers. He has a healthy aware­ christ with the Roman papacy. ness of the limitations of the theologian's It would of course be quite feasible to knowledge; the frequent use of "mystery" take any set of treatise headings from a late in the titles and subtitles of Nicolai's works 16th- or early 17th-century Lutheran dog­ is a significant attestation of this. In his matics and to distribute among them per­ stress on the implications of the primordial tinent paragraphs and sections from Nico­ Biblical affirmation that God is love, Ni­ lai's theological works. The document that colai follows Luther in emphasizing that would emerge through this process would God is not an original or self-impelling be very much like the system that con­ cause of His fiery wrath by His own will tributed the outline. There might be a or pleasure, but that it is the viciousness few - but only a very few - chapters and sinfulness of the world in its acts missing. Difference in theological accent against love that, as it were, coerce and might make some of the chapters fairly compel God to such anger. His basic theo­ brief. Other chapters again would reflect logical orientation in the locus on the per­ the private genius of Nicolai, but the gen­ son of Christ determines his rejection of eral effect would be that of an orthodox an idea of "heaven" which makes it the Lutheran manual of systematic theology of top level of a three-deck universe. He re­ the period. jects the idea of soul-sleep and, wholly in This procedure, however, would occlude the spirit and letter of the Lutheran sym­ the specific contribution that Nicolai made bolical books, he sees the faithful departed to Lutheran theology through his gift for in the fatherland praying not only for the the unconventional organization of theo- PHILIP NICOLAI 457 logical data. Nicolai's concerns center in The unio mystica is a major theme of two areas, partly by personal inclination, Nicolai's theological work at least as far partly by circumstances, the doctrine of back as 1599, when he published his Christ and the doctrine of the last things. Freudenspiegel. With the publication of But what he has written are not merely his SacrfJSanctum omnipraesentiae Christi treatises on Christology and on eschatology mysterium in 1602 and of Theoria vitae but total theologies that take their or­ aeternae in 1606 he developed his position ganizing principle from Christology and further. The locus of the mystical union eschatology. It is instructive to see him for Nicolai is the image of God - strictly devise a theology that is genuinely Lu­ understood as the human being's primor­ theran - in the main impeccably lutheran dial holiness -lost in the "fall" but re­ - without making the justification of the stored in Christ, so that in Christ the hu­ sinner before God by grace for Christ's man being has a capacity for the divine sake through faith the center around which the whole system is built up. Not that he to 1875) and more critically analyzed by Isaak omits or slights the doctrine of justifica­ August Dorner (1809-1884). Thomasius in his Christi Person und Werk: DarstellNng def tion, but rather that he gives it its proper evangelisch-Iutherischen Dogmatik vom Mittel­ ancillary and instrumental place within a '/Junkte der Christologie aus, 2d ed., (Erlangen: system that is organized either around the Theodore BIasing, 1857), 2, 493-514, takes person and work of Christ or around the special cognizance of Nicolai's Grundfest von des streitigen Artikels von der Gege1~wart Jesu total and final salvation of mankind as Christi nach hei.den Naturen im Himmel und represented in God's holy community. auf Erden (1604). "In [this work} ," Thomasius The focus where these two concerns says, "Lutheran Christology returns to the pro­ found inwardness of its beginning and at the merge and where Nicolai makes his major end of its movement it once more gathers to­ constructive contribution is in the doctrine gether in itself in the most lively fashion all the of the mystical union of Christ and the practical motives out of which it was born and all the blossoms which it has brought forth. I believers. Here he develops a parallel be­ know of no other book out of a later period tween the hypostatic union of the deity that offers anything similar, although its method­ and humanity of Christ and the "spiritual ology finds an echo in the great ascetic writers of our church, like John Arndt and others" union" (unio pneumatica) of believers with (p.514). Thomasius also hears echoes in John Christ. This enabled him to give the doc­ Andrew Quenstedt (1617-1688), John Hillse­ trine of the communicatio idiomatum Cex­ mann (1602-1661), and John Meisner (1615 to 1684). Dorner in his EJztwicklungsgeschichte change of properties or qualities") an eth­ der Lehre von der Person Christi von den dltes­ ical significance and to extend the Lutheran ten Zeiten his auf die neueste Gegenwart, 2d ed., exception to the principle finitum non est 2 (Berlin: Gustav Schlawitz, 1853), 1779 to 87, cites especially the Grund/est and the Vef­ capax infiniti ("that which is infinite ex­ antwortung der Evangelischen Kirchen in Hol­ ceeds the capacity of that which is finite") land (1602). A 19th-century theologian whom beyond the incarnation of Christ to the Nicolai influenced profoundly was his biogra­ pher, Rudolf Rocholl (1822-1905), a pastor mystical union of the believers with successively in the territorial Church of Kur­ Christ.64 hessen-Waldeck, the territorial Church of Han­ over, and the Old-Lutheran Church (Breslau 64 Nicolai's contribution was appreciatively Synod). Rocholl argued for a biblical-theologi­ recognized in the mid-19th century by the Er­ cal realism in the doctrines of God, creation, langen theologian Gottfried Thomasius (1802 redemption, the Eucharist, and the last things. 458 PHILIP NICOLAI essence. Nicolai thinks of the God with necessary consequences, three mystical ef­ whom the believer is united both as the fects, or three kinds of mutual exchange. Trinity-in-essential-Unity and Christ as The first it pleases me to call a spiritual the celestial bridegroom. appropriation (idiopoeia) on the part of While the ultimate objective of the God, who takes the believer into himself, mystical union is rest in God, the achieve­ the second a spiritual transmutation (meta­ ment of this objective begins already in poeia) on the part of the human being the present age. The properties that Ni­ whom God takes into himself, and the colai finds in everlasting life participate in third a spiritual communization (koeno­ this simultaneous-eschatological quality, poeia) of God and the human being." 66 this already-but-not-yet existence. These In the mystical union the idiopoeia in­ include the mutual love of God and his volves that God takes on Himself as if they chosen ones, the likeness of the chosen were His very own both the sorrows of the ones to God, the perfected love that a Christian and his godly words, works, and Christian ideally has for his neighbor, and affections. The metapoeia imparts to the the perfect union that exists between Christian a share in the activity and powers Christ and his people. The indwelling of of God and of Christ. The kenopoeia so God in his chosen ones is marked by mu­ involves God and the human being in a tual love and mutual "knowledge." This pneumatic community of activity that the mutual ardent love is like the love of a one constantly thinks and acts along with newly married couple who will not rest the other. (It goes without saying that in until they have achieved perfect union in Nicolai's system none of this involves a marriage. "We who are believing Chris­ rejection of the essential difference be­ tians in this present time live both ab extra tween God and human beings, between the and ab intra, that is, externally in the Creator and His creatures, nor is any kind world and internally in the Holy Spirit. of absorption of the individual into an All . . . In my spiritual walk and in my in­ either suggested or implied. God remains terior celestial life I am in heaven and in God, and the human being remains the in­ the city of God that is above together with dividual human person that God created all the citizens of heaven:' 65 him to be.) Nicolai sees the mystical union as in­ For Nicolai there is a direct link be- volving analogously the same three aspects that the incarnation involved. Thus he af­ 66 Sacrosanctum omnipraesentiae Jesu Chris­ ti mysterium, Book I, Ch. 4, Opera latina, 1, firms of the mystical union that in it "God 210. The three nouns, idiopoeia, metapoeia, and and the human being grow so closely to­ koinol'oeia that Nicolai uses both for the three gether, are so closely joined, attached, and ge1tera of the incarnation and the analogous genera of the mystical union do not occur in united that they are not only one Spirit, classical or patristic Greek, but the verbs from one lump, and as it were one body, but which they are derived, idiopoie6, metapoiei5, also that out of this union and spiritual and koinopoieo, are not uncommon. It is in­ structive to study the patristic usc of these verbs connection of the two there emerge three at the hand of Geoffrey William Hugo Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, fascicle 3 (Oxford: 65 Theoria vitae aeternae, Book IV, Ch. 2, Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 664, 760-61, and Teutsche Schrifften, 1, part 2, pp. 216-17. 859-60. PHILIP NICOLAI 459 tween the Sacrament of the Altar and the is past, and the powers of my body are mystical union of the believer with Christ. no longer increasing. . . . But in the mean­ The Sacrament of the Altar nourishes the time I exult, I am triumphant (if I look mystical union. By receiving Christ's body at my good cause against the devil and his and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar scaly fish), and I rejoice in God my sal­ the communicant is united more intimately vation." 68 not only with all the other members of The second is his confession of faith Christ's body but also with the body's from Die erst Victoria (1599): Head. "I believe in [Christ's] holy name, and In all of these emphases Nicolai is not because I believe, I speak, and I will not unconsciously the heir of the medieval be ashamed of Him before His enemies. mystical tradition mediated to the com­ I believe that all the treasures of wisdom munity of the Augsburg Confession and knowledge lie hidden in Him, that the through Luther himself and through the Spirit of the Lord rests on Him, and that stream of mystical experience and expres­ the entire fulness of the Godhead dwells sion that linked the post-Reformation bodily in Him. I believe from my heart church with the pre-Reformation well­ and I confess with my mouth that He is springs of piety.67 a giant of twofold substance (Gigas gern­ inae substantiae), a person of two voices, NICOLAI'S CREDO true God and true man, our Redeemer and The three quotations with which this Savior, our Mediator and faithful Advo­ survey closes may serve as a summary of cate before God in high heaven, who on the private and public credo of Philipp the tree of the cross poured out His pre­ Nicolai. cious blood for the sin and the misdoing The first is from a letter - half Latin, of all human beings descended from Adam; half German - that he wrote to his brother that He has atoned for them all and has Jeremy about six months before his death: borne the wrath of His heavenly Father "I am in truth exhausted by the extent of for them all; and that, according to the my work. But I trust altogether in the literal meaning and the proper sense of Lord my God and in my most beloved the words of the Holy Communion, He Savior Christ who dwells through faith in gives His true body and His true blood my breast. His hand is not shortened. It is (in every place where this venerable sac­ His teaching, His majesty, His glory and rament is simultaneously celebrated and honor that are at stake. I am involved with observed) along with the consecrated bread floods, the ocean, tempests, and the ditch and wine to all the communicants, worthy of my literary labors. . . . Pray diligently and unworthy, to eat and to drink with for me, JUSt as I and mine pray for you. their mouths; that He is in all places pres­ God help me through this! My 51st year ent to His church on earth not only as a God, but also according to His assumed 67 In this connection see Werner Elert, Mor­ phologie des Luthertums, 2d ed. (Munich: C. H. human nature by virme of the hypostatic Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1952), 1, 135 -54, esp. pp. 140--46. 68 Quoted in Curtze, op. cit., pp. 257-58. 460 PHILIP NICOLAI union and the limitless power of the Al­ love, faith, and cordial confidence that I mighty; [and} that He nIls all things and owe Him." 69 has heaven as His throne and the earth as The third is the voice of hope speaking His footstool. . . . against hope from the preface to SaC1'osanc­ "I have recalled the great mercy, faith­ tum omnipraesentiae Jesu Christi mys­ terium (1602): fulness, and acts of kindness that I en­ "I do not wholly despair of the reunifi­ counter from my faithful Savior, how in cation of the dissenting churches, no mat­ ardent love He humbled Himself so low ter how embittered the hearts of the con­ for my sake and poured out His precious tending theologians on both sides may blood for me, how He forgives me my seem. Christ still lives, and the Lord God misdeeds, and acknowledges me as His be­ of hosts can bring it about that when the loved brother, how He protects me from souls of those who oppose one another are all misery, lives through faith in my heart, penetrated, filled, and occupied by the and concerns Himself about my wretched­ light of trod1, all doubts, darkness, and ness and my adversity as if the apple of controversies will be cleared out of the His eye were being touched, how together way, and the Belgian [-Dutch}, Swiss, with the Father and the Holy Spirit He French, English, Scottish, and Polish is one mass with me, one Spirit, one body, churches can be joined together in one and in addition my mighty fortress, my body with the churches that receive the shield, my place of refuge, my salvation, Augsburg Confession and the Christian my life, the joy of my heart, my crown, [Book of} Concord as their symbols." 70 my peaceful rest, [and} my everlasting St. Louis, Mo. good, to whom I am forever bound, united, and obligated through the covenant of His 69 Teutsche Schrifften, 3, 580. everlasting love and through the reciprocal 70 Opera latina, 1,188.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Encyclopdia of the Lutheran Church, ed. Nicolai, Philip. Brster (Ander, Dritter, Julius Bodensieck. Minneapolis: Augs­ Vierdter) Theil alter Teutschen Schrifften burg Publishing House, 1965. Vol. 3, des weyland ehrwirdigenn hochgelarten pp.1751-52. Herrn Philippi Nicolai . .. /leissig coUi­ CurtZe, Ludwig Friedrich Christian. D. Phi­ giret und in Ordmmg gebracht durch M. lipp Nicolai's Leben und Lieder nach den Georgium Dedekermum. Hamburg: Hein­ Quellen. Halle: J. Fricke, 1859. rich Carstens (Michael Hering), 1617. Dedeken, George. Trauerpredigt fur Philipp Nicolai, Philip. Tomus primus (secundus) Nicolai, Pastor zu St. Catharinen, Ham­ operum latinorum reverendi et clarissimi burg. [Hamburg:}, n. p., 1608. A Latin viri Dn. Philippi Nicolai . .. collectorum version of this sermon is printed in Hen­ et in ordinem redactorum per M. Gear­ ning Witte, Memoriae theologorum nos­ gium Dedekennum. Hamburg: Henricus tri seculi clarissimorum renovatae decas Carstens (Michael Heringius), 1617. prima (Frankfurt: Martinus Hallervord, 1674), pp.31-37, under the title "Me­ Secondary works moria viri reverendi et clarissimi Dn. Phi­ Buszin, Walter E. "Nicolai, Philipp," The lippi Nicolai . . . die 26. Octobr. . . . PHILIP NICOLAI 461

1608 ... denati, renovata et translata ex title Philipp Nicolais Verstandnis des Germanica condone funebri habita." Christentums (Giitersloh: C. Bertelsmann, Hess, Willy. Vas Missionsdenken bei Philipp 1939). Nicolai. Hamburg: Friedrich Wittig Ver­ Rocholl, Rudolf. Vas Leben Philip Nico­ lag, 1962. lais, weiland Pfarrherrn zu Wildungen, Holsten, Walter. "Die Bedeumng der alt­ Unna und Hamburg. Berlin: Gustav protestantischen Dogmatik fur die Mis­ Schlawitz, 1860. sion." In: Walter Holsten, editor, Vas Rupprecht, Oliver. "Two Giants of Lutheran Bvangelium und die Volker: Beitrage fiir Hymnody." In Lutheran Education, 94 Geschichte und Theorie der Mission. Ber­ (1958), 191-94. lin-Friedenau: Gossner'sche Buchhand­ Schultze, Victor. "Nicolai, Philipp," Real­ lung, 1939. encyklopadie fUr protestantische Theologie Hubner, Heinrich. Philipp Nicolai, ein und Kirche, 1 (1904), 28-32. Sanger, Troster, und Wachter der luther­ Schultze, Victor. Philipp Nicolai: Zum Ge­ ischen Kirche. Elberfeld: Verlag des Lu­ dachtnis seines 300 jahrigen Todestages. therischen Biichervercins, 1908. Mengeringhausen: Weige1sche Hofbuch­ Kirchner, Johannes. Philipp Nikolai, der druckerei, 1908. Sanger des letzten Wachterliedes: Ein Schunke, Siegfried. Bild seines Lebens und Wirkens. Giiters­ Philipp Nice!:!i: Bin Wachter der Kirche im Zeitalter der Or­ loh: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1907. tbodoxie. Gladbeck: Schriftenmisslons­ Koch, Eduard Emil. Geschichte des Kirch­ Verlag, 1959. en/jeds und Kirchengesangs der christ­ lichen, insbesondere der deutschen evan­ Dberhorst, Karl Ulrich. Die Theologie Ru­ gelischen, Kirche. 3d edition. Stuttgart; dolf Rocholls: Eine Untersuchung zum Chr. Belser'sche Verlagshandlung, 1867. Universalismus der gottlichen Heilsveran­ Vol. 2, pp. 324-41. staltung. Berlin: Lutherisches Verlags­ Lacher, Walter. Philipp Nicolai. Leipzig: haus, 1963. Part I, Chapter 2, Nicolai, Gustav Schloessmanns Verlagsbuchhand­ pp. 47-61. lung (Gustav Fick), 1937. Wendt, Hans Heinrich. Dr. Philipp Nicolai, Lindstrom, Martin. Philipp Nicolais kristen­ Hauptpastor zu St. Catharinen in Ham­ domstolkning. Stockholm: Svenska Kyr­ burg: Vorlesungen gehalten auf Veran­ kans Diakonistyrelses Bokforlag, 1937. lassung des Vereins fiir Hamburgische The German version appeared under the Geschichte. Hamburg: Nolte, 1859.