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Fortunes of an Eighteenth-Century Translator erudition and the republic of letters 2 (2017) 396-430 brill.com/erl August Tittel (1691–1756): The (Mis)fortunes of an Eighteenth-Century Translator Asaph Ben-Tov Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt [email protected] Abstract August Tittel, a Lutheran pastor, translator, ‘minor author’, and fugitive, was best known to contemporaries for his German translation of Humphrey Prideaux’s The Old and New Testament Connected and for his turbulent life. Together with his print- ed oeuvre, Tittel’s extant correspondence, especially with his patron Ernst Salomon Cyprian, allow us a close scrutiny of the life and work of a minor and troublesome member of the Republic of Letters. Despite its peculiarities, there is much in his car eer which is indicative of broader trends in early eighteenth-century scholarship, e.g. networks of patronage and a German interest in Jansenist and English biblical scholar- ship, theology, and confessional polemics. This view of the Republic of Letters ‘from below’ sheds light on a class of minor scholars, which often evades the radar of modern scholarship, but was an essential part of the early modern Republic of Letters. Keywords August Tittel – Ernst Salomon Cyprian – Humphrey Prideaux – translation – Saxony – precariat Someone must have been telling lies about August Tittel. In fact there were two of them, and they may not have been telling lies. Following charges * I wish to thank the anonymous reader for Erudition and the Republic of Letters for corrections and instructive comments. Needless to say, I am alone responsible for any remaining errors and misconceptions. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/24055069-00204002Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:55:46AM via free access <UN> August Tittel (1691–1756) 397 made by the commissioner August Franz von Essen1 and the superintendent Johann David Strohbach, both of the small town of Gommern near Mag deburg, Tittel, a Lutheran pastor of the nearby village of Plötzky, was accused of lèse majesté for allegedly contesting the right of his sovereign, the Duke of Elec- toral Saxony Friedrich August i, to decree on religious affairs. The Saxon ruler, it will be noted, had converted to Catholicism in 1697 to enable his election as king of Poland—in which capacity he is better known today as August ii or August the Strong. To make things worse, Tittel was also accused of writing slanderous pamphlets against the Pietist court preacher in Dresden, Bernhard Walther Marperger (1682–1746).2 Indeed, Tittel’s contacts in Hamburg with Sebastian Edzard and Erdmann Neumeister, both pugnacious Orthodox Lu- theran polemicists, rendered him all the more suspicious. He was arrested in 1728.3 At the time, the embattled pastor was thirty-seven, married, and with children. Awaiting trial, he penned a defence, Dringende Ehren-Rettung (An Urgent Vindication), a piece as fiery as the alleged utterances which had got him into trouble in the first place.4 The charges of lèse majesté, he informed his readers, were dismissed in a hearing presided over by August the Strong himself. As to seditious writings, this charge, too, he flatly denied, though he admitted he may have been too outspoken in his sermons.5 This was disingen- uous. Among Tittel’s writings circulating anonymously in manuscript in the mid-1720s was his Wehklage (Lament), reproduced and discussed in Agatha Kobuch’s study of censorship in Electoral Saxony.6 As this litany of rhyming couplets shows, Tittel’s discontent with, and blatant disrespect for, Saxon authorities were not confined to matters of religion. In this work, which he confessed to have written after his arrest, while prudently avoiding direct criti- cism of the monarch, Tittel inveighed harshly, if somewhat crudely, against the 1 August von Essen, father of the better known Saxon diplomat of the same name, was to become Oberamtmann in Dresden (1732) and Hof- and Justizrat (1747). See Neue Deutsche Biographie (henceforth ndb) s.v. 2 On Marperger, see Wolfgang Sommer, Die lutherischen Hofprediger in Dresden. Grundzüge ihrer Geschichte und Verkündigung im Kurfürstentum Sachsen (Stuttgart, 2006), 263–79. 3 On Tittel’s arrest I follow Agatha Kobuch, Zensur und Aufklärung in Kursachsen. Ideologische Strömungen und politische Meinungen zur Zeit der sächsisch-polnischen Union (1697–1763) (Weimar, 1988), at 215f. 4 August Tittel, Dringende Ehren-Rettung M. August Tittels bißherigen gefangenen Priesters von Plötzky gegen die Gommerschen Ankläger, den Hn. Commiss. Rath und Amtmann daselbst, August Franz Essenium, und Herrn Superintendenten, M. Joh. David Strobachen, wegen der in Dessau an- und ausgebrachten vielen Schmähungen öffentlich ans Licht gestellet (s.l. 1728). 5 Ibid., A2v–A3r. 6 Kobuch, Zensur und Aufklärung in Kursachsen, 256–61 discussed at 218f. erudition and the republic of letters 2 (2017) 396-430Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:55:46AM via free access <UN> 398 Ben-Tov ruling class of Electoral Saxony. The judges were venal, the taxation unjust, and, perhaps most interestingly, Tittel openly championed the cause of Saxon peasants. Oh God! Who will help me lament The sorrow I must vent, The current utter misery Of the Land of Saxony. The King is now mislead Our land is sore deceived. Oppressed are the poor The rich man sits secure.7 Inspired in part by the social critique Tittel knew all too well from the Old Testament Prophets to whom he referred frequently in his writings and, presumably, in his sermons—moral corruption, the venality of judges, etc.— his scathing criticism of the exploitation of Saxon peasants was particularly poignant and concerned, among other things, the freedom of political protest: The peasants must endure There is nothing they can do. Against their yoke, if they protest This would lead to their arrest. Wish they to complain, First they must ascertain Whether complaining to the down-trodden crowd By their betters is allowed. The magistrates to their fill Fleece the peasants at their will. […] Words are of no avail No entreating can prevail. The magistrate has the right, The peasant, his slave, deep in plight.8 7 Kobuch, Zensur und Aufklärung, 257. ‘Ach Gott, wer helf mir klagen,/ Das, was ich hier muß sagen,/ Vom armen Sachsenland,/ Dem miserablen Stand./ Der König wird belogen,/ Das Land, das wird betrogen,/ Der Arme wird gepreßt/ Der Reiche setzt sich fest’. 8 Kobuch, Zensur und Aufklärung, 261. ‘Die Bauern müssens leiden/ Sie könnens nicht ver- meiden./ Klagen sie übers Joch,/ So steckt man sie ins Loch./ Ja, wollten sie auch klagen,/ erudition and the republic ofDownloaded letters from 2 Brill.com09/27/2021(2017) 396-430 02:55:46AM via free access <UN> August Tittel (1691–1756) 399 To make things worse, this lampoon did not make do with general complaints; it named several high-ranking ministers, whom Tittel considered personally responsible for Saxony’s malaises. Among them were prominent figures at the Dresden court such as the Hofmarschall Woldemar von Löwendal, Count Jakob Heinrich von Flemming, chairman of the Dresden ministry of War and cabinet-minister, the privy councillor Ludwig Alexander von Seebach, and the privy councilor Count Friedrich Vitzthum von Eckstädt about whom Tittel re- marked contemptuously: What Witzthum must have studied, From whence his wisdom was added, No one knows—for not a trace Of Latin does this minister grace. And lacking the qualifications required To the ministerial post he has aspired. A cabinet minister, no less! Small wonder we’re in such a mess.9 The diatribe concluded with the pious hope that God would smite these prom- inent evil-doers at the Dresden court. Clearly, the outspoken pastor of Plötzky was making powerful enemies in the years leading up to his arrest. To begin at the beginning:10 August Tittel was born in 1691 in the Saxon village of Döbra near Pirna, some fifteen miles south-east of Dresden, where his father, Jacob Tittel was a preacher. Taught at first by his father and private instructors, he later attended school in nearby Glashütte. After his father’s death the family received some support from the authorities in Pirna.11 In addition, Tittel found a patron in Dresden in the Baron von Friesen. He visit ed So müßten sie erst fragen/ Obs ihnen sei erlaubt/ zu klagen widers Haupt./ Die Ambtleute, die sind Herren/ Die da die Bauern scheren./ Es sei nun, wie ihm sei,/ Ihnen steht alles frei/ […] Da hilfet gar kein Sagen/ Kein Bitten und kein Klagen./ Der Ambtmann hat das Recht,/ Der Bauer bleibt sein Knecht.’ 9 Kobuch, Zensur und Aufklärung, 257. ‘Was Witzthum hat studieret,/ Woher die Klugheit rühret/ Weiß niemand. Ohne Latein/ mus er Minister sein./ Obgleich ihm alles fehlet/ So ist er doch erwehlet,/ Im Cabinet er sitzt/ Drum gehet es verfitzt.’ 10 The biographical information is taken mostly from Johann Anton Trinius, Beytrag zu einer Geschichte berühmter und verdienter Gottesgelehrten auf dem Lande. Aus glaubwürdigen Urkunden und Schriften vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1751), 629–36 and Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Universal- Lexicon (Halle and Leipzig, 1731–1754), s.v. 11 In 1725 Tittel, by then a graduate of the University of Leipzig and a pastor in his mid- thirties, dedicated a theological-philological exposition on Matthew 24:28 to the consules erudition and the republic of letters 2 (2017) 396-430Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:55:46AM via free access <UN> 400 Ben-Tov the Electoral school in Meissen for another five years before matriculating at the University of Leipzig in 1709.12 Three years later Tittel tutored the sons of the crown equerry (Oberstallmeister) von Thielau as well as other aristocrats— among them, in all likelihood, the sons of Gabriel Tzschimmer, historian, privy councillor, and mayor of Dresden,13 as well as those of count von Callenberg.
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