Informatorium; Natürliche Auslegung von der Schöpfung; Vom Ursprung aller Dinge; Viererlei Auslegung von der Schöpfung (review)

Valentin Weigel (1533–88) was born in Naundorf, Großenhain, in Saxony, studied theology at Leipzig and Wittenberg, and in 1567 was appointed pastor to the parish church of Zschopau, near Chemnitz, where he remained for the rest of his life. From about 1570 he began writing theological works, many of which were deeply influenced by mystical and Paracelsian ideas. About eighty manuscripts of his writings are extant, some of which were not published for twenty years or more after his death. Although Weigel’s theology was subject to investigation during his lifetime, he seems to have been much loved by his congregation and was closely involved in maintaining church life in Saxony, being responsible for visitations in villages around Chemnitz and for numerous instructions for the improvement of the spiritual and liturgical life of both pastors and parishes. Weigel did not become known as a mystical theologian until after his death; in the 1620s his works were declared heretical and the Elector of Saxony ordered that any copies found should be confiscated. His works nonetheless continued to circulate, influencing the Lutheran mystic, Jakob Boehme. Weigel’s writings on prayer, which were known to Johannes Arndt, helped to shape the Pietist emphasis on inner prayer. The decision to publish Weigel’s works was taken in recognition of this influence.

This volume, the eleventh of fourteen in the new edition of Weigel’s Sämtliche Schriften, is the fourth to be published. It presents Weigel’s Informatorium (1576), the fragmentary Natürliche Auslegung von der Schöpfung (1577: the first two chapters of this work are missing), and the Viererlei Auslegung von der Schöpfung (1582), which is incomplete; this edition follows many printed versions in publishing an earlier work, Vom Ursprung aller Dinge (1577), in the place of the fourth Auslegung. Horst Pfefferl’s comprehensive introduction discusses the complexity of the manuscript tradition for each of these works, noting particularly two different traditions in the transmission of the Informatorium, and the interdependence between part 1 of the Informatorium and Weigel’s Gebetbuch. Similarly parallel texts appear in the Natürliche Auslegung von der Schöpfung and the Viererlei Auslegung von der Schöpfung: Pfefferl notes the difficulty of ascribing authorship to parts of the latter work, offering an attribution of different sections of the work to Weigel and an unknown “compiler.” Pfefferl comments on the influences exhibited in the different works: Weigel drew on Paracelsian and pseudo-Paracelsian works; he was influenced by the mysticism of Meister Eckhardt, Johannes Tauler, and the Theologica Deutsch; he knows Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Martin Luther, Hugh of St Viktor, Sebastian Franck.

The works here edited all demonstrate Weigel’s strong interest in prayer. Prayer is central because it leads to deeper knowledge of God; what is important is the way prayer and knowledge of God can be deepened by knowledge of the natural world. The Informatorium demonstrates this interest in its subtitle: it is a “short instruction of how, by three means, one can be led along the narrow way to Christ” (3). The first part offers exercises on the Lord’s Prayer, intended to lead the believer to a deeper understanding of how God works through prayer. The second and third sections consider “Jacob’s Ladder” and “David’s Key.” For Weigel, Jacob’s Ladder is a symbol demonstrating how “earthly” knowledge of the natural world can open the believer’s eyes to a better understanding of God and thus to eternal, heavenly knowledge. Similarly, the Key of David, which Weigel interprets primarily as the Old Testament proclamation of Christ, opens divine wisdom to human understanding. The question of the way in which knowledge of the natural world can lead the believer to knowledge of God is the central concern of the remaining works. Weigel’s interest in...