el THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ee
is man himself ” (Gnothe Seauton, p. 39). Therefore there is but one discerning principle and one corresponding task, viz., to know oneself. As main support for his theory, he adduces the proper distinction of knowledge: “for if discernment emanated and issued from the object, and not from the seeing eye, then there must also follow similar and equivalent perceptiveness or discernment from an object itself: be the matter of eyes howsoever it would ” (p. 28). From this natural knowledge and its conscious, practical entity, Weigel distinguishes a “ supernatural ” knowledge by the fact that man’s part in the inception and outcome is aroused by means of the object. Only here, in turn, the process rests in the subject’s productivity: save that this now becomes identified with the indwelling Spirit of God. Consequently, Weigel affiliates with those men who define the principle of religious knowledge and spiritual potency as the inward natural possession of every man; and he advocates the theory of the inner word, or of the spirit in its naturalistic form. Weigel deduces all the negative consequences of this view, such as rejection of the word of Scripture, mediating office, or channels of grace, the preaching office, external church fellowship, learned theological study with all its pains, but most of all, the conditioning of religious notions and piety about a defined historical point of departure, like that in Christianity. In place of this, he elaborated a pantheistic and gnostic theosophy on vast lines, merely assimilating his vocabulary to Christian terminology. His main outlines are as follows:
God and the All are coincident in the present. Not every existence of God before the world is to be necessarily denied, but God comes to himself, to
personal and active being, primarily
5. Doctrine in and with the world. ‘ Absolutely of God. alone and for himself, apart from all creatures, God is and continues impersonal, detached from time and place, void of energy, will, and feeling; and so he is neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Ghost. God is eternity itself, apart from time; he hovers and abides in himself about all places; neither works nor wills nor desires, save that in, with, and through the creature he becomes personally effectual, volitional, desirous; he acquires emotion, or suffers the attributes of persons and feeling to be assigned to him ”’ (from the manuscript: Von der Seligmachenden erkentnus Gottes). Thisimmanency of God is differentiated only as the matter is one of good or of evil, of the outward world or of men, the kingdom of nature or that of grace. While ideas of chaos, or the negation of the cosmic order, as also the assumption of an eternity, or of a gradual emanation of the world through intermediate stages, do not appear sharply and consistently developed, evil is regarded as a necessary concomitant phenomenon of the creature state of being. The essence of sin is qualified, in one passage, as a “ non-existent ”’; and again, as the independent will of the creature. Therefore the goal and purpose of the ‘“ redemption ” is also to complement and complete the nonexistent with the divine perfect existence, and to induct and restore the individual will back to the will of God (Vom Ort der Welt, chap. xvii.). More-
over, from the beginning God has implanted in man the requisite powers to this intent, so that the “ redemption”’ simply fulfils itself in that process whereby the inner principle in man which is akin to God gains the ascendency over the creature element which is averse toward God. The necessary antecedent condition, and the best means of advancing the advent of this interior process of redemption is resignation, the suppression of the individual will— a virtue which he extols and recommends in the usual formulas of medieval mysticism.
Nevertheless, this simple and consistent rational structure grows involved and confused by its assimilation to the central Christian ideas, the more so
because these are stripped, as far as 6. Relations possible, of their historic origin and with Chris- external content. The divine principle tianity. in man, as imparted to every one by nature, becomes identified with Christ, especially where fruitfully developed. Christ is an inward, natural factor, without historical import. Only Weigel allows the virtual existence of an external historic Christ, which, however, has no redemptive significance. The formulas of the doctrine of the dual nature were so reconstrued by Weigel that he distinguishes a double “ body ” of Christ, according to his composite origin; though this, in Weigel’s view, virtually covers the total phenomenon of Christ. ‘‘ The one only Christ has two bodies; the divine body from the Holy Ghost, and the other body from the Virgin Mary, which is visible and mortal ” (Postille, i. 214 sqq., cf. p. 38). Christ has his true flesh and blood “ not from the earth, but from heaven; not from Adam, but from the Holy Ghost ”’ (Dialogus, p. 12). Thus Weigel is enabled to emphasize the presence of the “‘ body and blood of Christ ” in the Communion. What concerns him is the inner presence of the eternal divine principle of Christ. The same parallel applies to his application of the several concepts of spirit, regeneration, and faith; these all are but new, somewhat modified or qualified formulas for the same topical consideration; that is, for the inner evolutionary process of the divine element and its victory over the creature element. Thus in the moral domain he advocates the fundamental tenets of enthusiasts (Dialogus, p. 76). All problems of a concrete phase in individual and social ethics are resolved on quietistic lines with rigorous consistency. He pronounces against all lawsuits, penalties, wars, trade, receiving of interest, and the like.
Weigel was not a renewer of Reformation ideas. With these, in fact, he had nothing to do; his few conceptions which are concordant with the Reformation explain themselves by their parallel relations in a mystical vein. Just as little does he belong to the line of adherents to historical Christianity, since of this he retained merely the husks. He belongs rather to the perpetual chain of thinkers along gnosticizing, mystic, and pantheistic lines; he also paved the way toward the modern elaboration and recasting of lines of thought in the direction of monistic idealism, and in terms of critical reasoning. Though his own times opposed him, his significance was not yet realized. Real opposition to him began about the end of the sixteenth century.
igel RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Weigel es and Measures
Apparently he left no compacted school, though his opponents charged him with having that purpose. At any rate, ‘‘ Weigelianism ”’ soon united with the most heterogeneous anti-ecclesiastical and “ enthusiastic’ trends of both older and younger date, as with the admirers of J. Béhme, and also with the movement comprehended under the term “* Rosicrucian ”’ (see RosicRUCIANS).
R. . GrivrzmMacuer.
BrpuiocrarHy: A. OC. Rotth, Ndéthiger Unterricht von prophetischen Weissagungen, Leipsic, 1694; Vitam fata et scripta V. Weigelii ex genuinis monumentis comprobata ... submittit...J. G. Reichelius, Wittenberg, 1721; G. Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, vol. xvii., chap. xv., Frankfort, 1729; J. G. Walch, Religionsstreitigkeiten, vols. iv.-v., Jena, 1736; J. O. Opel, V. Weigel, ein Beitrag zur Litteratur- und Kulturgeschichte Deutschlands tm 17. Jahrhundert, Leipsic, 1864; A. Israel, M. V. Weigels Leben und Schriften, Zschopau, 1888;.R. H. Griitzmacher, Wort und Geist, § 19, Leipsic, 1902; ADB, vol. xli.