THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
necting it with freemasonry. Lodges already in existence were quietly brought under the rule of the Illuminati, and new lodges were established in which the degrees of the Illuminati were treated as higher grades of masonry. By identifying itself with freemasonry, the order was largely increased, freed from financial difficulties, and protected from persecution. In 1780 the Marquis Von Constanzo (Diomedes) succeeded in winning at Frankfort Baron Adolf von Knigge, to whom the Illuminati owed the complete structure of their system as well as the larger part of their adherents in Middle and North Germany. Three classes of Illuminati were now formed, one of novices and " minervals," one of freemasons, and one of the students of the mysteries.
The most successful apostle of the order besides Knigge was Bode, a councilor of Duke Ernst of Gotha, who, in Thuringia and Saxony, as well as on the Rhine, secured numerous men of high rank — scholars, poets, and even princes. The movement soon extended from Italy to Denmark, from Warsaw to Paris; the number of members is estimated at 2,000. Goethe, Herder, Ernst II. of Gotha, Karl August of Weimar, Ferdinand of Brunswick, the Prince of Wied, and other secular and spiritual lords were at some time either actual members of the order or counted on its list. But it was inevitable that the morally offensive character of the order and its danger to the state should be detected. In Aug., 1784, a decree was issued in Bavaria prohibiting all secret societies. Embittered by the ungratefulness and arrogance of Weishaupt, Knigge had retired from the order in 1784. Weishaupt now lost his position at the university and went to Regensburg, then to Gotha, where Duke Ernst granted him the salary of a privy councilor. In 1785, after the discovery of the moral baseness of the order from secret correspondence of Weishaupt, a sharp persecution began which soon brought the whole institution to collapse.
Paul Tschackeht.
Bibliography: For a list of literature on the subject consult G. Kloss, Bibliographie der Freimaurerei, nos. 3211- 3275, Frankfort, 1844. The sources are the works of Weishaupt, of which the principal ones are V ollslandige Geschichte der Verfolgung der Illuminaten, Frankfort, 1786; Apologie der Illuminaten, ib., 1787; Das verbesserte System, ib., 1787; Kurze Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten, with Nachtrag, ib., 1787; Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens, Munich, 1786; System und Folgen des IIluminatenordens, ib., 1787; Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo, ib., 1794. Consult also: J. P. L. de la Roche du Maine, Essai sur la secte des Illuminees, Paris, 1792; J. A. Stark, Triumph der Philosophie, ii. 259 sqq., Regensburg, 1847; H. Bruck, Die rationalistischen Bestrebungen im katholischen Deutschland, Mainz, 1865.
ILLUMINATION (Lat. illuminatio ; Gk. photismos): In Protestant dogmatics a name of a part of the ordo salutis (see Order of Salvation), signifying an activity of the Holy Spirit closely connected with the Calling (q.v.). So far as the New-Testament usage of photismos and photizein is concerned, it may be said, on the one hand, that the light brings forth ethical fruits in the children of light (Eph. v. 9-10; cf. Isa. ii. 5, be. 3), and, on the other, that these children, as instruments appointed by God, illuminate the world and convert
it unto God and his light (Matt. v. 14, 16; II Cor. iv. 5-6; cf. Rom. ii. 19; Acts xxvi. 18). But the real illuminator is Christ, the true light (John i. 9cf. II Tim. i. 10). The apostolic preaching of the Gospel is itself " illumination," and its purpose is " to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ " (II Cor. iv. 6). The Christians, accordingly, are those who have been " once enlightened " (Heb. vi. 4, x. 32). It is important for the mystical conception that illumination and contemplation take place only upon the basis of a moral purification. It was significant for Protestant theology that Luther in his Smaller Catechism inserted the illumination in the ordo salutis (" calls, gathers, illumines, sanctifies "). The Apology and the Formula of Concord represent the illumination as taking place through the Word, and regard it as a fanatical error to teach an illumination without the Word. This difference gives the conception its peculiar stamp: the illumination is subordinated to the calling and is effected only through the Word. And this is the reason, too, why the older Protestant dogmaticians use the term only occasionally. Hollaz was the first to give it a place of its own in the ordo salutis {Examen theologicum, Stockholm, 1741, pp. 813 sqq.). This is due to the importance which the illumination received in the mystical and Pietistic literature. For Hollaz, in introducing the idea, takes the position that the illumination may be present in an imperfect degree in the human intellect without any sanctification of the will. Johann Arndt, however, in his Bilcher vow, wahren Christentum (Magdeburg, 1610), defends the mystical usage of the term rejected by Hollaz, declaring that the Holy Spirit illuminates only those who renounce the world and on this wise follow Christ (I. xxxvii. 16, xxxix. 4, III. i. 2, 11). In this way the illumination is made a special divine act, surpassing the vocation, inasmuch as it is realized only in the case of those who "desist from all that which God himself is not, from oneself and all creatures," "and keep their inmost souls pure from the creatures and the world. Thus God illuminates from within, for all must stream forth from within God's being. This inner light then shines forth in the works " (III., xi.). It is from the point of view of this opposition that the view of Hollaz is to be understood. The conception of Hollaz was also that of the Pietistic dogmaticians: " illumination itself consists in this, that the Holy Ghost in his light by means of the Word of God pictures and makes known heavenly truth to the human understanding with such clearness, force, and conviction that man thereby recognizes it as truth, believes it with divine assurance, and thus knows what God has graciously given him, and is able to judge spiritual things spiritually " (Freylinghausen, Grundlegung der Theologie, p. 166, Halle, 1705). The same is true also of the rationalistic dogmaticians (e.g., Wegscheider, Institutions theologice, Halle, 1815, § 158, pp. 497-498). In the same direction, moreover, tend the views of the more modern dogmaticians so far as they employ the term at all (e.g., Dorner, Glaubenslehre, ii. 2, p. 727, Berlin, 1881, and, especially, Frank, System der Christlicheii Wahrlieit, ii. 333, Leipsic, 1894).