THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
DRAESEKE, dre-si'ke, JOHANN HEINRICH BERNHARD : German preacher; b. at Brunswick Jan. 18, 1774; d. at Potsdam Dec. 8, 1849. He studied at the University of Helmstadt, where he was influenced by humanitarianism rather than by rationalism, and during this period wrote a drama which was produced at Dresden, while in his Das Heilige auf der Biihne (1817) he defended the representation of sacred subjects on the stage. At the age of twenty-one he was called as deacon to Molln, being made preacher three years later, and being appointed pastor of Ratzeburg in 1804. There he published his Predigten fiir denkende Verehrer Jesu (5 vols., Liineburg, 1804-12) and his catechetical Glaube, Liebe und Hoffnung (1813), while his patriotic sermons caused such excitement that he narrowly escaped arrest by French troops. In 1814 he was called to Bremen, and to this period belong his Predigten uber Deutschlands Wiedergeburt (3 vols., Liineburg, 1814); Predigt- Entwurje uber freie Texte (2 vols., Bremen, 1815); Ueber die letzten Schicksale unseres Herrn (2 vols., Liineburg, 1816); Ueber frei gewdhlte Abschnitte der heiligen Schrift (4 vols., 1817-18); Christus an das Geschlecht dieser Zeit (1819); Gemdlde aus der heiligen Schrift (4 vols., 1821-28); and Vom Reich Gottes, Betrachtungen nach der heiligen Schrift (3 vols., Bremen, 1830). The political tone of his sermons, however, caused many of them to be suppressed by the authorities. His addresses on the kingdom of God, on the other hand, attracted the attention of Frederick William III., and when Westermaier, bishop of Saxony, died in 1832, Draseke was appointed to fill the vacancy. As bishop he gained wide popularity by his eloquence, impartiality, and geniality. Avoiding the extremes of rationalism, on the one hand, and Pietism, on the other, he was welcomed as a true Evangelical. The year 1840, however, brought an eventful change, when the assertion of a rationalistic pastor named Sintenis that prayer should not be offered to Christ forced Draseke to take a decided stand. The government checked the episcopal protest, but the rationalistic attacks were pushed so far that Draseke felt that his usefulness was at an end. In 1843 the king permitted him to resign, and he spent the remainder of his life in Potsdam. The only occasion on which he came again before the public was in 1845, when he signed the protest of Sydow, Jonas, and others against the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung. His Nachgelassene Schriften IV.— 1
were edited by T. H. T. Draseke (2 vols., Magdeburg, 1850-51).
The earliest theological position of Draseke was the humanism of Herder on a Pelagian basis, where Christianity was merely the highest product of the human race; but gradually he attained a more positive attitude, and a deeper insight into the depths of the soul. As a preacher he must be reckoned among the foremost of German pulpitorators, rising from restriction to the higher cultivated classes to a more popular and intelligible style which attracted all types of men.
(August THOLucKf.)
Bibliography: His life is in ADB, v. 373 sqq.
DRAGON: A mythical creature, belief in the existence of which is attested by the folk-lore and literature of nearly all nations, ancient and modern. The creature is usually, but not always, pictured as a modified serpent, with legs and feet terminating in talon-like claws, and it is generally regarded as hostile to gods and the human species. Its habitat is variously described: in the heaven, where it often is regarded as causing the eclipse of the sun and the moon; on the earth, where it inhabits deserts, mountain recesses, and places nearly or quite inaccessible to man; and the sea, whence it issues to work evil or to receive an offering which alone averts its anger and the destruction consequent upon this (cf. the Greek story of Perseus). As an agent of evil it is sometimes assigned in myths to the guardianship of things precious or under the care of wizards, witches, or wonder-workers (cf. the Greek story of Medea and the Golden Fleece). By a transformation not usual in the development of religion, it sometimes attains to a position of honor in the religion of the people and becomes beneficent (as in China), and indeed receives worship and honor (cf . Bel and the Dragon, which, though unhistorical, yet attests the possibility of existence of such a cult; see Apocrypha, A, IV., 3). Tiamat, the representative of chaos in Babylonian mythology, is perhaps the earliest form in which this belief has gained mention in extant literature; the dragoncharacter of Tiamat hardly admits of question, in spite of the doubts of Baudissin (Hauck-Herzog, RE, v. 4 sqq.), based largely on the fact that serpentine form was not given to this creature in the monuments — the character of hostility to the gods is well marked. The existence of belief in dragons in other Semitic realms is easily susceptible of
Dragon
Dress and Ornament, Hebrew