RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Leger Leibnitz
LEGION, THE THUNDERING. See Marcus
AXJKELIUS.
LEHNIN PROPHECY: A poem in 100 leonine verses, preserved in manuscript in Berlin, Breslau, Dresden, Gottingen, Greifswald, and elsewhere, prophesying the fortunes of the House of Brandenburg until after 1700. It is ascribed to a monk named Herman, who is said to have lived in the Cistercian abbey of Lehnin (14 m. w.s.w. of Potsdam) in the thirteenth or fourteenth century; but the post-medieval Latinity and the content of the poem forbid its attribution to either Herman II. (1257-72) or Herman III. (1335-42), both of whom were abbots of the monastery. The prophecy begins with a lament on the early fall of the Askanian dynasty, touches briefly on the Wittelsbachs and Luxemburgs ruling Brandenburg, recounts the transfer of power to the burgraves of Nuremberg, sketches briefly the first four of the Hohenzollerns, and then pauses to express hostility to the favor shown Lutheran doctrines by Joachim I. and to the secularization of Lehnin by Joachim II. The five following electors are also clearly indicated, but here the author loses sure historic ground. Frederick I. does not win a crown; Frederick William I. resolves to enter a monastery; and Frederick the Great is.drowned after a reign of misfortune. The Hohenzollern line ends with Frederick William III., when Germany receives a Roman Catholic sovereign.
The poem's hostility to Prussia and its ultramontanism are self-evident, but its authorship is still a problem. It has been assigned to at least six: an unknown monk or priest between 1688 and 1700; Andreas Fromm (d. 1685), Lutheran abbot at Cologne-on-the-Spree, but deprived of office in 1666 because of hostility to the Reformed Church, and a convert to Roman Catholicism at Prague in 1668; Friedrich Seidel (d. 1693), councilor of the supreme court of judicature and consistorial assessor at Berlin; the adventurer and catholicizing pseudoprophet Oelzen (d. 1725); the Jesuit F Wolf, chaplain, for a time, of the Austrian embassy at Berlin during the last years of the great elector (1685-86); and the Roman Catholic convert Nikolaus von Zitzewitz, abbot of Huysberg, near Halberstadt (1692-1704). Even after the spurious nature of the Lehnin prophecy was known, it was repeatedly used in anti-Prussian polemics. Thus, in the crisis of Prussia after the disasters of Jena and Auerstadt, the speedy fall of the Hohenzollerns was proclaimed in various anonymous pamphlets based on this document; and in like manner the period immediately preceding and following the Revolution of 1848 called forth an abundance of literature of similar character. (O. Zockler f.)
Bibliography: The edition princeps was published in Das gelehrte Preussen, vol. ii., Thorn, 1722; an edition in Lat. and Germ, appeared, Regensburg, 1873. For the literature on it consult E. W. Sabell, Die Literatur der . . . lehninschen Weissagung, Heilbronn, 1879, and British Museum Catalogue, " Hermannus, Abbot of Lehnin." Consult also: B. Schmidt, Die Weissagung des Hermann von Lehnin, Berlin, 1820; C. L. Gieseler, Die lehninsche Weissagung, Erfurt, 1849; O. Wolff, Die beruhmte lehninsche Weissagung, Grunberg, 1850; A. Hilgenfeld, Die lehninsche Weissagung iiber die Mark Brandenburg, Leipsic, 1875; J. Schrammen, Des Hermanns aus
Lehnin Prophezeiung, Cologne, 1887; Hermens, Kloster Lehnin und seine Weissagung, Barmen. 1888.
LEIBNITZ, laib'nics.
Early Life and Workc (§ 1). Metaphysical Doctrine (§ 2). Religious Views (§ 3). Efforts for Church Union (§ 4).
Gottfried Wilhelm (after 1709 Freiherr von) Leibnitz, one of the most distinguished of German philosophers, was born at Leipsic July 1, 1646, and died at Hanover Nov. 14, 1716. After studying jurisprudence, mathematics, and phii. Early losophy at Leipsic and Jena, he en- Life and tered the service of the elector of Works. Mainz in 1666, in which he held various positions, being occupied chiefly with jurisprudence. In 1672 he went to Paris, ostensibly as tutor to Baron von Boyneburg's sons, but his real purpose was to divert the attention of Louis XIV from plans against Germany. After a visit to London he settled in Paris till 1676, occupying himself principally with mathematics and natural science. His great mathematical discovery, the differential calculus, dates back to 1676, though it was not published till 1684. In 1676 he accepted an offer from the Duke of Brunswick to settle at Hanover as librarian and historiographer. Here he resided during the remainder of his life. Charged with writing the history of the house of Brunswick, he made various journeys in Germany and Italy and gathered an immense amount of material. The fruits of these labors were, Codex juris gentium diplomaticus (2 vols., Hanover, 1693-1700), Accessiones historical (2 vols., 1698-1700), Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium (3 vols., 1701-11), and the unfinished Annates imperii occidentis Brunsvicenses (ed. G. H. Perz, 3 vols., 1843—46). Along with these historical studies he wrote a large number of mathematical, philosophical, and theological treatises, published mostly in Acta eruditorum, Journal des Savants, and Miscellanea Berolinensia. He also carried on extensive etymological investigations and published Collectanea etymologica (1717).
It was through Leibnitz that German philosophy first came into its own. The starting-point of his speculations was the conviction that 2. Meta- the world is not to be explained in the physical last analysis as a mechanism. Things Doctrine, in nature do not act upon one another through the mediation of some external force, but are ultimately self-determining. Reality is spiritual, and consists of a plurality of simple, independent monads, whose activities and relations to one another were predetermined by the wisdom of God. To use his form of expression, the monads have ho windows through which they may receive external impressions. On the contrary, each monad, as a psychical entity, and center of intellectual activity, is a mirror of the universe. The human body is an aggregate of monads; the soul is the dominating central monad. God is the monad monadum. By regarding ultimate reality as entirely spiritual in essence, Leibnitz overcame the difficulty of Descartes' dualism, involving the relation of mind to body; and for the cumbersome
Leibnitz
Leipsic, Colloquy of