Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany 9780429619595, 9780429617447, 9780367151201, 9780429055171

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Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany

This book discusses the early modern engagement with books that survived intentional or accidental fire in Lutheran Germany. From the 1620s until the middle of the eighteenth century, unburnt books became an attraction for princes, publishers, clergymen, and some laymen. To cope with an event that seemed counter-intuitive and possibly supernatural, contemporaries preserved these books, narrated their survival, and discussed their significance. This book demonstrates how early modern Europeans, no longer bound to traditional medieval religion, yet not accustomed to modern scientific ways of thinking, engaged with a natural phenomenon that was not uncommon and yet seemed to defy common sense. Avner Shamir is Associate Professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Routledge Research in Early Modern History

The Reformation of England’s Past John Foxe and the Revision of History in the Late Sixteenth Century Matthew Phillpott Science in an Enchanted World Philosophy and Witchcraft in the Work of Joseph Glanvill Julie Davies The English Chartered Trading Companies, 1688–1763 Guns, Money and Lawyers Michael Wagner Enlightenment in Scotland and France Studies in Political Thought Mark Hulliung The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies Barbarism and the Political Order Natsuko Matsumori Criminal Justice during the Long Eighteenth Century Theatre, Representation and Emotion Edited by David Lemmings and Allyson N. May The English Woollen Industry, c. 1200–c. 1560 John Oldland Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany Avner Shamir For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Early-Modern-History/book-series/RREMH

Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany Avner Shamir

First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Avner Shamir to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-15120-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-05517-1 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Nicht heisse Glut, Nicht wilde Flut Noch spotter Wut, Schadt disem Gut (Neither hot glow nor fierce flood nor scornful fury harm this book) (Paradiesgärtlein, Ulm, 1694)

Contents

List of Figuresviii 1 Unburnt Books: Early Modern Lutheran Things

1

2 Narrative

25

3 Thing

72

4 Miracle

119

5 “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia”

175

Index193

Figures

1.1 Brandbibel, 1710 1.2 Fire in Nordhausen, 1710. Johann Heinrich Kindervater, Curieuse Feuer- und Unglücks-Chronica (1712), title page. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (shelf mark: 161, 45 00485). 3.1 An unburnt Luther Bible, inscription on flyleaf 3.2 A damaged volume of Paradiesgärtlein and Lüneburgische Gesangbuch (1697) 3.3 Brandbibel, 1710, in a cardboard case 3.4 Paradiesgärtlein (Lüneburg: Johann Stern, 1697), Preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen. 3.5 Paradiesgärtlein (Ulm, 1694), illustration preceding title page. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (Shelf mark: Th. bis 40940 8°). 3.6 Paradiesgärtlein (Frankfurt: Matthias Andreä, 1721), preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (Shelf mark: 92, 277 01654). 3.7 Paradiesgärtlein (Lüneburg: Johann Stern, 1697), preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen. 5.1 Inscription on top of Luther’s gravestone. Biblia, Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft (Nürnberg: Wolfgang Endter, 1670). Copperplate engraving, detail. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (shelf mark: 1, 77 00355).

2

3 80 83 97 102 104 105 107

186

1 Unburnt Books Early Modern Lutheran Things

The historical museum Flohburg in the small Thuringian town of Nordhausen, Germany, exhibits an unusual book. It is a Luther Bible issued by the famous Lüneburg publishing house Stern in 1698. Its title is Biblia, Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Alten und Neuen Testaments Verteutschet durch Martin Luthern. In addition to Martin Luther’s translation of the text of Scripture it contains an introduction by the Wittenberg theologian Abraham Calov, a short introduction to the reading of Scripture composed by the popular author of edifying books Johann Arndt (Informatorium Biblicum), a short tractate on the catechism by the Jena theologian Johann Gerhard (Erklärung des Catechismi durch ausserlesente Sprüche heiliger Schrifft), a Trost-Büchlein, and a division of the book of Psalms. At the end of the book, a prayer and hymn book are attached. The Bible is unassuming; it is unadorned and has no illustrations. It was described as a Hand-bibel by a contemporary, and it was apparently one of those Bibles produced by Stern specifically for churchgoers, and therefore all the necessary devotional texts were gathered in one volume. This book is the so-called Brandbibel, which once belonged to Johann Richard Otto, pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Altendorf near Nordhausen (Figure 1.1). The book was found almost undamaged in the ashes of Pastor Otto’s house, which burned down during the fire that badly damaged Nordhausen on August 23, 1710 (Figure 1.2). The Bible was regarded by its owner and other clergymen in the town as a significant object, a valuable asset, a divine sign, and subsequently as the inspiration for founding a boarding school for orphans (Waisenhaus). From 1716, the book was in the orphanage that was built at the place where the pastor’s house had stood. In 1927, when the school was closed and the municipality took over the building, the Church of St. Blaise, the book’s actual owner, gave the book to Stadtarchiv Nordhausen, from which it is now on loan at the Flohburg museum. This rather small book (16 cm × 9 cm, identified at the time as a small duodecimo), bound in dark goatskin and with gilded edges, has two metal clasps, of which the upper one is damaged. The book is visibly

2  Unburnt Books

Figure 1.1 Brandbibel, 1710 Source: By permission of Stadtarchiv Nordhausen. Photograph by author.

old—the binding has begun to fall apart, in some places the pages are darkened, and there are one or two holes in the first pages. However, none of these signs of decay can be attributed to combustion: the book’s appearance is the result of use and age. No signs of soot, no burning of the edges, no holes in the leather cover are visible. Even the damage to one of the metal clasps does not appear to be the result of fire. Nevertheless, rich documentation—inscriptions inside the book as well as historical accounts—tells the story of the unexpected survival of the book that day in August 1710 when the fire ravaged Nordhausen. A short poetic inscription in Latin on the first page, made in 1715 by Johann Heinrich Kindervater—pastor at St. Blaise and a future administrator of the Waisenhaus—as well as a longer narrative in German on the following page, made by Pastor Otto just one day after the fire, narrate the providential preservation of the book. In 1716, two cases, a cardboard case the exact size of the book and a wooden box that was somewhat larger, were made for the special purpose of storing the Brandbibel, which from this time was carefully preserved and kept at the Waisenhaus. A few historical accounts describe the ceremonial use of the book during a special yearly celebration commemorating the fire. A modern museum exhibit inviting viewers, an archival deposit enabling scholarly investigation, a ceremonial object protected and hidden yet publicly celebrated once a year, a common Lutheran Bible used regularly by a village pastor who kept it on the desk in his study, ink on

Figure 1.2 Fire in Nordhausen, 1710. Johann Heinrich Kindervater, Curieuse Feuer- und Unglücks-Chronica (1712), title page. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (shelf mark: 161, 45 00485). Source: Photograph by author.

4  Unburnt Books paper bound in leather: what kind of a thing was the Brandbibel? Quite a few unburnt, slightly burnt, or partially burnt books were kept, commemorated and sometimes ceremoniously used by Christian believers in the Lutheran parts of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The present book is an attempt to understand what kind of things these books were. In 1709, founder of Pietism Philipp Jakob Spener concluded his comments on the episode in which his Einfältige Erklärung der christlichen Lehre (a catechism published in 1677) survived a fire in Arnsdorf (Saxony) in 1689, by stating that “we celebrate the Lord in all things” in which God’s goodness and power are somehow documented (“Nos vero celebremus DOMINUM in omnibus, in quibus aliqua suae bonitatis vel potentiae quocunque modo edit documenta”). Although obviously sceptical about assertions that the survival of the book was unnatural and therefore miraculous, Spener was cautious in not excluding the possibility of miraculous intervention. Nevertheless, his conclusion nicely expressed an inclination not to designate unburnt or almost unburnt books as special carriers of divine revelation. For him, God was celebrated in all things, not necessarily in experiencing the exceptional and possibly miraculous.1 Spener seems to have acknowledged a certain cognitive dynamic that attributed superior significance to such unexpectedly preserved books, yet to some extent he was not in accord with the tendencies of many of his contemporaries for whom an unburnt book was indeed a thing unlike other things. Tangible, visible, slightly coloured by soot, smelling of smoke, possibly still warm, defaced on the outside but intact and still pronouncing the Word of God inside, a book preserved in the flames was a material thing—occupying a place in space—that invited physical as well as conceptual engagement. An unburnt book was a thing worthy of keeping, purchasing, storing in a special place and displaying for others to see. It stood for—not simply as sign but as material actuality—other things, and especially other books, in the sense that it compensated for the loss of other things, other books. An unburnt book resonated rather than simply signified a special message; it was a time capsule in which something extraordinary was captured and objectified. The potential to perpetuate an extraordinary experience—rare as well as marvellous—was a capacity that contemporaries identified in books that survived fires and were found more or less intact in the debris. How was this potential to perpetuate realised in historical terms? First, there was the material thing itself. Princes, magistrates, and book collectors strove to preserve such books through different practices pertaining to the material book. Second, unburnt books gave rise to narratives about incombustible books. Book owners, clergymen, chroniclers, and authors of religious literature recorded reports and formed narratives about unburnt books that were disseminated to the reading public. Third,

Unburnt Books 5 theologians and other writers contemplating such unusual occurrences strove to pin down the significance of unburnt books. These three partly overlapping analytical perspectives suggest an important structure in which the material object precedes the narrative, which itself precedes general signification. It also directs our attention to the fact that although a book is always a tangible object (at least before the age of computers), it was the annihilation of everything around the book that turned an unburnt book into a special thing with only a nominal relation to the text printed on its pages. How it happened that books became things, as opposed to merely texts, is one of the primary subjects of this book. Interest in—and attribution of significance to—unburnt books emerged during the Thirty Years’ War, the greatest and most devastating European war of the early modern period. Books no doubt survived catastrophic fires before that war, and it is likely that Lutherans already had some affection for unburnt books before this particular outbreak of hostilities. However, distinctive interest in and legends about the incombustibility of books in general and specific Lutheran books in particular first appeared during the war and were initially associated with the confessional divide, which was one of the causes of the war. In early January 1624, a prayer book composed by the Lutheran superintendent and renowned (although controversial) author Johann Arndt, Paradiesgärtlein voller Christlicher Tugenden (first published in 1612), survived in an oven in an inn in the small village of Langgöns in the Catholic-occupied Lower Palatinate (today Hesse) after the book was intentionally put there by a Catholic officer. This particular, well-documented, commemorated (in Langgöns), and frequently reported preservation of a book in fire became a prototype for other incombustible books. In the following years, more books survived fire, though from that point on narratives usually told of books surviving incidental fires rather than the intentional burning of books. Between 1620 and 1750, prayer books, hymn books, biblical texts, whole Bibles, and other religious books were reported to have survived fires. Most exceptionally, at least twenty books of Arndt, mostly the popular Paradiesgärtlein, but also the influential, and popular, religious manifest Vier Bücher vom wahrem Christentum survived fires. Moreover, the story of the repeated survival of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein appeared in prefaces to countless editions of the book. With the terrible consequences of the Thirty Years’ War and later catastrophic urban fires in mind, the discovery of one book in the ashes obviously had little if any practical significance. Yet the potential of such books to do something else was not lost on contemporary observers. Unburnt, slightly burnt, or badly burnt yet legible books soon turned into valuable, significant objects. They were coveted by princes and magistrates for their book collections; they were commemorated both privately and publicly; the story of their survival was briskly reported or narrated at length; and, notably, divine significance was often attributed to them.

6  Unburnt Books In other words, the finding of an unburnt book and the story about the book had resonance—at the locality where the book was found, in the larger community or region, and on the pages of journals and books that described the specific preservation of a book and discussed the topic of unburnt books more generally. Contemporary engagement with incombustible books was neither widespread nor uniform. It varied greatly. Contemporaries often expressed interest in and enthusiasm for the phenomenon, or at least affirmation, of the books as meaningful, religious, and possibly miraculous. Occasionally, and most clearly from the second decade of the eighteenth century, reactions expressed scepticism, uncertainty, and rejection of the attribution of special significance; after 1750, dismissive and even derisive views were not uncommon. Nor were reactions strictly authentic, personal, and idiosyncratic. They were often well conceived and structured by a shared book culture, by theology, by conventional terminology, and sometimes by interested observers who silenced “incorrect” reactions and constructed the “correct” reading of stories about incombustible books. What reports and discussions about incombustible books in early modern Germany lack in authenticity and personality, they make up for with their attempt to decode the meaning (and many believed there was meaning) of the unlikely survival of highly combustible paper in otherwise all-consuming conflagrations. Appealing as such narratives were to princes, visitors to early modern book collections, religious authors, and readers, the preservation of books in fires has not escaped the attention of modern historians of German Lutheranism. In an insightful article about Protestant Württemberg, Martin Scharfe showed that early modern Protestants tended to accept reports about miraculous phenomena, despite theological hostility to the use of miracles as evidence for the divine. Adopting the perspective of sociology of religion against both folklorist and theological interpretations, Scharfe suggested that miracles had a social-religious function because they sanctioned the legitimacy or prestige of a person or a group, and as such, Protestants (like Catholics, albeit perhaps less frequently than Catholics) could not resist or ignore miracles. The most obvious example of the structural-functional nature of miracles among Protestants was the diffusion of the legend about incombustible books, which legitimised, according to Scharfe, the content of these books, as the case of Arndt’s prayer book illustrates. The survival of Arndt’s book proved that those claiming that Arndt’s theology was not truly and purely Lutheran were mistaken and that Arndt’s books and doctrine were orthodox.2 The functional reading convincingly explains why the controversial Arndt needed a miracle. However, it only explains the need to validate Arndt, whose doctrine was criticised at the time. It leaves unanswered the question of why the books of popular and orthodox authors should have been validated.

Unburnt Books 7 Incombustible books were also noticed and shortly discussed in Robert Scribner’s influential article “Incombustible Luther” from 1986. Scribner developed the idea that a kind of Luther cult, not unlike Catholic saint cults, existed in early modern Germany. Scribner showed that the popular memory of Luther, from his lifetime and long into the eighteenth century, endowed him with the qualities of a prophet and a miracle maker as well as that miraculous powers were often attributed to objects (books, furniture, and primarily, portraits) and places (houses, places of study, wells) associated with the reformer. One of the indications of such a Luther cult was a series of reports about incombustible Bibles. For Scribner, the unlikely survival of Bibles in fire was associated with the fact that these Bibles were Luther Bibles, that is, editions of Luther’s German translation of the Bible.3 Scribner’s idea of a Luther cult is convincing and his exploration of how Luther was perceived as incombustible is illuminating. However, the sources he cites regarding unburnt Bibles do not really support his argument (as I will discuss). Anyway, Luther was a special case. What was the point in venerating and collecting other unburnt books? In 1997 Alfred Messerli thoroughly and systematically analysed the incombustibility of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein—the most frequently preserved and by far the most famous incombustible book. Messerli identified nineteen stories about the preservation of Johann Arndt’s prayer book (one of them in water) between 1624 and 1836. He suggested that the story as it was stereotypically and repeatedly structured in prefaces to editions of Arndt’s book was meant to promote the selling and reading of the book as well as reading—as a religious practice—more broadly. In the narrative, the preservation of the book was depicted as a miracle, an unusual suggestion within a Lutheran culture that officially rejected the miraculous. According to Messerli, the miracle was not a remnant from traditional, pre-Reformation religion. Rather it was an authentic expression of people’s need for miracles, which persisted even though it did not receive theological sanction. Most interestingly, Messerli suggested that the narrative about Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein pointed to a unique Lutheran phenomenon: a quasi-cult of God’s Word that privileged the printed word. The printed book—textualising, visualising (in illustrations of the miracle), and objectifying God’s Word—miraculously survived fire, was kept in a princely library as a monument, and was then made into a miraculous narrative within the pages of the same book.4 Messerli beautifully analysed the narrative about Arndt. While his conclusions are uncontested, it turned out that the subject of incombustible books was, in fact, broader than the topic of his article. Arndt’s book was not the only one that survived fire. Other books did too. Likewise, the discourse about incombustible books was broader and engagement with the signifying power of the unburnt book richer. Thus, Oliver Pfefferkorn (2003) pointed out that edifying books in general—prayer books,

8  Unburnt Books devotional works, hymns, and religious songs—tended to survive fire. The production of these books soared during the seventeenth century—a time of social, political, economic, climatic, and ecclesiastical crises, a time in which people sought relief from angst and uncertainty in such literature—and they were common in many households. Pfefferkorn rejected, therefore, the functional explanation for the legend of incombustible books, which only explained the legend about Arndt, and only in the early period (when Arndt was still controversial), and suggested instead that edifying books survived miraculously in fire because an important ingredient of popular (as opposed to doctrinal) piety was the belief that books possessed magical qualities. Books in Lutheran society were not only texts but also objects (for the unlearned). They were bought and kept at home, but not always for reading. For instance, books were used in the performance of magic. Naturally, magical objects tended to survive fire.5 Pfefferkorn emphasised the popular and therefore magical aspect of unburnt books. Indeed, his stress on edifying books and piety is compelling, yet his approach is somewhat reductionist since people of different walks of life, social classes, and public positions—not only the unlearned—were involved in the preservation of these “magical” books and the propagation of the narratives surrounding them. A more inclusive approach was recently attempted by Hartmut Kühne, who emphasised the significance of incombustible books as objectified miracle evidence (dingliche Wunderzeugniss) in German Lutheranism. Kühne argued that miraculous legends flourished among early modern Lutherans, who had a special penchant for stories about miraculous objects—crying or sweating images, for example—and especially for stories about incombustible objects such as images, furniture, and above all, religious books. The most interesting point in Kühne’s article is that unburnt books were kept at different libraries as material evidence of the miracles by which the books were preserved in fire. These unburnt books, evidence of past miracles, are today evidence of a Lutheran piety in which miracles were a coherent (not anachronistic, arbitrary, or purely folkish) ingredient.6 Three conclusions can be drawn from the historiography of unburnt books. The first is that the practice of keeping unburnt books was echoed in and surpassed by a miraculous narrative that aimed at sanctioning Arndt (and possibly Luther). The second is that unburnt religious or, more particularly, edifying books belonged to popular (or general) Lutheran piety, the focus of which was engagement with books both as texts and as objects. The third, and more general, conclusion is that incombustible books were indicative of Lutheran (or Protestant) engagement with, propagation of, and ultimately belief in miracles. Emphasising as it does that Lutherans had miracles, were fond of miracle stories, or believed in the miraculous, the study of the preservation of books in fire has contributed to and echoed what scholars have been saying about Protestants and miracles for some time now.

Unburnt Books 9 It was previously assumed that Protestants greatly reduced the use of or entirely eliminated magical, miraculous, and supernatural phenomena from religious life. Persistent contrary evidence has moved modern historians to a more realistic and unprejudiced perception of the Protestant approach to a variety of manifestations of the supernatural and miraculous. In the 1960s, the work of Rudolf Schenda indicated that there were no significant confessional differences regarding wonders and martyr legends.7 It has since been shown that Lutherans accepted and believed in prophecies, in the miraculous power of Martin Luther and objects associated with him, in blood legends, and in miraculous healing.8 Lutherans were actually especially prone to viewing the preservation of people and objects in catastrophes and natural disasters as providential or miraculous. The idea of an economy of divine providence was meticulously explored in Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen’s work on the flood that hit the coast of Northern Germany in 1717.9 Hartmut Lehmann argued that, faced with the devastating power of untamed forces of nature as well as man-made catastrophes, Protestants were inclined to depict the unexpected survival of people and objects in these catastrophes as miracles as much as, if not more than, Catholics. Large-scale catastrophes in pre-Enlightenment Germany were recognised as the work of God, which implied that they were a form of punishment for sinful societies, that they were proclaimed in advance by signs, and that they were visited on human beings in such a way that God’s mercy was operating within the catastrophic devastation.10 Presently, scholars seem to agree that, regardless of what the theologians taught the population and no matter the criticism seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rationalists directed at the whole idea of miraculous phenomena, early modern German Lutheranism was never entirely purged of the miraculous. The interpretation of unusual events as wonders, prodigies, and providence as well as the expectation of divine intervention in the tangible world did not simply disappear by and through the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Work on the perception and discourse of the miraculous in Calvinist societies reached similar conclusions.11 Apparently, the reformers (indeed, Catholic reformers included) sought to establish a purer cosmology and a more limited scope for divine revelation to, and communication with, the earthly while using the same old pre-Reformation vocabulary of miracles, wonders, signs, and providence. As Moshe Sluhovsky argued regarding the French Huguenots, new ideas about the miraculous were expressed by the employment of traditional signifiers and Catholic usage, which unavoidably influenced Huguenot sensibilities and the way they interpreted their world.12 “The language of the marvellous” had credibility among its users—such is the conclusion of Willem Frijhoff concerning wonders and signs among Dutch Calvinists and, more generally, in the multi-confessional Netherlands. This is a conclusion relevant also for the present study.13 Whether it was

10  Unburnt Books pre-Christian, traditional, or all-Christian, Lutherans often employed the language of the marvellous to describe significant, unusual events. It does not follow that whenever the discourse of miracles was used, an adherence to a specific theory of miracles, let alone traditional or Roman Catholic doctrine, was in play. It does follow, however, that Lutherans sought out explanations and ideas that did not exclude the miraculous. Miracles have recently re-emerged as the most significant mark of division between early modern Protestants and Catholics. In a re-evaluation of Max Weber’s disenchantment theory, Carlos Eire suggested that the disenchantment of miracles was the smoking gun that proved Weber right. Protestantism, Eire argued, “did much more to disenchant the world through its understanding of miracles than it ever did by its rejection of anything that could be called ‘magic’ or ‘superstition.’ ”14 According to Eire, the Protestant Reformation revolutionised and secularised society by dismissing the miraculous. Eire’s perspective on Weber’s theory and the question of secularisation is interesting and suggests new ways of thinking about modernity. His argument, however, about early modern miracles and Lutheranism deserves further consideration. In relation to the Protestant reformers’ approach to miracles Eire’s argument holds water; however, it is not fully supported by recent research on the practice of Lutherans or Calvinists. A decade ago, Renate Dürr emphasised that theological opposition to the miraculous was not the only indication of contemporary Protestant belief (or disbelief) in miracles.15 Dürr demonstrated that at least regarding the Lutherans, at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was no fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants when it came to their engagement with the miraculous, the power of holy objects, piety, prophecy, and other phenomena supposed to mark a cultural difference between the confessions.16 It can be concluded that Lutherans were no strangers to the miraculous and the wondrous. This conclusion might be nuanced in one or all of the following three ways: the Protestant theory of miracles limited the potential for Protestants to detect miracles in their own world; miracles in general were less frequent among Protestants than among Catholics; and miracles of some types were either less common (or entirely uncommon) among Protestants than among Catholics. Focusing again specifically on the topic of the present book, the perception of unburnt books as a critical indication of a Lutheran wondrous universe is incomplete and possibly misleading. Perhaps with the exception of the monotonous reporting of the multiplied preservation of Arndt’s prayer book in prefaces to editions of the book, incombustible books express an ambivalent rather than an unproblematic perception of the miraculous—sometimes ignored, sometimes acknowledged, and often formulated in equivocal terms. The miracle of the unburnt book was not simply assumed; it was recognised hesitantly and at times

Unburnt Books 11 uncomfortably. Moreover, collecting unburnt books and narrating their survival did not necessarily involve any belief in miracles. Our incomplete understanding of the practice and narration of incombustible books hinges on three methodological difficulties. First, not enough attention has so far been paid to terminology. The discourse about incombustible books displays a variety of terms pertaining to the unusual, wondrous, and divine. While these might indicate belief in miracles, they sometimes show caution concerning, and ambivalence towards, miraculous events. Second, we should not study only positive evidence but also the available negative evidence. Contemporary Lutherans found, saw, and inspected unburnt books but did not always react as if they were miraculous. These reactions are, of course, difficult to trace since, obviously, absence of reaction is usually absent from the sources. Third, the historiographical picture of Lutheran interest and belief in miraculous unburnt books reflects a focus on one well-conceived and biased narrative, namely the miraculous narrative of Arndt’s prayer book. A focus on the following aspects of incombustible books will address the issues outlined above: the process by which unburnt books arrived in book collections, the process by which certain practices regarding these books were developed, the process by which events and reports were turned into narratives, and the process by which the significance of such books was determined. To achieve this, a greater focus on books as objects and the materiality of books, indeed their peculiar or irregular materiality, is desirable. Greater attention to books as material objects will expand our understanding of the theme of incombustible books by shifting the focus away from the perception that belief in miracles was a uniform religious state of mind, either present or absent in early modern Lutherans, and allowing us to focus instead on unburnt books as appealing narratives, significant things, and privileged expressions of divine benevolence. In a recent article, Caroline Bynum argued that the doctrine of the indifference to religious materials, formulated by Lutheran reformers, did not and could not immediately turn a cultural inclination to perceive and react to religious objects into indifference, whether conceptual, emotional, or practical. Bynum’s argument is supported by the fact that traditional (medieval) religious objects—images, furniture, art, d ­ ecoration—were kept in Lutheran Germany more often than they were removed or destroyed and, indeed, more often than in Catholic areas. Bynum further contends that in addition to historical evidence that refutes the view that Lutherans were indifferent to religious objects, much theorising on material culture also contradicts such a view. From the appearance of David Freedberg’s The Power of Images (1989), a fundamental as well as controversial study of the nature of response to images, it has been assumed that representational and especially anthropomorphic images have, in Bynum’s words, “power and make impact in ways that reach beyond the particular cultures that produce them.”17

12  Unburnt Books The case for a universal and cognitive, rather than merely cultural, approach to visual art, or more generally to images, is strong and, at least in the work of Freedberg, persuasive. At the same time, it is also problematic. Cognitive response to shapes, colours, and motives seem universal only in relation to anthropomorphic representations, primarily in relation to Western art, as Bynum indicated. More importantly, Freedberg is convincing exactly because he does not reduce images to a relationship between shapes on canvas on the one hand and vision and the brain on the other. Rather, he draws on cultural description, cultural circumstances, and cultural explanation. More radical attempts to base theories of art on vision and cognition alone risk, I  believe, reducing complex historical processes to neurological realities. Although they may be correct in their description of the process of perception, they are not very helpful in understanding art in a social-cultural-intellectual and ultimately historical perspective.18 Following Freedberg, Bynum makes the point that on some level, we have to treat images, or religious objects more generally, as triggering powerful responses by what they are and we should view doctrinal claims with scepticism.19 To some extent, the meaning and significance of religious objects resides in the things themselves, in their materials, shape, and placement as well as in the history of these aspects. Now unburnt books are neither anthropomorphic images nor representations. They are neither art nor religious objects as such. There is, in my view, no universal pre-cultural cognition according to which we can explain historical responses to unburnt books. Nevertheless, Bynum’s stress on what objects are (material, in space, in relation to practice and ritual) applies to unburnt books. It reminds us that in unburnt books we can see the process by which a complex entity such as a book—a material envelope of a verbal signification—was turned, or perhaps reduced, into a material object in which signification was not textual. Materiality matters in early modern unburnt books. In Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany, I  discuss unburnt books from the early seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century. Interest in unburnt books did not suddenly disappear after the middle of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, since almost all the reports about unburnt books belong to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and since in the later part of the eighteenth century it was easier to express utter rejection of any occupation with these books as “superstitious,” the present work focuses on the period from 1620 to 1750. This book offers a nuanced investigation in three steps. In Chapter 2, I discuss the narratives and, more generally, the discourse surrounding unburnt books, particularly, I examine the first reports about books that fire could not burn; the emergence and diffusion of the legend about the incombustible Paradiesgärtlein; and the treatment of unburnt Scripture.

Unburnt Books 13 The chapter  suggests that interest in and attribution of meaning to unburnt books developed over time and that the miraculous narrative about Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein is unique and not necessarily typical of the whole discourse. In Chapter 3, I investigate unburnt books as things: unburnt books as library books, unburnt books as religious objects, and unburnt books as ideal books. The chapter shows that there was demand for unburnt books—princes, cities, and powerful men sought out unburnt books for their libraries. It also shows that the most imaginative and significant use of unburnt books occurred when these books had a public or communal function. Chapter 4 examines approaches to the miraculous in relation to unburnt books. First, I discuss ambivalent, sceptical, and rejecting views on unburnt books. Second, I present the Lutheran theory of the cessation of miracles. Third, I analyse a few attempts to theorise or conceptualise the idea that books preserved in fire were significant in religious terms. Here I  suggest that the term miracle and the idea of a miraculous intervention stirred uneasiness among some of those engaged with the phenomenon, yet those writers most enthusiastic about unburnt Lutheran books found a way around the Lutheran theory of the cessation of miracles. The last chapter offers three possible interpretations of the attraction and significance of the phenomenon: emotional and intellectual wonder; knowledge and canonisation; and historicity and devotion in material objects. Fires were a common occurrence in early modern Europe. More than floods, earthquakes, and storms, fires were a constant threat to urban life. Warfare, bad weather, arson, and most of all, human error caused countless fires, some of which proved truly catastrophic.20 Early modern urban dwellers were accustomed to the threat of fire and, to some extent, could deal with them. Perhaps fires could not be avoided, but they could sometimes be contained. Describing the catastrophic fire that devastated Copenhagen in 1728, the Norwegian-born Danish writer Ludwig Holberg wrote that the people of the town usually excelled in containing fires, so much so that even though fires hit the town repeatedly every year, hardly a whole house ever burned down.21 The fate of many early modern European towns, however, at least partially disproves Holberg. Great urban fires were common and when the fire got out of hand, the consequences were shattering.22 Small or large, contained or catastrophic, fires usually resulted in the loss of books, sometimes many books, entire collections, or even whole libraries. Personal possession of books was obviously not rare in the period. Most households probably did not contain more than a few to a few dozen books. Many clergy and academics, however, possessed substantial home libraries. Seeing books turn to ashes and whole collections demolished to naught must therefore have been a common experience for contemporaries. A theological dissertation about the significance of fire (1727) named more than fifteen clergymen and scholars who lost

14  Unburnt Books their book collections to flames from around the middle of the seventeenth century, among them the Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andrea, who lost his books to a fire in 1634; the educational reformer Johann Amos Comenius, who lost his large collection of books in Lissa (Leszno) in 1656; and theologian Paul Hofmann, who lost his whole library in 1703 and apparently was so devastated by the loss that he died shortly thereafter.23 This account represents only a small fraction of the actual number of books lost to fire, only those losses that were known to the author through contemporary writings. It does not even represent all the cases in which the home libraries of clergymen caught fire. The actual number of collections of religious and scientific books that were lost in fires during the period must have been high. In some cases, the loss of libraries did not have only personal and emotional consequences; it could be detrimental to the practice of scholarship too. When thousands of books, documents, maps, instruments, and manuscripts—both published and not yet published—were reduced to smoking ashes, the loss was irreparable. For instance, when the house of the Danish physician Thomas Bartholin burned down in 1670, he was devastated by the ruination of the greater part of his vast collection of books, mainly on medicine and philology, and instruments, and especially by the burning of his own unpublished writings—a devastation that Bartholin regarded as an irreparable loss for the public rather than for himself.24 Bartholin saw the fire as an instrument of God and he struggled to allay the misfortune of the fire by “the constancy of an unbroken spirit,” as he put it in a small volume, De Bibliothecae Incendio, which he dedicated to his sons.25 For Bartholin, the destruction of his library was an act of God. He understood it as a sentence for “a merited rest from labours,” which suggested that it was time to retire from the academic work he had been pursuing. It felt, he said, as if he had been “relieved of an immense and heavy burden.” He was freed from being a slave to his library.26 Bartholin tried to cope with the loss of his library by contemplating the meaning of books in a discourse that contained references to fire in mythological, historical, and religious texts and by commemorating his lost manuscripts. He composed an inscription “In Memoriam” to his unfinished writings, which were reduced to “erudite embers.” He also composed a list of twentyseven unfinished works that were lost in the fire and a catalogue of all the books that he previously published or that were dedicated to him—129 titles in all.27 Coping with the loss must have been harder than Bartholin expressed in his short book.28 However, there is no doubt that Bartholin made an effort, with at least some success, to deal with the loss of books and knowledge by evaluating the meaning of the possession of books and knowledge. In terms of the scientific value of the contents of his library and especially the unpublished works, Bartholin’s loss was exceptional,

Unburnt Books 15 but the need to comprehend and cope with the meaning of losing books was equal to most of those who lost their books in the frequent urban fires of the early modern era, whether scholars, clergymen, or laymen. Bartholin wrote to his sons that he had once believed that letters were immortal, but after his library burned down, he “learned of their mortality from Vulcan.”29 To accept the loss of books, one had to re-evaluate the meaning of possessing them. One way to do this was to probe into the significance of the one book that seemingly accidentally did not burn even as the books surrounding it were reduced to ashes. Early modern Germans knew well the devastating power of fire, yet they also “knew” certain materials that were resistant to fire, certain techniques to limit the power of fire, and certain objects that happened to survive fire, such as crucifixes, images of the Virgin Mary and saints, the Host, relics, and books.30 In treatises about fire, contemporary writers sometimes associated unburnt books with natural resistance to fire and the incombustibility of religious objects. Yet it seems that, for Lutherans who were interested in unburnt books, there was a more limited repertoire of historical narratives which could function as precedent. Thus, the biblical story of the preservation of the three men in the furnace in Babylon (Daniel 3), the preservation in accidental fire of portraits of Luther, and the survival in fire of the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli’s heart were sometimes mentioned in connection with unburnt books. A good overview of the intellectual horizon of contemporaries treating the subject of incombustibility is a piece in Literarischer Briefwechsel, Oder: Aufgefangene curieuse Briefe from 1746. Here the unknown author assembled a few cases of preservation in fire. He first mentions the burning bush (Exodus 3) and the Babylonian furnace. Further, he mentions three legends about body parts that would not burn: King Pyrrhus of Epirus’s right foot (actually his toe) did not burn when the king’s body was cremated; the heart of Jeanne d’Arc survived unharmed when she was put to death at the stake; and Zwingli’s heart was found intact after his body was burned by his enemies. Following these stories, the author recounts a few narratives about unburnt books, a report about the survival of a portrait of Luther in 1634, and a long story about a trial-byfire performed in Hamburg in 1665 by one Jürgen Frese.31 The choice of stories is perhaps arbitrary, but it does illustrate a theme. The stories are either biblical, Protestant, or mythical/historical and they do not include examples from the medieval Church or the post-Reformation Catholic world; no religious objects, other than Lutheran books, are mentioned. This is especially interesting because the author of the Literarischer Briefwechsel neglects to mention two well-known examples of miraculous or providential preservation of books/texts in the history of Christianity. The first is the legend about the conversion of Vladimir the Great (grand prince of Kiev) and the establishment of the eastern Church in Russia at the end of the tenth century, which is known from the writings

16  Unburnt Books of the Byzantine chroniclers: the mid-eleventh-century Georgius Cedrenus, the late eleventh-century Joannes Scylitzes, and the twelfth-century Joannes Zonaras. According to the legend, Vladimir the Great and the Russians were lured to baptism by the performance of a miracle by a bishop sent by the Byzantine emperor, Basil II. Following the request of his audience, the bishop threw a book of the Gospel from which he preached into the fire to test it, promising that the book would remain unharmed. After a few hours, when the fire had been extinguished, the book was taken out entirely unharmed. The miracle moved the “barbarians” to convert.32 The second legend is about the fire ordeal that settled a disputation between St. Dominic and a group of Cathars from southern France during the Albigensian Crusade in the thirteenth century. The earliest version of the legend told of a disputation during which Dominic rendered the authorities for the Church’s opinions in writing and handed it over to one of the Cathars for the disputation. In the evening, when the Cathars assembled around the fire, it was suggested that Dominic’s paper be thrown into the fire to see if it burned, and thus decide which faith, Catholic or Cathar, was the true faith. Thus, the paper was thrown into the fire, and after some time it jumped out entirely untouched by the flames. Three times the paper was cast into the fire and three times the paper sprang out unharmed.33 In a sense, these fire ordeals could have served as precedents for unburnt Lutheran books, supporting the claim for divine intervention. Yet they were mentioned relatively rarely in the discourse about incombustible books. The reason is probably that Lutheran authors wanted to distance the Lutheran narratives about unburnt books from the medieval, old Church narratives about miracles performed by saints and bishops. Although the similarity between narratives about the preservation of books and the preservation of things, places, people, and body parts in fire was evident at the time, the topic of books and fire was often a special category in itself. A good introduction to the contents of reports about books preserved in fire is the unusual publication from 1722, Verzeichniss einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder. This collection of reports about unburnt books (and other textual representations) was assembled and published by the almost unknown Gottfried Tentzel, a preacher from Arnstadt and the author of a work on Roman history. Tentzel indiscriminately collected stories from published sources and hearsay testimony and presented them to the reader almost unedited. Tentzel thought of books, manuscripts, documents, and inscriptions as belonging to the same category of objects that survived fire through divine intervention. In his list, he combined legends about book trialsby-fire, stories about books that survived book burning, and reports about books in accidental fires. The table of contents divides the relevant books into three groups: incombustible books from the time of the early Church; Lutheran or evangelical books; and Roman Catholic books. The

Unburnt Books 17 book included three sections from the early Church, twenty-eight sections about Lutheran books and a couple of portraits of Luther, and four sections about the Roman Catholic Church. Bibles and biblical books frequently figured in the list, but by far the longest section is the one about Paradiesgärtlein, which recounts thirteen stories. The collection was supplemented by neither introduction nor conclusion, and where Tentzel himself wrote the text (he usually simply quoted his sources) he was factual and did not pass judgement on the meaning of the events he reported. However reluctant he may have been to elaborate theoretically on the theme, Tentzel’s conception of incombustible books is not entirely absent from the book. The last entries in the book (at least in the second edition from 1723—I have not seen the rare first edition, which was much shorter) are a brief and rudimentary discussion of the miraculous aspect of the phenomena he recorded.34 The extent of Tentzel’s reporting was unusual, but his interest in the subject was by no means unique. Collecting reports about the survival of Arndt’s book was common from the later seventeenth century, and during the second decade of the eighteenth century a few attempts were made to assemble stories about unburnt books and thus to establish a case for the incombustibility of books. Altogether, the idea that the hand of God intervened benevolently in catastrophes—natural and man-made—was all-Protestant if not allChristian. The observation that sometimes books survived fire and that this survival was meaningful and providential was not made exclusively by German Lutherans. Protestants of different nationalities made this observation as well.35 It is nevertheless evident that the habit of keeping unburnt books and communicating stories about such books was cultivated particularly by clergymen and sometimes laymen in the Lutheran parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Finally, “miracle” is a pregnant term. In the middle of the eighteenth century, it was defined in Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon as “übernatürliche Würckungen, welche nicht von denen von Gott erschaffenen Ursachen, sondern von Gott selbst geschehen” (supernatural effects, which occur not by those causes created by God, but rather by God himself). Miracles were thus works, which were not done “in, mit, und durch” (in, with, and through) nature, but “ohne, über und wider” (without, above, and contrary to) the regular course of nature.36 This definition (in many variations) was quite common at the time, but the way the topic was treated in Zedler’s lexicon reflects the philosophy, theology, and science of the enlightenment and is not necessarily a good representation of earlier views regarding miracles and by no means expresses the richness and history of the term. Since the High Middle Ages and, more emphatically, from the early modern period, miracles have been identified with the supernatural as an expression of God’s will. A  miracle is thus a tangible event in the world that cannot be explained by recourse to the regularity of nature

18  Unburnt Books or natural laws. This has not always been the core of the term miracle. The Christian theory of miracles originally emphasised the epistemological aspect, the effect of unusual events on the beholder. Miracles in this sense are extraordinary occurrences that can move the beholder to recognition and experience of the divine.37 To express different implications of this recognition, different terms are sometimes employed. “Wonder” usually refers to extraordinary natural phenomena that move spectators to acknowledge God’s omnipotence. “Prodigy” refers to extraordinary natural phenomena or historical events, the significance of which is in being a sign of future developments. “Providence” refers to unexpected, seemingly coincidental events that are in fact expressions of divine care for a person, a nation, or a place. The definition and interpretation of these terms varied over time and according to usage, and they often overlapped. Providence can function as an umbrella category, including miracles, wonders, and prodigies. In practical terms, a wonder is difficult to distinguish from a miracle, since both can refer to natural (though extraordinary) and unnatural events and can highlight either the event in the world or the experience of the beholder. When it comes to translating the terminology used in the sources, the difficulty is accentuated. In what follows, whenever possible, I use “miracle” to translate Wunderwerck and for miraculum; I use “wonder” for Wunder and “marvel” or “wonder” for mirabilum. I use “providence” or “care” for Vorsehung, Fürsorge, and Providenz, as well as Providentia Dei. I sometimes use the Latin miranda as a broad category for all types of divine intervention: miracles, wonders, prodigies, signs, and providence. Yet meanings are often not entirely clear. A Wunder can also be a miracle; wunderbar can be miraculous or wondrous; wonder can point to marvellous, unusual natural phenomena, natural catastrophes, and natural deformities. Is Wunderzeichen a miracle or a wonder? Perhaps because such terms were ambiguous, contemporaries have sometimes preferred, instead, biblical metaphors that depict divine intervention by attributing agency to God’s metaphorical body: the hand or finger of God. In this book I  trace whether and how divine interference in worldly affairs was attributed to the events depicted in a variety of early modern texts. Attention to terminology, metaphors, and depiction of agency is, therefore, an inevitable part of the following chapters.

Notes 1. Philipp Jakob Spener, Consilia et judicia theologica latina, opus posthumum (Frankfurt am Main: Zunner, 1709), part 3, 679. 2. Martin Scharfe, “Wunder und Wunderglaube im protestantischen Württemberg,” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 68/69 (1968/69). 3. Robert Scribner, “Incombustible Luther: The Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany,” Past and Present 110 (1986): 38–68; on Bibles, see p. 46. See also the earlier discussion (and the more moderate conclusions)

Unburnt Books 19 on the subject in Martin Scharfe, Evangelische Andachtsbilder: Studien zu Intention und Funktion des Bilders in der Frömmigkeitsgeschichte vornehmlich des schwäbishen Raumes (Stuttgart: Müller & Gräff, 1968), 181–96. 4. Alfred Messerli, “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot,” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997). 5. Oliver Pfefferkorn, “Bücher, die im Feuer nicht verbrennen: Erbauungsliteratur im Protestantismus des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Zeichen und Wunder: Geheimnisse des Schriftenschranks in der Kunst- und Naturalienkammer der Franckeschen Stiftungen, ed. Heike Link (Halle: Franckesche Stiftungen, 2003). The link to magic was first suggested in Regine GrubeVorhoeven, “Die Verwendung von Büchern christlich-religiösen Inhalts zu magischen Zwecken,” in Zauberei und Frömmigkeit (Volksleben 13) (Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1966), 48–9. 6. Hartmut Kühne, “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sammeln’: Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum,” in Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, ed. Hedwig Röckelein (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013). 7. Rudolf Schenda, “Die deutschen Prodigiensammlungen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 4, no. 1 (1961); Rudolf Schenda, “Die protestantisch-katholische Legendenpolemik im 16. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 52 (1970); Rudolf Schenda, “WunderZeichen: Die alten Prodigien in neuen Gewändern: Eine Studie zur Geschichte eines Denkmusters,” Fabula 38, no. 1 (1997). See more on Lutheran wonder books in Philip M. Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination: The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 8. Scharfe, “Wunder und Wunderglaube,” 190–2; Scribner, “Incombustible Luther,” 36–8; Kühne, “Zufällige Begebenheiten,” 282–8; Renate Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben—zu den kulturellen Folgen der Reformation,” Historische Zeitschrift 28, no.  1 (2005): 6–16. See also the recent work by Jürgen Beyer, in which the phenomenon of Lutheran prophets is massively documented: Lay Prophets in Lutheran Europe (C. 1550–1700) (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 9. Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen, Sturmflut 1717: Die Bewältigung einer Naturkatastrophe in der Frühen Neuzeit (München: Oldenbourg, 1992), ch. 5. On the Christian interpretation of urban fires, see Marie Luisa Allemeyer, “ ‘Dass es wohl recht ein Feuer vom Herrn zu nennen gewesen  .  .  .’ Zur Wahrnehmung, Deutung und Verarbeitung von Stadtbränden in norddeutschen Schriften des 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Um Himmels Willen: Religion in Katastrophenzeiten, eds. Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen and Hartmut Lehman (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 2003). For more on religious and confessional reactions to disasters, see Elaine Fulton, “Acts of God: The Confessionalisation of Disaster in Reformation Europe,” in Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics, eds. Andrea Janku, Gerrit J. Schenk, and Franz Mauelshagen (New York: Routledge, 2012). 10. Hartmut Lehmann, “Miracles within Catastrophes: Some Examples from Early Modern Germany,” in Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, eds. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2005). 11. On France, see Moshe Sluhovsky, “Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century Huguenot Thought,” Renaissance and Reformation 19, no.  2 (1995). On the Netherlands, see Willem Frijhoff, “Signs and Wonders in Seventeenth-Century Holland: An interpretive Community,” in Embodied Belief: Ten Essays on Religious Culture in Dutch

20  Unburnt Books History (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002). On England, see Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006). On Geneva, see Philip Rieder, “Miracles and Heretics: Protestants and Catholic Healing Practices in and around Geneva 1530–1750,” Social History of Medicine 23, no. 2 (2010). On New England, see Thomas S. Kidd, “The Healing of Mercy Wheeler: Illness and Miracles among Early American Evangelicals,” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2006). 12. Sluhovsky, “Calvinist Miracles,” 6–7. 13. Frijhoff, “Signs and Wonders,” 152. 14. Carlos Eire, “Redefining the Sacred and the Supernatural,” in Protestantism after 500 Years, eds. Thomas Albert Howard and Mark A. Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 82. 15. Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben,” 4. 16. Ibid., 16–32. 17. Caroline Bynum, “Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History,” German History 34, no.  1 (2016): 93. See David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), especially ch. 1. 18. See Avner Shamir, It’s All in the Eye? Cognitive Approaches to the Visual Arts (Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus, 2003, unpublished paper). 19. Bynum, “Are Things ‘Indifferent’?” 95. 20. See Christopher R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City 1450–1750 (London: Longman, 1995), 276–81. 21. Ludvig Holberg, Andet Levnedsbrev til en fornem Herre, Epistola secunda ad virum perillustrem (Copenhagen, 1951), 3. 22. Allemeyer, “  ‘Dass es wohl recht ein Feuer vom Herrn zu nennen gewesen. . . .’ ” 23. Christian Friedrich Schindler, Dissertatio epistolica, qva de theologis eruditis per ignem (Fulda: Schneeberg, 1727), 20–6. 24. Thomas Bartholin, On the Burning of His Library, and On Medical Travel (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1961), 18. 25. Ibid., 4. 26. Ibid., 11 and 18. See also Axel Garboe, Thomas Bartholin, Et bidrag til dansk natur- og Lægevidenskabs historie i det 17. aarhundrede (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1950), Vol II, 110. 27. Bartholin, On the Burning, 21–42. 28. Garboe, Thomas Bartholin, 112–15. 29. Bartholin, On the Burning, 19. 30. See Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, Band VIII (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1936–7), 1559–60; Herbert Freudenthal, Das Feuer im deutschen Glauben und Brauch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1931), 447–8. 31. Literarischer Briefwechsel, Oder: Aufgefangene curieuse Briefe  .  .  . Erste Sammlung (Frankfurt am Main: Stock und Schilling, 1746), 18–30. 32. Georgius Cedrenus, Georgii Cedreni compendium historiarum, Pars 2 (Paris, 1647), 589–90. Johannes Zonaras, Joannis Zonaræ monachi magni antea vigilum præfecti, et primi a secretis annales, 2nd ed. (Venice, 1729), part II, 135–6. 33. Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, Historia Albigens, ch. VII, in Achille Luchaire, “Premier Fragmend d’une Édition Critique de la Chronique de Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernai,” Bibliothèque de la Faculté des Lettres XXIV (1908): 22. English translation in Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. W. A. and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1998), 29–30. See also the versions of Jordan of Saxony (written ca. 1231), Peter of Ferrand (ca. 1234–6) and Constantine of Orvieto (1246–8)

Unburnt Books 21 in M.-Hyacinthus Laurent, Monumenta historica s. p. n. Dominici (Rome: Institutum Historicum FF, Praedicatorum, 1935), 37–8, 219–20, 296. These legends were included in the popular mediaeval collections of stories about the saints, the Golden Legend (1275), see J. de Voragine, The Golden Legend, or Lives of the Saints, as Englished by William Caxton, 7 vols. (London: Dent, 1900–39), vol. 4: 174–5. 34. Gottfried Tentzel, Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder, 2nd ed. (Arnstadt, 1723). 35. See for instance the pamphlet “Discovery of the Wonderful Preservation of his Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax,” attached to John Heydon, Mans Badnes & Gods Goodnes (London, 1647), preface (no pagination). 36. Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste, Welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden, vol.  59 (Leipzig and Halle: Zedler, 1749), 1897. 37. On the Christian theory of miracles, see Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215 (London: Scholar Press, 1982), ch. 1; Michael E. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Mircacle, 1150–1350 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), ch. 2; John A. Hardon, “The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics,” Theological Studies 15 (1954); Lorraine Daston, “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 1 (1991): 95–100. On wonders, see Koen Vermeir, “Wonder, Magic, and Natural Philosophy: The Disenchantment Thesis Revisited,” in Philosophy Begins in Wonder: An Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy, Theology, and Science, eds. Michael Funk Deckard and Péter Losonczi (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011), 45–51.

Works Cited Allemeyer, Marie Luisa. “ ‘Dass es wohl recht ein Feuer vom Herrn zu nennen gewesen . . .’ Zur Wahrnehmung, Deutung und Verarbeitung von Stadtbränden in norddeutschen Schriften des 17. Jahrhunderts.” In Um Himmels Willen: Religion in Katastrophenzeiten, edited by Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen and Hartmut Lehman, 201–34. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 2003. Bartholin, Thomas. On the Burning of his Library, and On Medical Travel. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1961. Beyer, Jürgen. Lay Prophets in Lutheran Europe (C. 1550–1700). Leiden: Brill, 2017. Bynum, Caroline. “Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History.” German History 34, no. 1 (2016): 88–112. Cedrenus, Georgius. Georgii Cedreni compendium historiarum, Pars 2. Paris, 1647. Daston, Lorraine. “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe.” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 1 (1991): 31–124. Dürr, Renate. “Prophetie und Wunderglauben–zu den kulturellen Folgen der Reformation.” Historische Zeitschrift 28, no. 1 (2005): 3–32. Eire, Carlos. “Redefining the Sacred and the Supernatural.” In Protestantism After 500 Years, edited by Thomas Albert Howard and Mark A. Noll, 75–97. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

22  Unburnt Books Freedberg, David. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Freudenthal, Herbert. Das Feuer im deutschen Glauben und Brauch. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1931. Friedrichs, Christopher R. The Early Modern City 1450–1750. London: Longman, 1995. Frijhoff, Willem. “Signs and Wonders in Seventeenth-Century Holland: An Interpretive Community.” In Embodied Belief: Ten Essays on Religious Culture in Dutch History, 137–52. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002. Fulton, Elaine. “Acts of God: The Confessionalisation of Disaster in Reformation Europe.” In Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics, edited by Andrea Janku, Gerrit J. Schenk, and Franz Mauelshagen, 54–74. New York: Routledge, 2012. Garboe, Axel. Thomas Bartholin: Et bidrag til dansk natur- og Lægevidenskabs historie i det 17. aarhundrede. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1950. Goodich, Michael E. Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Mircacle, 1150–1350. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Grube-Vorhoeven, Regine. “Die Verwendung von Büchern christlich-religiösen Inhalts zu magischen Zwecken.” In Zauberei und Frömmigkeit (Volksleben 13), 12–57. Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1966. Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, Band VIII. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1936–37. Hardon, John A. “The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics.” Theological Studies 15 (1954): 229–57. Heydon, John. Mans Badnes & Gods Goodnes. London, 1647. Holberg, Ludvig. Andet Levnedsbrev til en fornem Herre, Epistola secunda ad virum perillustrem. Copenhagen, 1951. Jakubowski-Tiessen, Manfred. Sturmflut 1717: Die Bewältigung einer Naturkatastrophe in der Frühen Neuzeit. München: Oldenbourg, 1992. Kidd, Thomas S. “The Healing of Mercy Wheeler: Illness and Miracles among Early American Evangelicals.” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2006): 149–70. Kühne, Hartmut. “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sammeln.’ Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum.” In Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, edited by Hedwig Röckelein, 281–99. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013. Laurent, M-Hyacinthus. Monumenta historica s. p. n. Dominici. Rome: Institutum Historicum FF, Praedicatorum, 1935. Lehmann, Hartmut. “Miracles Within Catastrophes: Some Examples from Early Modern Germany.” In Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, edited by Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory, 321–34. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2005. Literarischer Briefwechsel, Oder: Aufgefangene curieuse Briefe  .  .  . Erste Sammlung. Frankfurt am Main: Stock und Schilling, 1746. Luchaire, Achille. “Premier Fragmend d’une Édition Critique de la Chronique de Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernai.” Bibliothèque de la Faculté des Lettres XXIV (1908): 1–75. Messerli, Alfred. “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot.” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 253–79.

Unburnt Books 23 Pfefferkorn, Oliver. “Bücher, die im Feuer nicht verbrennen. Erbauungsliteratur im Protestantismus des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Zeichen und Wunder: Geheimnisse des Schriftenschranks in der Kunst- und Naturalienkammer der Franckeschen Stiftungen, edited by Heike Link, 291–315. Halle: Franckesche Stiftungen, 2003. Rieder, Philip. “Miracles and Heretics: Protestants and Catholic Healing Practices in and Around Geneva 1530–1750.” Social History of Medicine 23, no. 2 (2010): 227–43. Scharfe, Martin. Evangelische Andachtsbilder: Studien zu Intention und Funktion des Bilders in der Frömmigkeitsgeschichte vornehmlich des schwäbishen Raumes. Stuttgart: Müller & Gräff, 1968. ———. “Wunder und Wunderglaube im protestantischen Württemberg.” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 68/69 (1968/69): 190–206. Schenda, Rudolf. “Die deutschen Prodigiensammlungen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 4, no. 1 (1961): 638–709. ———. “Die protestantisch-katholische Legendenpolemik im 16. Jahrhundert.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 52 (1970): 28–48. ———. “Wunder-Zeichen: Die alten Prodigien in neuen Gewändern: Eine Studie zur Geschichte eines Denkmusters.” Fabula 38, no. 1 (1997): 14–32. Schindler, Christian Friedrich. Dissertatio epistolica, qva de theologis eruditis per ignem. Fulda: Schneeberg, 1727. Scribner, Robert. “Incombustible Luther: The Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany.” Past and Present 110 (1986): 38–68. Shamir, Avner. It’s All in the Eye? Cognitive Approaches to the Visual Arts. Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus, 2003, Unpublished Paper. Shaw, Jane. Miracles in Enlightenment England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Sluhovsky, Moshe. “Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century Huguenot Thought.” Renaissance and Reformation 19, no. 2 (1995): 5–25. Soergel, Philip M. Miracles and the Protestant Imagination: The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Spener, Philipp Jakob. Consilia et judicia theologica latina, opus posthumum. Frankfurt am Main: Zunner, 1709. Tentzel, Gottfried. Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder. 2nd ed. Arnstadt, 1723. Vaux-de-Cernay, Peter of les. The History of the Albigensian Crusade. Translated by W. A. and M. D. Sibly. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1998. Vermeir, Koen. “Wonder, Magic, and Natural Philosophy: The Disenchantment Thesis Revisited.” In Philosophy Begins in Wonder: An Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy, Theology, and Science, edited by Michael Funk Deckard and Péter Losonczi, 43–71. Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011. Voragine, J. de. The Golden Legend, or Lives of the Saints, as Englished by William Caxton. 7 vols. London: Dent, 1900–1939. Vulpius, Johann. Crimmitzschaviae celebritas das ist: Der alten Meißnisch-­ Ertzgebirgischen Pleißen-Stadt Crimmitzschau Löblichkeit. Weissenfels: Wohlfart, 1704. ———. Magnificentia Parthenopolitana: Das ist Der Ur-alten Welt-berühmten Haupt- und Handel-Stadt Magdeburg Sonderbare Herrlichkeit . . . alten und

24  Unburnt Books neuen Geschichten . . . insonderheit der An. 1631. den 10. May erfolgten jämmerlichen Zerstörung. Magdeburg: Müller, 1702. Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215. London: Scholar Press, 1982. Zedler, Johann Heinrich. Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste, Welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden. Vol. 59. Leipzig and Halle: Zedler, 1749. Zonaras, Johannes. Joannis Zonaræ monachi magni antea vigilum præfecti, et primi a secretis annales. 2nd ed. Venice, 1729.

2 Narrative

The incombustible book was a prototype narrative, the meaning of which depended on the historical setting and textual context in which the story appeared. A typical report in historical records looked like the following: in 1684, a terrible fire consumed the greater part of Sorau (present-day Żary in western Poland, then under Saxon rule) and killed twenty-two people. After reporting how a man called Johannes Sigart survived by the help of God, the chronicler reported that George Schwerdfeger, a pious and lonely man, was found in the Obergasse almost entirely burnt. However, Johann Habermann’s prayer book, Christliches Gebetbuch (Frankfurt, 1662), which Schwerdfeger had in his pocket, had remained intact.1 Matter of fact and short, this report, like others that appeared in historical chronicles, did not offer an explanation and did not suggest any religious significance. Unlike such thin, unedited descriptive reports, the narratives about unburnt books in prefaces to Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein and in other edifying literature were richer in details and suggested an interpretive framework for the reader. If we want to understand contemporaries’ sentiments regarding unburnt books, it is imperative that we explore both the chronicle-type reports and the constructed narratives. In the following, I  explore: (1) the broader context of the earliest reports about unburnt books, (2) the successful dissemination of narratives about Johann Arndt’s books, and (3) the contemporary treatment of reports about unburnt Bibles. This chapter shows how the narrative itself, the textual context, and the presence (or absence) of terms relating to the supernatural or to the divine conveyed (or failed to convey) a certain view regarding the meaning of the preservation of books in fire.

The Early Reports Apart from a few outliers, the earliest cases of incombustible books are from the 1620s and 1630s. This is not entirely a coincidence. The historical setting of the earliest reports about incombustible books is the Thirty Years’ War, which erupted in Germany in 1618. Surprisingly, the element

26  Narrative of war and denominational persecution is not paramount in the early cases of unburnt books. In 1605, Johannes Wanckel, who published the popular Precationes piae, a book of prayers collected by Friedrich Wilhelm, Herzog of SachsenWeimar, mentioned in the preface to the book that a copy of an earlier edition (probably the first edition, 1595), elegantly adorned with gold, was recovered from a fire entirely undamaged, only some traces of soot being visible, while many other worthy books burned to ashes. Herzog Friedrich Wilhelm understood the event to indicate God’s wish that the book be further used for constant praying.2 Nothing was said about the fire, nor was the discovery of the book described. The event is only vaguely hinted at by the scanty words of Wanckel’s preface. The preservation of the book while other worthy books were not preserved was understood as an affirmation of the prayer book or, rather, as a good excuse for reissuing it and promoting the new edition by highlighting the special fate of this unique “royal” book of prayers. Another report in which only a distant echo of an historical event is discernible appeared some hundred years after the presumed event took place. In 1713, Superintendent in Quedlinburg Friedrich Ernst Kettner wrote that a Latin Bible (Erasmus’s version) to which the reformer Johannes Brenz wrote the preface (Sacrae Scriptvrae et Divinarvm Literarvm Byblia, Leipzig, 1544) was thrown into a fire together with other Lutheran Bibles in the Palatinate in 1620, and was miraculously (mire) preserved in the fire. Kettner claimed that the miraculous survival was reported by Johann Gottlob Hartmann, rector of Landesschule Pforta in Naumburg 1701–15, and that the report was based on trustworthy documents, but he gave no precise reference.3 Here was a story that begged for further elaboration and circulation: a Bible that was attributed to a leading reformer from Martin Luther’s generation was intentionally thrown into the flames together with other evangelical Bibles by Spanish troops during the occupation of the Protestant Palatinate in 1620, and miraculously survived the fire. Nevertheless, no coherent, detailed, and dramatic story about the unburnt Protestant book ever emerged. Kettner’s report appeared in his book about the so-called Comma Johanneum, that is, about a portion of the text of 1 John 5:7–8, which is not found in early Latin and Greek manuscripts. The statement about the unburnt Bible was just a short incidental comment on one of the Bibles in which Kettner was looking for the Comma Johanneum, and as far as I can tell, no one apart from Gottfried Tentzel, the indiscriminating collector of reports, exploited the dramatic potential for propaganda.4 Unburnt books figured in another story about Catholic suppression of Protestantism, this time in Bohemia in 1630. In 1648, the celebrated theologian and educational reformer of the Moravian Brethren, Johann Amos Comenius (Jan Amos Komenský), published his account of the recatholicisation of Bohemia, Historia persecutionum ecclesiae Bohemicae,

Narrative 27 a book that was soon translated into German (Böhmisches MartyrBüchlein, Zürich, 1650) and English (The History of the Bohemian Persecution, London, 1650). In the book, Comenius reported massive attacks on Protestant books, particularly Bibles. In the chapter about “Examples of Prodigies and punishments, whereby God sometimes affrighted his enemies,” Comenius described a book burning in Zatec (Saaz) in 1630. In that year the city magistrates decided to burn the Protestant books that had been confiscated earlier. While the fire consumed all the books, the Bibles of one Simeon Swoboda as well as a book of psalms “suffered the flames without harm,” saving only that “their margins were somewhat singed.”5 According to Comenius, the books were kept “as a memento” by the inhabitants of Zatec, who were forced to flee to nearby Freiberg.6 This is an interesting detail because theologian and Superintendent in Dresden Martin Geier stated in 1668 that two Bibles that were found unharmed somewhere at a stake were taken to Freiberg not long before. These might well be the Bibles of Simeon Swoboda. Geier did not explain the circumstances of the survival of these Bibles; the story was a digression from his line of argument. However, the story was connected to another story of Bible-burning that Geier narrated just before. Geier was arguing against the Catholics, claiming that they neglected and repressed Holy Scripture. He therefore told the (quite famous) story about an Avignon book merchant who was arrested in 1540 for selling French Bibles. He was condemned to be burned, and as a token of his condemnation, he carried two Bibles hanging from his neck, one on his chest and the other on his back.7 Perhaps for Geier, the unburnt Bibles that were taken to Freiberg were a sign that Catholic repression of Protestant Bibles continued. Alternatively, in Geier’s text, the survival of the Bibles at the stake was a mirrorlike compensation for the Bibles that were burnt in Avignon.8 The survival of the two Bibles must have meant something for the Moravian Brethren who kept them and took them to Freiberg, and the existence of these two Bibles, many years after the event, was known to some people, such as Geier. Yet it is important to notice that neither Geier nor Comenius expressed a clear perception of the meaning and function of unburnt books. For Comenius, the books were just one of many prodigies—unusual events that served as warnings to the Catholics against excessive and cruel persecution—that were reported in his book. Most of the recorded signs were exceptional natural phenomena, the most extraordinary of which was a flying dragon that was seen “flaming horribly” throughout Bohemia and Silesia in 1624.9 A year after the preservation of the Bibles in Bohemia, a book of homilies on the Gospel by hymn composer Johann Heermann, Laborum sacrorum continuatio, was found unburnt after a fire in a suburb of Leipzig. Here, too, the war loomed in the background. In 1631, when battles raged in Leipzig and its surroundings, one of the suburbs caught fire and

28  Narrative the fire consumed a print shop in which Heermann’s book was printed. Whereas all the instruments and other books in the workshop burned down, one copy of Heermann’s book survived even though pieces of coals and ashes were found on it. The event was recorded by the printer in a letter that was apparently in circulation and which was later quoted or paraphrased in a short biography of Heermann that was attached to the published version of a funeral sermon given for him after his death. The survival of Heermann’s book was far from unknown during the 1630s and 1640s. When the second edition of Heermann’s book was published in 1636 in Lübeck, a short poem commemorated the unusual survival of the book in Leipzig in 1631. The poem was composed by the famous poet Martin Opitz and was later included in Opitz’s Weltliche Poemata from 1644. In the poem, the devastation of the war is given as the setting of the survival of Heermann’s book. Opitz first decried the devastation of the precious fatherland (das edle Vaterland) by slaughter and fire, then the damage made to Leipzig, and finally the burning in the suburb where neither the houses nor even the cellars could offer protection for the inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was in one of these cellars that Heermann’s book was found: Der Ort ist lauter Glut/ der Zorn der heitzen Flammen Kehrt alles was er kriegt mit schneller Glut zusammen Diss Buch das new gedruckt in seinen Ballen ligt Vnd vmb vnd vber sich mit Brande wird bekriegt/ Bleibt dennoch vnversehrt. Herr Heermann/ ewre Sachen/ Die vns in Glück vnd Noth zu guten Christen Mache.10 [The place is completely ablaze/ the rage of the hot flames sweeps up everything it snatches in swift conflagration This book, newly printed, lies in its bales And about and over it the fire is being fought/ Nevertheless, it remains unscathed. Herr Heermann/Your matters/ which in fortune and in need make us good Christians.] For Opitz, who had personal knowledge of Heermann and was apparently a source of inspiration for Heermann’s hymns, the divine economy played no role at all. For him the unburnt book should simply have been remembered as well as, alongside the book, its author Heermann whose edifying writings had, according to Opitz, great value. A couple of years later, Johann Spangenberg’s Kinder-Postille survived in an accidental fire near Breslau after the owner of the book hid it from Catholic soldiers who lodged in his house. The story was narrated in 1655 by Martin Grundmann in his Geist- und Weltliche GeschichtSchule, where the denominational conflict between Catholics and Protestants and the suppression—or fear of suppression—of books was pushed

Narrative 29 to the background. Grundmann’s book is an eclectic collection, ordered alphabetically, of stories, examples, and events demonstrating marvellous phenomena as well as God’s judgement, blessing, and punishment. Under the item “Asbestinum, Amiantus” (asbestos and amianthus, a variety of asbestos), Grundmann described a type of linen fabric which not only resisted the fire but also came out clean from it. Grundmann reported what he read on the mysterious material in Pliny, Strabo, and a few other authors, and then added that it was neither asbestos nor amiantus that led to the preservation of Arndt’s prayer book in the oven in 1624. Grundmann did not elaborate on the topic, but he clearly saw an opposition between the mysterious but natural material that rejected fire, and the unnatural rejection of fire performed by Arndt’s book. He did not explicitly claim that the survival of books in fire was above or beyond the power of nature. However, he also did not suggest any natural explanation for the survival of paper in the all-consuming fire. It was a wonder (Wunder).11 Here Grundmann had an excuse to relate his personal experience with incombustible books, namely the book that survived fire in 1633 in Hans Junge Nitsche’s house. In 1652, Grundmann lodged near Breslau where he saw a book of homilies for the young (Kinder-Postille) that was first published in the 1540s by the Nordhausen reformer Johann Spangenberg. Inside the book was recorded how this particular copy (Erfurt, 1620) of Spangenberg’s postil was preserved in fire in 1633. The book was hidden under the roof in the house of Hans Junge Nitsche, who feared that the soldiers lodging at his house (apparently, Catholic soldiers) would perceive the book as a sign of Protestantism. Later, when an accidental fire demolished the house, the book was recovered from the debris. This was, according to the inscription inside the book, “a miracle to hear and see.”12 Initially, Grundmann was sceptical. With all the “pious fraud” (piae fraudes) and “utopian wonders” (utopische Wunder) of the age, as he put it, it was difficult to believe in anything, even in what appeared to be true miracles of God. After he consulted with the hostess of the house, who happened to be the mother of the now deceased Nitsche, and the hostess told him in detail what had happened to the book, Grundmann was convinced that the report was genuine. Nitsche’s mother told Grundman that everything in the story was true and that the inscription inside the repaired book was made by the local pastor on her request. The woman offered the book to Grundmann “in memory of the wonder” (Gedächtniss des Wunders), but Grundmann declined the offer.13 One last case should be mentioned here, although the incident took place later. Theologian Georg Eberhard Happel reported in the fourth volume of Grösseste Denkwürdigkeiten der Welt Oder so genandte Relationes Curiosae (1689) that the manuscript of Apostolische Auffmünterung zum Lebendigen Glauben im Christo Jesu (1652), the quite popular

30  Narrative collection of sermons by theologian and writer of devotional literature Joachim Lütkemann, was preserved in fire in Rostock. The survival of the manuscript was, according to Happel, indicated in the copperplate engraving on the title page of the (published) book, in which a fire was depicted and beside the fire the words “noli tangere” (do not touch) could be read. The words refer, apparently, to the words spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection (John 20:17), but here they are directed at the fire and assume the meaning of a divine instruction to the fire not to consume the book.14 Happel supplied his claim with little information; neither the date nor the circumstances of the fire were mentioned. The source for his claim is unknown. Ten years later, theology professor at Kiel University Christian Kortholt reported the same.15 The claim was later often reiterated, usually with reference to Kortholt. Three conclusions should be drawn from the aforementioned survey of the earliest incombustible books. The first is that apart from the first and the last stories, the early stories about unburnt books—as well as the one about Arndt that will be recounted next—originate one way or another in the settings of the Thirty Years’ War. The devastation of the war and the Catholic-Protestant divide were the direct or indirect occasion for the emergence of the Lutheran narrative about unburnt books. This is important because it shows that the origins of the Lutheran affection to such stories relates to the experiences of the devastation caused by warfare and the ongoing battle for denominational hegemony, and because the specific historical and conceptual background was more or less forgotten when incombustible books in the later part of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century were gradually perceived as tokens of a special divine intervention on the behalf of the unburnt book or its author. The second conclusion is that in these early reports, the actual historical event is clouded by imprecise and unspecific factual depictions. Some of the early preservations of books in fire were first reported many years later and were based on knowledge channelled orally rather than through written documents. This is to say that, perhaps for those narrating such stories, the actual historical details—the part of the description that authenticated, in a sense, the validity of the story—were not so important. Rather than validation of truth, the early reports sought to demonstrate the exemplary symbolism of the survival of books in fire. Yet again, no obvious and stable meaning or function was attached to these stories. The unexpected survival of books was encouraging, perhaps poetic, and not necessarily more than that. The last conclusion is that all the reports of this early period were almost forgotten with time. Some of them were mentioned by Gottfried Tentzel, the systematic collector of reports about unburnt books; a couple of them are practically unknown. Johann Christoph Heine complained in 1697 that the preservation of Johann Heermann’s Laborum sacrorum continuatio was hardly known, even among those who had actually read

Narrative 31 the book.16 This is not to say that the stories from the 1620s and 1630s (and perhaps the following two decades as well) had largely disappeared from the discourse about incombustible books. The point is rather that, compared with the very modest diffusion of the early reports, the story of the preservation of Johann Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in 1624 in Langgöns is truly unusual.

Langgöns 1624 A curious wonder (Wunder) was reported in the spring 1624 edition of Relationis historicæ semestralis continuatio, a German semi-annual collection of news stories from all over the world, written by theologian Konrad Lautenbach under the pseudonym Jacobus Francus. At the time of the occupation of the Palatinate (by forces of the Catholic League), a troop of Spanish cavalry was lodged in an inn in the village of Langgöns. They arrived on January 3, 1624, and entered the house of Pastor Justus Geilfusius where the trumpeter found an ornamented copy of Paradiesgärtlein and took the book with him. Four days later the lieutenant of the troop saw the trumpeter reading the book in the inn, snatched the book from his hands, put it in the oven, and added wood so that the book would burn to ashes. After an hour, the innkeeper approached the oven in order to collect some coals and found the book under the burning coals entirely undamaged—book cover, paper and green ribbons intact. The book was sent to the local governor in Giessen who passed the book on to Landgrave Philipp of Hessen-Butzbach.17 Apart from the title that declared the event to be a wonder, the report in Relationis was descriptive and treated the events in the same way that other news and newsworthy stories from the war were reported. It seemed to be merely an unusual, isolated event involving a specially adorned book. The broader historical setting of the event could be understood from the previous news story in the Relationis, in which it was reported that near Kuttenberg (Kutná Hora, not far from Prague) some soldiers attacked a Hussite/Lutheran congregation celebrating Christmas. The soldiers desecrated the Host and wine, sexually abused some of the women, and forced the people to strip out of their clothes. The reporter added that it was a period during which, in many areas, Lutherans were forced to choose between leaving their homes and converting to Catholicism. The juxtaposition of the two stories gives the impression that the story about the unburnt book was an illustration (yet another) of the Catholics’ attempt to deprive the Protestants of their beliefs and worship rather than a demonstration of the unique quality of Arndt’s prayer book. Similarly, and probably based on the aforementioned report, the Latin semi-annual Mercurius Gallobelgicus, which was at the time written by historian Arthus Gotthard, also narrated the story. This latter report

32  Narrative was a dry narration of the events without additional comment or new details.18 And following the report in Mercurius Gallobelgicus, the Parisian gazette Mercure François of 1625, containing news stories collected by the publishers Jean and Estienne Richer, reported that Lutherans were being maltreated in different parts of the Holy Roman Empire and that, in response to this persecution, they brought forth a manifest “marvel or a miracle” (merueille, ou miracle). The report in the French periodical was more or less the same as the one depicted by Mercurius Gallobelgicus, except one curious and possibly significant comment (see Chapter 4).19 The episode from Langgöns was worthy of reporting because in its singularity and simplicity one could discern the Protestant-Catholic divide that was about to devastate large parts of Germany. The authors of historical works from about the same time sensed the dramatic value of the event. In 1631, the episode figured in Historiarum totius mundi epitome, an (abridged) Protestant history of the world composed by Superintendent in Meldorf Johannes Clüver. While reporting matters of war and politics, Clüver narrated two anecdotes, which for him were a token of the fate of Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism respectively. During the wedding of Charles I  of England (by proxy) with Henrietta Maria of France in Paris in 1625, the structure on which a Jesuit preacher stood and gave a sermon broke down, crushing some ninety listeners and killing the preacher. It was “a portent” (prodigio) of the ruin of the English Roman Catholics, of whom Charles, according to Clüver, became a defender. However, in Germany “a sign” (signum) in favour of the servants of the Gospel (Lutherans) manifested. While followers of Luther were everywhere forced to convert to Roman Catholicism, in Langgöns a book written by Arndt and published in Lüneburg was thrown into an oven but, after an hour, was removed unharmed proving by “the miracle of God” (miraculo Deus) that God’s Word shall not be consumed by fire.20 In Clüver’s narrative, the historical was mixed with the divine, the actual with the metaphorical, and the forced conversion of Lutherans was countered by the preservation of a Lutheran book. Paired with the accident during the wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, the unburnt Lutheran book portrayed a portentous, fateful future. Clüver went on to report various prodigies—portentous exceptional natural phenomena—that were recorded at the same time in Europe, such as trees dripping blood and bread sweating blood. A few years later, the same story appeared in a German, large-scale historical work, which broadly covered the period of the Thirty Years’ War and beyond. The first volume of Theatrum Europaeum, covering the years 1618–29, was issued in Frankfurt in 1635 by publisher Mattheus Merian (a couple of years after volume 2 was published with the title Historischer Chroniken Continuation), and was written by Johann Philipp Abelinus. Narrating the chronicles of the year 1625, the “unusual wonder” (seltsam Wunder)—as it was noted on the margin—was also

Narrative 33 briefly described. This version of the report was nearly identical with the first one to appear, namely the one from Relationis historicae semestralis continvatio. However, the historical context in this work was different. The story was sandwiched between reports about unusual and deadly weather phenomena, which preceded the episode about the unburnt book, and reports about an unusual type of insect in Hungary and Siebenbürgen, an earthquake in Italy, a Wunderzeichen in Eisleben as well as in Bohemia (unusual appearance of the sun), which appeared after the episode.21 Again, as in the other historical work, historical chronology was mixed with records of exceptional natural occurrences. In the periodicals and historical works, the specific identity of the book and its author played no role. The book in the oven was a Lutheran book and therefore a sign of the survival of Lutheranism. The event in Langgöns was a minor news story, one of the many that constituted the battleground between the warring parties, and yet it was invested with the potential to signify far beyond the specific historical circumstances. Whatever it signified, the story was a good one, and shortly after it appeared in the periodicals, a much longer, more detailed and more dramatic version appeared in the press. Johannes Frontinus’s Außführliche Relation und warhafftiger Bericht (Darmstadt, 1627) was solely dedicated to the circulation of the noticeable and memorable miracle (Wunderwerck) from Langgöns, as the title of the pamphlet declared. It added many details and short dialogues that were not included in earlier versions. Not much is known about Frontinus. It seems that Frontinus himself investigated the events: he declared in the subtitle of the pamphlet that he had made an inquiry with special diligence as to the circumstances of the events. Possibly, Frontinus’s main source was the innkeeper; in Außführliche Relation und warhafftiger Bericht, the thoughts and intentions of the innkeeper appear to be known to the author.22 According to Frontinus, the Spanish officer who put the book in the oven was one Zacharias von Brechen, whom Frontinus characterised as “an eager papist” who would not let his soldiers enter a Protestant Church or hear a Protestant sermon. Frontinus also identified the Paradiesgärtlein that was taken from the pastor’s house as a 1621 edition printed in Jena by Johan Beuthman,23 bound in black leather and adorned with green ribbons and gold. When the lieutenant saw the trumpeter reading the book, he snatched the book and hurried to the kitchen, the trumpeter following him. The innkeeper, who believed the officer wanted to regulate the heat in the room, left the kitchen. After a quarter of an hour, the officer left, informing the trumpeter who followed him: “look, it is well ashes now.” Hearing this, the innkeeper asked the trumpeter what happened, to which he declared, “alas, my beautiful book was thrown into the oven and burnt.” A God-fearing woman, the innkeeper with tears in her eyes lamented the attempt to burn God’s Word. Her comment was heard by one of the officer’s daughters (who were apparently with him at

34  Narrative the inn), who scornfully commented, “disgraceful book, worth no other fate, this book is the sixth that my father has burned.”24 After an hour, the innkeeper went to the oven to fetch some coals for cooking and found the book undamaged (cover, paper, gold edges, and ribbons in good condition) under the coals in the oven. She declared to her maid that, just as God saved the three men in the furnace (­Daniel 3), God also saved this book from the fire. She resolved to behold the book and use it daily for praying. Hearing the good news, the trumpeter called out that it was impossible that the book was not burnt, but later he recognised that it was indeed “a miracle of God” (ein Wunder Gottes) and that God was just. When the authorities heard of the whole affair they demanded the book, which was sent to the local governor in Giessen and from there to the Landgrave and was placed at the princely library in everlasting memory of the event.25 The final part of the narrative related the reactions of the officer and his providential death a few years later. In this pamphlet, Frontinus shaped the news story from Langgöns according to an economy of divine providence. The lieutenant was a true enemy of religion, a fanatic, a serial burner of books. The innkeeper, the central figure of the story, was a pious woman who immediately recognised the religious dimension of the unusual event. She associated Arndt’s text with the Word of God and recognised the similarity to the biblical story about the three men in the furnace. The trumpeter, the devoted reader, first expressed doubt but then recognised the miracle. The officer who dared burn the book was punished and died. Although the miraculous nature of the event was pronounced explicitly in the narrative only once, Frontinus left nothing to the imagination or critical sense of the reader. After narrating the factual circumstances, he added his reflections on the subject. Almighty God, “contrary to reason” (wider alle Vernunfft), wondrously preserved the book in the fire. There is no doubt in the narrative that God let Arndt’s writings enjoy special care and that, with this miracle (Wunderwerck), God intended to confirm Arndt’s writings. The miracle was an infallible testimony of the divine will that these writings should be accepted with proper respect. The miracle, according to Frontinus, contributed to the edification of the Church against its enemies, whom he characterised as slanderers and envious people. The survival of the book was an invitation for the pious to delight in Arndt’s writings and at the same time a warning to his opponents.26 The miracle was overtly pronounced on the title page of the 1627 pamphlet. However, something interesting happened when the pamphlet was reissued the following year. The use of the term miracle was slightly but meaningfully played down. The 1628 edition (with no indication of publisher or place of publication and with no pagination) promised a true story about “ein merckliche und denckwürdige WunderGeschicht” on the title page. The term Wunderwerck in the first edition was altered

Narrative 35 in the new edition to Wundergeschicht.27 This reformulation was also performed in Frontinus’s often repeated statement (at the end of the pamphlet) that the preservation of the book should be understood as a divine affirmation of Arndt. Thus, the new edition suggested that God intended the Wundergeschicht—rather than the Wunderwerck—to confirm Arndt’s writings and to serve as an infallible testimony of his will.28 In the narrative itself, the event was still called a miracle, but this was a quotation (possibly fictive) of the soldier, who loudly proclaimed the preservation of the book to be miraculous. It is difficult to say for sure what Wundergeschicht was supposed to denote. The Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm suggests that Wundergeschicht(e) has two meanings. One is “wunderbares geschehen oder ding” (wondrous occurrence or thing); the other is “bericht über ein geschehenes wunder” (narrative about a wonder that occurred). Therefore, it could be either a marvellous/miraculous event or a miracle story. It seems that in the new edition of the pamphlet, an effort was made to avoid the straightforward claim made by Frontinus in the first edition that the event was simply and without reservation a miracle. A  miraculous event/story (Wundergeschicht) seemed now— apparently—to be a more appropriate term to describe what happened in the inn. Perhaps it was Frontinus himself, responding to criticism, who made the change, but more likely it was a minor stylistic change made by the publisher for an unauthorised reissuing of Frontinus’s pamphlet. Regardless, by reformulating the title, the direct intervention of God in the survival of Arndt’s book was downplayed. It suggested perceiving miracles less as an ontological presence in the world and more as an epistemological aspect of the world—less as a fact, an aberrant fact of a wondrous nature, and more as an experience on the part of the beholder. In whichever formulation, Frontinus took an interesting anecdote—an event that on a small scale depicted the interdenominational conflict that was one of the causes of the Thirty Years’ War—recast the news story as a dramatic affair in which the will and intention of God played a central role, and invested the story with a simple and limited meaning: God is on Arndt’s side, so dear reader, read Arndt’s books, and better yet, buy them. Frontinus was not the first to exploit the story in the controversy about Arndt’s theology—as I will show—but he definitely made it most forcefully and his version had an impact: Frontinus’s narrative was the source of many iterations of the story and the last part of his pamphlet, explaining the significance of the event, was often used independently as a kind of conclusive remark on the topic of unburnt books. The narrative in Frontinus’s pamphlet was intense, realistic, and meaningful. Yet it was also flawed, or at least, important aspects of the story were left out. As I will demonstrate in Chapter 3, there was a logical (natural) explanation for the preservation of the book in the oven. Furthermore, Pastor Geilfusius himself did not suggest a miraculous intervention.

36  Narrative Most importantly, the theological establishment rejected the notion of a miracle in the preservation of the book.29

The List Grows Longer Johann Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein voller Christlicher Tugenden was a true bestseller. One of the most popular Lutheran prayer books ever, since 1612 the book had been published in countless editions, printings, and translations and was to be found in many homes, even outside of Germany. The book offered a set of prayers for the devotional activity of Lutherans. It was often issued in pocket-sized editions.30 The book also proved extraordinary in terms of incombustibility. In 1645, it survived a fire in Kreutzendorff (Silesia) and in 1678 in Eutin (eastern Holstein). It survived three times during the 1680s and again in 1690. More cases were recorded around 1700 and later. In 1660, the book survived a flood. From 1624 to the middle of the following century, the book was reported—in the prefaces to countless editions of the book—to have miraculously survived in fire and water up to sixteen times (1624–1750). However, the scope of the incombustibility of the book is in fact greater. A  few reports about the survival of the book were never included in the list of miracles in the prefaces to Paradiesgärtlein. The story of the incombustible prayer book circulated widely and it was well known. The legend about the book, the cumulative result of the many narratives, is also a well-researched subject. Alfred Messerli sufficiently analysed the characteristics of the structure of the narrative—as it was formulated repeatedly in the book itself—and the meanings that such a narrative conveyed.31 Consequently, I offer here no systematic analysis of the sixteen or so miracle stories. My intention here is to deal with what the current research has failed to acknowledge: (1) that the narrative about Arndt was forged prior to its inclusion in Arndt’s book and that new stories often appeared independently, before they were added to the growing list of miracles; and (2) that when stories about the survival of the book were included in the preface to Paradiesgärtlein they often lost the original historical settings and had to be further adapted to the didactic and apologetic needs of the publishers and editors of Arndt. My argument is that the legend about the miraculous Paradiesgärtlein was made by those involved in publishing Arndt’s book and was not necessarily a fair and precise reproduction of stories that were universally understood as miracles indicating a divine approval of Arndt and his teachings. Within the pages of Arndt’s books, the survival of the prayer book was understood as an unambiguous divine sign of approval of the book which the reader was about to read. To make the story an unambiguous sign, Frontinus’s version was employed. From the 1640s (possibly as early as 1631), Frontinus’s narrative regularly appeared in the introduction to new editions of Paradiesgärtlein.32 Following the cautious formulation in

Narrative 37 the second edition of the pamphlet, the heading of the section about the survival narrative in prefaces to Arndt declared the story to be a wonder story (Wunder-Geschichte) and the text followed Frontinus’s narrative, including the closing paragraph in which it was declared that what happened in the inn in Langgöns in 1624 was contrary to reason. In some editions, minimal changes were made to Frontinus’s text so that the miraculous aspect was highlighted. Frontinus wrote that when the innkeeper realised that the book was not burnt, she proclaimed that the book “was preserved” (erhalten) by God, but in some editions of the book it was changed to “wondrously preserved” (wunderlich erhalten). She wished to keep the book “in memory” (zum Gedächtnüss) of the event, but some editors turned it into “in perpetual memory of such wonder story” (zum behaarlichen Andencken solcher Wunder-Geschicht). Last, Frontinus wrote that the trumpeter heard about the “preservation” (Erhaltung) of the book, in Paradiesgärtlein it was sometimes changed into “such wondrous preservation” (solche wunderbare Erhaltung).33 These are tiny changes indeed, but they reveal how editors laboured to shape the proper reading of the historical event. This process of shaping the proper interpretation and signalling certainty as to the true nature of the unfamiliar and unnatural event can also be detected in how later reports about the survival in fire of Arndt’s book were adopted for use in Arndt’s book. A city chronicle published in Eutin by Friedrich Cogel (Cogelius) in 1679 included a report about the fire that broke out in the town in the previous year. The fire hit the market, two houses burned down, and one house was damaged. The following day, Arndt’s prayer book was found undamaged in the ashes inside one of the burnt houses.34 Cogel’s narration makes no mention of divine intervention. Nevertheless, when the report was inserted in Arndt’s book (usually as the third miracle) it was sometimes adjusted to better fit the didactic intention of the “Wunder-Geschicht.” For example, a Paradiesgärtlein published in Sondershausen in 1708 introduced Cogel’s report by saying that “the almighty God” had preserved “this admirable book” in fire several times. Within the text, the book was identified as a Lüneburg 1632 edition in 12mo format, and it emphasised that all the other books in the house were burned, that no sign of burning was found on the book, and that several people had carefully inspected the book—none of these details were mentioned by Cogel. Thus, the event was attributed to divine intervention, the reliability of the report was enhanced by claiming that the book was inspected by different people, the story was depicted more realistically by identifying the exact edition of the book, and the episode was made more unnatural by claiming that, while no other book survived, no sign of burning was found on this sole surviving book.35 Sometimes, the original text had to be re-edited more drastically. In 1693, a fire in Leipheim (not far from Ulm) demolished the dwelling of a certain burgher. After the fire had been extinguished, Arndt’s prayer book

38  Narrative was found in the ashes. The book was badly damaged, but the text was still legible. The story appeared in the edition of Paradiesgärtlein that was published in Ulm the following year to which Superintendent in Ulm Elias Veiel added a preface. In his preface, Veiel first briefly mentioned three earlier preservations of the book, then narrated in detail two recent incidents, and finally added the story about the preservation of the book in Leipheim. Despite recounting the incidents in which Arndt’s book was preserved in fire and water, Veiel’s preface was not a typical list of miracle stories like the one that was familiar from many other editions. He dispensed with the iconic narrative about the survival of the book in 1624. Likewise, Veiel emphasised that the preservation of the book in 1693 (and consequently perhaps other preservations) could not be held as “an actual miracle” (eigentliches Wunderwerck) since many other good and sacred books, including a New Testament, were burned in the fire in Leipheim. Veiel admitted that the event was “worthy of reflection and wonder” (nachdenckens und Verwunderungswürdig), and that Arndt’s writings were worthy of reading, but it was important for him to emphasise that the preservation of Arndt’s book in the fire was no miracle.36 The appearance of Veiel’s view in a preface to an edition of Paradiesgärtlein might seem like a sign of the existence of multiple interpretations within the usually uncompromising narrative. Yet the opposite is closer to the truth. The 1694 edition, the edition in which Veiel’s report originally appeared, is practically unknown. I  have so far located only one copy of this edition (at the Royal Library, Copenhagen). Furthermore, the 1693 miracle was almost totally ignored by later editors of Arndt’s prayer book. When not ignored, the 1693 narrative was edited in such a way that any sign of divergence from the official line (that said that the survival of Arndt’s prayer book was a miracle) disappeared. For instance, the Stuttgart 1711 edition included the story as the fifth miracle in the list of incombustible books. The narrative was more or less the same as the one in the 1694 edition, except that any mention of Veiel was erased, including his theoretical considerations regarding the religious value of the event.37 Why did compilers of miracle lists from 1694 onwards overlook the miracle story from Leipheim? Veiel’s report was a solid story. It was detailed and precise. There were witnesses. The miracle was authenticated by the authorities. There was material evidence: the book was kept at a local library. The reason for this narrative’s exclusion might be that the author of the initial report, Superintendent Veiel, did not believe in the miracle. In the prefaces to editions of Arndt’s book, the identity of each book that survived was emphasised. The year and the place of publication were stated, and sometimes the name of the publisher, the format, and the special features of the book were recorded. When incombustible books were initially reported elsewhere, their identity was not always so pronounced. The following demonstrates this point.

Narrative 39 In late June 1714, during a fair held on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a practical demonstration of the quality of some gunpowder caused a terrible explosion in Naumburg (Saxony-Anhalt). One of the gunpowder sellers caused, by accident, the explosion of not only his but also the other sellers’ gunpowder. The result was some thirty people dead and a fire that demolished a few hundred houses and other buildings. A short anonymous pamphlet, Kurtzer doch wahrer Bericht, published the same year in Erfurt, narrated the catastrophe that befell the small town in detail.38 Following the narration of the causes and effects of the disaster, the narrator described “the most remarkable” aspect of the whole event: at the house of a feather merchant, Johann Arndt’s Wahre Christentum was found undamaged in the ashes. While the glaze (on the cover) was burned so that the cover could be flaked, the text was still legible. The book was seen by many and was shown to the authorities. Nevertheless, no attempt was made in the pamphlet to depict this particular occurrence as a miracle or a divine sign.39 The same caution when dealing with unburnt books was demonstrated in a publication from 1714, which included a sermon that was given not long after the catastrophe in Naumburg, a prayer said the day following the disaster, and some annexes in which the damage was detailed. The author of the sermon and, presumably, of the annexes was a town pastor and a prolific author on religious themes, Johann Martin Schamel (Schamelius). According to Schamel, no fewer than three books were found unburnt after the fire. The three books were included in a list of all the things that remained undamaged in the fire. The author attributed no metaphysical characteristics to the unburnt books.40 A year later in a memorial sermon, Schamel called the day of the fire “a wonder day” (Wunder tag) and framed the disaster as a providential event. However, he did not mention the unburnt books in his sermon.41 The first incombustible book in Schamel’s list was found in the house of the feather merchant. The book was left in a chest with some equipment, and whereas the chest with everything else in it burned, the book, though damaged on the outside, survived in good condition. Schamel, who testified that he saw the book, identified it as a volume of two works bound together, the one being Christian Scriver’s prayer book (Güldenes und in seinem Seelen-Schatze beygelegtes Gebet-Kleinod, Nürnberg, 1710) and the other a Paradiesgärtlein printed in Sondershausen in 1709.42 This volume of two books is probably the same one mentioned in the anonymous pamphlet Kurtzer doch wahrer Bericht. But if the two reports refer to the same event, which book was indeed incombustible: Arndt’s prayer book (bound with Scriver’s prayer book) as Schamel had it, or Arndt’s devotional manifest Wahre Christentum, as it was reported in Kurtzer doch wahrer Bericht? Schamel inspected the book; he knew at least when and where the two works included in the book were published. So why was the book identified as Wahre Christentum in Kurtzer doch wahrer

40  Narrative Bericht? Why should the author or his informants mistakenly identify the book as the other famous book of Arndt, and not, as they should intuitively have done, identify it as Arndt’s prayer book, the book that by this point had survived fire ten times or more? Now, often Wahre Christentum and Paradiesgärtlein were printed together and therefore the incombustible book in Naumburg could have been both a prayer book and a devotional work. However, this is unlikely. It made sense to bind two prayer books together (Scriver’s and Arndt’s), but to add to it the many hundreds of pages of Wahre Christentum would make it unmanageable. Indeed the only edition of Arndt issued in Sondershausen in 1709 is a Paradiesgärtlein alone (as far as I can tell). What is interesting is not so much the confusion, typical of reactions to catastrophes, but that a Paradiesgärtlein, well known for its unusual nature, was mistaken for Wahre Christentum, which was thus far almost never reported to have survived fire. Perhaps the confusion is connected to Schamel’s other report about incombustible books. Schamel reported that in the house of co-rector at the cathedral school, the Naumburgisches Gesang-Buch (published by Schamel himself a couple of years earlier) was found seriously burnt yet legible, and likewise in the same house, a copy of Wahre Christentum (Halle, 1712) was found with signs of burning but otherwise undamaged. So indeed, a copy of Arndt’s devotional work was found unharmed, though not in the feather merchant’s house but in the house of the co-rector.43 When the survival of books (described as miraculous neither in the anonymous pamphlet nor by Schamel) in the catastrophic fire in Naumburg was narrated in editions of Paradiesgärtlein, no sign of this confusion remained. In one edition (Halle, 1723), the ninth miracle described the survival of a Paradiesgärtlein in the house of a feather merchant—not Wahre Christentum, as the anonymous author claimed, and not a volume of two prayer books, as Schamel stated. The compiler of the list added that the owner of the book was happy to find the book and decided to keep it in memory of his demolished house, in the hope that God would again bless and help him.44 In another edition (Züllichau, 1750), two miracles were reported. The first was the survival of the double prayer book. The second was the survival of Arndt’s book in the house of the co-rector. However, here the book was identified as a Paradiesgärtlein and not Wahre Christentum.45 True, the particular Wahre Christentum that was printed in Halle in 1712 also included, at the end of the book, Paradiesgärtlein. However, compilers of miracle lists in editions of Arndt’s prayer book did not inform the readers of the fact that the book was an edition of Arndt’s work on internal piety and not just another edition of his prayer book. This was a conscious choice. It seems clear that editorial needs forced changes in reports about Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein to make the miraculous and the divine more forceful. Conscious structuring of reports about the survival of the book

Narrative 41 helped form the desired understanding of the unusual events. Of course, changes were not always necessary. Sometimes the initial reports forcefully employed the economy of divine providence and explicitly attributed the survival of the book to miraculous intervention. Thus, some miracle stories could simply be quoted in the prefaces to editions of Paradiesgärtlein without any significant adjustments or modifications. Still, it seems that when the survival of the book was mentioned in town chronicles and fire chronicles, the authors of such texts made no explicit theological evaluation of the events, and thus, these texts offer an interesting contrast to the narrative employed by compilers of miracle lists. To emphasise how different the discourse about unburnt books was outside the structured space of Arndt’s prayer book, two instructive examples should be mentioned. First, in a chronicle about four urban fires that hit Mutzschen (between Leipzig and Dresden) between 1637 and 1724, Johan Georg Mollen noted as something “remarquables” that in the fire of 1724, Arndt’s prayer book was found undamaged under other (burnt) books in the cellar of the innkeeper Johann Arnold, without the owner knowing how the book got there. Mollen did not explain what was remarkable about the event, but it seems that it was the finding of the book in the cellar, rather than that this book alone survived the fire. The story, as far as I can tell, was never inserted into a list of authorised miracles.46 Second, the periodical Aufgefangene Brieffe published, in October 1702, a piece about Arndt’s incombustible book in which two new incidents were reported. The first incident took place during a fire in Tribsees (near Rostock) in September 1702. While not a single piece of paper survived from the libraries of the local preacher and the royal district secretary, one book, namely Arndt’s prayer book, survived in the house of the latter. The unnamed correspondent characterised the survival of the book in the fire as “against reason,” and saw it as an example of God’s special care (Fürsorge). It was “a wonder” (Wunder) and a testimony of God’s approval of Arndt’s writings.47 In the following, the correspondent shortly listed a few well-known incombustible Paradiesgärtlein and added yet another. In May 1701, a fire in Brandis (near Leipzig) hit Pastor Christoph Andreä Brunner’s house and demolished his library. While all the books that had stood right next to Arndt’s prayer book burned, the Paradiesgärtlein remained undamaged. That Arndt’s book survived in so many fires was, according to this piece, “a miracle” (ein miracul).48 However, in May 1703, a new piece about the theme sought to prove that the report about the incombustible book in Brandis was false; it was based on rumour, not on facts, and therefore no miracle happened in Brandis in May 1701. The correspondent interviewed Christoph Andreä Brunner, in whose house the book was reported to have miraculously survived, and retrieved the following story. The fire burned down fourteen houses, part of the old castle, and part of the town hall. Yet, by

42  Narrative God’s benevolence, the pastor’s house was spared. It is true that in the fire that hit Brandis six years earlier, the pastor’s house was hit, and his library was demolished. It was, however, not true that either the pastor’s Paradiesgärtlein or Wahre Christentum were wondrously preserved in that fire. The pastor had an explanation for the mistaken belief that his book survived the fire of 1701. There was a rumour that a copy of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum belonging to a certain Christoph Kolner survived miraculously. The book was in Kolner’s house on a bookshelf near some jars containing tin and somehow remote from his other books. When the fire reached the house, water was poured into the room. When the owner later entered the room, he found the books burnt, the tin melted, and the shelf on which everything stood scorched. Arndt’s book, however, was unburnt, though very wet. The owner did not consider it a miracle. However, and here begins the interesting part of the story, someone (an unidentified person, a friend of the pastor) heard of the undamaged book, claimed the book from the owner, and considering the survival of the book to be “a special miracle” (ein sonderbares Miracul), he requested that a local court make a formal statement about the divine contribution to the survival of the book. As it happened, however, the opinion of the court was not in favour of the perception that a miracle took place. Nevertheless, the man who asked for the intervention of the court spread the rumour that the preservation of the book was miraculous. Furthermore, the pastor from Brandis added that the book was in fact damaged. The skin cover, the edges, the corners, and the margins of many pages were spoiled. Three months after the fire, the pastor intended to publish a report about the true circumstances of the incident, but since the man who spread the rumour was a good friend of his and since the rumour had in fact receded, he gave up the idea. Following this investigation of the true circumstances of the “incombustible” book in Brandis, the author of this piece in the Aufgefangene Brieffe stated that it should be easy (for the reader) to consider whether the episode was a miracle or not. He wished that in the future, in order to avoid “too many miracles,” similar cases would be carefully investigated by trustworthy people and “passionate” reports would not be trusted again.49 This kind of investigation of the process of the making of miracles and open discussion as to the correct interpretation of incidents in which books were found partly unburnt, was not only untypical of how these incidents were treated by editors of Paradiesgärtlein but practically impossible to imagine within the grand narrative endorsed by all those involved in promoting Arndt’s writings. Historical reports, descriptions of particular events, and the general discourse outside the pages of Paradiesgärtlein were usually not dogmatic and not conclusive when treating the unusual preservation of Arndt’s book in fire. Those involved in finding unburnt books of Arndt, or more

Narrative 43 precisely those recording the findings, did not automatically assume that it was a miracle. Nothing suggests a spontaneous acknowledgement of the divine within the unburnt book—unless we assume that such emotional or intellectual acknowledgement was silenced in these reports. In contrast, all the cases of unburnt books of Arndt were structured in prefaces of Paradiesgärtlein as repeating types of a prototype: a divine intervention in favour of Arndt. In the 1620s, when the legend about the book first emerged, this perception made sense.

Incombustible Arndt The dissemination of the narrative about the survival of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in many fires can hardly be separated from the attempt to vindicate Arndt in the controversy about the orthodoxy of his teachings, especially his theological—or more precisely devotional—manifest Wahre Christentum. The book was first published as Von wahrem Christenthumb in 1605. Three more volumes soon followed, and the book was thereafter usually published as Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum. After Arndt’s death (1621), the book was sometimes issued with two more volumes as Sechs Bücher vom wahren Christentum. Already during his life, from the publication of the first volume of the book and intensively (but only for a short time) after his death, Arndt’s orthodoxy was suspected. Was he truly a Lutheran? Arndt conceived of himself as Lutheran, yet his knowledge of and borrowing from medieval mystics, his employment of texts written by the unorthodox mystic Valentin Weigel, and his unconventional, all-Christian rather than specifically Lutheran piety aroused suspicion. Arndt was associated with other “dubious” thinkers such as the spiritualist reformer Caspar Schwenckfeld and the renowned physician and alchemist Paracelsus, and more generally with the emergence of a new form of unorthodox mystic spiritualism in the seventeenth century. The controversy about Wahre Christentum had begun by 1618, during Arndt’s lifetime, when some clergymen in Danzig voiced criticism of his work. Arndt defended his views and received support from some theologians, such as those of the faculties of theology in Wittenberg and Königsberg. Yet the controversy continued. Criticism was then voiced by theologians from Dresden, Giessen, Ulm, and Leipzig. The controversy reached its peak in 1623, when the faculty of theology at the University of Jena published an unfavourable opinion on the book and Lukas Osiander (the younger) published his substantial criticism of Arndt. Supporters of Arndt responded with a few defences in the following years. Especially successful was the defence published in Lüneburg by Heinrich Varenius in 1624. The defenders of Arndt were victorious in most respects. Arndt was finally largely accepted by the Lutheran orthodoxy. Still, later in the century, Wahre Christentum was not entirely free from accusations and criticism. Despite the uneasiness that some in the

44  Narrative theological establishment felt about Arndt, he emerged from the public debate about his book as a leading religious figure. Later on he was adopted with enthusiasm by Pietist writers. Orthodox or not, Arndt was popular among readers from the beginning of the seventeenth century and well into the nineteenth century. Between 1605 and 1740, ninety-five editions of the book appeared in German alone.50 As suggested by Martin Scharfe and others, the miracle story about Paradiesgärtlein was a response to the yet (1624) undecided controversy about the book’s author. The story had a clear function: it affirmed the orthodoxy of Arndt and boosted his and his writings’ prestige.51 Simply put, the argument was that God protected Arndt’s books in order to demonstrate that Arndt’s religion, theology, and teachings were pleasing to God. On Arndt’s tombstone (now destroyed) in the burial place in the parish church of Celle, the following was written: “That I taught the truth, God demonstrated after my death/ when God powerfully preserved my book in the flaming glow.”52 This message, formulated at least three years after Arndt’s death, was spread out to a broad readership in the preface to editions of Paradiesgärtlein. According to the final paragraph of the miraculous narrative, the survival of the book in the fire in 1624 proved that the writings of Arndt were especially pleasing to God. Arndt’s writings were certified and affirmed by the miracle.53 That the survival of the Paradiesgärtlein in fire demonstrated Arndt’s orthodoxy, and more specifically the legitimacy of Wahre Christentum, was no invention of eager publishers of Paradiesgärtlein. The doctrinal significance of the preservation of the book was pronounced immediately after the first miracle story received publicity. In 1624, Heinrich Varenius, court chaplain at the court of Herzog August I of BraunschweigLüneburg in Hitzacker, included the account of the survival of the book in Langgöns in his Christliche Schrifftmässige wolgegründete Rettunge der Vier Bücher vom wahren Christenthumb. The book was a reply to criticism of Arndt expressed by Lukas Osiander (the younger), a vocal Lutheran-Orthodox polemicist who questioned the orthodoxy of Arndt’s book (Theologisches Bedenken und christliche Erinnerung, welcher Gestalt Joh. Arndten wahres Christentum anzusehen sey, 1623). In the preface to the second part of his book, Varenius compares polemical strife to the conduct of war, differentiates between offensive and defensive war, and declares his reply to Osiander’s disapproval of Arndt as a form of defensive polemics, which despite being fought against an inner enemy (within the Lutheran world) and not an external one (the Catholics), is imperative. Varenius has four reasons for defending Arndt. The first is that he finds in Arndt’s piety nothing contrary to Holy Scripture. The second is that Osiander interpreted Arndt contrary to Arndt’s intention and gave Arndt’s ideas a sectarian interpretation. The third is that judging by the effect that Arndt’s book had, his teachings could not have been false. The fourth argument is that God himself wondrously preserved a copy of

Narrative 45 Paradiesgärtlein, the teachings of which agreed in all aspects with Wahre Christentum, from the usual effects of a fire.54 For Varenius, the endurance of the book in fire was a sign that the teachings of Arndt were orthodox. In his interpretation of the event, Varenius relied on his reading of the biblical narrative from the book of Daniel (chapter 3) about the miraculous survival of the three men in the furnace: just as the biblical survival was a sign and proof that these men were “pleasing to God,” so when God wondrously saved Arndt’s book from the fire it was a sign that Arndt’s doctrine could not have been “ungodly teachings” in the sense that nothing in it opposed Holy Scripture.55 It should be emphasised that the controversy between Osiander and Varenius was not purely a question of theology and interpretation of Arndt’s devotional writings. Other interests were involved. Herzog August I, known as the patron of Arndt’s legacy, was involved in issuing the defence of Arndt. When the city council of Lüneburg prohibited the publishing house Stern from printing Varenius’s book, Herzog August’s brother, Christian Duke of Lüneburg, intervened and made the publication possible. Moreover, the publishing house of Stern had financial interests in vindicating Arndt as a good Lutheran author. Arndt contributed an introduction to a folio Bible that this publishing house issued in 1620, and in the same year Wahre Christentum was published for the first time by the Sterns. In the following years, Arndt’s Lehr- und Trost-büchlein and Paradiesgärtlein were also published. The Sterns had plans for more publications of Arndt’s edifying writings, which apparently sold nicely. Therefore the publishing house issued, in 1625, two more defences of Arndt (in addition to that of Varenius) and in the same year, Wahre Christentum was published in both Latin and German.56 The idea that Varenius formulated was repeated more eloquently in 1651 by Baroque writer Georg Philipp Harsdörffer in the second volume of his prose collection, Der grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte. Harsdörffer presented the miracle (Wunderwerck) of the incombustible Paradiesgärtlein as one of a hundred instructive examples that he collected in this volume. He first narrated in detail the miracle of 1624. Immediately after this story, Harsdörffer narrated how, in October 1645 in Kreutzendorff (Silesia), the wagon of a quartermaster from Lischwitz, serving Colonel Joachim Ernst Görtzki, caught fire during the night and the whole house next to which it stood burned to ashes. The following day, looking for the tin and copper that were on the wagon, the quartermaster found his Paradiesgärtlein intact; the book did not even smell of smoke. The quartermaster gave the book to a certain lieutenant who later exchanged it for a horse. The story, according to Harsdörffer, was told by Colonel Görtzki to his officers and was held as a true story by the whole regiment and many citizens of Lischwitz.57 Harsdörffer’s two stories were followed by a discourse about Johann Arndt and his writings. Arndt, according to Harsdörffer, was slandered

46  Narrative for aiming too high, wanting to make the people too pious, and for writing for the common people as if they were pure as angels. Harsdörffer brushed aside these accusations and instead praised Arndt and his books. For him, Arndt was vindicated by the two remarkable stories that showed that Arndt’s life, death, and writings were divinely approved.58 To round out his praise for Arndt and his prayer book, Harsdörffer concluded the section that dealt with Arndt with a short poem in which Arndt’s Paradise was neatly associated with the biblical Paradise. The story about the survival of Arndt’s prayer book in Kreutzendorff was accepted without changes in later editions of Paradiesgärtlein, and likewise the poem was added in many editions as the final piece in the section about the miracles. The standard line of argument, as it appeared in the book itself, was originally formulated by Frontinus in 1627. Frontinus’s formulation of the meaning and function of the unusual event was regularly included in editions of Paradiesgärtlein and used by other authors.59 Whereas for Varenius the miracle supported scholarly arguments and for Harsdörffer the miracle defended Arndt from specific slander, Frontinus pronounced the miracle as proof of the orthodoxy of Arndt without any reference to the actual controversy about Arndt’s perception of Christianity. Over time, the miracle came to symbolise an unspecified approval of Arndt and his books that was not linked to the initial controversy and that did not mention the fact that the survival of one book, namely Paradiesgärtlein, was supposed to disprove criticism of another book, namely Wahre Christentum.60 The signifying power of the incombustible Paradiesgärtlein was also employed in the most influential work on Church history in the period, namely Gottfried Arnold’s celebrated Unparteyische Kirchenund Ketzer-Historie (1699). In the middle of a long presentation of the controversy (in which Arnold took the side of the defenders of Arndt), Arnold stated that Paradiesgärtlein was recommended by many scholars and was often miraculously preserved in fire and water.61 The insertion of the miracle narrative, without actually narrating any of the stories, without elaborating on its relation to the controversy, and without attributing any epistemological significance to the miracle, was not just a conventional polemical technique. The preservation of the prayer book in the fire could be read as a counter-metaphor and counterargument to what some of the less compromising critics had said about Arndt. Arnold relates what one critic said about Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum: “Christianismus in quator libris? Absurdum! Es ist biblis” (Christianity in four books? Absurd! That [Christianity] is in the Bible). To this Arnold responded that those “Pharisees” (those literalist orthodox critics), even if they had the key to the kingdom of heaven, would not let Arndt be saved by God’s grace and rather would send him to the fire of purgatory. Arnold retrieved this rather harsh judgement from what Lutheran controversialist and professor in Danzig Samuel Schelwig wrote about Arndt

Narrative 47 a few years earlier. Schelwig wrote that he hoped that Arndt, because of “building hay and stubble on the foundation of Christ”—which ought to be burned—indeed be saved by God’s grace “as if through fire.” Schelwig was referring to 1 Corinthians 3:10–11, where Paul speaks of Jesus as a foundation on which others should build further. If any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble . . . it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. . . . If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.62 Schelwig must have meant that Arndt’s “hay and stubbles,” that is, his books, deserved to be burned, but did he also mean that Arndt should suffer the purifying fire of purgatory?63 This is, anyway, how Arnold understood Schelwig’s use of Paul. Arnold’s reply, in part, indicated (not explicitly, but it could be read this way) that Arndt’s prayer book, though naturally not Arndt himself, had already been tried by fire. Since his book survived the fire, it was a sign that Arndt did not build “hay and stubbles,” but rather was continuing the construction of the foundation of Christ. The incidental flames of quite common urban fires could be understood as a trial-by-fire. If a book survived the trial, it must have meant something about the book. However, as seems to be the case in Paul’s epistle, in Schelwig’s criticism of Arndt, and in Arnold’s response, the trial of the book might also be a trial of the author and by extension everything that the author has written. This must have been the logic that enabled so many controversialists and all the compilers of lists of miracles in Arndt’s book to ignore the small detail that must have been evident to all: if the divine intervention was intended to vindicate Arndt, why did copies of Paradiesgärtlein, an uncontroversial prayer book, survive so many fires while copies of Wahre Christentum, a highly controversial book, did not? The answer must be that the logic of association through common authorship made the preservation of the one a sign of the affirmation of the other. Once this was established at an early stage, the sign multiplied while the signification remained the same. In fact, a few copies of Wahre Christentum or a double edition (an edition of Wahre Christentum to which the prayer book was appended) did survive fire. The book was found undamaged in Görlitz (1691), Schwerin (1697), Leubingen (1714), and Quedlinburg (1733). For example, in 1691, a short pamphlet by Christian Gabriel Funcke (under the pseudonym Christian Pius) disseminated news about a fire that took place in Görlitz, Saxony. Earlier the same year, a devastating fire destroyed almost two hundred houses and badly damaged St.  Peter’s Church. On March  19, “a wrathful day of the Lord,” God punished the town

48  Narrative according to his “inexplicable intent and will” and “by just judgement.”64 The fire first stopped when God called upon it to stop. The power of the divine was also demonstrated by a memorable act of providence, indeed a “wonder of God” (Wunder gottes).65 In the middle of the fire, Arndt’s Wahre Christentum as well as a Bible survived unharmed. The two books belonged to a certain widow. The Bible (Lüneburg, 1683, adorned with copper) survived in her beerhouse while all the other books surrounding it burned to ashes. Signs of the fire could be seen on the book, but the Bible as a whole was undamaged. Likewise, in the widow’s dwelling, a copy of Wahre Christentum was found slightly damaged but with an almost fully legible text. While everything else, including other books, burned down, Arndt’s book survived “by the miraculous hand of God.”66 Funcke’s narrative was about divine providence caring for the city of Görlitz even while the city was punished, not a narrative about the vindication of Arndt. In fact, with a few exceptions, reports about the preservation of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum in fire were not integrated into the list of miracles in Arndt’s prayer book, presumably because by the late seventeenth century the narrative of the incombustible Paradiesgärtlein had a life of its own and Arndt was not as controversial as he was at the beginning of the century, so the legend remained tightly connected to the prayer book, although it continued to signal an affirmation of Arndt and his theology.

Incombustible Bibles If any book had to wondrously survive fire in the seventeenth century and communicate a Lutheran message, that is, an idea about books and divine intervention common to all (or most) Lutherans, then it must have been the Bible, or more specifically, Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. The foundation of Lutheran theology, the best, if not sole, true representation of God’s Word, reading material for many Christians (at least from the later seventeenth century), Scripture was the infrastructure of religion in the Lutheran parts of Germany. The survival of a Bible in fire could have conveyed a general message about the Lutheran faith. However, here was a paradox. If incombustibility demonstrated an affirmation of the book, then was it not superfluous, counterproductive, or even outrageous to claim that Scripture needed new affirmation? This point was formulated by Superintendent Veiel in 1694. Veiel argued that the exceptional survival of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in fire the previous year in Ulm was indeed worthy of contemplation and wonder, yet it could not be held up as a miracle since many other good and sacred books, including a New Testament, were destroyed in the fire. It could be thought, he added, that if any book had to survive the catastrophic fire, then the divine providence would have taken special care of the books of Holy Scripture. This did not happen in Ulm and should not have happened—according

Narrative 49 to Veiel—since Scripture needed no new confirmation.67 Not everyone, however, saw the problem in such clear light. The Bible in German, Luther’s Bible in many editions, was a common book in churches, public institutions, and many private homes. Compared with other books, the probability that a Bible would survive an accidental fire was rather high. There are, nevertheless, not many reports about unburnt Bibles, and the reserved manner in which cases of unburnt Bibles are narrated is an indication that contemporaries were not always willing to celebrate the unexpected preservation of books of Scripture. Yet the Bible did occasionally survive the fire of persecution or accidental urban fires, and some of the stories became well known. The best-known incombustible Bibles are one from Hungary (1660), two from Münchberg (1701), and one from Nordhausen (1710). A few others endured fire, but their fate gained little publicity. As mentioned earlier, the preservation of Johann Brenz’s Bible in 1620 in the Palatinate did not materialise into a narrative. Hardly a rumour, it was shortly referred to a hundred years after the event presumably took place. The survival of two Bibles in Bohemia in 1630 belonged to a broader narrative about persecution and re-catholicisation. It remained within the framework of Comenius’s historical narrative and did not enter the discourse about incombustible books in Germany. Indeed, these Bibles were not even Lutheran. Another report was somewhat more successful. Jacob Tentzel, Superintendent in Arnstadt (and father of Gottfried Tentzel) gave a sermon at the funeral of the watchmaker Wolfgang Hager in Arnstadt. When the sermon was published, a short biography was attached to it, which related how Hager’s residence as well as his workshop was hit by the great fire of 1670. Despite the great devastation, God did not spare Hager from his grace—his Bible was wondrously preserved intact in the fire. It was a Luther Bible, which Hager read through five times.68 The brief anecdote about the God-fearing layman and devoted Bible reader might have functioned as an edifying narrative, yet it seems that it did not attract the attention of those writers who were interested in the topic. Obviously, Gottfried Tentzel included the report in his collection. Being himself from Arnstadt and the son of the author of the book in which the report initially appeared, Tentzel was familiar with the story.69 Oddly, one place higher in Tentzel’s list of incombustible books we find another Bible that survived in the 1670 fire in Arnstadt. It was the Bible of Deacon Jacobus Bartholomeus. Tentzel reported no other details about this event.70 Apparently, this preservation was nowhere properly recorded. Tentzel lists two more survivals of Bibles without even being able to date them, one in Kindelbrück and one in Pferdingsleben.71 This is quite unusual because Tentzel made at least a minimal effort to state the basic details of each of the cases in his book. That Tentzel could not report anything substantial about three unburnt Bibles is therefore

50  Narrative indicative of the lack of interest, or the unusual caution on the side of some contemporaries when dealing with unburnt books of Scripture. A telling example of how unburnt Bibles were ignored was recorded in one of the best stories about Arndt. When a Paradiesgärtlein survived in 1726 in Winkel, the book ended up in the princely library in Eisenach, following the personal request of Johann Wilhelm, Herzog of SachsenEisenach.72 Within the story of the unburnt prayer book, a story about an unburnt Bible was concealed. Pastor Höpfner, who recorded the story, recounts that he received the news about the survival of Arndt’s prayer book just as he was recovering a Bible from the debris of his own house. According to him, three days after the fire, when he was clearing the ruins of the house, he found a Wittenberg Bible in the still glowing ashes of other books. The Bible was badly damaged, but the text itself was untouched by the fire. The pastor opened the Bible and read the words of Psalms 51:12: “Tröste mich wieder mit deiner Hülfe, und der freudige Geist erhalte mich” (Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit). For the pastor, the recovery of the Bible was an extraordinary event and he emphasised that the Bible had survived when all other “more firmly bounded” books burned to ashes.73 But it was not the unburnt Bible that attracted the attention of Herzog Johann Wilhelm. Apparently, the prince did not desire the Bible to be kept in his library. Perhaps he was not even informed about it. If Höpfner at all publicised the fact that a Bible had also survived the fire, it is interesting that Arndt’s prayer book ended up in the library and the Bible did not. Despite the tendency not to celebrate (and collect) unburnt Bibles, the fate of a few became well known. The story of three such Bibles follows. The evangelical preacher Stephan Pilarik described in the autobiographical work Currus Jehovae mirabilis, Dass ist/ Ein Wunderbahrer Wagen des Allerhochsten (1678) the persecution of the evangelical churches in Hungary. In 1660, Pilarik was ordered by Count Franz (Ferenc) III Nàdasdy, a Catholic convert from a famous Protestant family, who at the time held the office of superior judge, to stop practicing his duties as a priest (in Beckaw, today Slovakia). When Pilarik refused to follow orders, the count twice sent troops to arrest Pilarik, but without success. While Pilarik found asylum at a friendly house, his collection of books and his priest’s robe, a token of Pilarik’s person, which had previously been confiscated, were taken to the castle and were ceremoniously burned by the hangman. One Latin Bible that originally belonged to Pilarik’s father did not burn. The Bible was brought to the count, who ordered that the book be pierced and roasted on the fire. When the Bible still would not burn, a leaf out of another Bible flew from the fire, vibrated for a while in the air and landed in the count’s lap. On the page one could read the words of Isaiah 40:8, which Pilarik quoted in both Latin and German, as if he was not sure whether the page came from a Latin or a German Bible: “Verbum Domini manet in eternum; Das Wort Gottes bleibet in

Narrative 51 Ewigkeit” (But the word of our God shall stand forever). Having read these words, the count and his council left the place. When the count left, the court’s fool cried after him, “how shall you feel, Sir Count, when the devils are roasting you in hell? Would you then think of this Bible?” Meanwhile more leaves from the burnt books flew around to a distance of up to three miles and were taken up and kept by pious Christians in perpetual memory of the unburnt Bible.74 The narrative was compelling. It involved persecution, deliverance, burnt books, an unburnt Bible, and a symbolic, perhaps prophetic, biblical text—components that combine to make a good story. There was also something peculiar about Pilarik’s story. Following the historical account of the burning of the books, Pilarik added that one eyewitness was better than a thousand whose knowledge was based on hearsay. One such reliable eyewitness—Pilarik’s source, a certain Daniel Nodulari—reported that Pilarik’s Bible did not burn but remained undamaged in the fire. It seems that Pilarik, based on one eyewitness, wanted to revise the common perception—based on hearsay—of what happened when his books were burned in 1660. In the original reporting of the events (see below), no Bible remained unburnt. On the contrary, a Bible was intentionally destroyed in the fire and only a few pages remained to bear witness for the desecration of this Bible. Almost twenty years after the event, in an intended revision of the original reporting, Pilarik told a story about a Bible that simply would not burn. For the original reporting, Pilarik referred the reader to Loci theologiae historici (1668) by the Hungarian preacher Johann Stieffler, a collection of historical anecdotes with theological application divided thematically, in which the story about the burning of Pilarik’s books was narrated. Stieffler only stated that the great persecutor of the evangelicals in Hungary (Count Nàdasdy) caused a Luther Bible to be put on a spike, “like a piece of meat, and be burned to ashes.”75 The anecdote appeared in Stieffler’s book as the last item in a section about the despisers of Holy Scripture, which was the last section in the opening chapter of the Loci theologiae, a chapter about Holy Scripture, and was therefore naturally a token of the hateful and scornful attitude of the Catholics and other enemies of the Gospel toward the Bible in general and Luther’s translation of Scripture in particular. There was no unburnt, miraculous Bible in this narrative. First in the sequel, Loci theologiae historici continuati from 1686, Stieffler inserted the story about the unburnt Latin Bible, which by then he had seen in Pilarik’s book, published a few years earlier. Stieffler reported the survival of the Latin Bible, the symbolic Bible leaf, the words of the court’s fool and the fate of the count, who was executed ten years later, accused of rebellion.76 The claim that a Bible miraculously survived fire in 1660 in Hungary seems to be based on uncertain information, an alleged eyewitness whose testimony surfaced long after the event. Indeed, the story was narrated

52  Narrative in many variations; in each, the extraordinary, prodigious, or miraculous took a somewhat different form. Two years before Stephan Pilarik published his account of the persecution of the evangelicals in Hungary, his son Esaias Pilarik narrated the story in the preface to his defence of a theological dissertation (published in Wittenberg) about the persecution of the true Church. Pilarik the younger described the confiscation of his father’s library, some two thousand books, and the burning of the books as well as his father’s priest’s robe in a “funeral pyre” in the presence of the count, other barons and nobles, and a multitude of applauding people. Yet, “behold”—he exclaimed in the middle of the factual description—“wonders” (prodigia) were taking place. Despite the great efforts of the executioner, the flames could not get hold of “one sacred codex” so it remained untouched, and from the middle of the book, one unburnt page, containing the text “Verbum Domini manet in eternum,” flew out.77 The story was also narrated in Christian Scriver’s second and enlarged edition of Müssige Land-Stunden, published by Martin Bräuer in Königsberg in 1698. To Scriver’s original collection of texts and anecdotes as comments on scriptural verses Bräuer added an Evangelischer Wegweiser, a guide for the reader suggesting how the edifying texts should be applied in relation to the regular reading of Scripture on Sundays and holy days. For the first Sunday in the calendar, the first Sunday in Advent, in which the text of Matthew 21:1 was read, Bräuer recommended two texts of Scriver and added, as an equally valuable text, the story about the Bible that survived the fire of persecution in Hungary in 1660.78 Further, in 1704, Johann Tobias Gleich narrated Pilarik’s persecution story, including the part about the Latin Bible, in his historical dissertation Singularibus quorundam theologorum fatis, presented in Leipzig. In the dissertation, Gleich discussed the special fate (fatum) of certain theologians whose destiny exemplified a divine economy in which the divine will (numen) led chosen people—biblical prophets in the past and some theologians in his own time—into tribulations and trials.79 Among other fateful occurrences, Gleich mentioned the providential survival of books (by, or belonging to, notable theologians), for which the best example was the survival of Paradiesgärtlein in both fire and water.80 Here Gleich added the story about the survival of one of Pilarik’s books, namely a Bible. Gleich gave a summary of Pilarik’s account up to the point at which it is discovered that the Latin Bible did not burn, an occurrence that was, according to Gleich, a “divine omen” (divino omino).81 Gleich did not indicate what the unburnt Bible signified. Possibly, it was an omen of the coming disgraceful death of the count; possibly, a sign of divine providence and omnipotence—as Gleich indicated in relation to the survival of Arndt’s book. Nor did Gleich inform the reader that the Latin Bible survived the second attempt to burn the book (to “roast” it), that one page from another Bible made the count furious

Narrative 53 and frustrated, or that the burning of other books belonging to Pilarik had meaningful consequences—at least for those who collected unburnt leaves from those books. It is as if the combined symbolic value of fire, books, and text did not make an impression on the analytical mind of Gleich. The point of the story was rather that some theologians experienced persecution and tribulations. The hypothesis that the destiny of some people was unique and directly governed by divine will was based, as Gleich indicated in the introduction to his short treatise, on Psalms 4:4, where the psalmist cries out “Cognoscite, quod mirabiliter segreget Sanctos suos Dominus” (know that the Lord wonderfully sets apart his holy [men]). The verse signals the providential role that holy men should play, in the sense that, according to Gleich, they go through trials and temptations by Satan, but are eventually protected and provided for by God.82 Interestingly, the Hebrew text read ‫ודעו כי הפלה יהוה חסיד לו‬. It could be rendered as Gleich did and in similar formulation in the Vulgate as well as the Luther Bible, but it seems that mirabiliter or wunderlich, as Luther had it, is a misunderstanding of the Hebrew verb ‫להפלות‬, which can indicate both to set apart and (in a different spelling) to do wondrously. For example, the King James Version (KJV; Psalms 4:3) followed a literal translation of the Hebrew, where no reference to something wondrous or miraculous is to be found: “But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.” However, if the original Hebrew spelling in fact read ‫( כי הפליא חסדו לי‬that the Lord was marvellously graceful to me), as is the formulation in a similar verse in Psalms 31:22, then the indication of something wondrous is justified, but then again there is no holy man (‫ )חסיד‬in this verse, but rather the grace of the Lord (‫)חסדו‬. The literal translation of KJV (Psalms 31:21) read, “for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness.” Precise or not, the phrase might explain Gleich’s fondness of Pilarik’s narrative, since Pilarik had the verse in Hebrew at the top of the title page and a German translation at the bottom: “Erkennet doch/ dass der HERR seine Heiligen wunderlich führet.” In 1701, almost eighty years after the first example of a Lutheran incombustible book was recorded, the survival of Bibles in fire made headlines. The news about the preservation of two Bibles in Münchberg (not far from Bayreuth) on September  26, 1701, in a fire that quickly demolished more than a hundred buildings, including the town church and two schools, were soon disseminated.83 An early report, written the following day in Bayreuth and briefly quoted by Tentzel, described the damage and related what happened to one Bible. In the house of a deacon, the Weimar Bible, lying on a table, survived in the middle of the ashes and flames without any damage, neither table nor Bible even smelled of the fire. Regardless of his fury and punishment, the report concluded, almighty God directed his most merciful eyes and protection at his true Word.84

54  Narrative The Weimarer-Bibel or Kurfürstenbibel, sometimes also referred to as Nürnberger-Bibel, was an influential and popular Luther Bible with commentaries that first appeared in 1641. It was published in Nürnberg by the Endter family, following the initiative of Herzog Ernst III the Pious of Sachsen-Weimar and with the cooperation of a group of theologians from the University of Jena. This Bible included an engraving of Martin Luther in the form of a representation of his gravestone in the town church of Jena. The engraving depicted a life-size relief of the reformer standing, looking gravely straight ahead and holding a little book, presumably a Bible. The image of Luther appeared as the last in a series of eleven short biographies representing the Saxon electors and other dukes of the Ernestine line of the Wettin house, the first of which was Friedrich the Wise, the protector of Luther. Each biography was supplied with a full-page image.85 The fate of this popular Bible, in which one of the most iconic representations of the great reformer appeared, became immediately well known and was often repeated. In 1702, court preacher at Weimar Johann Kless stated more or less the same as the Bayreuth report, in his Weimarische Kleine Bibel, a series of instructional lessons following Luther’s catechism. That one book survived while everything else in the house burned down was according to Kless “a wonder” (Wunder), and he concluded that it was a proof of “the divine care” (Aufsicht) for the Weimar Bible. As could be expected, Kless used the miraculous preservation of the “Groß-Bibel” (Weimar Bible) to publicise his own Kleine-Bibel.86 Parallel with the circulation of this story, another unburnt Bible from the fire in Münchberg was proclaimed. In Ad virum reverendissimum Heinricum Arnoldum Stockflethu (1701), Superintendent in Weyda Christian Feustel mentioned the preservation of a Luther Bible in the house of General Superintendent in Bayreuth and Superintendent in Münchberg Heinrich Arnold Stockfleth, who had lost a huge collection of books—up to 18,000 items—in the fire. Following the fire, Feustel wrote a letter to Stockfleth in which he described from memory the contents of the lost library, which he had seen during a visit two years earlier. Before arriving to the burning of Stockfleth’s books, Feustel recalled the burning of the ancient library in Alexandria, the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes’s order to burn the Bible during the Jewish rebellion (1 Maccabees 1:56), the “impious” King Jehoiakim’s burning of “a sacred codex” written by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:23), and other references to book burning.87 The specific context for mentioning the preservation of one of Stockfleth’s books was that Feustel deplored the loss of Stockfleth’s work in the fire and especially the loss of Stockfleth’s manuscript on ecclesiastic law, which was about to be published. Feustel wished that if not everything then at least one part of Stockfleth’s new work, namely the part dealing with the ideal completion of or supplement to divine

Narrative 55 worship (Tractatus de compeemento cultus divini publici), be “snatched from the flames” and be “vindicated from extinction,” as had been the fate of some books in the past. Among these books, Feustel obviously mentioned Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein. Next, he mentioned a catechism of a certain pious man that was preserved in a fire “from the skies” in a castle near Misenam (Meissen?) a few years earlier. Possibly, Feustel referred to the preservation of Philipp Jakob Spener’s catechism in 1689 in a fire that followed, according to one report, bad weather.88 Next, Feustel mentioned a “Biblia Vinariensia” (another name for the Weimar Bible), which remained untouched in the fire in the house of a colleague of Stockfleth—no doubt referring to the Weimar Bible that survived in the same fire at the house of the deacon. Finally, Feustel mentioned Stockfleth’s Bible—a Luther Bible (Lüneburg, 1647)—that Stockfleth had used daily for thirty-four years. Stockfleth’s Bible survived in the middle of the flames, although everything around the book was destroyed by the fire. It showed marks of burning and it smelled of the fire.89 Knowledge of what happened in the demolished houses of the theologian and collector Stockfleth and the local deacon was scarce, but the overall picture was easy to grasp and accept: in opposition to what one could expect and in opposition to the fate of the other books in the houses of the two clergymen, two Bibles, both of Luther’s translation, remained unburnt in the fire. However, the nuances of the different presentations of the exceptional occurrence reveal different understandings of what was memorable in unburnt Bibles. In the Bayreuth report, Scripture—God’s true Word—was emphasised as the object of divine inspection; neither Luther nor the specific edition seems to have had anything to do with the preservation of the book. Highlighting the content of the book was only one possible approach. Johann Kless emphasised the very edition as the special carrier of divine will, and by implication he highlighted his own Kleine-Bibel. A third option (which will be explored later) was that neither Scripture nor the book was essential in detecting the divine; it was rather Luther, the translator, whose association with the books made them worthy of remembrance as a revelation of God’s providence. The Weimar Bible from Münchberg was mentioned by many other authors.90 Remarkably, it was claimed that the book had survived in both fire and water (curiously, exactly what was said about Arndt) in a survey of the history of the Weimar Bible that was written by the priest Casper Binder and published in three parts in the periodical Acta historico-ecclesiastica: oder gesammlete Nachrichten von d. neuesten Kirchen-Geschichten (1741–2) on the occasion of the one-hundred-year anniversary for the publication of the first edition of this Bible. Unfortunately, no details were offered.91 The last case to be discussed here is the Brandbibel from Nordhausen. Late on August 23, 1710, a fire destroyed a great part of the free city Nordhausen, including the town hall, school, one church, and other public

56  Narrative buildings. The fire also burned the house of Johann Richard Otto, deacon at St. Peter’s Church, to the ground. When the fire subsided, Otto found in the debris a Bible in German completely untouched by the fire. Inside the book, Otto inscribed his testimony, according to which the fire—sent by God to sinful Nordhausen—consumed his house, yet while everything else burned the Bible “wondrously” (wunderbarer Weise) survived.92 Otto’s account was soon made public. School rector in Nordhausen Johann Joachim Meier repeated the story in his historical dissertation about books and libraries that were consumed by fire, published in Nordhausen the following year. Meier was deeply impressed by this remarkable preservation and he suggested that experiencing the unburnt Bible first-hand might sway people with a tendency toward atheism from their disbelief.93 Another Nordhausen clergyman held the book in his hands and was greatly impressed. In 1712, Johann Heinrich Kindervater, pastor at St. Blaise’s Church, noted in his Curiuse Feuer- und Unglücks-­Chronica several manifest indications of divine providence interfering with the outcome of the fire in Nordhausen and preventing larger damage and casualties.94 One of the indications was Otto’s unburnt Bible. It was no doubt, Kindervater wrote, a sign of God’s omnipotence and his miracle.95 Unlike the stable, yet constantly growing narrative about Arndt’s prayer book, a grand narrative about the incombustibility of Scripture was not common. There are almost no indications that Bibles were a special category of incombustible material. It is therefore interesting that two reports did enjoy some fame and popularity, the Weimar Bible from Münchberg and the Lüneburg Bible from Nordhausen. The explanation for the interest in these Bibles might be the timing: the early eighteenth century experienced a renewed interest in “relics” of Martin Luther and the two unburnt Bibles were both Luther Bibles.

Incombustible Luther In his article “Incombustible Luther,” Robert Scribner argued that in early modern Germany Martin Luther was associated with the idea of ­incombustibility—images of Martin Luther, places he lived in, and Bibles of his translation tended to survive in accidental urban fires. Scribner linked the reports and legends about Luther’s incombustibility to a Luther cult that, according to him, existed in early modern Germany. Early modern Lutherans attributed to Luther the qualities of a prophet and a miracle maker. One of the indications of such a Luther cult is the existence of a couple of reports about incombustible Luther Bibles.96 Was the survival of various editions of Martin Luther’s German Bible in the early eighteenth century regarded by Lutherans as a sign of a special and extraordinary providence, caring for the man of God—as Luther was sometimes called by contemporaries—and a sign that early modern Lutherans treated Luther as a saint? The evidence for the Lutheran

Narrative 57 affection for unburnt Bibles as a sign of divine care for Luther is not conclusive. There are a few indications that the link between Luther and certain unburnt Bibles was made by contemporaries, but for the most part this link was not acknowledged and certainly not emphasised. In 1741, the writer Johann Georg Keyssler described the city library of Nürnberg and stated that the Nürnberg collection included a Luther Bible that was preserved intact in a fire (see details in Chapter 3). The description was short and no further information was given. Keyssler observed, though, that the book could be employed “as argumentum ad hominem” (als argumentum κατά ἄνθρωπον).97 Probably not strictly a rhetorical observation, this implies that Keyssler (and probably Keyssler alone, since nothing of this kind was recorded in the book itself), meant that the inexplicable preservation of a Luther Bible indicated something about Luther (ad hominem). In the English translation of Keyssler’s book (1756), the statement was rendered: “which may serve as an argumentum ad hominem to papists.”98 The English translator seems to have understood Keyssler to be saying that an incombustible Luther Bible was an argument against allegations made by Catholics, according to which Luther could perform no miracles and his doctrine was thus not confirmed by miracles. It is not quite certain that this is what Keyssler wanted to say or that it was believed by anyone in Nürnberg that one unburnt German Bible vindicated Martin Luther the person as well as Lutheran doctrine as such. Still, it is clear that the link between incombustibility and Luther—a link indicating a positive value—was made. Similarly, Christian Juncker linked unburnt Bibles to Luther. Juncker described the preservation of the two Luther Bibles in Münchberg and interpreted them as signs of “wondrous divine care” (Göttlicher wunderbahrer Vorsorge) for Luther’s translation of the Bible. In Das Güldene u. silberne Ehrengedächtniß d. Dr. Martini Lutheri, Juncker suggested that Luther’s writings, and especially his German Bible, were the most splendid things that the reformer bequeathed to his followers. Juncker did not really elaborate on the content of Luther’s writings or the quality of his translation. He did comment, however, on the costs of the translation. For him, the survival of the two books signified something undefined about Luther.99 Except for Juncker’s suggestive but inconclusive discourse about Luther, the main locus through which to explore unburnt Bibles in connection with Luther is in a book dedicated to the topic. On the second centenary of the Reformation, Justus Schöpffer, a priest from Eisleben, the small town where Luther was born and incidentally also died, published a collection of stories about how things associated with Luther survived fire (Lutherus non combustus, Wittenberg, 1717; Unverbrandter Luther, 1718). In the last chapter of the book, Schöpffer demonstrates that images of Luther “miraculously” survived fire, though interestingly it was miraculous only according to the Latin text; in the German edition the adverb “miraculously” was absent. Prior to the reports about images

58  Narrative of Luther, Schöpffer demonstrates that the phenomenon of incombustible images was known to antiquity and among the papists. Prior to this, Schöpffer claims that the Bible and other godly books were preserved in fire more than once. Schöpffer’s list of incombustible books opens with three Bibles: the Weimar Bible from Münchberg, Stefan Pilarik’s Bible, and the Luther Bible from Nordhausen. Following these incombustible Bibles, Schöpffer adds that in the same way three hymns survived a fire in 1715, Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein survived in fire at least ten times; Joachim’s Lütkemann’s manuscript survived in fire in Rostock; and the funeral sermon that Martin Geier had given in 1680 at the funeral of Johann Georg II, Elector-Duke of Saxony, survived miraculously intact in the fire at the Castle of Dresden in 1701.100 In all these stories about unburnt books, Luther figured only marginally as the translator of two Bibles. The survival of two Luther Bibles was not employed by Schöpffer as an indication that Luther was incombustible. Bibles of whichever edition and translation together with other religious books figured as the background for the whole phenomenon of incombustible objects—in antiquity, among Christians in general and among Lutherans in particular. It is true that the whole intention of Schöpffer’s treatise was to show all the historical, legendary, and symbolical links between Luther and fire and ultimately to show that Luther was incombustible, yet the incombustibility of Luther was mainly expressed through the fact that many of his portraits were preserved in fire, not by the fact that a couple of Bibles of his translation did the same. The lack of explicit links to Luther is likewise evident in two other attempts to assemble stories about incombustible books. In 1715, Johann Heinrich Kindervater wrote (in relation to the ongoing construction of the Waisenhaus in Nordhausen) that God’s providence had at all times a watchful eye on the Bible. Thus, the Bible was often preserved undamaged in fire, as several old and new illustrations could prove. Kindervater recounts the stories of Pilarik’s Bible, the Bible in Münchberg, and the Bible in Nordhausen. Despite the fact that in the two last reports it was a Bible in German of Luther’s translation, Kindervater nowhere suggests any link to Luther.101 Even more telling, Tentzel, in which collection Bibles and biblical texts occupied a central place, did not suggest any special significance for the fact that some of these Bibles were of Luther’s translation, despite the fact that he did include in his collection the story about the portrait of Luther that was preserved undamaged in fire in 1634.102 Whereas it does not seem that contemporaries directly related unburnt Bibles to Luther’s exceptional achievements and merits, on a more substantial level there was an association between unburnt Bibles and what Scribner called a Luther cult. It was not until the early years of the eighteenth century that the idea of the incombustibility of images of Luther gained traction. It was of course known in Artern (south of Sangerhausen), where an image of Luther survived fire for the first time in 1634,

Narrative 59 and in Eisleben (and likely in the surrounding area), where the image later hung in the audience hall of the Mansfeld consistory. It seems, though, that the first description in print of the miraculous preservation of the image is from 1703. The periodical Aufgefangene Brieffe from May 1703 reported at length the preservation of the image in a fire that consumed the study of the pastor and dean of Artern as well as the commemoration of the preservation in different inscriptions and short poems. The image was made in 1630 to commemorate the anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. An inscription above the image read: “an image of Luther preserved miraculously in Artern in the 1634 fire.” On the back of the image, the secretary of the Mansfeld consistory shortly narrated the story of the image, the survival of which was “not to be considered a bad sign” (Wunderzeichen).103 This was, as Scribner wrote, the first incombustible Luther.104 The idea of Luther’s incombustibility was as old as Luther’s reformation, yet, as Scribner showed, specific reports about the preservation of objects related to Luther, although known from local chronicles, were first made public in the early years of the eighteenth century. At the same time as Aufgefangene Brieffe reported the first incombustible image, Georg Heinrich Götze (Goetze) mentioned in his famous treatise on relics of Luther, De reliquiis Lutheri, that Luther’s house in Eisleben was immune to fire.105 A year earlier, in a book about the town of Magdeburg, Johann Vulpius stated that Luther’s cell (including his bunk) at the Augustinian monastery survived the fire that hit the town in 1631 “in wondrous fashion.”106 All these instances of incombustible Luther gained publicity first after reports about the fire in Münchberg in 1701 narrated the stories of two unburnt German Bibles, naturally of Luther’s translation. The link, therefore, between the incombustible Luther and incombustible Bibles is not strictly through the figure of Luther but rather in the timing of the two types of miraculous narratives. The two belong to the same genre. Stories about the two legends existed throughout the post-Reformation period, yet both surfaced as a literary genre and as an attraction for pious Lutherans first around 1700, and perhaps the interest in unburnt images of Luther and other relics of the Reformation were inspired by the incombustible Bibles from Münchberg.

Conclusion: The Making of a Legend The exceptional position of Arndt and the dominant position of the survival of his books throughout the whole period are not difficult to explain. Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein was practically the first Lutheran book to prove immune to fire. The episode in 1624 was immediately documented and acknowledged by the authorities. Frontinus’s dramatic narrative and the following inclusion of the narrative in prefaces to editions of the book made the story available and appealing to a broad readership.

60  Narrative Two further considerations must be added. The one is that Arndt was one of the most popular Lutheran authors of his age. Statistically, it was more likely that his books rather than other books accidentally survive fire. Thus, it is not entirely surprising that the survival of his book repeated itself many times after 1624. More significant, however, is a recognition that the turning of what might have been perceived as an arbitrary aberration from a general rule (books burn in fire) into a systematic miracle and a dominant legend did not happen by chance. The incombustible book initially had an important function, namely to support the controversial theology of Arndt, and therefore the miracle stories were useful for those who believed in the orthodoxy of Arndt. The intentions and calculations of, primarily, editors of Arndt’s prayer book, as well as many others who supported the cause, turned the book into material evidence of divine intervention. That the miracle could have also been useful in promoting the success of new editions probably did not escape the awareness of publishers. Functionality is only one way to perceive the spread of narratives about incombustible books. It is, nevertheless, a fact that other books survived fire too and were often treated in the same way that Arndt’s prayer book was. Of course, this also served a function. The survival of a book in fire brought some comfort, on a symbolic level, to those who suffered the loss of many books. For book lovers there was some consolation in the preservation of one book with which the owner usually had a special emotional bond. Yet, more than function, I believe, attraction is a key word in explaining the narrative about incombustible Lutheran books. Not necessarily a miracle, not always serving a practical cause, these books—those, for which stories were recorded—invited attention and contemplation. There was no obvious explanation for the strange, arbitrary preservation of one book out of many, though both natural and divine causes could be applied. The best way to deal with unburnt books was to place them within the framework of a narrative. Another place for unburnt books was a library or a cabinet of art, which is the subject of the next chapter.

Notes 1. Johann Samuel Magnus, Historische Beschreibung der Hoch-Reichs-­ Gräfflichen Promnitzischen Residentz-Stadt Sorau in Niederlausitz (Leipzig: Rohrlach, 1710), 265. 2. Gottfried Tentzel, Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder, 2nd ed. (Arnstadt, 1723), 35. The book was issued twice in 1605, one edition contains 599 pages and the other 457, and both were issued by Grosse (Leipzig). The edition that I have seen (599 pages) does not include the story about the preservation in fire. The book was first published in Torgau in 1595. 3. Friedrich Ernst Kettner, Historia dicti Johannei de sanctissima trinitate, 1. Joh. cap. V. vers. 7. Per multa secula omissi, seculo V. restituti, et exeunte

Narrative 61 seculo XVI. In versionem vernaculam recepti (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Calvisius, 1713), 15. 4. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 9. 5. Johann Amos Comenius, Historia persecutionum ccclesiæ Bohemicæ, jam inde a primordiis conversionis suæ ad Christianismum, hoc est, anno 894 ad annum 1632 (Amsterdam, 1648), 413–14; Johann Amos Comenius, The History of the Bohemian Persecution (London, 1650), 357–8. 6. Comenius, Historia persecutionum, 414; Comenius, The Bohemian Persecution, 358. 7. Jean Crespin, Histoire des Martyrs, ed. Daniel Benoit, 3 vols. (Toulouse: Sociéte des Livres Religieux, 1885–9), vol. 1: 390–1. 8. Martin Geier, Johannis Buß-Stimme: Nach Gelegenheit der ordentlichen Son[n]- und Fest-Tags-Evangelien, Im Jahr Christi 1668. In der SchloßKirchen zu Dreßden dergestalt vorgetragen (Pirna: Stremel, 1686), 504. Geier states that Johann Gottlob Hartmann recorded the report “ex fide dignis documentis,” but he does not specify where. 9. Comenius, Historia persecutionum, 411; Comenius, The Bohemian Persecution, 356. 10. Johann Heermann, Laborum sacrorum continuatio: Geistlicher Kirche[n]Arbeit Fortstellung (Lübeck, 1636); Martin Opitz, Martini Opitii Weltliche Poemata: Der ander Theil: Zum vierdten mal vermehret (Frankfurt am Main: Götz, 1644), 42–3. 11. Martin Grundmann, Geist- und Weltliche Geschitschule/ Oder Ergetzliche nutz- und lehrreiche Geschichte, Beyspiele und Begebnüsse von mancherley wunderbare[n] Verhengnüssen, Gerichten, Wolthaten und Straffen Gottes (Dresden: Löffler, 1655), 18–20. 12. Ibid., 21. 13. Ibid., 20–2. See a slightly different version of the story in Johann Christoph Heine, Theatrum providentiae divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen  .  .  . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen . . . recht wunderlich erhalten könne (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697), 710–14; translation of the poem to German, 713. Heine’s source is Heermann’s Leben-Lauff, possibly Johann Heermanns  .  .  . Auserlesene Trost-Sprüche . . . beygefüget M. Joh. Holfeldii Leichen-Predigt des seeligen Autoris und dessen Lebens-Lauff. I have not been able to locate the book. 14. Gerog Eberhard Happel, Vierter Theil: Grösseste Denkwürdigkeiten der Welt Oder so genandte Relationes Curiosae (Hamburg: von Wiering, 1689), 131. Joachim Lütkemann, Apostolische Auffmu[n]terung zum Lebendigen Glauben in Christo Jesu: Nach dem Sinn und Anleytung der gewöhnlichen Episteln durch Gottes Gnade in öffentlichen Predigten angestellet (Frankfurt am Main and Rostock: Wild, 1652). 15. Christian Kortholt, Theologische zu Beförderung der Gottseeligkeit angesehene Tractätlein (Kiel: Reumann, 1679), 363. 16. Heine, Theatrum providentiæ divinæ, 708–9. 17. Jacobus Francus, Relationis historicae semestralis continvatio, warhafftige Beschreibung aller Furnem vnnd gedenckwürdigen Historien . . . hierzwischen nechstverschiener Franckfurter Herbsmesse biss auff Fastenmesse dieses 1624. Jahrs verlauffen vnd zugetragen (Frankfurt am Main: Latomus, 1624), 71. 18. Arthus Gotthard, Mercurii Gallobelgici Sleidano succenturiati, vol.  15 (Frankfurt am Main, 1624), book I, 95–6. 19. Mercure François, vol. 10 (Paris, 1625), 309. 20. Johann Clüver, Historiarum totius mundi epitome: A  prima rerum origine usque ad annum Christi MDCXXX (Lyon: Marcus, 1637), 793–4. First published in Leiden in 1631.

62  Narrative 21. Johann Philipp Abelinus, Theatrum Europaeum, Oder Außführliche/ und Wahrhaftige Beschreibung aller und jeder denckwürdiger Geschichten: so sich hin und wider in der Welt/ fürnämlich aber in Europa/ und Teutschen Landen . . . vom Jahr Christi 1617. biß auff das Jahr Jahr 1629 (Frankfurt am Main: Hoffmann, 1635), 951–2. 22. Johannes Frontinus, Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht/ was sich zu LangenGöns in Hessen/ mit . . . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat (Darmstadt, 1627), Title page. 23. This edition is largely unknown, see Hartmut Kühne, “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sammeln.’ Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum,” in Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, ed. Hedwig Röckelein (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013), 295–6. 24. Frontinus, Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht, fols. 2r–v. 25. Ibid., fols. 2v–3v. 26. Ibid., fols. 3v–4r. 27. Johannes Frontinus, Außführliche Relation und warhafftiger Bericht, was sich zu langen Göns in Hessen mit . . . Joh. Arndts Paradiß-Gärtlein für eine Wunder-Geschicht zugetragen (1628), title page. 28. Ibid., fol. A4v. 29. Hessisches Heb-Opfer Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 152–80. 30. On Paradiesgärtlein, see Alfred Messerli, “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot,” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 253–4. 31. Ibid., 254–60. 32. Martin Brecht, “Das Aufkommen der neuen Frömmigkeitsbewegung in Deutschland,” in Geschichte des Pietismus, Band 1: Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1993), 141. Brecht refers to the Leipzig edition of 1631—I could not find this edition. Jill Bepler refers to a Leyden edition from 1645, see “Viscissitudo Temporum: Some Sidelights on Book Collecting in the Thirty Years’ War,” Sixteenth Century Journal 32, no. 4 (2001): 966. The earliest edition that Messerli employed in his study is one from Zürich 1659; see list of editions in Messerli, “Die Errettung,” 268–71. 33. See for example, Johann Arndt, Paradis-Gärtlein, Voll Christlicher Tugenden Wie solche durch Geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zupflantzen (Sondershausen: Schönermarck, 1708), “Sechs wunderbare Geschichte” (no pagination); Johann Arndt, Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen (Halle: Montag, 1719), 20–1. 34. Das Uthinische Stadt-Gedächtnis (Ploen, 1679). Here from the later (updated) edition Friedrich Cogel and Alexander Molde, Uthinische Chronica, Oder: Stadt-Gedächtniß (Lübeck, 1712), 30. 35. Arndt, Paradis-Gärtlein, voll Christlicher Tugenden, B3. 36. Johann Arndt, Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede (Ulm, 1694), Perface (no pagination). 37. Johann Arndt, Paradiessgärtlein Voller Christlichen Tugenden (Stuttgart, 1711), the seventh miracle (no pagination). 38. Kurtzer doch wahrer Bericht von der Feuers-Brunst welche die gute Stiffts und Handels-Stadt Naumburg, Am Tage Petri und Pauli war der 29. Jun. 1714. Durch Entzündung des Pulvers betroffen (Erfurt: Heinrich Beyern, 1714), 4–11. 39. Ibid., 11–12. 40. Johann Maritin Schamel, Das Erschreckliche Unglück in der Stadt Naumburg, Als Bey angehender Messe am Tage der H. Apost. Petri und Pauli die Pulver-Buden entzündet (Leipzig: Lanckischens Erben, 1714), 27–8.

Narrative 63 41. Johann Martin Schamel, Der wohlbedachte Petri Pauli Tag, Welchen Bey Jähriger Gedächtniß Des im verwichenen 1714 Jahr durch das Verwarlosete Pulver verursachten Unglücks In der alten Bischofflichen und Handels-Stadt Naumburg (Leipzig: Lanckischens Erben, 1715), 3. 42. Schamel, Das Erschreckliche Unglück, 27. 43. Ibid., 27–8. 44. Johann Arndt, Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen (Halle: Montag, 1723), 32. 45. Johann Arndt, Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein (Züllichau: Dendeler, 1750), 42. 46. Johann George Mollen, Mutzschner Brand- und Feuer-Chronica, Welche bestehet Zuförderst in einer Erzehlung dessen, was sich bey denen . . . über das arme Mutzschen Entstandenen Vier grossen Feuers-Brünsten Von Anno 1637. biß Anno 1724 zugetragen (Grimma: Vogel, 1724), 18. 47. Aufgefangene Brieffe/ welche zwischen etzlichen curieusen Personen über den ietzigen Zustand der Staats und gelehrten Welt gewechselt worden (Wahrenberg: Freymund, 1703), 3rd Ravage, 3rd Pacquet, 353rd Correspondenz, 265–6. 48. Ibid., 3rd Ravage, 3rd Pacquet, 353rd Correspondenz, 267–8. 49. Ibid., 3rd Ravage, 7th Pacquet, 417th Correspondenz, 680–3. 50. On the controversies about Wahre Christentum, see Martin Brecht, “Das Aufkommen der neuen Frömmigkeitsbewegung in Deutschland,” 142–51; “Die Aufnahme von Arndts ‘Vier Bücher von wahrem Christentum’ in deutschen Luthertum,” in Frömmigkeit oder Theologie, Johann Arndt und die “Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum,” eds. Hans Otte and Hans Schneider (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2007). On Arndt’s orthodoxy, see Hans Schneider, “Johann Arndt als Lutheraner?” in Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland, Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1988, ed. Hans-Christoph Rublack (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1992). On the important controversy between Osiander and Varenius, see Johann Anselm Steiger, “Heinrich Varenius’ Rettung von Johann Arndts Wahrem Christentum,” in Bernard Varenius (1622– 1650), ed. Margret Schuchard (Leiden: Brill, 2007). On Arndt, his life, and his religion, see Brecht, “Das Aufkommen der neuen Frömmigkeitsbewegung in Deutschland,” 130–42. See also in English, Johannes Wallmann, “Johann Arndt (1555–1621),” in The Pietist Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Carter Lindberg (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). 51. Martin Scharfe, “Wunder und Wunderglaube im protestantischen Würt temberg,” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 68/69 (1968/69): 201. See a more radical interpretation of the functionalist approach in Dirk Werle, Copia librorum, Problemgeschichte imaginierter Bibliotheken 1580– 1630 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2007), 428–9. 52. Johannes Beste, Geschichte der Braunschweigischen Landeskirche von der Reformation bis auf unsere Tage (Wolfenbüttel: Julius Zwißler, 1889), 153. 53. See for example, Johann Arndt, Paradis-Gärtlein/ voller Christlicher Tugenden: Wie dieselbe in die Seele zu pflantzen durch andächtige, lehrhaffte und tröstliche Gebet (Nürnberg: Endter, 1668), B5. 54. Heinrich Varenius, Ander Theil und Beschluss Der Christliche Rettunge der Vier Bücher vom wahren Christenthum Des . . . H. Johannis Arndten . . . Verteidiget und D. Lucæ Osiandri theologischen Bedencken entgegen gesetzt (Lüneburg: Stern, 1624), part II: fols. IIIIr–VIIr. 55. Ibid., part II: fols. Vr and the following pages. On the controversy between Osiander and Arndt, see Steiger, “Heinrich Varenius’ Rettung.”

64  Narrative 56. Steiger, “Heinrich Varenius’ Rettung,” 32–4. See also Hans Dumrese and Friedrich Carl Schilling, Lüneburg und die Offizin der Sterne (Lüneburg: Stern’sche Buchdruckerei, 1956), 16, 19. 57. Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten, vol.  2 (Hamburg: Naumann, 1651), 8. 58. Ibid., 8–9. 59. See for instance, Michael Freud, Warhafftiger Glaubwürdiger und gründlicher Bericht von den vier Büchern vom Wahren Christenthumb Des Sel. Herrn Johannis Arndten (Rostock: Wißmar 1688), 146–51. 60. See for instance the slightly hagiographical praise of Arndt in Henning Witte, Memoriae theologorum nostri saeculi clarissimorum renovatae decas prima (Frankfurt am Main: Hallervord, 1674), 173. 61. Gottfried Arnold, Unparteyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie, von Anfang des Neuen Testaments bis auff das Jahr Christi 1688 (Frankfurt am Main: Fritsch, 1699), part II, book 17, chapter VI, §10, 480–1. 62. Here and elsewhere in the present book, biblical quotations in English are from the King James Version, 1611. 63. Samuel Schelwig, Wolgemeinte und brüderliche Erinnerung/ an (Titul) Herrn Constantin Schützen . . . Wegen eines von ihm herausgegeben halben Bogens Versicherung an die Christliche Gemeine genant (Danzig: Reinger, 1695), 14. 64. Christian Gabriel Funcke, Ausführlicher und wahrhaffter Bericht von der schnellen und erschrecklichen Feuers-Brunst/ welche  .  .  .  über Görlitz in Oberlausitz/ Anno 1691. . . entstanden (1691), fols. A2r–A2v. 65. Ibid., fol. B3v. 66. Ibid., fol. B3v–B4r. 67. Arndt, Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, preface (no pagination). 68. Jacob Tentzel, Davids Geistliches Uhrwercklein Aus dem XXV. Psalm: Bey Des weiland Achtbarn und Wol-Kunsterfahrnen Herrn Wolffgang Hagers/ Gewesenen Bürgers und der Kleinen Uhren-machers zu Arnstadt Volckreichem Begräbnisse Auff dem Gottes-Acker daselbst Am . . . VI. Ianuarii 1674 (Arnstadt: Meurer, 1674), Lebenslauff iii. 69. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 13–14. 70. Ibid., 13. 71. Ibid., 42, 49. 72. Wilhelm Christian Höpfner, “Merkwürdige Nachrichten,” Sammlung Auserlesener Materien zum Bau des Reiches Gottes 28 (1735): 486–8. 73. Ibid., 486. 74. Stefan Pilárik, Currus Jehovae mirabilis, Das ist/ Ein Wunderbahrer Wagen des Allerhöchsten: Auf welchem Er/ wie von Anfang her . . . seine Heiligen und Gläubigen . . . in dieser argen Welt führet (Wittenberg: Henckel, 1678), 37–8. See a similar story about prophetic biblical text that survived fire, in Johann Amos Comenius, Die Zerstörung Lissas im April 1656 (Leszno: Eulitz, 1914), 27–8. 75. Johann Stieffler, Loci theologiae historici, Das ist: Geistlicher HistorienSchatz: Worinnen über 4100. heilsame und sehr erbauliche Exempel/  .  .  . vorgetragen. . . / . . . in ein vollständiges Werck verfertiget (Breslau: Trescher, 1668), 30. 76. Johann Stieffler, Loci theologiae historici continuati, Oder fortgesetzt Geistlicher Historien-Schatz, Worinnen Viel heilsame und erbauliche Exempel . . . fürgetragen . . . der Nutz und Würckung tröstlich erkläret werden (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Hallervord, 1686), Part 2, 43.

Narrative 65 77. Esaias Pilarik, De persecutione verae ecclesiae dissertatio theologica (Wittenberg: Ziegenbein, 1676), 5th and 6th pages of the preface. 78. Martin Bräuer, “Evangelischer Wegweiser,” in Müßige Land-Stunden/ Oder: Hundert Gottselige Betrachtungen/ so viel Oerter und Sprüche der Heil. Schrifft . . . nunmehro über die Helffte verbessert/ und vermehret . . . und zum andern mahl in den Druck gegeben von Martinus Bräuern, ed. Christian Scriver (Königsberg: Boye, 1698), 2. 79. Johann Tobias Gleich, Dissertatio historica de singularibus quorundam theologorum fatis (Leipzig: Fulde, 1704), 3–4. 80. Ibid., 19–20. 81. Ibid., 20–1. 82. Ibid., 3. 83. A third Bible survived in Münchberg in 1701, but I have not found any information about it. Georg Wolfgang Augustin Fikenscher stated in 1807 that a Latin Bible (published in 1557 by Robert Estienne) from Stockfleth’s library was mentioned in 1709 by a certain W. Metsch and was by then (1807) in the possession of Johann Kapp, theologian and member of the consistory in Bayreuth. See Georg Wolfgang Augustin Fikenscher, Geschichte des illustren ChristianErnestinischen Collegii zu Bayreuth, vol. 3 (Bayreuth, 1807), 122, n. k. 84. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 36. On the fire in Münchberg, See in Karl Dietel, Münchberg: Geschichte einer Amts- und Industriestadt, vol. 1 (Münchberg: Stadt Münchberg, 1963), 400. Dietel states—apparently following archival material—that the Bible was a Wittenberg Bible, not a Weimar Bible, and that it belonged to Archdeacon Meier. 85. On the Weimar-Bible, see Hermann Oertel, “Die Frankfurter FeyerabendBibeln und die Nürnberger Endter-Bibeln,” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 70 (1983). 86. Johann Kless, Die Weimarische Kleine Bibel: Darinn Der Unterricht Christlicher Lehre, nach Anleitung D. Martin Luthers Kleinen Catechismi, deutlich und erbaulich gezeiget wird (Weimar: Müller, 1702), Preface. 87. Christian Feustel, Ad virum reverendissimum Heinricum Arnoldum Stockflethum . . . Epistola, qua bibliothecae eius incendium deplorat M. C. Feustelius (Curiae: Minzel, 1701), 16–17. 88. Georg Henrich Götze, Todten Bibliothec, zum drittenmahl eröffnet An. 1707 (Lübeck: Schmalhertz, 1707), 20. 89. Feustel, Ad virum reverendissimum, 36–7. 90. See for instance, Johann Heinrich Kindervater, Eigentliche Nachricht von der Gelegenheit und Anfange des in der Kayserl. Fr. Reichs-Stadt Nordhausen zuerbauenden Waisen-Hauses . . . Erster Vortrag (Nordhausen: Cöler, 1715), 8; Justus Schöpffer, Lutherus non combustus sive historica enarratio de D. M. Luthero ejusque imagine singulari providentia Dei T. O. M. duplici vice ab igne miraculose conservata (Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1717), 33; Carl Gottfried Engelschall, Trauriges Andencken, So wohl Der Feuers-Brünste überhaupt, Als auch Der vielen fatalen Feuers-Brünste In Sachsen (Dresden and Leipzig: Mieth, 1721), 139; Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 36. 91. Acta historico-ecclesiastica: oder gesammlete Nachrichten von d. neuesten Kirchen-Geschichten 5 (1741): Anhang, 963–1014; Acta historico-ecclesiastica: oder gesammlete Nachrichten von d. neuesten Kirchen-Geschichten 6 (1742): part 31, 25–70, part 32, 165–97. See the preservation of the book, 197. 92. Brandbibel at the Stadtarchiv, Nordhausen. See also Otto’s text, in Kindervater, Eigentliche Nachricht, 9–10. 93. Johann Joachim Meier, Hephaistos bibliolenthrios, Vulcanus Musis inimicus. ie. dissertatio historica de libris et bibliothecis igne absumptis (Nordhausen: Cöler, 1711), fol. b4r.

66  Narrative 94. Johann Heinrich Kindervater, Curieuse Feuer- und Unglücks-Chronica: Darinnen die Feuers-Brünste der . . . Stadt Nordhausen, auch anderer sehr vieler Oerter in und ausser Teutschland nicht weniger allerhand andre Glück- und Unglückliche Dinge und Denck-würdigkeiten, ordentlich erzehlet werden (Nordhausen: Neuenhahn, 1712), 179. 95. Ibid., 181–2. 96. Robert Scribner, “Incombustible Luther: The Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany,” Past and Present 110 (1986): 38–68, on Bibles see p. 46. On the early modern theological and scholarly view of Luther, see Ernst Walter Zeeden, Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums (Freiberg: Herder, 1950). From the Reformation to the eighteenth century, Luther was perceived as a modern apostle, evangelist, and prophet. Zeeden noted, however, an important development by the seventeenth century, during which the use of such terms became more nuanced and more specific, see vol. 1, p. 78. 97. Johann Georg Keyssler, Fortsetzung Neuester Reisen, durch Teutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweitz, Jtalien und Lothringen, worinn der Zustand und das merckwürdigste dieser Länder beschrieben wird (Hannover: Förster, 1741), 1189. 98. Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels Through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain., Giving a True and Just Description of the Present State of Those Countries, vol. 4 (London: A. Linde, 1756), 185. 99. Christian Juncker, Das Guldene und Silberne Ehren-Gedächtniß Des Theuren Gottes-Lehrers D. Martini Lvtheri In welchem dessen Leben, Tod, Familie und Reliquien  .  .  . umständlich beschrieben (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Endter, 1706), 289–90. 100. Justus Schöpffer, Unverbrandter Luther Oder Historische Erzehlung von D. Martino Luthero und dessen im Feuer erhaltenen Bildniß Bey Gelegenheit des II. Evangelischen Jubel-Jahres (Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1718), 76–7. 101. Kindervater, Eigentliche Nachricht, 5–10. 102. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 18. 103. Aufgefangene Brieffe/ welche zwischen etzlichen curieusen Personen über den ietzigen Zustand der Staats und gelehrten Welt gewechselt worden, 3rd Ravage, 3rd Pacquet, 417th Correspondenz, 684–8. The piece was repeated in Juncker, Das Guldene und Silberne, 271–4. 104. Scribner, “Incombustible Luther,” 38. 105. Georg Heinrich Götze, De reliquiis Lutheri diversis in locis asservatis singularia (Leipzig: Emmerich, 1703), 8. 106. Johann Vulpius, Magnificentia Parthenopolitana: Das ist Der Ur-alten Welt-berühmten Haupt- und Handel-Stadt Magdeburg Sonderbare Herrlichkeit . . . alten und neuen Geschichten . . . insonderheit der An. 1631. den 10. May erfolgten jämmerlichen Zerstörung (Magdeburg: Müller, 1702), 61.

Works Cited Abelinus, Johann Philipp. Theatrum Europaeum, Oder Außführliche/ und Wahrhaftige Beschreibung aller und jeder denckwürdiger Geschichten: so sich hin und wider in der Welt/ fürnämlich aber in Europa/ und Teutschen Landen . . . vom Jahr Christi 1617. biß auff das Jahr Jahr 1629. Frankfurt am Main: Hoffmann, 1635. Acta historico-ecclesiastica: oder gesammlete Nachrichten von d. neuesten Kirchen-Geschichten. Vol. 5 (1741).

Narrative 67 Acta historico-ecclesiastica: oder gesammlete Nachrichten von d. neuesten Kirchen-Geschichten. Vol. 6 (1742). Arndt, Johann. Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen. Halle: Montag, 1719. ———. Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen. Halle: Montag, 1723. ———. Paradiessgärtlein Voller Christlichen Tugenden. Stuttgart, 1711. ———. Paradis-Gärtlein, Voll Christlicher Tugenden Wie solche durch Geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zupflantzen. Sondershausen: Schönermarck, 1708. ———. Paradis-Gärtlein, Voller Christlicher Tugenden: Wie dieselbe in die Seele zu pflantzen durch andächtige, lehrhaffte und tröstliche Gebet. Nürnberg: Endter, 1668. ———. Paradiss-Gärtlein, Voller Christliche Tugenden, Wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede. Ulm, 1694. ———. Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein. Züllichau: Dendeler, 1750. Arnold, Gottfried. Unparteyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie, von Anfang des Neuen Testaments bis auff das Jahr Christi 1688. Frankfurt am Main: Fritsch, 1699. Aufgefangene Brieffe/ welche zwischen etzlichen curieusen Personen über den ietzigen Zustand der Staats und gelehrten Welt gewechselt worden. Wahrenberg: Freymund, 1703. Bepler, Jill. “Viscissitudo Temporum: Some Sidelights on Book Collecting in the Thirty Years’ War.” Sixteenth Century Journal 32, no. 4 (2001): 953–68. Beste, Johannes. Geschichte der Braunschweigischen Landeskirche von der Reformation bis auf unsere Tage. Wolfenbüttel: Julius Zwißler, 1889. Brecht, Martin. “Das Aufkommen der neuen Frömmigkeitsbewegung in Deutschland.” In Geschichte des Pietismus, Band 1: Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, edited by Martin Brecht, 113–204. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1993. ———. “Die Aufnahme von Arndts ‘Vier Bücher von wahrem Christentum’ in deutschen Luthertum.” In Frömmigkeit oder Theologie, Johann Arndt und die “Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum,” edited by Hans Otte and Hans Schneider, 231–62. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2007. Clüver, Johann. Historiarum totius mundi epitome: A prima rerum origine usque ad annum Christi MDCXXX. Lyon: Marcus, 1637. Cogel, Friedrich, and Alexander Molde. Uthinische Chronica, Oder: StadtGedächtniß. Lübeck, 1712. Comenius, Johann Amos. Die Zerstörung Lissas im April 1656. Leszno: Eulitz, 1914. ———. Historia persecutionum ecclesiæ Bohemicæ, jam inde a primordiis conversionis suæ ad Christianismum, hoc est, anno 894 ad annum 1632. Amsterdam, 1648. ———. The History of the Bohemian Persecution. London, 1650. Crespin, Jean. Histoire des Martyrs, edited by Daniel Benoit 3 vols. Toulouse: Sociéte des Livres Religieux, 1885–9. Dietel, Karl. Münchberg: Geschichte einer Amts- und Industriestadt. Vol. 1. Münchberg: Stadt Münchberg, 1963.

68  Narrative Dumrese, Hans, and Friedrich Carl Schilling. Lüneburg und die Offizin der Sterne. Lüneburg: Stern’sche Buchdruckerei, 1956. Engelschall, Carl Gottfried. Trauriges Andencken, So wohl Der Feuers-Brünste überhaupt, Als auch Der vielen fatalen Feuers-Brünste In Sachsen. Dresden and Leipzig: Mieth, 1721. Feustel, Christian. Ad virum reverendissimum Heinricum Arnoldum Stockflethum . . . Epistola, qua bibliothecae eius incendium deplorat M. C. Feustelius. Curiae: Minzel, 1701. Fikenscher, Georg Wolfgang Augustin. Geschichte des illustren ChristianErnestinischen Collegii zu Bayreuth. Vol. 3. Bayreuth, 1807. Francus, Jacobus. Relationis historicae semestralis continvatio, warhafftige Beschreibung aller Furnem vnnd gedenckwürdigen Historien . . . hierzwischen nechstverschiener Franckfurter Herbsmesse biss auff Fastenmesse dieses 1624. Jahrs verlauffen vnd zugetragen. Frankfurt am Main: Latomus, 1624. Freud, Michael. Warhafftiger Glaubwürdiger und gründlicher Bericht von den vier Büchern vom Wahren Christenthumb Des Sel. Herrn Johannis Arndten. Rostock: Wißmar, 1688. Frontinus, Johannes. Außführliche Relation und Warhafftiger Bericht, was sich zu langen Göns in Hessen mit . . . Joh. Arndts Paradiß-Gärtlein für eine WunderGeschicht zugetragen, 1628. ———. Außführliche Relation und Warhafftiger Bericht, was sich zu langen Göns in Hessen/ mit . . . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat. Darmstadt, 1627. Funcke, Christian Gabriel. Ausführlicher und wahrhaffter Bericht von der schnellen und erschrecklichen Feuers-Brunst/ welche . . . über Görlitz in Oberlausitz/ Anno 1691. . . entstanden, 1691. Geier, Martin. Johannis Buß-Stimme: Nach Gelegenheit der ordentlichen Son[n]und Fest-Tags-Evangelien, Im Jahr Christi 1668. In der Schloß-Kirchen zu Dreßden dergestalt vorgetragen. Pirna: Stremel, 1686. Gleich, Johann Tobias. Dissertatio historica de singularibus quorundam theologorum fatis. Leipzig: Fulde, 1704. Gotthard, Arthus. Mercurii Gallobelgici Sleidano succenturiati. Vol. 15. Frankfurt am Main, 1624. Götze, Georg Heinrich. De reliquiis Lutheri diversis in locis asservatis singularia. Leipzig: Emmerich, 1703. ———. Todten Bibliothec, zum drittenmahl eröffnet An. 1707. Lübeck: Schmalhertz, 1707. Grundmann, Martin. Geist- und Weltliche Geschitschule/ Oder Ergetzliche nutz- und lehrreiche Geschichte, Beyspiele und Begebnüsse von mancherley wunderbare[n] Verhengnüssen, Gerichten, Wolthaten und Straffen Gottes. Dresden: Löffler, 1655. Happel, Gerog Eberhard. Vierter Theil. Grösseste Denkwürdigkeiten der Welt Oder so genandte Relationes Curiosae. Hamburg: von Wiering, 1689. Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp. Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten. Vol. 2. Hamburg: Naumann, 1651. Heermann, Johann. Laborum sacrorum continuatio: Geistlicher Kirche[n]-Arbeit Fortstellung. Lübeck, 1636.

Narrative 69 Heine, Johann Christoph. Theatrum providentiae divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen  .  .  . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen . . . recht wunderlich erhalten könne. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697. Hessisches Heb-Opfer Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen. Vol. 22 (1740), 152–80. Höpfner, Wilhelm Christian. “Merkwürdige Nachrichten.” Sammlung Auserlesener Materien zum Bau des Reiches Gottes 28 (1735): 486–8. Juncker, Christian. Das Guldene und Silberne Ehren-Gedächtniß Des Theuren Gottes-Lehrers D. Martini Lvtheri in welchem dessen Leben, Tod, Familie und Reliquien . . . umständlich beschrieben. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Endter, 1706. Kettner, Friedrich Ernst. Historia dicti Johannei de sanctissima trinitate, 1. Joh. cap. V. vers. 7. Per multa secula omissi, seculo V. restituti, et Exeunte Seculo XVI. In versionem vernaculam recepti. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Calvisius, 1713. Keyssler, Johann Georg. Fortsetzung Neuester Reisen, durch Teutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweitz, Jtalien und Lothringen, worinn der Zustand und das merckwürdigste dieser Länder beschrieben wird. Hannover: Förster, 1741. ———. Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain., Giving a True and Just Description of the Present State of Those Countries. Vol. 4. London: A. Linde, 1756. Kindervater, Johann Heinrich. Curieuse Feuer- und Unglücks-Chronica: Darinnen die Feuers-Brünste der  .  .  . Stadt Nordhausen, auch anderer sehr vieler Oerter in und ausser Teutschland nicht weniger allerhand andre Glück- und Unglückliche Dinge und Denck-würdigkeiten, ordentlich erzehlet werden. Nordhausen: Neuenhahn, 1712. ———. Eigentliche Nachricht von der Gelegenheit und Anfange des in der Kayserl. Fr. Reichs-Stadt Nordhausen zuerbauenden Waisen-Hauses  .  .  . Erster Vortrag. Nordhausen: Cöler, 1715. Kless, Johann. Die Weimarische Kleine Bibel: Darinn Der Unterricht Christlicher Lehre, nach Anleitung D. Martin Luthers Kleinen Catechismi, deutlich und erbaulich gezeiget wird. Weimar: Müller, 1702. Kortholt, Christian. Theologische zu Beförderung der Gottseeligkeit angesehene Tractätlein. Kiel: Reumann, 1679. Kühne, Hartmut. “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sammeln.’ Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum.” In Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, edited by Hedwig Röckelein, 281–99. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013. Kurtzer doch wahrer Bericht von der Feuers-Brunst welche die gute Stiffts und Handels-Stadt Naumburg, Am Tage Petri und Pauli war der 29. Jun. 1714. Durch Entzündung des Pulvers betroffen. Erfurt: Heinrich Beyern, 1714. Lütkemann, Joachim. Apostolische Auffmu[n]terung zum Lebendigen Glauben in Christo Jesu: Nach dem Sinn und Anleytung der gewöhnlichen Episteln durch Gottes Gnade in öffentlichen Predigten angestellet. Frankfurt am Main and Rostock: Wild, 1652. Magnus, Johann Samuel. Historische Beschreibung der Hoch-Reichs-Gräfflichen Promnitzischen Residentz-Stadt Sorau in Niederlausitz. Leipzig: Rohrlach, 1710.

70  Narrative Meier, Johann Joachim. Hephaistos bibliolenthrios, Vulcanus Musis inimicus. ie. dissertatio historica de libris et bibliothecis igne absumptis. Nordhausen: Cöler, 1711. Mercure François. Vol. 10. Paris, 1625. Messerli, Alfred. “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot.” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 253–79. Mollen, Johann George. Mutzschner Brand- und Feuer-Chronica, Welche bestehet Zuförderst in einer Erzehlung dessen, was sich bey denen . . . über das arme Mutzschen Entstandenen Vier grossen Feuers-Brünsten Von Anno 1637. biß Anno 1724 zugetragen. Grimma: Vogel, 1724. Oertel, Hermann. “Die Frankfurter Feyerabend-Bibeln und die Nürnberger Endter-Bibeln.” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 70 (1983): 75–116. Opitz, Martin. Martini Opitii Weltliche Poemata: Der ander Theil. Zum vierdten mal vermehret. Frankfurt am Main: Götz, 1644. Pilarik, Esaias. De persecutione verae ecclesiae dissertatio theologica. Wittenberg: Ziegenbein, 1676. Pilárik, Stefan. Currus Jehovae mirabilis, Das ist/ Ein Wunderbahrer Wagen des Allerhöchsten: Auf welchem Er/ wie von Anfang her . . . seine Heiligen und Gläubigen . . . in dieser argen Welt führet. Wittenberg: Henckel, 1678. Schamel, Johann Maritin. Das Erschreckliche Unglück in der Stadt Naumburg, Als Bey angehender Messe am Tage der H. Apost. Petri und Pauli die PulverBuden entzündet. Leipzig: Lanckischens Erben, 1714. ———. Der wohlbedachte Petri Pauli Tag, Welchen Bey Jähriger Gedächtniß Des im verwichenen 1714 Jahr durch das Verwarlosete Pulver verursachten Unglücks In der alten Bischofflichen und Handels-Stadt Naumburg. Leipzig: Lanckischens Erben, 1715. Scharfe, Martin. “Wunder und Wunderglaube im protestantischen Württemberg.” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 68/69 (1968/69): 190–206. Schelwig, Samuel. Wolgemeinte und brüderliche Erinnerung/ an (Titul) Herrn Constantin Schützen . . . Wegen eines von ihm herausgegeben halben Bogens Versicherung an die Christliche Gemeine genant. Danzig: Reinger, 1695. Schneider, Hans. “Johann Arndt als Lutheraner?” In Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland, Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1988, edited by Hans-Christoph Rublack, 274–98. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1992. Schöpffer, Justus. Lutherus non combustus sive historica enarratio de D. M. Luthero ejusque imagine singulari providentia Dei T. O. M. duplici vice ab igne miraculose conservata. Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1717. ———. Unverbrandter Luther Oder Historische Erzehlung von D. Martino Luthero und dessen im Feuer erhaltenen Bildniß Bey Gelegenheit des II. Evangelischen Jubel-Jahres. Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1718. Scribner, Robert. “Incombustible Luther: The Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany.” Past and Present 110 (1986): 38–68. Scriver, Christian. Müßige Land-Stunden/ Oder: Hundert Gottselige Betrachtungen/ so viel Oerter und Sprüche der Heil. Schrifft . . . nunmehro über die Helffte verbessert/ und vermehret . . . und zum andern mahl in den Druck gegeben von Martinus Bräuern. Königsberg: Boye, 1698.

Narrative 71 Steiger, Johann Anselm. “Heinrich Varenius’ Rettung von Johann Arndts Wahrem Christentum.” In Bernard Varenius (1622–1650), edited by Margret Schuchard, 27–57. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Stieffler, Johann. Loci theologiae historici continuati, Oder fortgesetzt Geistlicher Historien-Schatz, Worinnen Viel heilsame und erbauliche Exempel  .  .  . fürgetragen . . . der Nutz und Würckung tröstlich erkläret werden. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Hallervord, 1686. ———. Loci theologiae historici, Das ist: Geistlicher Historien-Schatz: Worinnen über 4100. heilsame und sehr erbauliche Exempel/ . . . vorgetragen . . ./ . . . in ein vollständiges Werck verfertiget. Breslau: Trescher, 1668. Tentzel, Gottfried. Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder. 2nd ed. Arnstadt, 1723. Tentzel, Jacob. Davids Geistliches Uhrwercklein Aus dem XXV. Psalm: Bey Des weiland Achtbarn und Wol-Kunsterfahrnen Herrn Wolffgang Hagers/ Gewesenen Bürgers und der Kleinen Uhren-machers zu Arnstadt Volckreichem Begräbnisse Auff dem Gottes-Acker daselbst Am . . . VI. Ianuarii 1674. Arnstadt: Meurer, 1674. Varenius, Heinrich. Ander Theil und Beschluss Der Christliche Rettunge der Vier Bücher vom wahren Christenthum Des . . . H. Johannis Arndten . . . Verteidiget und D. Lucæ Osiandri theologischen Bedencken entgegen gesetzt. Lüneburg: Stern, 1624. Vulpius, Johann. Magnificentia Parthenopolitana: Das ist Der Ur-alten Weltberühmten Haupt- und Handel-Stadt Magdeburg Sonderbare Herrlichkeit . . . alten und neuen Geschichten  .  .  . insonderheit der An. 1631. den 10. May erfolgten jämmerlichen Zerstörung. Magdeburg: Müller, 1702. Wallmann, Johannes. “Johann Arndt (1555–1621).” In The Pietist Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Carter Lindberg, 21–37. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Werle, Dirk. Copia librorum, Problemgeschichte imaginierter Bibliotheken 1580–1630. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2007. Witte, Henning. Memoriae theologorum nostri saeculi clarissimorum renovatae decas prima. Frankfurt am Main: Hallervord, 1674. Zeeden, Ernst Walter. Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums. Freiberg: Herder, 1950.

3 Thing

Between 1624 and the middle of the eighteenth century, at least a few dozen and most probably many more unburnt and partly burnt books were kept in collections of books and of rarities as well as by private owners. A few were so badly damaged that their text was rendered virtually illegible; of some books only a few pages survived. A  few were practically untouched by fire; they did not even smell of smoke as contemporaries sometimes remarked. Most of them, it seems, suffered visible damage, mostly to their covers, to the sheets closest to the front and back covers, and to the edges, but were still largely legible. In whatever condition, these were the material remains of the books they were before their proximity to heat, flames, ashes, and smoke changed their form. They were objects made of ink, paper, wood, cardboard, leather, and metal as well as stains, holes, foul smells, traces of combustion, and possibly water; they were things made of both presence and absence. As a rule, these deformed objects were not kept in order to be read, but in order to be present, to be seen, to give evidence, or to serve as mementos. In this chapter, I discuss unburnt books as things: as collection items in princely and city libraries, as religious objects, and as material representations of ideal books. These three themes pertain to the same problem: how did contemporaries relate to the materiality of unburnt books?

Library Book Some unburnt books were most likely kept at home by their owners; some were given on loan to local clergymen who used them for a special purpose, often displaying them to an audience during a sermon; and others were given to religious authorities. Some books found their way into libraries, archives, and collections of rarities and these books gained their particular significance from the practices of requisition and storage that they generated. One of the earliest, and no doubt most significant, unburnt books to be attained and kept in a library was the first Paradiesgärtlein known to be found untouched by fire (Langgöns, 1624). The book was preserved in

Thing 73 a burning oven and was later sent to Landgrave Philipp III in Butzbach. Subsequently, the book was kept in the princely library. The book is no longer extant. The book collection of Landgrave Philipp was moved to Darmstadt. It later became part of Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt (Technischen Universität Darmstadt). By 1920, the unburnt book could not be found there. The book had apparently been thrown out in 1772.1 It is not clear how the idea that the Paradiesgärtlein of 1624 deserved a place in a library or a collection of things of special value emerged. Perhaps those involved in the storage process followed an earlier precedent, but this is unlikely. Perhaps Captain Weher, the highest officer involved in the incident, decided that the authorities should take responsibility for the contested book for which the Catholic lieutenant who threw the book into the oven, the innkeeper who found the book untouched by the fire, possibly the soldier who read the book before it was thrown into the fire, and certainly Pastor Justus Geilfusius, the owner of the book, from whose house the book was stolen, made claims. With so many claimants, it was not a given that the book would end up in Philipp III’s library and not somewhere else. Indeed, two things are known about what happened: the book was not sent to Landgrave Philipp simply because no one else was interested in it and the book was not kept in the library without a thorough investigation of the circumstances pertaining to its preservation. The periodical Hessisches Heb-Opfer, in which a series of pieces on Arndt were published in 1740, stated that Philipp II was not the only prince interested in obtaining the book. One of the pieces, entitled “Authentique Nachricht,” stated that several “Potentaten und Fürsten” had asked Pastor Geilfusius for the book.2 It is not known who these rulers and princes were, but possibly, one of them was Herzog August I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, who was considered the protector of Arndt and the patron of his legacy. August I  was involved in issuing replies to the most serious attacks on the orthodoxy of Arndt and in one of these replies the incombustible book from Langgöns was employed as an argument in support of Arndt.3 Whoever these “Potentaten und Fürsten” were, it is telling that only a few days after its preservation in fire the book was famous enough to attract the attention and interest of some powerful persons who wished to own the book. The piece in Hessisches Heb-Opfer indicates that the owner of the book was under pressure to deliver it to potential collectors. Yet, the actual decision as to whom the book should go was not made by Geilfusius. In the report that he was asked to provide by Landgrave Philipp, he stated that he would have liked to deliver the book to the prince, but at that time, the book had already been taken from the inn by Captain Weher who intended to show it to the local governor, apparently in Giessen.4 From Giessen the book somehow arrived in Butzbach and was archived in the princely library. However, before the prince decided the fate of

74  Thing the book, a procedure of verification had to take place. The verification involved: (1) the official report of the owner, Geilfusius; (2) an investigation of the oven in which the book was preserved; (3) theological considerations given by two Lutheran professors; and (4) an experiment of analogous book burning. First, the official report composed by Pastor Justus Geilfusius made no claim for any divine intervention in the preservation of the book in the fire. Based mainly on statements of the innkeeper, Geilfusius crafted a report that contained the main facts and identified the persons who were involved in the affair. According to Geilfusius, on January 3 a Spanish cavalry lieutenant arrived with his men at his house to enquire if it was possible to use it for lodging his soldiers. Although the pastor was not home, the soldiers entered and inspected the house. While there, the trumpeter found the pastor’s Paradiesgärtlein (12mo format, gilt cover) and took it with him. On January  7, the lieutenant saw the trumpeter sitting in the inn and reading the book, and he took the book and threw it into the oven. More than an hour later, the innkeeper found the book covered with coals yet undamaged, not even smelling of smoke. When the lieutenant discovered that the book had remained intact in the oven, he wished to burn the book again. At this point, Captain Weher from Giessen took the book from him. The captain promised that the pastor he would return the book, but instead the book was sent to Landgrave Philipp. This was the pastor’s version of the events. He ensured the prince that this was “the simple truth of the affair” and that the innkeeper could verify his report.5 Second, according to a short inscription recorded inside the unburnt book (and reproduced in Hessisches Heb-Opfer), neither theological opinion nor empirical investigation supported the notion of a miracle. The inscription documented that Johannes Winckelmann and Balthazar Mentzer, theology professors at Giessen University, expressed the opinion that God would not “miraculously” save the whole book of Arndt when in the past he had let the whole Bible burn (according to a story in 1 Maccabees 1). Instead, they suggested natural magic (Magiam ­naturalem)—the exploitation of hidden and wondrous natural causes6— as an explanation for the survival of the book, and more precisely, natural magic practiced by the Roma people, who knew how to burn wood on a bundle of straw in such a way that the straw remained unburnt.7 It was also emphasised (it is not entirely clear whether by the theologians or by the author of the “Authentique Nachricht”) that this opinion was not biased by an overt aversion to Arndt. Indeed, the two theologians, it was said, assigned nothing to the common perception that much in Arndt’s writings “tasted of” Schwenckfeldianism (the theology of Caspar Schwenckfeld) and Weigelianism (the mysticism of Valentin Weigel). Their objection was purely theological.8 Despite denying that the controversy about Arndt’s Wahre Christentum contributed to their scepticism,

Thing 75 the editor of Hessisches Heb-Opfer suspected a link. He stated (in a footnote) that indeed, in their theological writings, the two theologians had expressed neither criticism nor acceptance of Arndt, but he had heard that the two professors, to some extent, were against Arndt’s book. In fact, only a year earlier the faculty of theology in Giessen, of which the two were members, had expressed the opinion that Arndt’s book included several erroneous and Weigelian opinions and phrases.9 Third, following the judgement of the two theologians, the inscription stated that the oven in the inn in Langgöns was examined and it was found that the book had indeed survived inside the oven, although there had been only a small amount of coals (which might explain the preservation of the book)—a fact that had been unknown to the lieutenant who threw the book into the oven. This is somewhat peculiar. In his report, Geilfusius stated that the officer himself, after he had thrown the book into the oven, “broke many twigs to pieces” (selbst viel Reiser eingebrochen), apparently making sure that there was enough combustion material. On the other hand, Frontinus, writing three years later, and apparently also based on the testimony of the innkeeper, did not mention this detail.10 The last step of the verification process seems quite unusual but also logical. When the book arrived in Butzbach, to Landgrave Philipp (after, no doubt, the theologians had provided their judgement, the examination of the oven had taken place, and Geilfusius’s report had been submitted), the landgrave decided to make an empirical experiment in order to determine whether a book with gilded cover and edges could be preserved in fire by natural magic, as suggested by the theologians. When the book was put in the fire, “burning marks” (stigmata) soon testified that it could not. The book, apparently, caught fire. It was taken from the flames at once.11 All this was recorded inside the book, presumably once the prince decided to preserve the book as a memento in his library. The picture that emerges is quite telling. Although Geilfusius’s report, the ruling of the theologians, and the examination of the oven did not support the notion of an extraordinary, not to say miraculous, preservation, Landgrave Philipp ordered the book to be stored in his library as a special thing. He must have been convinced by the empirical experiment—a kind of “scientific” trial-by-fire—that something worthy of commemoration had happened at the inn in Langgöns. Once the book was archived, it was treated neither as a sacred relic nor as a protected museum object. No prohibitions or taboos were established to prevent people from being physically close to the book. This can be observed in the interesting history of the inscription that was written inside the book. As the periodical stated, the inscription on the first page of Paradiesgärtlein was seen by someone as damaging or defiling the integrity of the material book and had, therefore, been torn out. No

76  Thing sooner than 1687, someone, in an act of inverted iconoclasm, removed the inscription from the book in order to “repair” the object. The precise reason for eliminating the inscription and the evidence it provided concerning the non-miraculous preservation is not known. Others too had shown interest in inspecting the book at the princely book collection. In 1687, before the inscription was torn out of the book, a city preacher consulted the book and copied the inscription into his own copy of Paradiesgärtlein; later his son also consulted the book and read the opinion of the theologians. Sometime afterwards, the son of the city preacher again was at the library and discovered that the book had been vandalised. Finally, in 1740, the book was investigated for the piece on Arndt in Hessisches Heb-Opfer.12 It is impossible to determine why the inscription was removed, but the result was that the unburnt book could more readily speak to those who desired to see in its preservation the possibility of miraculous intervention. That the book was kept in Philipp III’s library was well known by contemporaries, as was the narrative about the preservation of the book; and much as the development of the narrative about unburnt books was slow, the trend of keeping them was also slow to develop. In 1636, a collection of chapters from the Gospels and Epistles for Sundays and holy days was found intact after a fire in Schlöben (next to Jena). The book was later stored at the ducal library in Gotha (today, Forschungsbibliothek Gotha) next to an official report. The report, which was reproduced by Tentzel, stated that the book was found in the debris of a poor man’s house. The book belonged to his son, a schoolboy. It was found by a shepherd’s son in the presence of the lord of the place and many workers and was immediately taken by the lord.13 The report said nothing about when and why the book was given to the library in Gotha. Was it a result of local initiative, or did the authorities demand the book? Did Ernst I, the Duke of Saxe-Gotha (from 1640), who was a book collector and whose collection was the origin of the library in Gotha, want it? Neither the book nor the official report seems to be present in the library today.14 The case of the unburnt book in Gotha, however, is an exception. It seems that it was not yet evident to people that there was value in incombustible books. Therefore, a Paradiesgärtlein that survived fire in 1645 was given to a certain officer who later, so the story goes, exchanged it for a horse.15 For this man, apparently, the unburnt book had no emotional, symbolic, or religious value; as a commodity, though, the book was quite valuable: it could buy a horse. Nevertheless, from the 1680s, the tendency to keep unburnt books in libraries and book collections is apparent. An early eighteenth-century description of the city of Crimmitschau (south of Leipzig) mentions a miracle (Wunderwerck) that took place in 1680 when a fire hit a few houses in the city. A copy of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein was found undamaged in the ashes while all the surrounding books had been entirely consumed by the blaze. The owner of

Thing 77 the book, a certain potter, gave it to the bailiff in Zwickau in return for a new book and other favours. The bailiff placed the unburnt book in his library and regarded it as “a wonder in acknowledgement and praise of God” (ein Wunder in Erkäntniss und Preiss Gottes).16 In 1685, a landmark was reached. The most celebrated library in Germany, Bibliotheca Augusta in Wolfenbüttel (Herzog August Library), which was founded by Herzog August II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, received an unburnt Arndt. A  damaged copy of a Paradiesgärtlein at the Library in Wolfenbüttel is allegedly the book that survived a terrible conflagration in Bockenem, Lower Saxony, on November  6, 1685, which demolished the greater part of the town. The conventional account that appeared in many later editions of Paradiesgärtlein was based on information received from Superintendent in Bockenem Philippus Petrus Gudenius and was formulated by Superintendent in Hildesheim Matthias von Broke in a special sermon, Antrist-Predigt. According to this account, the book (Braunschweig, 1676) was found in the cellar of a certain upholsterer. It was left there inside a coat, and whereas another book in the cellar as well as some tools and clothes burned to ashes, Arndt’s prayer book did not. According to the report, the book was visibly touched by the flames and it smelled too. The leather covers were burnt up to the wooden boards. However, the boards themselves, the binding, and the sheets themselves including the gilded edges, were entirely undamaged. The book was presented to the neighbours and to members of the town council. The owner delivered the book to Superintendent Gudenius, who displayed the book during a sermon the following day. Many thousands, the account states, from Bockenem and outside the town, had consequently seen the book. It appears that Superintendent Gudenius kept the book for a while and allowed people from the area to come and inspect it. Soon after and no later than 1688, however, the book, as well as Attestata made by Superintendent Gudenius, a deacon, the mayor, council members of Bockenem, and a notary were sent to Wolfenbüttel and were kept there in the library.17 The book, missing the front and back leather covers and showing signs of burning, is still part of the old collection of the Herzog August Library.18 The unburnt Paradiesgärtlein was a favourite exhibit. In 1697, Johann Christoph Heine stated in his rich collection of examples of divine intervention in everyday life, Theatrum providentiæ divinæ, that on October  1688, he had seen the book as well as the Attestata in the library and actually held the unburnt book in his hands. Heine described the damaged book in detail in order to show that it was in fact the book that Superintendent Matthias von Broke had described in Antrist-Predigt. The book was a small duodecimo; the cover was of black cordovan leather and it had gilded edges. On the first page, there was a portrait of Arndt. On the second page, the diffusion of the Holy Ghost was portrayed above an image of Jesus departing from his disciples. On the margins of the

78  Thing page, there were two symbols: the lamb and the cross.19 Likewise, physician Christian Heinrich Erndtel inspected the book when he was given a guided tour of the collection of the library (probably in 1706). Erndtel commented on the book in a travel book that he published in 1710 and unintentionally caused a minor controversy about the significance of unburnt books (see more on Heine and Erndtel in Chapter 4).20 The book was also mentioned in Museographia, the important treatise on museums and the art of collecting, written by Caspar Friedrich Neickel (Jencquel) possibly in 1688 and later expanded by Johann Kanold in 1717 and 1727. In this work, Paradiesgärtlein was described as the most curious of all the books at the Herzog August Library.21 This assessment of the book was later quoted in Historia bibliothecae Avgvstae qvae Wolffenbvtteli est, a work on the history of the library by the long-serving librarian Jacob Burckhard.22 The unburnt book was again mentioned in Franz Ernst Brückmann’s Epistola itineraria (1752), in which countless early modern collections of books were described in detail. After mentioning the unburnt prayer book at the Wolfenbüttel library, Brückmann referred the reader to a few reports about other incombustible books.23 The many stories briefly noted above strongly indicate that the Paradiesgärtlein acquired a special position in the library where it became an extraordinary exhibit for visitors. The interesting question is how it arrived there in the first place. Based on the information from Superintendent Gudenius, who was the first to receive the book, it is clear that the book stirred great wonder and interest among neighbours, inhabitants of Bockenem, clergymen, council members, and people from the surrounding area. In light of this response, it was by no means obvious that the book would go to Wolfenbüttel; why did neither owner nor the leading clergyman in town or the town itself keep this wondrous object? Was the delivery of the book to Wolfenbüttel wished or ordered by the current ruler of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel? Thus far I have seen nothing relating to the process by which the book ended up in Wolfenbüttel. After the great library in Wolfenbüttel received its copy of an incombustible Paradiesgärtlein, it probably became prestigious to own such peculiar books. Soon more princes procured unburnt books to add to their collections. In August  1690, a hymnal entitled Gott-geweyhtes Andachts-Opffer, written by Landgravine Magdalena Sibylla of HesseDarmstadt, the regent of the Duchy of Württemberg, was found in Kirchheim unter Teck, near Stuttgart, after a fire hit the town and almost entirely destroyed it. A week after the fire, Ehrenreich Weismann, special superintendent and town priest in Kirchheim wrote a report in which he described how his hymnal was found intact at the place of the church after the fire subsided, showing only minor damage to the cover. The book “flew out,” Weismann noted, of the superintendent’s house during the fire and landed close to the church, where the debris of the surrounding buildings was still glowing. “God saved his holy Word in fire and

Thing 79 in hardship,” the clergyman concluded, and added that one could find “sweet comfort” in such an incident, while suffering the fire of affliction. This short report was included in the (unsigned) preface to a 1722 edition of the hymn book, which also included the information that the wondrously saved volume was sent to “hohen Fürsten-handen,” that is, to the landgravine, and was placed in “perpetual memory of the matter” (in perpetuam rei memoriam) in the princely archive in Stuttgart.24 Although the hymnal preserved in Kirchheim unter Teck did not receive the same fame as Paradiesgärtlein in the Herzog August Library, stories about the hymnal did circulate. In addition to the report of 1722, it also appeared in 1718 in the news collection Zufällige Relationen. The pretext for mentioning the book was a report about a few pages containing a prophecy regarding the Ottoman Empire that had been preserved in a fire in Marpach, Württemberg, in 1693. The fire destroyed the library of Special Superintendent M. Hafner, yet four pages from a Latin prophecy of an unknown author were found intact in the ashes. The unburnt pages were, according to the report, kept in the princely cabinet of art in Stuttgart (today, in Landesmuseum, Stuttgart) and were put on display for interested visitors.25 In 1693, another urban fire resulted in the placing of a damaged yet legible book in a library. Similar to what happened in 1624, archiving the book in a library took place despite the lack of theological sanction of a supposed miracle. The book was once again Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein, and it was found after a fire in Leipheim, not far from Ulm—most of the leather burnt away, the glaze melted, but the text still intact. The authorities in Ulm asked for expert theological opinion on the case, but the result was perhaps disappointing. Superintendent Veiel resolved that what happened could not be called an actual miracle (eigentliches Wunderwerck). It is possible that other experts disagreed, and, in any case, the town authorities ordered that the book be kept at the Stadt-Bibliothek in Ulm.26 A few years later, an unburnt Bible was given to Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg. According to the old card catalogue of the library, the book is an old Wittenberg Bible (1588) that remained untouched by the fire that destroyed St.  Egidius’s Church in Nürnberg in June  1696. The Bible shows no explicit marks of burning. However, the leather binding is missing from both covers and the spine. According to the inscription on the flyleaf, the Bible stood beside other books near the bed of the sacristan of the church, a young man (Figure 3.1). Although the leather binding was burnt, the wooden boards and the paper remained intact so that neither a single page nor a single letter of the book were damaged. The mother of the sacristan dedicated the book to the “public library,” where it was kept as “a memento of the wondrous preservation” of the book. The book was given to the library in 1697, almost a year after the fire.27 Another princely book collection that received an incombustible book in the same period (probably some time before 1702) is the Rudolph

80  Thing

Figure 3.1 An unburnt Luther Bible, inscription on flyleaf Source: By permission of Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg (shelf mark, Cent. V, App. 57).

August reference library in Braunschweig. In one of the shortest paragraphs of his book, Tentzel stated that a Bible that was preserved in a fire in Kindelbrück (possibly the 1698 fire that caused great damage) was kept in the Rudolph August “hand-Bibliotec,” referring doubtlessly to the large and systematic book collection of Rudolph August, Herzog of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (the son of Herzog August, the founder of the library in Wolfenbüttel), which the duke donated to the library of Helmstedt University in 1702.28 Princely desire to own an unburnt book, or more specifically an unburnt Arndt, is also evident in a case from 1726. In June of that year, a fire broke out in Winkel (by Allstedt, Saxony-Anhalt) that demolished twenty-two houses. After three days, a peasant came to Pastor Wilhelm Christian Höpfner and showed him a Paradiesgärtlein (Sondershausen, 1708) that he had found in the ashes of other burnt books in his house. The book was damaged by the fire but only on the outer parts. The

Thing 81 pastor went to the site where the book was found. He then questioned the workers who were clearing the debris. Later, he commemorated the book publicly in a sermon, and he mentioned it in the report about the fire that he delivered to the general superintendent in Eisenach, who in turn informed Johann Wilhelm, Herzog of Sachsen-Eisenach, about the case. A couple of years later, when pastor Höpfner preached in Allstedt in the presence of Herzog Johann Wilhelm, the prince told the pastor that if the owner of the book agreed, the prince would like to have the book in his library in Eisenach as “a memento” (zum Andencken). The owner agreed and the book was given to the prince as a gift.29 In Winkel, the initial report about the wondrous preservation of the book was examined by the pastor, and, when it was found to be authentic, the pastor made a public act of verbally commemorating the book. Perhaps he displayed the book for the parishioners to see. Then he returned the book to its owner who apparently kept the book for himself. Only two years later, and following the direct request of Herzog Johann Wilhelm, the book was placed in the prince’s library. Before this princely intervention, neither pastor nor general superintendent considered moving the book to a special place. Altogether, unburnt copies of Johann Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein were kept in early modern Lutheran libraries more often than any other unburnt book. Perhaps it was because this book set the trend; perhaps it was because this book was the most desired. A more cautious conclusion is that the preservation of Arndt’s books in fire and their later fate are those that are best documented and most often referred to in contemporary literature. The trend, however, must have been more general: Bibles, hymnals, prayer books, and edifying books in general were removed from the sites where they were found in the debris that fires left and stored in princely and town libraries (and sometimes in private libraries), among other books, documents, and rarities. The practice of collecting unburnt and partly burnt books indicates three trends. First, it seems that demand was greater than supply. Rulers and other interested parties looked for unburnt books for their libraries. Landgrave Philipp of Hessen-Butzbach got the first Paradiesgärtlein in 1624, but other princes sought to house the book in their libraries too. Johann Wilhelm, Herzog of Sachsen-Eisenach, asked politely for a Paradiesgärtlein two years after it survived a fire in Winkel. In 1734, a book was sent from Quedlinburg to King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia for the Royal Library in Berlin, despite local protest (as I will discuss). An important second trend concerns the practices of valuation. Before such books were kept, a process of verification of the facts sometimes took place. This is most obvious in the complex verification process that took place in 1624, but it is also evident in, for instance, Ulm where the town authorities sought to substantiate the decision to place an unburnt book in the library by assembling eyewitness testimony and theological

82  Thing judgement. Hence, unburnt books were often kept together with documentation of the circumstances of their survival, as it was reported regarding the book that survived fire in 1685 and is now yet at the Herzog August Library. Finally, it appears that the motivation for storing unburnt books among other books, documents, and rarities was the logic of perpetuating a memory through the presence of a metonymic object whose power of signification was often enhanced by related practices, such as adding an inscription inside the book and keeping documentation concerning the preservation of the book. The most commonly expressed rationale for keeping an unburnt book was that the book was a memento, commemorating and perpetuating the remembrance of some event. According to Johannes Frontinus, writing in 1627, the Arndt prayer book that survived in the oven in 1624 was placed at the princely library in Butzbach “in everlasting memory” (zum ewigen Gedächtnis) of the miracle.30 In 1715, the periodical Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, the first Protestant journal in Germany (established in 1701), reported the survival of three printed religious hymns in Zittau. The hymns together with a written description of the event were kept in the town library, the Ratsbibliothek (later, Christian-Weise-Bibliothek), “in perpetual memory” (zum steten Andencken) of God’s providence.31 Theologian and senior minister in Frankfurt Johann Georg Pritius received a Paradiesgärtlein that survived a fire in Pfarenheim (not far from Frankfurt) in 1717. For Pritius, the book served as “a lasting memento” (einem beständigen Denkmahl) of God’s providence.32 As mentioned earlier, the hymnal Gott-­ geweyhtes Andachts-Opffer found in Kirchheim unter Teck in 1690 is said to have been kept “in perpetual memory of the matter” (in perpetuam rei memoriam) at the princely archive in Stuttgart.33 The Paradiesgärtlein that was kept in the princely library in Eisenach was put there, according to the original report, “as a memento” (zum Andencken).34 When the story was later published in a double edition of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum and Paradiesgärtlein (Züllichau, 1750) the text was slightly changed. It was claimed that the prince wished to have the book as “a memento of divine benevolence” (zum Andenken göttlicher güte).35 Usually, the book was perceived as a memento of the event itself and of the unusual preservation of the book. Sometimes, the commemoration entailed an acknowledgement of God’s providence or special care. Typically, the texts that described the practice of collection did not turn to miracles to explain the practice they recorded. In a way, more than a practice that reflected a clear perception of the meaning of the preservation in fire, the practice of collecting was a tacit admission that the proper place for such books, although distorted and sometimes unusable as books, was in a library or a book collection. While most libraries held only one incombustible book, the renowned Pietist centre in Halle (Franckesche Stiftungen) contained the remains of

Thing 83 a few books. This small collection enables a more profound discussion of the logic of keeping charred as well as unburnt books. At present, the cabinet of art (Kunst- und Naturalienkammer) at the Franckesche Stiftungen in Glaucha (today Halle)—a boarding school for orphans (Waisenhaus) that developed into a major Pietist, educational, and in fact scientific centre—holds the remains of at least three books. In the 1700s, the remnants of at least four other books were kept there. One book, one of those that still belongs to the cabinet of art, was (and is) seriously damaged. The cover is charred and the title page is only partly legible. The edges and margins of many pages are burnt away. A note attached to the book states that it was found in the ashes of other books in 1711 in “Königl. Vorwerck Gallen” (the location of this place is unknown). The book was given to an “inspector” by his brother-in-law, and was donated to the Waisenhaus in 1718. The book was identified by Oliver Pfefferkorn as a volume containing two works, Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein and the Lüneburgische Gesangbuch from 1697 (Figure 3.2).36 Another remnant is a badly burnt book that is packed together with a bundle of burnt paper that may have come from another book. No identification has been possible (due to the centre’s rules, I was not allowed to open the package). Pfefferkorn identified the badly burnt book as Arndt’s Wahre Christentum that, according to the old catalogue of the library at Franckesche Stiftungen (Catalogue B), did not burn entirely while all other books around it perished in the fire.37 No other details are provided

Figure 3.2 A  damaged volume of Paradiesgärtlein and Lüneburgische Gesangbuch (1697) Source: By permission of Franckesche Stiftungen (R-nr. 1054). Photograph by author.

84  Thing in the catalogue, but the preservation of this book was reported briefly in a few editions of Arndt’s prayer book from the 1730s onwards. According to the story, the book belonged to a priest from Leubingen, Thuringia, whose house, including his library, burned down in 1714. While not a single page remained of the other books, Arndt’s religious manifesto was found unburnt and was given to the Waisenhaus as a memento.38 “Unburnt” is clearly an exaggeration. The book is badly burnt and only partly legible. Finally, the Halle library contains the material remains of a book that is in fact only a remnant: a single page. This page was not even mentioned in the old catalogue, but it belonged to a hymnal, which Pfefferkorn identified as Gesang-Buch by Johan Anastasius Feylinghausen. According to a contemporary note, the page was found in a church in Glaucha after it burned down on January 6, 1740.39 According to the old catalogue, a few other books were stored in the Waisenhaus, but they are not in the collection today: a Wahre Christentum that was found in Beesen, today part of Halle, after a fire in 1754; a Bible that survived fire in Laucha bei Naumburg on April  13, 1731; a volume of Johan Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein that was preserved in fire in Budissin (Bautzen, near Görlitz, at the Polish border) on April 22, 1709, and was found six days later; and the very popular Lateinische ­Grammatica—composed by the Halle theologian Joachim Lange and issued, from the early 1700s onwards, in many editions—which was preserved in fire in 1726 in Lautenberg.40 These books, like those that are still in the cabinet of art were indexed briefly in the catalogue with very few details and without any suggestions as to the possibility of divine intervention in their fate. There are no visible signs of attempts to give these remains of paper, cardboard, and leather a new or different shape that would support the commemoration of their preservation, either in the catalogue or in the three book remains that are extant today. The presence of this handful of half-burnt books at the Franckesche Stiftungen forces us to ask why different people in different places over the course of a few decades assumed that it was appropriate to send burnt, badly burnt, and partly burnt books to the newly established religious-educational-philanthropic centre in Halle (the school for ­ orphans opened in 1695 and the actual Waisenhaus in 1698). Was this centre becoming a shrine for miraculous books or was it a graveyard for half-burnt paper? I want to suggest a few initial answers to this question. One answer, though perhaps not the most plausible considering the extent of damage suffered by the books, is that these books were donated to the Waisenhaus to be used as library books in the early years of the institution. The orphanage’s budget, with ever-growing activities—­ philanthropic, educational, medical, scientific, and missionary—­depended critically on donations. As August Hermann Francke, the founder and head of the institution, relates in detail in a report from 1701, financial

Thing 85 donations were crucial for the basic running of the school and other activities. Besides financial contributions, Francke often received donations in kind, and indeed the centre occasionally received books for its library. Francke mentions the habit of sending inherited books to the Waisenhaus as a way in which people without financial means contributed to the maintenance of the school. Such donated books constituted the initial collection of the library. Some of the contributions, at least the later ones, were evidently large—many books or whole private ­libraries— while other contributions were more modest, perhaps consisting of only a few books or even just one. In fact, when the book collection in later years expanded explosively to become one of the more prestigious in Germany, the modest beginning of the library—a tiny collection stored in a little room under a gallery in the old building of the Waisenhaus (before the current library was built in 1728)—was emphasised as a wonder. Initially, the book collection was meant for the general use of potential readers—not only scholars and students but also pupils from the schools of the institution. Indeed, at this early stage every book counted; potentially even slightly damaged books.41 It could have made sense to send half-burnt but legible books to a place with hardly any books, where pupils and students had great need for reading material. The problem with this explanation, however, is that hardly legible books—as at least some of the unburnt books in Halle were—are not reading material and are of little use in a library. Indeed, the burnt books and remains of books were kept at the Waisenhaus in the collection of curiosities, the Kunst- und Naturalienkammer, and probably not in the library itself. Although in the first years of the Waisenhaus (until 1728) the library and the cabinet of art were placed side by side in the same small room and no sharp distinction between reading material and exhibit items existed, it appears that all the remains of books belonged to the collection of curiosities.42 Yet, donation might be the explanation for why a burnt grammar book, Lateinische Grammatica, presumably legible, was among the incombustible books in Halle. Still, there must have been a more profound reason that people associated the Pietist centre in Halle with incombustible books. This profound reason could arguably be the Nordhausen precedent. Was the considerable role that the Brandbibel played in the establishment of the Waisenhaus in Nordhausen the inspiration for collecting similar books in Halle? Now, obviously the direction of inspiration originally flowed from Halle westward to Nordhausen. The Waisenhaus in Glaucha (by Halle) was the first of its kind and the inspiration for the founding of other orphanages, among them that in Nordhausen. But when it comes to incombustible books, the direction might have been the opposite. The earliest unburnt book in Halle was a book that survived fire in 1709. Possibly, it arrived in Halle long after its preservation, as other books did. In practice, it might be that all the remains of books in Halle arrived there after 1710,

86  Thing that is, after the Bible of Pastor Otto was preserved in the fire in Nordhausen. The Bible’s preservation and its role in the Waisenhaus received immediate publicity. Therefore, it might be that the association between a religiously founded orphanage and incombustible books was made first in Nordhausen and later in Halle. Being as it may, this does not explain much. Even if an association between incombustible books and philanthropic-educational enterprises was already a known, established concept, the nature of the books in Halle and their role there were of a different kind than that of the book in Nordhausen, which remained intact and was made a religious object (see below). The most obvious explanation for the existence of so many scorched books in Halle is that these were donated as rarities, curiosities, or occurrences of irregular nature, meant to be conserved in the already large and famous cabinet of art that had been part of the institution in Halle from its early days. It was well known that Francke looked for curious and exotic natural phenomena for the Waisenhaus and that he encouraged people to donate such things. When the orphanage expanded in later years, a network of missionaries, teachers, and pastors sent curiosities to Halle from all over the world, but initially the bulk of curiosities arrived as donations or sometimes as payments for admittance into the school.43 Those who sent books preserved in fire, whether they were the owners of these books or not, whether immediately after the fire or years later, must have considered them to be appropriate exhibits for the Waisenhaus collection. Strictly speaking, however, books are not representations of irregular or rare nature, as they are not natural objects. But the collection in Halle, as was typical at the time, was not limited to natural objects and included ethnographic artefacts, such as clothes and domestic utensils; cultural artefacts, such as a letter form Martin Luther to the king of Denmark; edifying books that had been translated into Tamil; and, apparently, unburnt books from different Lutheran localities.44 Not natural, yet analogous to the natural curiosities, these artefacts represented the richness, complexity, and singularity of a world in which God, the creator, acted as an artist making diversified yet harmonious and exotic yet comprehensible works of art. If the books arrived to Halle as rarities, it is somewhat surprising that references to these partly burnt books—as curiosities or as natural/ cultural wonders—are absent from the contemporary literature about incombustible books. It is surprising because the collection of rarities in Halle was well known and attracted many visitors. Many people inspected the collection in Halle, yet the unburnt books remained practically unknown. Indeed, even in contemporary descriptions of the cabinet of art in Halle references are scarce. Hence, the description in Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt’s Pagvus Nelectici et Nvdzici (description of the Duchy of Magdeburg) from 1755 is rare. In Pagvus Nelectici et Nvdzici, the contents of the rarity collection in Halle were described cabinet

Thing 87 by cabinet. One of the side cabinets displayed all kind of writings, books, and texts. Here, von Dreyhaupt saw, if he was actually there, the copy of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein that was found in the ashes in Bautzen in 1709.45 Interestingly, von Dreyhaupt did not mention the other unburnt books. Also interesting is the fact that in a review of the contents of the collection issued by the Halle institution in 1799 neither the 1709 Paradiesgärtlein nor any other unburnt book was mentioned. The description of the particular cabinet where the unburnt Arndt was on display in 1755 was otherwise almost identical to von Dreyhaupt’s description.46 Also interesting is the fact that in a relatively long list of the main exhibits of the collection that appeared in Franz Ernst Brückmann’s Epistola itineraria (1748), no mention was made of the books, despite the fact that an item called “incombustible paper” was listed. This paper was described in Latin as “Charta Asbestina incombustibilis” and in German as “Ein stuck unverbrennlich Papier” (a piece of incombustible paper). Unlike the unburnt Paradiesgärtlein, this special type of paper appeared among other natural rarities. It was not lumped together with cultural items.47 The collection at Halle was vast and books, burnt or otherwise, were not its main attraction, so perhaps a few scorched books were not noticed by von Dreyhaupt and other observers. If the books were indeed just regular exhibits, it is essential to ask whether they were regarded as miraculous or wondrous, as was the Bible in Nordhausen for instance. Unfortunately, because of the lack of reactions to the unburnt books in Halle, it is difficult to answer this question. Nevertheless, I want to suggest that, analogous to Francke’s view of the Waisenhaus as a work of God, the unburnt books in Halle were perhaps representations of God’s providence. They were neither miracles (supernatural occurrences) nor wonders (exceptional, exotic natural phenomena), but works of God performed within the framework of divine, special (rather than general) providence. In a series of long newsletters published during the first decade of the eighteenth century, the years in which the institution in Halle was formed and started expanding, Francke expressed his view of the unique existential situation of the Waisenhaus, employing metaphors and theological terms that emphasised the special, effective, ongoing divine care his enterprise received—metaphors and terms that (quite independently) were used and would be used by promoters of incombustible books. To follow the view of Francke, or rather his vision of the Waisenhaus, it is enough to look at the vocabulary he employed in one of the first reports in a series of apologetic newsletters. In Die Fußstapffen des noch lebenden und waltende liebreichen und getreuen Gottes Zur Beschämung des Unglaubens, und Stärckung des Glaubens, Francke described the establishment of the institution and the difficulties in maintaining it. Already the title indicated the narrative framework by emphasising God’s mark on the world. In the report, Francke suggested that one could observe the footsteps of the still living and true God; the foundation as well as maintenance

88  Thing of the orphanage was considered, or more precisely, was depicted, as a divine work. Francke’s view was expressed in various formulations in chapter  2 of his newsletter. The chapter  demonstrated the evident and wondrous providence of God (Der augenscheinlichen und wunderbaren Vorsorge Gottes) proven by the work performed in the orphanage, as the title stated. What Francke meant by this was not so much that caring for orphans was divine work in itself, but rather that the otherwise impossible work of running an underfinanced institution and making it successful in the first years was made possible through continuous divine care.48 To demonstrate the point, Francke offered a few examples through which the reader could experience how the orphanage repeatedly survived hopeless financial predicaments through unexpected, last-minute donations— always somehow ordained by the special providence of God. Throughout the chapter, Francke employed vocabulary that pertained to an economy of divine providence. Donations were God’s support for the enterprise; hours of need were trials of faith; delivery from financial need strengthened the faith of the people at the Waisenhaus as well as visitors and, naturally, potential donors. In this dynamic of acute need and last-minute salvation, the finger or hand of God was felt and support was a sign of the heart-stirring force of God. Such logic expressed, in such similar vocabulary, was abundant throughout the first part of the second chapter.49 Francke’s employment of a discourse about divine economy and, especially, his insistence on depicting financial transactions as the work of God stirred some criticism. Die Fußstapffen and other pamphlets were criticised in the orthodox periodical Unschuldige Nachrichten (1707), edited by Valentin Ernst Löscher, for Francke’s extravagant vocabulary and his insistent reliance on divine providence. The criticism was rejected in long and detailed treatises by supporters of Francke’s cause and the controversy died out. Polemics between orthodox theologians and the Pietists focused on questions that were more substantial.50 The image of the Waisenhaus as a metonym of the divine—being in association with the metaphorical body of God—was apparently powerful. Perhaps powerful enough to make the association between unburnt books, themselves symbols of divine providence, and the Pietist centre in Halle seem natural. Hence, the relatively large number of donations of unburnt books to Franckesche Stiftungen and hence the naturalness by which these books were recorded in the old catalogue of the library and the storage of the books without any visible attempt to repair them, to make them a monument or give them extraordinary exposure. The books simply belonged to the inventory of the institution.

Religious Object Naturally, Lutheran books survived fires before 1624 and they were occasionally kept. They were not necessarily regarded as wondrous,

Thing 89 divine signs. The Landesbibliothek in Coburg possesses a Luther Bible (Frankfurt am Main, 1589) that survived a fire in 1594. The Bible was previously held by St.  Moritz’s Church in Coburg. No sign of damage discloses the fact that the book was in or near a fire, but an inscription inside claims that the Bible, the possession of one Wolfgang Esbacher (who signed the inscription) and his brothers, survived the fire that erupted on September 3, 1594, in which the brothers lost their home and almost all their possessions. The Bible, however, survived the fire. It was later apparently donated to the church.51 It is not clear when the inscription was written and when the book was given to the church. The inscription indicates that the book was given away (“Solchs ich hiermit hierein thu gebn”), but the recipient of the book is not explicitly mentioned. The book also included a poetic inscription by one Gabriel Spacher from 1670, when the book’s cover was apparently remade. This inscription attributed the need to rebind the book to its excessive use by many pastors over the years. According to a third, one-line inscription by one Johann Esbacher, the Bible received a new cover in 1725, apparently again due to excessive use. A hundred years later the book was definitively held by the church. The Jahrbücher der Herzoglich Sächsischen Residenzstadt Coburg (1825) mentioned the fire of 1594 and noted that the unburnt Bible was kept in the sacristy of St.  Moritz’s Church.52 It seems that Wolfgang Esbacher gave away the unburnt Bible to the church, the Lutheran town church in Coburg, soon after the fire, where it was regularly used during services. Being a donation from a member of their family, later generations of the Esbachers took care of the book and supplied the Bible with a new cover when needed. What is significant about this book is that it was not regarded a wonder, it was not kept for eternity unrepaired, and it was never mentioned in the discourse about incombustible books. It shows that unburnt books were not automatically considered fire-resistant and wondrous and that they were not necessarily assigned special significance. During the seventeenth century and especially after the preservation of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in Langgöns, unburnt books acquired a special significance and under special circumstances were made truly religious objects. As was shown in the previous section, in libraries and collections of rarities, books were mainly objects for inspection. However, on a few occasions, when keeping a book did not mean placing it among other collection items, the incombustible book had the potential to take on new functions and new meanings. In the following, I discuss a few such cases. April 1669 was an unusually stormy month and it caused great material damage—at least according to the tenth volume of Theatrum Europaeum that was published in 1677 and covered the years 1666–71. In Dresden, the residence of the elector of Saxony, lightning hit the tower of the Stadtkirche in Neu-Dresden, the Kirche zum-heiligen Creuz, today

90  Thing Kreuzkirche Dresden. The tower collapsed, some of the bells melted, and one bell exploded. Remarkably, though—the chronicler remarked— two books inside the church spire ball (Turmkugel) were found intact, damaged by neither the heat nor the ultimate explosion of the tower.53 The reporter of the Theatrum Europaeum imprecisely identified the two books as “Die Augspurgische Confession” and the “Formula Concordiae.” The reporter also missed one important fact about the remarkable preservation of the books and he (naturally) did not mention what happened to the books subsequently. The interesting history of the two unburnt and undamaged books was published in 1680 by Anton Weck, an official and archivist at the court in Dresden, in his impressively documented and beautifully illustrated historical description of the town of Dresden. Here he transcribed and translated original documents relating to the town, its treasures, and its buildings. In 1582, when a tower was added to the western side of the Kreuzkirche, a few objects were put inside the spire ball. According to a commemorative document, the main goal of which was to record the names of all the officials of the town for posterity, two books were placed inside the spire ball, together with silver and gold coins and the commemorative document itself. The books were to testify to the “belief and religion” of the lord and subjects of the electorate of Saxony. The first book was “CONCORDIA” and the second was the “Schul-und Kirchen Ordnung.”54 The first must have been Book of Concord (Konkordienbuch), or in its original title, CONCORDIA, Christliche, Widerholete einmütige Bekentnüs, that was published in folio as well as in a smaller format in both German and Latin in 1580 in Dresden and other places on the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession before Emperor Charles V. Book of Concord included not simply a copy of the Formula of Concord (Formula concordiae) itself, the authoritative Lutheran statement of faith, formulated originally in 1577 and readjusted until a final formulation was agreed on in 1580, on the initiative of, among others, Herzog August, Elector of Saxony in order to unite the Lutheran Churches against the Lutheran Philippists and the emerging power of Calvinism in the Empire. In addition to the Formula of Concord, Book of Concord included the Augsburg Confession, Philipp Melanchthon’s Apologia der Confession, Luther’s small and large catechisms, and a list of theologians, pastors, and schoolteachers who subscribed to the Formula.55 To top off this bombardment of Lutheran orthodoxy, the second book, the Saxonian Kirchenordnung (church ordinance) of Herzog August, published in 1580, was also put in the spire ball. This church ordinance included detailed regulation of the church, university, and schools, including an authoritative prayer book.56 The preservation of the two books in the fire of 1669 was recorded in a new commemorative document that was placed inside a new spire in 1674, after the existing tower collapsed, and it was published by Weck

Thing 91 in his work on Dresden. According to this document, the 1582 spire ball contained the Book of Concord, the Kirchenordnung, two parchments— one was the original commemorative document and the other had been put inside the ball when the roof of the tower was renovated in 1617— and a metal box containing silver and gold coins. When lightning hit the tower in 1669, one parchment burned to ashes while the two books and the parchment from 1617 remained undamaged. After the spire ball fell down and broke, the books were found under the burning debris. The two unburnt books, the metal box, a new copy of the 1582 commemorative document, a new copy of the 1617 commemorative document as well as the original (which was only lightly damaged in the fire) were all placed in 1674 inside the new ball together with another metal box containing coins, a new commemorative document, the Augsburg Confession, and Philipp Melanchthon’s 1531 Apologia der Confession—the last two items served as a testimony that the lord and subjects of the electoral Saxony still practised the evangelical religion.57 In the early modern period it was customary to place documents, coins, illustrations, and other objects, documenting the time of the construction, rebuilding or renovation of a church, inside the balls that often adorned the spires of church towers. In some cases, religious texts were added in order to testify to the current religious practice and orthodoxy. The interesting aspect of the re-placement of the two unburnt books inside the new ball at the top of the tower of the Stadtkirche in Dresden in 1674 is that through the employment of a standard procedure, the significance of the books and thereby their potential to bear witness to the religiosity and the solid religious doctrine of the rulers and subjects of Saxony was enhanced. The two undamaged books were not sent to a princely library or to a book collection and were not claimed by the elector or the local religious authorities. Instead, they were kept after the fire and then five years later in 1674, when the reconstruction of the tower was completed, they were put inside the spire ball. In a sense, these books simply resumed their previous function as evidence of previous religious practice. However, the actual role of bearing witness to the current orthodoxy of electoral Saxony in 1674 was now relegated to the new additions to the ball—the Augsburg Confession and Melanchthon’s Apology for the Augsburg Confession (probably in one book, as the two texts were often printed together) while the old books, by their special status as books that had survived fire and destruction, could now perhaps be seen as not merely historical evidence but indeed as a more continuous presence of religious representation. The commemorative document from 1674 underscored the fact that while the parchment of 1582 was burned to ashes and the parchment of 1617 was damaged, the two books remained unharmed. In a sense, reusing the books—unharmed yet, it must be assumed, with some signs of fire, heat, smoke, ashes, and perhaps explosion—was a subtle way of

92  Thing re-emphasising the materiality of books and the importance of the material presence of religious and doctrinal (authoritative) representations. It must be remembered that, in 1582, Book of Concord and Kirchenordnung documented and commemorated current religious tendencies; in 1674, they were not necessarily the best representations of orthodoxy. In 1674, almost a hundred years after the Book of Concord and the Kirchenordnung were inserted in the spire ball, the two documents perhaps did not have precisely the same meaning as in the 1580s when they were issued and had compelling validity. Significantly, it was the Augsburg Confession (including Melanchthon’s Apology) alone and not the Book of Concord (which contained both the Augsburg Confession as well as other documents) that was now tasked with bearing witness to the religion of the ruler and subjects. The choice of documents was apparently made by the superintendent, the town mayors, and the town’s syndicate, all of whom signed the 1674 document. Further indication of the special role—so to speak—of the two books from 1580 as incombustible books rather than conventional spire ball items, comes from the later history of the spire ball. Or rather, this subsequent history allows us to glimpse how these books eventually lost their value as objects. According to a historical account of the Kreuzkirche that was attached to three fire-sermons preached by the superintendent in Dresden, Johann Joachim Gottlob am Ende, the two books once again survived the fire and the explosion of the spire ball that occurred when the Kreuzkirche was almost totally demolished during the bombardment of Dresden in 1760 during the Seven Years’ War. “We do not hold it to be a wonder” (Wunder), Superintendent Am Ende remarked, though he emphasised that the preservation of the books was a pleasant and happy occurrence for the lovers of God’s Word.58 The destroyed church was rebuilt. When a new ball was installed on a new tower in 1788, the two, twice-unburnt books were not placed there. Apparently, they were now discarded as old and irrelevant (unless of course they were kept somewhere else). According to a historical account of the Kreuzkirche from 1900, the year the church was again rebuilt, following a devastating conflagration in 1897, the ball that was sealed in 1788 and remained intact in the fire of 1897 contained five books bound in swine leather, all of them well-kept “as if they just left the bookbinder.” Neither Book of Concord nor Kirchenordnung were among these books. In other words, none of the books from 1582 was there. Four of the books present came from after the bombardment of the church in 1760. The fifth was the “Bekenntnis-schriften” of the church, that is, the Augsburg Confession, probably the volume from 1674, that both contained the Confession and the Apology. The spire ball did contain the parchments from 1582 (that is, not the original, which burned to ashes, but a copy) and 1674, but none of the books from 1582.59 It is not clear who chose the books and documents for the ball in 1778. Superintendent Am

Thing 93 Ende, who emphasised that the preservation of books in fire was not to be regarded as a wonder, died in 1777. It is clear, however, that as in 1674, the religious statement that was supposed to signal the religious orientation of the electorate of Saxony was the Augsburg Confession rather than the Formula of Concord. However, unlike the situation in 1674, when the unburnt Book of Concord and Kirchenordnung were re-placed in the church’s tower ball, presumably in acknowledgement of their function as material representations of a divine presence, in 1778 the old books were discarded and not given any special value. If nothing else, this is suggestive of the diminishing interest in incombustible books after 1750. The process of valuation that involved the books in the spire ball of the Kreuzkirche in Dresden was tacit; it was almost as if the books became objects without anybody actually realising that this was what happened. At times, however, incombustible books were involved in processes that enhanced their materiality in extraordinary ways. Such was the case for the books that survived a terrible fire that hit Münchberg on September 26, 1701, and left behind at least three unburnt or partly burnt Bibles. The evidence is scanty, but the case is still important in the sense that it shows the potential of unburnt books to become and be the objects of special veneration, admiration, and possibly worship. The fire in Münchberg demolished the house of Superintendent Heinrich Arnold Stockfleth and he lost a huge collection of books as well as everything else in his house. According to Christian Feustel, a friend of Stockfleth’s, one Bible survived the fire. This book was not one of the scholarly Bibles, which Stockfleth must have had in his vast library. Nor was it a copy of the Bible that Stockfleth himself edited in 1683, which included many illustrations, Stockfleth’s introduction, and his “Anleitung zur täglichen Hauskirchen.” Rather, it was an old Luther Bible, published in Lüneburg in 1647 by the Stern publishers. For thirty-four years, Stockfleth had consulted this Bible daily in his work as clergyman, and therefore the book was not kept in the library. While everything around it burned down, the Bible somehow endured the flames, though some damage was evident—the stench of fire, as Feustel put it, “still stirring up disgust in the nose” and traces of conflagration could be observed on many pages. The book was, following the intention of the owner, kept in a sacred sanctuary (aedibus sacris) in a public place “in memory of the miracle” (miraculi memoriam).60 Feustel was not an eyewitness to the destruction of the book collection of the Münchberg scholar. He was mainly interested in the loss that Stockfleth and the scholarly community had suffered and not in the miraculous survival of one book. He was wrong to claim that this was the only book that survived the fire in Stockfleth’s house and to believe that nothing was left of Stockfleth’s own work. Apart from the German Bible, a Latin Bible that belonged to Stockfleth remained untouched by

94  Thing the fire. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, this Bible belonged to Johann Kapp, the theologian and member of the consistory in Bayreuth.61 Feustel’s information about the unburnt Bible seems, nevertheless, to be reliable. Interestingly and contrary to the usual way of depicting incombustible books, Feustel did not mention whether the book was still legible. He did emphasise, however, how the fire had changed the way the book was experienced, an experience that was now sensual rather than intellectual. The “thing” smelled and traces of the fire were visible. Most significantly and somehow mysteriously, Feustel states that following the wish of Stockfleth the preserved book was kept somewhere publicly in an aedibus sacris. Does that mean that the book was kept in a church or that the book was kept in a sanctuary made specifically for the book?62 Though it is not clear from this description whether the book was kept in a church or in a sanctuary made specifically for its storage, the description still highlights that the book was on its way to become a religious object. It is tempting here to compare Stockfleth’s reaction to the loss of his library with a similarly painful loss of books four years earlier. In 1697, Johann Schultz, councillor and archivist in the Duchy of Mecklenburg, lost his collection of books, manuscripts, maps, medals, mathematical instruments, and other rarities in a fire in Schwerin. A few days after the fire, Arndt’s Wahre Christentum (Latin, Frankfurt, 1658) was found. The book was badly damaged on the outside but otherwise the text was intact. Schultz decided to have the book repaired and keep it as “a memento and a treasure” (Denckmahl und Kleinod) in place of the other treasure—his entire collection—that had gone up in fire. Inside the book, he added a long Latin poem inscription, in which he described the circumstances of the survival of the book. At the end of the poem, Schultz called on the reader: go on with your business and know that every so often either skies or earth, either ocean or fire, conspire to ruin you. Trust then in the power of God.63 Schultz did what other owners sometimes did. He repaired the book and made an inscription in it wherein he stressed the moral and religious significance of the event. He apparently experienced the preservation of the book as directed at him personally and he kept the book for himself. In contrast, Stockfleth’s emotions and motives in keeping his Bible are unknown, he seems to have detected or responded to a communal or public interest in the preservation of his Bible. He did not keep the book for himself; rather he made the unrepaired, smelly remains of the book part of the public space. Was the Bible in Münchberg celebrated, commemorated, venerated? Was it of any interest for the local inhabitants? Contemporary literature is silent about these questions. That display in a public, or ritual, space contributed to turning unburned books into divine objects is illustrated by the trajectory of the Brandbibel from Nordhausen that has already been introduced in this study. The remarkable fact about the Brandbibel is how it was presented,

Thing 95 represented, and used in the context of establishing an orphanage in the town and commemorating the devastating fire of 1710. The idea of establishing an orphanage came to Pastor Otto after the fire and as a response to the inspiring preservation of his Bible, to which he was apparently strongly attached. The orphanage was commonly presented as the result of the wondrous preservation in fire, and the initial idea of establishing such an institution was presented to the town magistrates within this theological framework, according to which the preservation of the book in the fire was a manifestation of divine care for the Bible. The proper reaction to such divine care had to be a manifestation of human care and hence the establishment of a charitable institution, the Waisenhaus.64 The Brandbibel was continuously associated with the enterprise. In 1715, under the direction of the city council, Johann Heinrich Kindervater from St. Blaise’s Church made an appeal to the public to contribute to the completion of the Waisenhaus. Kindervater began the appeal by declaring that God’s providence had a watching eye on the holy Bible at all times. Thus, the Bible was often preserved undamaged in fire, as several instances, old as well as new, proved. Kindervater narrated what happened to Pastor Otto’s Bible, quoted his account of the events, and concluded that the incombustible book was a special wonder and a manifestation of the omnipotence of God. Whoever wanted to see how wondrously God had saved the book from the flames should come to Nordhausen and observe it. “I know,” Kindervater wrote, “that such observers would view the book with amazement and say: God has done this.”65 The appeals to the public were probably successful and on September  17, 1716, the orphanage was inaugurated. The first orphans were taken to the Waisenhaus by a procession that went from Kindervater’s house to the orphanage. The procession included the new pupils, their assigned “father” and “mother,” the administrators of the institution (all clergymen), town officials, and a large number of tools and equipment for the new institution. Leading the symbolically charged procession was one of the orphans bearing a tin tray on which the incombustible Bible lay. Further down were the administrators, who wore their priest copes, and the children with crosses on their new orphanage uniforms. When they arrived at their destination, bells rang, the house was blessed, and a sermon was given in the presence of a great multitude.66 The ceremonial role of the Bible was kept in the following years. To commemorate the fire of 1710 (as well as another fire in 1712), the town, under the guidance of Pastor Otto, established a yearly repentance day that was still held during the nineteenth century. The “most pleasant” celebration of the annual commemoration day (according to a report from the middle of the nineteenth century) took place at the Waisenhaus. People from the area came to see the Brandbibel, which was displayed during a special session of prayers that included the reading of Otto’s testimony from the unburnt Bible.67 When the unburnt Bible was not on display, it was kept inside a

96  Thing cardboard case the exact size of the book, which itself was kept inside a wooden case somewhat bigger—both were made in 1716 (Figure 3.3). The famous Brandbibel was also displayed on a special medal, one of three that were issued to commemorate the establishment of the Waisenhaus in 1717, a year that, by chance, was also the second centenary of Luther’s reformation. One side of the medal (lead plated in silver) showed the city of Nordhausen in flames and above the city the inscription (composed by Kindervater): SIC NORDHVSA PERIT SED VINCVNT BIBLIA FLAMMAS HAEC ILLAESA TIBI DANT BONE CHRISTE LOCVM (Thus Nordhausen was destroyed, but this Bible defeated the flames undamaged; we give a place to you good Christ). In the foreground, an illustration showed a table on which Otto’s Bible lay. The other side of the medal showed the new building of the Waisenhaus.68 Once a year on display, and the remaining time hidden, the book enjoyed both measured exposure and the substantial remoteness traditionally reserved for special religious objects. In this way, Pastor Otto’s Bible, a regular tool in the work of a parish priest, became an icon of the religious-social contract between the clergy, the magistrates, town folk, and divine providence. The book commemorated an urban catastrophe, was at the centre of a religious celebration, and manifested the town’s and the church’s common responsibility for the welfare of orphans. In one case, it does seem as if an unburnt book was not only treated as a religious holy thing but actually was used in worship. Once again, the information is scant. In 1731, the periodical Acta Borussica ecclesiastica, civilia, literaria, in which news stories from Prussia were reported, brought forward the account, dated 1718, of a certain priest from Gross Peisten (or Pehsten, in Eastern Prussia, today Poland), in which he described how a copy of Paradiesgärtlein by the protection of the miraculous God (Wunderthätigen Gottes) survived a fire in the district of Neuhausen (no specific place was mentioned). When the patron of the Church of Gross Peisten, Chamberlain von Creutz (Kreytz), heard of the preservation of the book, he thought that such an event should be made public. He bought the book for a substantial amount of money, asked that an official report concerning the miracle (Wunder-Werck) be made and signed by a notary, and subsequently ordered that the book be stored in a silver box, which was placed on the altar in the Church of Gross Peisten every Sunday during service for the whole congregation to see.69 Placed in the church, the book had become something else entirely. Text had become object. It was displayed in a specific place at a specific time. At other times, the book was invisible, protected in a box. Chances are that its history and the circumstances of its display made churchgoers perceive it as a holy, efficacious object. The importance of exhibition and display also stands out from the treatment of other unburnt books. When Arndt’s prayer book was found unburnt in Bockenem in 1685, the owner showed the book

Thing 97

Figure 3.3 Brandbibel, 1710, in a cardboard case Source: By permission of Stadtarchiv Nordhausen. Photograph by author.

immediately—still warm—to inhabitants of the town and some council members. The book was delivered to Superintendent Gudenius who displayed the book during a sermon the day after the book was found. Many thousands, it was reported, consequently saw the book.70 A couple of years later, a fire demolished the dwelling of a certain knight in the area

98  Thing of Bremen. When his Paradiesgärtlein (Lübeck, 1623) was found intact in the embers and brought to him, he exclaimed that since God had taken everything (in the house) from him except “his Word” (the Paradiesgärtlein), he would behold the book as long as he lived as a memento of the event. The knight made no special effort to commemorate the event, yet the report noted that many commoners and nobles saw the book and confirmed that it was still usable, the text being undamaged.71 When a Luther Bible survived in Münchberg in 1701, Johann Kless, a court preacher at Weimar, wrote that the book was displayed before thousands of people as proof of the divine care of the Bible.72 The following year, Johann Ernst Büttner, the pastor of St.  Nicolai in Stade, was given a Paradiesgärtlein “as a memento” (zum Andenken) by his parishioners. It had survived in the fire in Stade in November 1702. According to a report added to a later edition of Arndt’s prayer book, the unburnt book was shown to anyone who wished to see it; and indeed Christoph Heym reported that he saw the book in Büttner’s home in Stade in 1713, and he remarked that some people doubted the special circumstances of the preservation of the book.73 Finally, a Paradiesgärtlein (Erfurt, 1725) that was found badly damaged—the cover totally charred—but with clean text after a lightning hit the house of a miner in Tuttendorf, near Freiberg, in 1738, was given to the local pastor “as a remarkable memento” (zum merckwürdigen Andenken), and this book was also shown to anybody wishing to see it.74 Some unburnt books became religious objects, others became library items, and a few became both at different times. Like other important libraries, the Royal Library in Berlin, the capital of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, also obtained an unburnt book. In late 1733, a double edition of Wahre Christentum and Paradiesgärtlein survived in a fire in Quedlinburg. Its story was later reported as the sixteenth and last wondrous preservation of Arndt’s book in a preface to a later double edition of Arndt’s two books (Züllichau, 1750). Based partly on correspondence between the local governor and a government official in Berlin, the report described how Arndt’s book (Magdeburg, 1727) was wondrously (wunderbar) preserved in a fire that erupted in Quedlinburg on December 5, 1733. The book belonged to one Dorothea Loyse Seiler and happened to be in a wardrobe among clothes and linen. The clothes and linen as well as the wardrobe itself were destroyed by fire, the book, however, was discovered under the ashes in good condition, except for blackened edges and a smell of fire. The governor wanted to send the book to Berlin, but he met strong opposition from “the people” (den leuten) because of their distress. A  month later, the book was nevertheless sent to Berlin and, following the orders of Friedrich Wilhelm I, it was stored at the Royal Library and “can be daily shown” to visitors, as the report from 1750 concluded.75 The book remained in the library for two centuries and was lost during World War II.76

Thing 99 In 1838 (or earlier), Friedrich Arndt, the author of a biography of Johann Arndt inspected the book and copied the dedication that was inscribed inside the book by its owner, Dorothea Loyse Seiler, some ten days after the fire. Seiler reported that after the fire, two books—not one—were found in the ashes: Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein and the small catechism (probably Luther’s Der Kleine Katechismus). For Seiler, the intervention of the almighty God in the fire testified to the great value of Arndt’s book. She wished that the survival of the Paradiesgärtlein might awaken many souls in Quedlinburg and stir in her great love for God’s holy Word.77 Seiler recognised the fact that two books were preserved in the fire, yet she privileged the survival of Arndt’s book, perhaps because Arndt’s incombustibility was by now a well-known fact, perhaps because of a special attachment to this particular book, perhaps out of recognition of a special coincidence—Arndt worked as a clergyman in Quedlinburg from 1590 to 1599. Unsurprisingly, the composer of the list of miracle stories in the 1750 Arndt edition did not inform his readers of the fact that not one book but two had survived in the fire. The same attitude was apparently expressed by the king of Prussia, or his representative in Quedlinburg, who showed a strong interest in having an incombustible Arndt but not in whatever other books accidentally survived fire. The narrative in Arndt’s double edition emphasised that the unburnt prayer book was in good condition. The fact that the fire had left its mark on the book only strengthened the impression of its exceptional preservation. For the owner of the book, Arndt’s prayer book was still a book; she referred to it as God’s Word. For the administrative agents involved in acquiring and archiving the book, what was found in Quedlinburg and sent to Berlin was a blackened, stinking thing, the value of which was found in its potential as a collection item. And what happened to the book during the short time between the time when the book was found (on December 6) and when it arrived in Berlin (at the latest, January  7, 1734) enhances this contrast.78 Referring to official documents, the 1750 narrative stated that the people (die Leuten) in Quedlinburg objected to the removal of the book. The official correspondence does not explain this opposition. Indeed, immediately after the book was recovered undamaged, there was no clear reason why someone would insist on keeping the book in Quedlinburg. Perhaps it was the wish of Seiler, the owner of the book, or her family. Soon, however, the book began to acquire a more concrete value. This is hinted at in the owner’s dedication wherein she expressed the hope that many souls be awakened by the story of the survival of the book (Der höchste gebe, dass hiedurch viele Seelen erwecket werden möchten).79 More substantial evidence emerges from information that was recorded some twenty years after the event and was unearthed years later by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, a priest from Quedlinburg. Writing about what he took to be superstitious devotion to unburnt books, Goeze stated that he had found a document in

100  Thing which his predecessor as parish priest described the unburnt book from Quedlinburg. According to Goeze, the people of Quedlinburg had been greatly amazed by the wondrous preservation of the divine words. The book had been taken by his predecessor and used by him for his private prayers (privatbetstunde). Furthermore, it was allowed to circulate among the people of the town and was, according to Goetze, “nearly worshiped” (fast angebetet worden) as a great wonder of God.80 It appears that during the short time before the prayer book was taken to Berlin, Arndt’s unburnt volume of Wahre Christentum to which Paradiesgärtlein was appended achieved special status among some people in Quedlinburg. A parish priest made the book useful by employing it during his prayers and more interestingly, the book was practically “worshiped.” This formulation is probably Goeze’s, the sceptic naturalist (Goeze was a zoologist in addition to clergyman), and not the words of the pious priest, Goeze’s predecessor. It is difficult to know what Goeze meant and what actually happened with the book. Yet the picture painted by both Seiler’s dedication and by the indirect testimony of Goeze, is one of great veneration and practical use in religious settings. This is the main point: whereas in the library in Berlin the book was made into an exhibit, in Quedlinburg it was held, inspected, read, and venerated by people whose interest in the book was both religious and functional. Altogether, the fates and functions of the incombustible books described above show that, freed from their conventional role as books—as reading material or as library items—unburnt books had the capacity to participate in religious rituals and ceremonies and to take on significance that was strictly speaking material and not textual.

Ideal Book Whereas the unburnt books that were kept in private homes, libraries, and churches were accessible to relatively few, a greater public could experience their form and shape through illustrations in prefaces to Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein. These illustrations were usually meant to depict the reality of one particular miraculous preservation, namely the preservation of Arndt’s prayer book in the oven in Langgöns, yet in some cases, the illustrations were not meant—or at least not evidently meant—to depict specific miracle narratives. Depictions of concrete narratives or not, the illustrations visually presented an ideal unburnt book: intact, bearing no signs of deformity, always legible. Indeed, in a sense, what made the actual incombustible books attractive as objects, their scars, their new shape, colour, and smell, had little place in the culture of visual representation that they generated. Although not exclusively geared towards re-establishing the importance of the books as textual entities, many illustrations presented the books as meaningful by highlighting letters, words, and reading.

Thing 101 The standard depiction of the 1624 miracle showed the moment when the innkeeper found the book. The earliest illustration, from a 1645 edition published in Leiden, showed the book on the floor in front of the oven surrounded by flames. The book is tightly closed by clasps, evidently not catching fire and apparently (the quality of the illustration is poor) not showing signs of damage. In fact, the book seems to be pushing the flames back and away from its place on the floor. The illustration is only a background for the main theme: a woman kneeling, a hand holding a crown appearing from the top, and a flaming heart between the two.81 Dutch editions of Paradiesgärtlein often portrayed the actual discovery of the unburnt book in or in front of the oven. Some of these illustrations were variations on the theme of the 1645 Leiden edition, where the closed book appeared vividly clean and surrounded by the bright light of fire, while the oven behind the book is full of smoke and flames.82 In the Netherlands there was, however, also another, more realistic tradition of depicting the event. Here, the illustration foregrounded two women, one holding an open book, which looks exactly as one would expect an open book to look, and pointing at the oven in which some flames can be seen. The other woman keeps her eyes low, inspecting the book, and raises her hands in a gesture of what appears to be wonder.83 Despite the thematic differences, both types of illustrations underscore the contrast between the fire (flames and smoke) and the untouched book, which shows no sign of damage. The unburnt book seems truly incombustible, that is, fire-resistant, as if the book did not simply survive fire but actually fought the fire and repelled the flames. In German editions, the common mode of presenting the scene was to portray the very moment when the innkeeper was about to lift the book out of the open oven with a bread peel. In an illustration from 1697, the book lies open on the peel inside the oven while flames and smoke swirl up. The sheets of the open book can easily be seen and are clean. No text is seen on the paper (see Figure 3.4).84 This type of illustration exists in a few variations. Some show the book closed and obviously clean and undamaged; others show the open book exhibiting the supposedly intact and legible text.85 These illustrations are a more precise representation of the published narrative—the book is discovered in the oven, not on the floor. However, here the illustrator also disregarded the reality of the story in order to make the contrast between the power of the fire and the power of the book more apparent. The narrative stated that the book was covered with coals, but in the illustration, the book is visible to such an extent that in some of the illustrations text is clearly seen. The 1624 narrative was also depicted in a rather exceptional doublepage illustration prefacing the 1694 Ulm edition of the Paradiesgärtlein. In the centre of the field of vision is a hand (the hand of God) holding a Paradiesgärtlein above a Renaissance-era, well-ordered garden (Paradise). In the upper left-hand side, the innkeeper is about to pull the book

Figure 3.4 Paradiesgärtlein (Lüneburg: Johann Stern, 1697), Preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen. Source: Photograph by author.

Thing 103 out from the fire in the oven. The book is closed and it seems as if two clasps are holding it tightly. On the upper right-hand side, the preservation of the book in water can be seen (a narrative that appeared in many editions of Paradiesgärtlein, according to which the book survived a flood in 1660). The book is standing on the windowpane of what seems to be the remains of a house, while waves engulf the ruins of the house. The book retains the familiar shape of a book, and here too there seems to be clasps that hold it tightly closed. An inscription above and below the illustration reads: “Nicht heisse Glut, Nicht wilde Flut/ Noch spotter Wut, Schadt disem Gut” (Neither hot glow nor fierce flood nor scornful fury harm this book; see Figure 3.5). The two preserved copies of Arndt’s prayer book are not the central theme of this remarkable illustration. It is rather the divine care for the book in general: the book as divine artefact delivered by the hand of God. There are four books altogether in the illustration. The divine book in the middle of the illustration, open and presenting the title; the book that survived the flood in 1660 on the upper right side; the book that survived fire on the upper left side; and on the lower left side, a book held by a figure who resembled portraits of Arndt himself—the book is open and the text is visible. The four books show the materiality of the book from different perspectives: closed and open, lying on a surface and held by hands, showing text and clasps. The book is not read in these illustrations. It is instead located in different circumstances and presented to the viewer. The material book thus becomes an icon, a sign of a specially blessed, valuable, and indestructible artefact. The preservation in both fire and water was also shown in an emblem that was included in a couple of editions that were published by the Andreä publishing house in Frankfurt (1709, 1721, and possibly others). The illustration (pictura in the special vocabulary of emblematics) consisted of a decorated frame in the middle of which an open book on a short Greek column is facing the reader, showing the lines of the text. On the left, a female figure is holding a torch upside down so that the flame is touching the book. On the right, a male figure is pouring water on the book. The book is evidently clean, untouched, and undamaged by either the fire or the water. Above, a hand holds a shield (surrounded by shining light) high above the book. The title (inscriptio) reads: “Nicht Glut, noch Flut, verschlingt/ Was Gottes Schutz umringt” (Neither heat nor flood devours what God’s protection surrounds). On the following page, an epigram (subscriptio)—a short text that usually helped decipher the meaning of the illustration—completed the emblem. It was a quotation from Isaiah 51:16: “And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people” (see Figure 3.6).

104  Thing

Figure 3.5 Paradiesgärtlein (Ulm, 1694), illustration preceding title page. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (Shelf mark: Th. bis 40940 8°). Source: Photograph by author.

The emblem, like the rest of the emblems in these two editions, is similar in style to the emblems that appeared in several editions of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum from the last part of the seventeenth and well into the nineteenth century.86 Although less common and not well known, there was also a tradition for supplying Arndt’s prayer book with emblems. Some twenty years ago, Katarzyna Cieslak studied four editions with emblems

Figure 3.6 Paradiesgärtlein (Frankfurt: Matthias Andreä, 1721), preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (Shelf mark: 92, 277 01654). Source: Photograph by author.

106  Thing extant at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel (Hamburg 1685, Berlin 1710, Nürnberg 1716, and Minden 1719). Interestingly, these editions either do not contain any illustrations relating to the narrative about the incombustible book or, in the case of the Hamburg 1685 edition, which was influenced by the Dutch tradition of illustrating the book, contained the traditional illustration of the innkeeper and the oven.87 The figures in the emblem in the Frankfurt editions of Arndt’s prayer book seem to be mythological. They are half-naked and muscular. The male figure has a laurel wreath on his head and he is reminiscent of the way Jupiter was sometimes portrayed.88 However, the two very crude figures are more likely to personify the natural forces of fire and water, rather than to typify concrete mythological deities. The emblem suggests a few contrasts: pagan and Christian, matter and text, God and nature. The inscription adds other contrasts: light and shadows, covered and uncovered. The book that lies on a column base between the two large figures is an ordinary book shown with text. Though ordinary in appearance, it is an ideal book in its function—it is a text that proves itself to be above the elements of nature (fire and water), as at least one polemicist would claim about the preservation of Arndt’s book some years later (see Chapter 4). The emblem could be read as one more variation of the theme of the wondrous preservation of the Paradiesgärtlein. Yet the emblem suggests more than that. By completely disregarding historical details—the book is not even identified in the illustration—and by recasting the theme in a classical form, the indestructibility of the book gains new meanings. Words (“my words in thy mouth,” according to the epigram), text (visible on the pages of the open book), and book (placed on a column base as an artificial, dead artefact) defeat the elements of nature. At the same time, perhaps, immateriality, that is, the contents of the book, God’s Word, defeats materiality in the form of fire and water. Likewise, God, in the form of both light and shadow (“the shadow of mine hand,” according to the epigram) defeats the nakedness of paganism. The act of exhibiting the undamaged book takes a central position in a double illustration in the Lüneburg edition (1697) that was mentioned earlier. In the background, the upper illustration shows a city still burning, with heavy flames towering above the houses, and in the foreground a respectably dressed man, bearing a sword, stands in the debris near a worker who holds a long shovel, and displays a book to the readers. In the background of the lower illustration, a totally damaged house and heavy flames behind it are depicted, and in the foreground, not far from heaps of rubble, a man in a long gown displays a book while three others look at him. In the upper illustration, the man holds the open book somewhat angled toward the ground so that the text is visible to the reader. In the lower illustration, the man holds the opened book high above so that the book’s cover—front, back, and spine—is visible to the reader. In

Figure 3.7 Paradiesgärtlein (Lüneburg: Johann Stern, 1697), preface. The Royal Library, Copenhagen. Source: Photograph by author.

108  Thing both the lower and the upper illustration, it is evident that the book has suffered no damage at all. It is not entirely clear which miracle stories these illustrations depict (if they are historical depictions at all). If they are supposed to be true illustrations of stories from the list of miracles in the specific edition, then they may represent the book that was preserved in Bockenem in 1685 (the upper illustration), and the book that was found intact after a fire entirely destroyed the dwelling of one knight in the area of Neuhausen in 1687. The book was brought to its owner just as a “distinguished man” approached to offer his sympathies (the lower illustration). Together, the two books represent the ideal book. It has an identifiable book shape, it has clean pages, the text is visible, and it is protected by a cover. All these are properties that at least some unburnt books did not possess. When reports emphasised that all the text and sometimes also the cover was intact and when illustrations showed the book, the text, indeed lines and words, to be undamaged, the message was that the survival of the book was not simply accidental (in which case some portion of the book would be damaged) but truly exceptional: the book remained in the fire retaining the familiar shape of a book. In contrast, the books that actually survived fires and were kept in libraries and sites of Christian worship were probably far from conventional books, they were deformed objects: the front, back, or both covers were missing; the title page, the edges, the white margins surrounding the text were damaged; and in extreme cases, the familiar rectangular form, indeed the very shape of a book, was gone. The actual deformity of (some of the) unburnt books, however, was not necessarily a disadvantage. The books that were preserved in fire and placed as extraordinary objects in homes, in churches, or most often together with other books in a library or an archive were not meant to be read anymore. They were meant to be material reminders of conventional books for those who saw them. For the most part, unburnt books were not repaired. They were kept as they were found. Their materiality—fragile, unexpected, and ­unfamiliar— suited their new functions, whether as material evidence of past events, as monuments of wondrous divine intervention, or as ceremonial and religious objects.

Notes 1. Curt Michaelis, “Dionysius Klein von Eßlingen, ein vergessener deutscher Poet des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 37 (1920): 126. 2. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht,” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 156. 3. On Herzog August’s relation to Arndt, see Johannes Wallmann, “Herzog August zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg als Gestalt der Kirchengeschichte. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seines Verhältnisses zu Johann Arndt,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 6 (1968); Johann Anselm Steiger, “Heinrich Varenius’

Thing 109 Rettung von Johann Arndts Wahrem Christentum,” in Bernard Varenius (1622–1650), ed. Margret Schuchard (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 31–4. 4. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht,” 159. 5. Ibid., 157–9. 6. In Renaissance science, the term natural magic implies more than simply natural and scientific explanations for unusual phenomena. In the present context, however, it seems that the term refers to functional natural magic, that is, to the exploitation of natural forces, the causes of which were not well understood. On Renaissance natural magic, see Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), ch. 14. 7. This practice was also mentioned by Georg Wilhelm Wegner, a priest with great interest in and knowledge of science, in Schau-Platz Vieler Ungereimten Meynungen und Erzehlungen, vol. 2 (Berlin: Haude, 1739), issue 11, 1737, 265. Wegner dismissed the idea as unviable, a perception naively believed by the simple-minded. On the widespread belief that the Roma people mastered the power of fire and knew how to make fire on straw without burning the straw, see Herbert Freudenthal, Das Feuer im deutschen Glauben und Brauch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1931), 446. 8. Christian Hecht, “Singularia das im Feuer zu Langengöns erhaltene ParadiesGärtlein des sel. Arndts betreffend,” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 22 (1740): 165–7. 9. Ibid., 165–6, footnote. 10. Ibid., 167. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 164–5. 13. Gottfried Tentzel, Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder, 2nd ed. (Arnstadt, 1723), 12. 14. Hartmut Kühne, “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sam meln.’ Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum,” in Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, ed. Hedwig Röckelein (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013), 294, n. 84. 15. Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten, vol.  2 (Hamburg: Naumann, 1651), 8. 16. Johann Vulpius, Crimmitzschaviae celebritas das ist: Der alten MeißnischErtzgebirgischen Pleißen-Stadt Crimmitzschau Löblichkeit (Weissenfels: Wohlfart, 1704), 24. 17. See for instance, Johann Arndt, Neu vermehrtes Paradisgärtlein/ Deß Geistreichen Theologi, Herrn Johann Arndts (Lüneburg: Stern, 1690), 6v. 18. Kühne, “Zufällige Begebenheiten,” 297–8. 19. Johann Christoph Heine, Theatrum Providentiae Divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen . . . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen  .  .  . recht wunderlich erhalten könne (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697), 701–7. 20. Christian Heinrich Erndtel, De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis MDCCVI et MDCCVII facto relatio ad amicum D. G. K. A. C. (1710), 6. 21. Caspar Friedrich Neickel and Johann Kanold, Museographia Oder Anleitung Zum rechten Begriff und nützlicher Anlegung der Mvseorvm, Oder Raritäten-Kammern  .  .  . von C. F. Neickelio. Auf Verlangen mit einigen Zusätzen und dreyfachem Anhang vermehret von D. Johann Kanold (Leipzig and Breslau: Hubert, 1727), part 1, 134.

110  Thing 22. Jacob Burckhard, Historia Bibliothecae Avgvstae qvae Wolffenbvtteli est: duobus libris comprehensa (Leipzig: Breitkopfianus, 1744), book II, 177. 23. Franz Ernst Brückmann, Centuria epistolarum itinerariarum (Wolffenbüttel, 1742–56), Centvriae tertiae, Epistola itineraria LXVII, 880. 24. Magdalena Sybilla, Gott-geweyhtes Andachts-Opffer, Darinn eine Gottgelassene Seele, sich ihrem Jesu täglich, Morgens, Mittags und Abends, In heisser Andachts-Glut, mit Gebett und Liedern, demüthigst aufopffert (Stuttgart: Metzler and Erhardt, 1722), preface (no pagination). 25. Zufällige Relationen von alten und neuen denckwürdigen Geschichten, Urkunden, Documenten . . . und anderen Sachen . . . betreffend, vol. 6 (Ulm: Schumacher, 1718), 534–42. 26. Johann Arndt, Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede (Ulm, 1694), preface (no pagination). 27. I wish to thank Dr. Christine Sauer, Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, for helping me to locate this book. 28. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 42. 29. Wilhelm Christian Höpfner, “Merkwürdige Nachrichten,” Sammlung Auserlesener Materien zum Bau des Reiches Gottes 28 (1735): 486–8. 30. Johannes Frontinus, Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht/ was sich zu LangenGöns in Hessen/ mit . . . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat (Darmstadt, 1627), A3r–A4v. 31. Ernst Valentin Löscher, Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, Büchern, Uhrkunden, Controversien, Veränderungen, Anmerckungen, Vorschläge u.d.g  .  .  . Auf das Jahr 1715 (Leipzig: Braun, 1715), 3rd Ordnung, 521–2. The unburnt hymns are apparently not there anymore, see Otto Schulz, ed. Paul Gerhardts geistliche Andachten in hundert und zwanzig Liedern (Berlin: Nicolai, 1842), 249. 32. Johann Georg Pritius’s introduction to Christian Hoburg, Praxis Arndtiana: das ist Hertzens Seuffzer ueber die Buecher vom wahren Christenthum des sel. Johann Arndts . . . anietzo mit e. Vorrede Io. Georgii Pritii (Frankfurt am Main: Förster, 1724), C3–C5. 33. Sybilla, Gott-geweyhtes Andachts-Opffer, preface (no pagination). 34. Höpfner, “Merkwürdige Nachrichten,” 486–8. 35. Johann Arndt, Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein (Züllichau: Dendeler, 1750), 50. 36. Cabinet of Art, Franckesche Stiftungen, R-nr. 1054. See Catalogue B: Catalogus derer Sachen, die sich in der Naturalien-Kammer des Waysen-Hauses befinden, Q67, 364. See Oliver Pfefferkorn, “Bücher, die im Feuer nicht verbrennen. Erbauungsliteratur im Protestantismus des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Zeichen und Wunder: Geheimnisse des Schriftenschranks in der Kunst- und Naturalienkammer der Franckeschen Stiftungen, ed. Heike Link (Halle: Franckesche Stiftungen, 2003), 291. 37. Cabinet of Art, Franckesche Stiftungen, R-nr. 1057. See Catalogue B, Q66, 364. See Pfefferkorn, “Bücher,” 293. 38. Arndt, Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum . . . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein, 42–3. 39. Cabinet of Art, Franckesche Stiftungen, (no R-nr.). Not mentioned in catalogue B. See Pfefferkorn, “Bücher,” 292–3. 40. Franckesche Stiftungen, Catalogue B, Q36, Q65, Q68 (p.  364) and Q69 (p. 365). See Pfefferkorn, “Bücher,” 293, fns. 3–5. 41. On the Waisenhaus’s dependency on donations, see August Hermann Francke, Die Fußstapffen Des noch lebenden und waltenden liebreichen und getreuen Gottes/  .  .  . Durch den Ausführlichen Bericht Vom

Thing 111 Wäysen-Hause . . . Wie selbige fortgesetzet biß Ostern Anno 1701 (Glaucha an Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1701), ch. 2; on books, p. 44. See also Die 5. Fortsetzung der wahrhaften und umständlichen Nachricht vom Wäysen-Hause und übrigen Anstalten zu Glaucha vor Halle (Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1708), 20–1, 36, 37; Die 6. Fortsetzung der wahrhaften und umständlichen Nachricht vom Wäysen-Hause und übrigen Anstalten zu Glaucha vor Halle (Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1709), 63–4, 114. On the library, see Birgitte Klosterberg, “Die Bibliothek der Franckeschen Stiftungen im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Frühmoderne Bücherwelten: Die Bibliothek des 18: Jahrhunderts und das hallesche Waisenhaus, ed. Bodo-Michael Baumunk (Halle: Verlag der Fankeschen Stiftungen zu Halle, 2007), 14–16; Martin Brecht, “August Herman Francke und der Hallische Pietismus,” in Geschichte des Pietismus, Band 1: Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzenhnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht (Göttingen: Vandehhoeck, 1993), 475–84; Bernhard Fabian, ed. Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland, Österreich und Europa (Hildesheim: Olms Neue Medien, 2003). See the interesting description of the library in Neickel, Museographia, 395. The library was open daily (except for Sundays), morning and afternoon. See also the description of the library in Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt, Pagvs Neletici et Nvdzici, Oder Ausführliche diplomatisch-historische Beschreibung des  .  .  . Saal-Creyses, Und aller darinnen befindlichen Städte, Schlösser, Aemter, Rittergüter, adelichen Familien, Kirchen, Clöster, Pfarren und Dörffer, vol. 2 (Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1755), 221–2. 42. Georg Friedrich Neumann, Epistola de Bibliotheca Halensi ad virum clar. Henricum Augustinum Groschupfium (Halle: Grunert, 1710), 15; Johann Georg Keyssler, Fortsetzung Neuester Reisen, durch Teutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweitz, Jtalien und Lothringen, worinn der Zustand und das merckwürdigste dieser Länder beschrieben wird (Hannover: Förster, 1741), 1116; Klosterberg, “Die Bibliothek der Franckeschen Stiftungen im 18. Jahrhundert,” 14; Stefan Laube, Von der Reliquie zum Ding, heiliger Ort-­ Wunderkammer-Museum (Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2011), 350. 43. Kelly Joan Whitmer, The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 28–31. 44. Ibid., 30. 45. Dreyhaupt, Pagvs Neletici et Nvdzici, vol. 2, 225. 46. Georg Christian Knapp, Johann Ludwig Schulze, and August Hermann Niemeyer, Beschreibung des Hallischen Waisenhauses und der übrigen damit verbundenen Frankischen Stiftungen nebst der Geschichte ihres ersten Jahrhunderts (Halle: Verlag der Waisenhaus-Buchhandlung, 1799), 164. 47. Brückmann, Centuria epistolarum itinerariarum, Centvriae secvndiae, Epistola itineraria LXXIX, 1020. 48. Francke, Die Fussstapffen, 30. 49. See for instance, ibid., 31, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 46–7. See on Die Fußstapffen in Brecht, “August Herman Francke,” 475–80. 50. See Valentin Ernst Löscher, Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, Büchern, Uhrkunden, Controversien, Veränderungen, Anmerckungen, Vorschläge u.d.g  .  .  . Auf das Jahr 1707 (Leipzig: Braun, 1709), 898–905. One of the replies is Georg Neubauer, Gründliche Beantwortung der unglimpflichen Censur, Womit Die Herren Autores der so genannten Unschuldigen Nachrichten Das Wäysen-Haus und übrige Anstalten hieselbst zu beurtheilen sich angemasset haben (Halle: Verlegung des Waisenhauses, 1709). On the controversy, see Brecht, “August Herman Francke,” 507–8.

112  Thing 51. Biblia (Frankfurt am Main, 1589) Sig. Mo 544. I wish to thank Isolde Kalter from Landesbibliothek Coburg for the information about the book. 52. P.C.G. Karche, ed. Jahrbücher der Herzogl. Sächs. Residenzstadt Coburg von 741–1822 (Coburg: Lorenz Caspar August Ahl, 1825), 114. 53. Wolffgang Jacob Geiger, Theatri Europaei Zehender Theil/ Das ist: Glaubwürdige Beschreibung Denckwürdiger Geschichten/ so sich hie und da in Europa/ und zwar vornehmlich in dem Heil. Röm. Teutschen Reiche . . . von dem 1665sten Jahr/ biß in Anno 1671 (Frankfurt am Main: Merian, 1677), part 2, 166. 54. Anton Weck, Der chur-fürstlichen sächsischen weitberuffenen Residentzund Haupt-Vestung Dresden Beschreib: und Vorstellung (Nürnberg: Hoffmann, 1680), 233. 55. Concordia, Christliche widerholete einmütige Bekentnüs nachbenanter Churfürsten, Fürsten und Stende Augspurgischer Confession (Dresden, 1580). 56. Des Durchlauchtigsten Hochgebornen Fürsten vnd Herrn, Herrn Augusten Hertzogen zu Sachsen des heiligen Römischen Reichs Ertzmarschalln vnd Churfürsten . . . Ordnung (Leipzig, 1580). 57. Weck, Der chur-fürstlichen, 236–7. 58. “Kurze historische Nachricht von der Kirche zum heil. Creuz in Dresden,” attached to Johann Joachim Gottlob am-Ende, Christliches Denkmahl des am 19den und 20ten Jul. dieses Jahres über Dresden gebrachten schrecklichen Feuers, in Dreyen Predigten (Dresden: Gerlach, 1760), 19. 59. Franz Dibelius, Die Kreuzkirche in Dresden, Festschrift aus Anlass der Wiedereinweihung der Kirche am 9. Sept. 1900 (Dresden: Naumann, 1900), 36–7. 60. Christian Feustel, Ad virum reverendissimum Heinricum Arnoldum Stockflethum . . . Epistola, qua bibliothecae eius incendium deplorat M. C. Feustelius (Curiae: Minzel, 1701), 36–7. 61. Georg Wolfgang Augustin Fikenscher, Geschichte des illustren ChristianErnestinischen Collegii zu Bayreuth, vol. 3 (Bayreuth, 1807), 122, n. k. On another preserved book, see Georg Matthäus Schnizer, Der Kirchenbibliothek zu Neustadt an der Aysch erste Anzeige von den darinnen befindlichen Handschriften (Nürnberg: Baur, 1782), 19–20. 62. Feustel, Ad virum reverendissimum, 36–7. 63. Historische Remarques, November 9, 1700, in Der Historischen Remarques Uber die Neuesten Sachen In Europa: Anderer Theil Auf das MDCC Jahr (Hamburg: Reumann, 1700), 347–9. 64. Johann Heinrich Kindervater, Eigentliche Nachricht von der Gelegenheit und Anfange des in der Kayserl. Fr. Reichs-Stadt Nordhausen zuerbauenden Waisen-Hauses . . . Erster Vortrag (Nordhausen: Cöler, 1715), 11ff. 65. Ibid., 10. 66. Friedrich Christian Lesser, Kurtze doch gründliche Nachricht von dem Waisenhause in der Kayserlichen freyen und des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Stadt Nordhausen (unpublished chronicle, 1715), 14–15, at Kirchenkreisarchiv Südharz, KKRS, B 24. I wish to thank Andreas Scholz from Kirchenkreisarchiv Südharz for bringing this document to my attention. 67. Friedrich von Sydow, Thüringen und der Harz, mit ihren Merkwürdigkeiten, Volkssagen und Legenden, vol. 3 (Sondershausen: Eupel, 1840), 128; Heinrich Andreas Pröhle, Kirchliche Sitten: Ein Bild aus dem Leben evangelischer Gemeinen (Berlin: Hertz, 1858), 60–1. 68. Friedrich Christian Lesser, Historische Nachrichten von der Käyserl. und des Heil. Röm. Reichs Freyen Stadt Nordhausen (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Erhardt, 1860), 90; Heinrich Gottlieb Kreussler, Martin Luthers Andenken im Münzen nebst Lebensbeschreibungen merkwürdiger Zeitgenossen desselben (Leipzig: Fleischer, 1818), 63–4, the medal in plate 33.

Thing 113 69. Acta Borussica ecclesiastica, civilia, literaria oder sorgfältige Sammlung allerhand zur Geschichte des Landes Preussen gehöriger Nachrichten, Uhrkunden, Schrifften und Documenten, vol. 2 (Königsberg: Eckart, 1731), Part 1, the fifth piece, 147–8. 70. See, for example, Arndt, Neu vermehrtes Paradisgärtlein/ Deß Geistreichen Theologi, Herrn Johann Arndts, 6v. 71. See, for example, Johann Arndt, Paradis-Gärtlein, voll Christlicher Tugenden Wie solche durch Geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zupflantzen (Sondershausen: Schönermarck, 1708), B5r–B6v. 72. Johann Kless, Die Weimarische Kleine Bibel: Darinn Der Unterricht Christlicher Lehre, nach Anleitung D. Martin Luthers Kleinen Catechismi, deutlich und erbaulich gezeiget wird (Weimar: Müller, 1702), preface. 73. Johann Arndt, Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen (Halle: Montag, 1723), 31–2. 74. Alte und neue Curiosa Saxonica XVII, no.  LXXX, 1738, in Sächsisches Curiositäten-Cabinet aus das Jahr 1738 (Dresden: Mohrenthal, 1739), 269–70. 75. Arndt, Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum . . . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein, 51. 76. Kühne, “Zufällige Begebenheiten,” 281, n. 3. 77. Friedrich Arndt, Johann Arndt, Ein biographischer Versuch (Berlin: Oehmigke, 1838), 198. 78. The date was inscribed inside the book, following the report of the owner and a record of the king’s orders, see ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. Johann August Ephraim Goeze, Nützliches Allerley aus der Natur und dem gemeinen Leben für allerley Leser, vol.  3 (Leipzig: Weidmann und Reich, 1786), 209–10. 81. See illustration in Jill Bepler, “Vicissitudo Temporum: Some Sidelights on Book Collecting in the Thirty Years’ War,” Sixteenth Century Journal 32, no. 4 (2001): 967. 82. Many of the Dutch editions are scanned by Google Books, see for instance Johann Arndt, ’t Recht vernieuwde paradys-hofken inhoudende de heerlijkste gebeeden en krachtigste Dankseggingen (Amsterdam: Baltes Boekholt, 1681), page before part I (no pagination). 83. For instance, Johann Arndt, Het vernieuwde paradys-hofje, Vol allerhande Leer-rijke Deugd, Aank-Kruys Ampt Lof-en Vreugde-gebeden (Amsterdam: Hendrik Burgers, 1725), last page. 84. See also the illustration in the Hamburg 1685 edition, in Alfred Messerli, “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot,” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 277. 85. See Johann Arndt, Paradies-Gärtlein: Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie dieselbige in die Sele zu pflanzen, durch andächtige, lehrhafte und Trostreiche Gebehte (Hamburg: Holle, 1731), illustration preceeding the title page. See also Johann Arndt, Paradis-Gärtlein voll Christlicher Tugenden, wie solche durch andächtige, lehrhaffte und trostreiche Gebether in die Seele zu pflantzen, zur Erneuerung des Bildes Gottes, zur Ubung des wahren lebendigen Glaubens, und zur Erweckung des neuen geistlichen Lebens (Nürnberg: Endter, 1742), preface (no pagination). 86. The set of emblems that was used in Andreä’s editions is possibly similar to or based on two earlier editions with illustrations published in Frankfurt, the one by Johann Görlin some years earlier and the other by Bauer in 1694. I have not seen these editions. When it comes to these publishers’ editions of Wahre Christentum, the affinity, in terms of emblems, is clear. On emblems in Arndt’s Wahre Christentum, see Dietmar Peil, “Zur Illustrationsgeschichte

114  Thing von Johann Arndts ‘Von Wahren Christentum,’ ” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 18 (1977). On the different Frankfurter editions, see pp. 973– 80. See also Dietmar Peil, Zur ‘angewandten Emblematik’ in protestantischen Erbauungsbüchern. Dilherr-Arndt-Francisci-Scriver (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1978), 46–62. 87. See Katarzyna Cieslak, “Embleme in Johann Arndts ‘Paradiesgärtlein,’ ” Pietismus und Neuzeit 25 (1999). There were other editions with emblems apart from the four, which Cieslak found at the Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel. Still, I have so far only seen the emblem with the mythological figures in the Frankfurt editions of the publishing house of Andreä. 88. See, for instance, Guillaume de La Perrière, Le Theatre Des Bons Engins: auquel sont contenus cent Emblemes (Paris, 1539), no. 57.

Works Cited Acta Borussica ecclesiastica, civilia, literaria oder sorgfältige Sammlung allerhand zur Geschichte des Landes Preussen gehöriger Nachrichten, Uhrkunden, Schrifften und Documenten. Vol. 2. Königsberg: Eckart, 1731. am-Ende, Johann Joachim Gottlob. Christliches Denkmahl des am 19den und 20ten Jul. dieses Jahres über Dresden gebrachten schrecklichen Feuers, In Dreyen Predigten. Dresden: Gerlach, 1760. Arndt, Friedrich. Johann Arndt, Ein biographischer Versuch. Berlin: Oehmigke, 1838. Arndt, Johann. Het vernieuwde paradys-hofje, Vol allerhande Leer-rijke Deugd, Aank-Kruys Ampt Lof-en Vreugde-gebeden. Amsterdam: Hendrik Burgers, 1725. ———. Neu vermehrtes Paradisgärtlein/ Deß Geistreichen Theologi, Herrn Johann Arndts. Lüneburg: Stern, 1690. ———. Paradieß-Gärtlein, Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie solche durch geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zu pflantzen. Halle: Montag, 1723. ———. Paradies-Gärtlein: Voller Christlichen Tugenden, Wie dieselbige in die Sele zu pflanzen, durch andächtige, lehrhafte und Trost-reiche Gebehte. Hamburg: Holle, 1731. ———. Paradis-Gärtlein voll Christlicher Tugenden, Wie solche durch andä­ chtige, lehrhaffte und trostreiche Gebether in die Seele zu pflantzen, zur Erneuerung des Bildes Gottes, zur Ubung des wahren lebendigen Glaubens, und zur Erweckung des neuen geistlichen Lebens. Nürnberg: Endter, 1742. ———. Paradis-Gärtlein, voll Christlicher Tugenden Wie solche durch Geistreiche Gebete in die Seele zupflantzen. Sondershausen: Schönermarck, 1708. ———. Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede. Ulm, 1694. ———. Sechs Buecher vom wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem Paradiesgaertlein. Züllichau: Dendeler, 1750. ———. ’t Recht vernieuwde paradys-hofken inhoudende de heerlijkste gebeeden en krachtigste Dankseggingen. Amsterdam: Baltes Boekholt, 1681. Bepler, Jill. “Vicissitudo Temporum: Some Sidelights on Book Collecting in the Thirty Years’ War.” Sixteenth Century Journal 32, no. 4 (2001): 953–68. Brecht, Martin. “August Herman Francke und der Hallische Pietismus.” In Geschichte des Pietismus, Band 1: Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum

Thing 115 frühen achtzenhnten Jahrhundert, edited by Martin Brecht, 440–539. Göttingen: Vandehhoeck, 1993. Brückmann, Franz Ernst. Centuria epistolarum itinerariarum. Wolffenbüttel, 1742–56. Burckhard, Jacob. Historia Bibliothecae Avgvstae qvae Wolffenbvtteli est: duobus libris comprehensa. Leipzig: Breitkopfianus, 1744. Cieslak, Katarzyna. “Embleme in Johann Arndts ‘Paradiesgärtlein.’ ” Pietismus und Neuzeit 25 (1999): 11–30. Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Clemen, Otto. “Die Acta exustionis antichristianorum Decretalium in deutscher Übersetzeung.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 55 I/II (1936). Der Historischen Remarques Uber die Neuesten Sachen In Europa: Anderer Theil Auf das MDCC Jahr. Hamburg: Reumann, 1700. Dibelius, Franz. Die Kreuzkirche in Dresden, Festschrift aus Anlass der Wiedereinweihung der Kirche am 9. Sept. 1900. Dresden: Naumann, 1900. Dreyhaupt, Johann Christoph von. Pagvs Neletici et Nvdzici, Oder Ausführliche diplomatisch-historische Beschreibung des . . . Saal-Creyses, Und aller darinnen befindlichen Städte, Schlösser, Aemter, Rittergüter, adelichen Familien, Kirchen, Clöster, Pfarren und Dörffer. Vol. 2. Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1755. Erndtel, Christian Heinrich. De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis MDCCVI et MDCCVII facto relatio ad amicum D. G. K. A. C., 1710. Fabian, Bernhard, ed. Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland, Österreich und Europa. Hildesheim: Olms Neue Medien, 2003. Feustel, Christian. Ad virum reverendissimum Heinricum Arnoldum Stockflethum . . . Epistola, qua bibliothecae eius incendium deplorat M. C. Feustelius. Curiae: Minzel, 1701. Fikenscher, Georg Wolfgang Augustin. Geschichte des illustren ChristianErnestinischen Collegii zu Bayreuth. Vol. 3. Bayreuth, 1807. Francke, August Hermann. Die 5. Fortsetzung der wahrhaften und umständlichen Nachricht vom Wäysen-Hause und übrigen Anstalten zu Glaucha vor Halle. Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1708. ———. Die 6. Fortsetzung der wahrhaften und umständlichen Nachricht vom Wäysen-Hause und übrigen Anstalten zu Glaucha vor Halle. Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1709. ———. Die Fußstapffen Des noch lebenden und waltenden liebreichen und getreuen Gottes/ . . . Durch den Ausführlichen Bericht Vom Wäysen-Hause . . . Wie selbige fortgesetzet biß Ostern Anno 1701. Glaucha an Halle: Verlegung des Wäysenhauses, 1701. Freudenthal, Herbert. Das Feuer im deutschen Glauben und Brauch. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1931. Frontinus, Johannes. Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht/ was sich zu LangenGöns in Hessen/ mit . . . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat. Darmstadt, 1627. Geiger, Wolffgang Jacob. Theatri Europaei Zehender Theil/ Das ist: Glaubwürdige Beschreibung Denckwürdiger Geschichten/ so sich hie und da in Europa/ und zwar vornehmlich in dem Heil. Röm. Teutschen Reiche  .  .  . von dem 1665sten Jahr/ biß in Anno 1671. Frankfurt am Main: Merian, 1677.

116  Thing Goeze, Johann August Ephraim. Nützliches Allerley aus der Natur und dem gemeinen Leben für allerley Leser. Vol. 3. Leipzig: Weidmann und Reich, 1786. Götze, Georg Heinrich. “Miracula Catechismi Lutheri.” In CatechismusBibliothec Bestehend aus verschiedenen Catechetischen Schrifften. Leipzig: Richter, 1722. Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp. Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten. Vol. 2. Hamburg: Naumann, 1651. Hecht, Christian. “Singularia das im Feuer zu Langengöns erhaltene ParadiesGärtlein des sel. Arndts betreffend.” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 22 (1740): 164–7. Heine, Johann Christoph. Theatrum Providentiae Divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen  .  .  . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen . . . recht wunderlich erhalten könne. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697. Hoburg, Christian. Praxis Arndtiana: das ist Hertzens Seuffzer ueber die Buecher vom wahren Christenthum des sel. Johann Arndts . . . anietzo mit e. Vorrede Io. Georgii Pritii. Frankfurt am Main: Förster, 1724. Höpfner, Wilhelm Christian. “Merkwürdige Nachrichten.” Sammlung Auserlesener Materien zum Bau des Reiches Gottes 28 (1735): 486–8. Karche, P.C.G., ed. Jahrbücher der Herzogl. Sächs. Residenzstadt Coburg von 741–1822. Coburg: Lorenz Caspar August Ahl, 1825. Keyssler, Johann Georg. Fortsetzung Neuester Reisen, durch Teutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweitz, Jtalien und Lothringen, worinn der Zustand und das merckwürdigste dieser Länder beschrieben wird. Hannover: Förster, 1741. Kindervater, Johann Heinrich. Eigentliche Nachricht von der Gelegenheit und Anfange des in der Kayserl. Fr. Reichs-Stadt Nordhausen zuerbauenden Waisen-Hauses . . . Erster Vortrag. Nordhausen: Cöler, 1715. Kless, Johann. Die Weimarische Kleine Bibel: Darinn Der Unterricht Christlicher Lehre, nach Anleitung D. Martin Luthers Kleinen Catechismi, deutlich und erbaulich gezeiget wird. Weimar: Müller, 1702. Klosterberg, Birgitte. “Die Bibliothek der Franckeschen Stiftungen im 18. Jahrhundert.” In Frühmoderne Bücherwelten: Die Bibliothek des 18. Jahrhunderts und das hallesche Waisenhaus, edited by Bodo-Michael Baumunk, 13–30. Halle: Verlag der Fankeschen Stiftungen zu Halle, 2007. Knapp, Georg Christian, Johann Ludwig Schulze, and August Hermann Niemeyer. Beschreibung des Hallischen Waisenhauses und der übrigen damit verbundenen Frankischen Stiftungen nebst der Geschichte ihres ersten Jahrhunderts. Halle: Verlag der Waisenhaus-Buchhandlung, 1799. Kreussler, Heinrich Gottlieb. Martin Luthers Andenken im Münzen nebst Lebensbeschreibungen merkwürdiger Zeitgenossen desselben. Leipzig: Fleischer, 1818. Kühne, Hartmut. “ ‘Zufällige Begebenheiten als Wundergeschichten sammeln.’ Über dingliche Wunderzeugnisse im Luthertum.” In Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich, edited by Hedwig Röckelein, 281–99. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013. Laube, Stefan. Von der Reliquie zum Ding, heiliger Ort–Wunderkammer– Museum. Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2011.

Thing 117 Lesser, Friedrich Christian. Historische Nachrichten von der Käyserl. und des Heil. Röm. Reichs Freyen Stadt Nordhausen. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Erhardt, 1860. Löscher, Ernst Valentin. Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, Büchern, Uhrkunden, Controversien, Veränderungen, Anmerckungen, Vorschläge u.d.g . . . Auf das Jahr 1715. Leipzig: Braun, 1715. ———. Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, Büchern, Uhrkunden, Controversien, Veränderungen, Anmerckungen, Vorschläge u.d.g . . . Auf das Jahr 1707. Leipzig: Braun, 1709. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht.” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 152–9. Messerli, Alfred. “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot.” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 253–79. Michaelis, Curt. “Dionysius Klein von Eßlingen, ein vergessener deutscher Poet des 17. Jahrhunderts.” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 37 (1920): 121–6. Neickel, Caspar Friedrich, and Johann Kanold. Museographia Oder Anleitung Zum rechten Begriff und nützlicher Anlegung der Mvseorvm, Oder RaritätenKammern . . . von C. F. Neickelio. Auf Verlangen mit einigen Zusätzen und dreyfachem Anhang vermehret von D. Johann Kanold. Leipzig and Breslau: Hubert, 1727. Neubauer, Georg. Gründliche Beantwortung der unglimpflichen Censur, Womit Die Herren Autores der so genannten Unschuldigen Nachrichten Das WäysenHaus und übrige Anstalten hieselbst zu beurtheilen sich angemasset haben. Halle: Verlegung des Waisenhauses, 1709. Neumann, Georg Friedrich. Epistola de Bibliotheca Halensi ad virum clar. Henricum Augustinum Groschupfium. Halle: Grunert, 1710. Peil, Dietmar. Zur ‘angewandten Emblematik’ in protestantischen Erbauungsbüchern. Dilherr–Arndt–Francisci–Scriver. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1978. ———. “Zur Illustrationsgeschichte von Johann Arndts ‘Von Wahren Christentum.’ ” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 18 (1977): 963–1066. Perrière, Guillaume de La. Le Theatre Des Bons Engins: auquel sont contenus cent Emblemes. Paris, 1539. Pfefferkorn, Oliver. “Bücher, die im Feuer nicht verbrennen. Erbauungsliteratur im Protestantismus des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Zeichen und Wunder. Geheimnisse des Schriftenschranks in der Kunst- und Naturalienkammer der Franckeschen Stiftungen, edited by Heike Link, 291–315. Halle: Franckesche Stiftungen, 2003. Pröhle, Heinrich Andreas. Kirchliche Sitten: Ein Bild aus dem Leben evangelischer Gemeinen. Berlin: Hertz, 1858. Sächsisches Curiositäten-Cabinet aus das Jahr 1738. Dresden: Mohrenthal, 1739. Schnizer, Georg Matthäus. Der Kirchenbibliothek zu Neustadt an der Aysch erste Anzeige von den darinnen befindlichen Handschriften. Nürnberg: Baur, 1782. Schulz, Otto, ed. Paul Gerhardts geistliche Andachten in hundert und zwanzig Liedern. Berlin: Nicolai, 1842. Steiger, Johann Anselm. “Heinrich Varenius’ Rettung von Johann Arndts Wahrem Christentum.” In Bernard Varenius (1622–1650), edited by Margret Schuchard, 27–57. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

118  Thing Sybilla, Magdalena. Gott-geweyhtes Andachts-Opffer, Darinn eine Gott-gelassene Seele, sich ihrem Jesu täglich, Morgens, Mittags und Abends, in heisser Andachts-Glut, mit Gebett und Liedern, demüthigst aufopffert. Stuttgart: Metzler and Erhardt, 1722. Sydow, Friedrich von. Thüringen und der Harz, mit ihren Merkwürdigkeiten, Volkssagen und Legenden. Vol. 3. Sondershausen: Eupel, 1840. Tentzel, Gottfried. Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder. 2nd ed. Arnstadt, 1723. Vulpius, Johann. Crimmitzschaviae celebritas das ist: Der alten MeißnischErtzgebirgischen Pleißen-Stadt Crimmitzschau Löblichkeit. Weissenfels: Wohlfart, 1704. Wallmann, Johannes. “Herzog August zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg als Gestalt der Kirchengeschichte. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seines Verhältnisses zu Johann Arndt.” Pietismus und Neuzeit 6 (1968): 9–32. Weck, Anton. Der chur-fürstlichen sächsischen weitberuffenen Residentz- und Haupt-Vestung Dresden Beschreib: und Vorstellung. Nürnberg: Hoffmann, 1680. Wegner, Georg Wilhelm. Schau-Platz Vieler Ungereimten Meynungen und Erzehlungen. Vol. 2. Berlin: Haude, 1739. Whitmer, Kelly Joan. The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Zufällige Relationen von alten und neuen denckwürdigen Geschichten, Urkunden, Documenten . . . und anderen Sachen . . . betreffend. Vol. 6. Ulm: Schumacher, 1718.

4 Miracle

Notwithstanding the theological rejection of the notion of a miracle in Langgöns in 1624, for many early modern Lutherans the discovery of a still legible book in the debris of a house and under the ashes of other books was inexplicable. They looked, therefore, with wonder at this occurrence that defied common sense. They sometimes concluded that otherworldly powers were involved. Perhaps they even expected such divine intervention because they assumed that fire, like other catastrophes, although man-made, was still meted out on them by divine will. Sometimes—not so automatically and not so often as might be assumed—the perception that incombustible books were the work of God was expressed by the generic term miracle (Wunder, Wunderwerck, Wundertat, and miraculum). By applying the term miracle to the unlikely survival of objects in fire, Lutherans were not necessarily making a theological or philosophical statement. Some of those who reported unburnt books or commented on such reports were aware of the Protestant theological inclination to deny contemporary miracles and the philosophical difficulties associated with the term. Some made explicit reference to doctrinal and philosophical works. Mostly, however, the discourse about unburnt books was not theoretical. When contemporaries reflected on these books and called them miracles they seem to be saying that the preservation of a book in the fire was not only a memorable, wonderful, marvellous, inspiring, edifying moment, but also a special event that had to be placed within a special conceptual framework, namely an economy of divine care. By that, they did not necessarily declare allegiance to any doctrine about miracles. Nevertheless, the use of this and related terms was not entirely impulsive and arbitrary. Contemporaries were interested in the nuances of meanings of the miracle and were to some extent aware of the risks in using a term for which no common and universal understanding was available. In short, some used the term miracle without any reservation, others avoided it altogether; some preferred related terms while others explicitly rejected the whole idea of divine intervention. It is easy to demonstrate the strength of the term miracle in the discourse about incombustible books. From the early reports in 1624 to the

120  Miracle middle of the following century (and beyond that time) unburnt books, first Arndt’s and later all kinds of books, were referred to as divine signs, as the result of divine providence, as wonders, and as miracles. The following illustrate such responses to unburnt books (all the examples are mentioned previously in the present book): acknowledging the survival of Arndt’s prayer book in the oven in 1624, the trumpeter is said to have cried out, “I surely see now that it is the miracle of God and that God is just.” The 1624 edition of Relationis historicæ semestralis continuatio titled its news story about what happened in Langgöns “a curious wonder” and Historiarum totius mundi epitome (1631) termed it “a miracle of God.” When Esaias Pilarik narrated the survival of his father’s Bible in 1660, he inserted an interjection: “but behold: prodigies!” An inscription inside the Kinder-Postille that endured fire in 1633 read: this was “a miracle to hear and see.” Stockfleth’s Bible, which survived the fire in Münchberg, was kept “in memory of the miracle.” Johannes Clüver perceived the survival of Paradiesgärtlein in 1624 as “a sign” in favour of the servants of the Gospel. Johann Heinrich Kindervater regarded the survival of the Bible in Nordhausen as “a sign of God’s omnipotence and his miracle.” Johann Georg Pritius regarded one of Arndt’s unburnt prayer books as a constant reminder of “God’s providence.” While this was the usual attitude toward the unburnt book, we still need to explore: (1) what kind of arguments contemporaries employed to undermine the common view of unburnt books as miracles, and (2) how the supporters of the idea coped with the orthodox Lutheran view that miracles had ceased in the post-apostolic era and therefore no miracles were supposed to happen in their time. In the following, I  first examine ambivalent, sceptical, and negative assessments of the miraculous in unburnt books. Subsequently I present the Lutheran theory of the cessation of miracles by discussing the work of a few contemporary theologians. And lastly I analyse five cases in which the discourse of incombustible books engaged with or collided with cessation theory.

Against the Miracle Reluctance to adopt the notion that an incombustible book indicated divine intervention or presence had three dimensions. The first was the empirical challenge. In the 1718 volume of the periodical news collection Zufällige Relationen it was marvelled that books made of paper, an extremely combustible material, could survive fires that demolished whole villages and towns.1 This might have been a common reaction to the preservation of books in fire, but a more nuanced understanding of the mechanism of combustion suggested that there was nothing marvellous in such books. As Levin Nicolaus von Moltke suggested in 1652, and as it was argued later as an obvious observation (see details below), the survival of books in fire was unremarkable since fire only slowly

Miracle 121 burned firmly bound paper. Although paper was a highly combustible material, books were not always so. Firmly bound books, and indeed books bound in wooden boards and leather, gilded and locked with metal clasps, did not burn well at all. Contemporaries had to consider these two tendencies, and for some, the solution to the seeming contradiction (combustible paper and incombustible book) was empirical. Johann Christoph Heine reported in 1697 the claim (voiced by a Catholic) that the copy of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein that remained undamaged in fire in 1685 only endured the fire because the book was covered with a protective layer of glaze (Clausur). This claim, Heine added, had to be tested by throwing a book covered with glaze into a fire.2 Similar caution was demonstrated by Georg Heinrich Götze in 1707, when he reported the survival of Philipp Jakob Spener’s catechism. Götze stated that he did not consider this story a miracle since the precise circumstances in which it took place were unknown to him. He did not reject the idea that God performed miracles—“the Lord’s hand had not waxed short,” as he put it figuratively, referring to Numbers 11:23. God could save a room in which people prayed, a church in which people called on God to prevent the fire, yes, prayers had such a power that they could stay the fire. Why should not it be possible for God to save a useful book in the fire? Yet, for Götze whether a particular preservation was indeed a miracle had to be decided empirically, that is, according to the specific physical circumstances.3 The second dimension of reluctance or caution was doctrinal. Götze claimed that the survival of books unburnt in fire proved God’s ability to snatch his Word from the fire and save it, even though during the process some books had to be destroyed. Since in almost all cases only one book survived while many other books burned to ashes, this argument must have been tacitly accepted by many as a precondition for the notion of divine involvement. Indeed, the mysterious survival of one book rather than other books emphasised the miraculous aspect. For instance, when a Paradiesgärtlein remained unharmed in a fire in Hamburg in 1734—text, gilded edges, silver clasps, and cover made of silver thread all unburnt— it was emphasised that the survival of the book was even more unusual because the other religious books in the house, including a Bible, a postil, and a prayer book burned (although, ironically, it had to be admitted that the postil was still legible).4 Nevertheless, as Superintendent Elias Veiel firmly argued in 1694, the religious (Lutheran) logic was the opposite. Veiel argued that the exceptional survival of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in the fire the previous year in Leipheim could not be held as an actual miracle since many other good and sacred books, including a New Testament, were destroyed in the fire. According to Veiel, it was not correct to attribute the preservation of the book to “a special and exceptional fate.” Veiel employed the common distinction between Providentia generalis and specialis, the first referred

122  Miracle to the divine government of the whole world, the latter referred to the Church, its believers or a person, and the distinction between Providentia oridinaria and extraordinaria, the first referred to God’s actions through the regular course of nature, the latter to extraordinary events.5 Thus, the preservation of the specific book and, by extension, all other copies of Paradiesgärtlein and all other books, was neither a miracle nor a special act of divine providence. The third dimension of scepticism relates to the problem of canonisation. Various observers were concerned that an undamaged book might be seen not only as a sign of divine care, protecting the book, but also as an endorsement of the author, signalling the canonisation of the author, which was, for them, an undesired result of the veneration offered to unburnt books. It is said, regarding the thirteenth-century saint, Edmund of Canterbury (St.  Edmund Rich), that he had fallen asleep one night while reading the Bible. It happened that the lamp that he used for reading fell on the book. While everything around the book burned down, the book itself remained intact. The story was included in the collection of saints’ lives that was published by the Carthusian Laurentius Surius in the sixteenth century.6 In 1721, when Karl Gottfried Engelschall, court preacher in Dresden, published a work on the history of fires in Saxony, he also made a historical account of incombustible books, and here he included the story about St. Edmund. Engelschall added that the sixteenth-century German Jesuit Nicolaus Serarius had often told this story to his Jesuit brethren, having no misgivings about the fact that they themselves (the Jesuits, or the Catholics in general) were taking books of the Bible from laymen and burning them.7 For Catholics, the preservation of St.  Edmund’s Bible was a typical saint’s miracle; a wonder worked through a holy man or a canonised saint. For Lutherans, the idea that a wonder was the mark of a special man often induced uneasiness. Engelschall considered incombustible books to be wondrous and wonderful works of God’s providence, not miracles, and certainly not miracles worked by saints. Incombustible books were, for Engelschall, merely marvellous events in which the hand of God somehow played a role.8 Engelschall did not explicitly consider the role that a human agent played in the wonder of incombustible books. Some Lutherans explicitly stated their concern regarding the attribution of human agency to the preservation of books in fire. Philipp Jakob Spener wrote about the survival of a copy of the catechism that he had published that, if indeed any aspect of this event was outside the common order of things, it should be assigned not to him as the author but to the truthfulness of the text. Spener was altogether sceptical about the miraculous aspect, but even when admitting the possibly unnatural character of the survival of the book, he emphasised that it was a mark of a true book rather than the miracle of a man.9 Similar caution was expressed by Johann Christoph Heine in Theatrum providentiae divinae. When he recounted the survival

Miracle 123 of Johann Heermann’s Laborum sacrorum continuation in Leipzig in 1631, he cautioned the reader not to canonise the author or make him a special saint or miracle maker. Praise and honour should only be given to God. However, he added, it was not forbidden for an impartial Christian to perceive that “the highest heavenly censor of books” gave his approval of the book, and that this book ought to be published with privileges.10 Clearly, the credit for the special fate of unburnt books was not to be given to the author but only to God. Veiel, Heine, Götze, Engelschall (all clergymen) voiced concern, perhaps a growing concern, with many Lutherans’ reactions to the familiar phenomenon of books preserved untouched by fire. More sceptical and utterly negative views appeared from 1710 onwards—some of them in relation to a quite harmless statement about one unburnt book made in that year by Christian Heinrich Erndtel in a published account of a journey that he had previously taken to England and Holland. Before going abroad, Erndtel went by the place where the forces of the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg were stationed and where the vast collection of manuscripts and books that was usually at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel was now temporarily kept (while a new library was being built in Wolfenbüttel). Erndtel was given a guided tour through the collection by the secretary of the library, and among the things Erndtel was shown was a Paradiesgärtlein that survived fire—a fact that was known, according to Erndtel, to the common people (“per vulgum nota sunt”)—as well as Martin Luther’s domestic utensils.11 Erndtel was no doubt shown the book that survived fire in Bockenem in 1685 and was taken to and kept in the Wolfenbüttel library. His comment that the book was preserved in the middle of the fire and that this fact was well known seems factual and not polemical, and Erndtel probably did not reflect on it when he included the informative comments about his visit to the renowned book collection in his travel book. For one reader, though, the comment was not neutral. Johann Georg Burckhard (under pseudonym Ianus Gregorius Betulius), a lawyer and archivist in Wolfenbüttel and brother of the future librarian of the Herzog August Library Jacob Burckhard, found Erndtel’s short comment disturbing. Burckhard, who possessed great knowledge of the collections of the library, published a book in which he demonstrated that Erndtel’s short description of the library’s contents was either wrong or lacking in almost every aspect. “I am surely amazed,” he wrote in regard to the unburnt Paradiesgärtlein, that Erndtel repeated without expressing any doubt things that boys and foolish women often had reiterated, namely that it was known to everyone that the book survived in the fire. Honour and justice should be applied to all deserving men, he argued, even if their books had never survived fire. Burckhard expressed the concern that the enemies of piety might laugh at this sort of marvels (miranda), since it also happened sometimes that abominable books were not consumed by

124  Miracle the power of the flames. Burckhard also commented ironically that it surprised him that Erndtel did not specifically mention Martin Luther’s drinking glass and spoon, which Johann Thiele Reinerding, the secretary of the library, used to show diligently to visitors or, in Burckhard’s ironic formulation, to “pilgrims.” Surely, he concluded, there were other exhibits worthier of memory that better served the fame of the library.12 The following year Erndtel issued a new edition of his travel account. In the preface, he stated that he had most thoughtlessly mentioned Arndt’s unburnt book as well as Luther’s table service, which for a long time were kept in the library and displayed to visitors. This, he wrote, had apparently extremely offended Burckhard, who laughed with the enemies of piety about this marvel (mirandum). Burckhard was, according to Erndtel, not ashamed to mix the narrative about Arndt’s book, and thus about the sacred contemplation of God, with the hypothetical survival of abominable books in the fire. Erndtel did not really reply to Burckhard’s argument that bad books tended to survive fire just as often as good books. He just implied that Burckhard’s concern was not ­sincere—Burckhard laughed with the enemies of piety rather than feeling concern that the enemies of piety might laugh at such a narrative. Erndtel also responded to Burckhard’s ironic comment on Luther’s drinking glass and spoon, arguing that he could easily refer the reader to many authors, among them Georg Heinrich Götze, who had amply documented the relation of such objects to Martin Luther. It was a shame, he concluded, that the enlargement of the Herzog August Library by the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel was not pleasing to Burkhard; if it was for Burckhard, these objects would either not have been preserved at all or were shown to pilgrims as garbage. In the body of the text of the new edition, Erndtel changed nothing in the way he presented Arndt’s book and the relics of Luther.13 Erndtel did not respond directly to the main thrust of Burckhard’s argument, namely that the incombustibility of books was a theme for the discourse of fools and the unlearned not to be repeated in serious, learned texts. Perhaps because it was evident that this was not the case. The legend about incombustible books was promoted by clergymen, theologians, editors of religious books, and princes. Yet Burckhard was not alone in believing so. An assumed information gap based on social and educational differentiation seems to be the explanation for the ambivalence voiced in one of the earliest follow-ups to the controversy between Burckhard and Erndtel. In 1713, historian of literature Theodor Crusius (Krause) noted in a literary piece about remarkable aspects in the life of scholars and their books—appeared in the second part of his (anonymously published) series of scholarly studies, Vergnügung müßiger Stunden—that he found the fame of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein justifiable. However, the preservation of the book in the fire did not affect Crusius’s judgement of the book and thus, for him, did not increase the book’s fame. The reason for

Miracle 125 Crusius’s indifference was that licentious books also remained undamaged in the fire. Crusius referred the reader to Burckhard.14 A couple of years later, Crusius considered the value of Arndt’s miracle story once again and now his view was more ambiguous. For those who had an ear for miracle stories, he recommended Christoph Heym’s Eilf WunderGeschichte, a collection of miracle stories about Arndt’s book as well as various other books that appeared in 1713, as comforting reading material. He wondered, though, why those people who considered themselves wise and learned made a big deal out of it. He held Arndt’s book in high esteem, but his esteem was by no means enlarged by the fact that the book survived fire many times. Still, he distanced himself from Burckhard, who rebuked Erndtel for merely mentioning the famous Paradiesgärtlein at the library in Wolfenbüttel. For Crusius, as long as it was not a daily occurrence, the story about the incombustible Arndt was accepted as an occasion for an edifying discourse. Spare me wonder stories, Crusius added at the end of his treatment of the subject, especially now that we have “the bright light of the Gospels, which was prescribed to us by Moses and the prophets as a replacement for miracles.”15 For Crusius, incombustible books had edifying value, which served the typical readership of such literature, and were of little interest for the learned. Similar concern for the perception of simple folk was expressed by Lutheran theologian, poet, and edifying writer Erdmann Neumeister in 1719. Neumeister asked rhetorically, what would the papists have done if one of their books were preserved in fire like Arndt’s book? What kind of a miracle and what kind of a shrine would they have made of such an event? For Neumeister, the multiple preservations of Arndt’s book in fire should not be seen as exceptional miracles (Wunderwerck) since natural causes could be the reason for the preservation of the books. One ought to be particularly cautious when dealing with such terms, he emphasised, in relation to the simple-minded, so that they should not think that Arndt’s prayer book was given directly by the Holy Spirit and was equal to, or indeed that it surpassed, the Bible, especially when not as many Bibles survived fire as copies of Paradiesgärtlein. In what followed, Neumeister mentioned the legend about the conversion of the Russians to Christianity in the tenth century due to a successful trial-by-fire in which a Bible was preserved intact in fire as well as the preservation in fire of books of Johann Spangenberg, Johann Heermann, and Joachim Lütkemann (all mentioned earlier in the present book).16 Later in the century, ambivalent approaches to the miraculous became explicit and writers who engaged with the topic reflected on the meaning of the term miracle. In 1727, theologian and historian Johann Georg Schelhorn wrote an historical dissertation about burnt books. In his dissertation, Schelhorn regretted not being able to write in detail about books that endured fire, yet he did express his view on the question of miracles. Schelhorn held the opinion that the divine truth did not require

126  Miracle the testimony of new miracles because so many miracles (miris) as well as so much blood and so many deaths of the martyrs had abundantly illustrated it. Having been said, Schelhorn would not utterly deny that there was something worthy of attention in unburnt books; especially as a testimony for the “omnipotent and marvellous hand of the providential divine will” (omnipotentem & mirabilem provide uminis manum). Schelhorn was looking for a middle ground between denial of contemporary miracles and blind veneration of them, rejecting the notion of contemporary miracles but accepting the agency of the divine will. Schelhorn quoted Spener to show that unburnt books were not necessarily miraculous and, at the same time, to show that even when one was sceptical about factual details, one could not reject with confidence the possibility of divine intervention.17 This ambivalence is also clearly felt in the renowned reformed theologian Conrad Mel’s Teutsche Physic (1732). Mel discussed in his book the nature of fire, natural resistance to fire, and finally trial-by-fire. Discussing the still existing (though prohibited) habit of proving guilt and innocence through trial-by-fire (holding glowing iron, putting a hand in boiling water, putting glowing coals in the bosom, walking on glowing coals or warm iron plates, wearing a glowing iron glove, or similar procedures), Mel recounted a few historical incidents in which trial-by-fire was performed, mostly in cases of fornication, and lastly he briefly narrated the story about pastor Geilfusius’s Paradiesgärtlein. Admitting that the ways of God were wondrous and not willing to deny that the hand of God was indeed involved in those cases where fire could not hurt human body parts or books, Mel nevertheless judged that trial-by-fire should be rejected. The first reason was that no divine promise was ever made that miracles should take place after the true doctrine was proven by the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles. The second reason was that preservation in fire could be explained by natural forces that deterred the power of the fire. Trial-by-fire, he concluded, was an attempt to wring a miracle out of God and as such was an attempt to put God on trial.18 It is clear that Mel viewed trial-by-fire as an erroneous practice. He thought that even when the result appeared unnatural—the preservation of human flesh or paper in fire or exceptional heat—still, natural causes could explain the unfamiliar phenomena. Yet, Mel would not reject the whole thing as irrelevant or nonsense. He emphasised twice that he did not exclude the possibility of divine involvement in those cases where something was preserved untouched by fire, or as he put it, he would not deny that some innocent people were aided by the hidden assistance of God whose hand still in these days had “not waxed short.”19 Perhaps Mel did not want to argue directly against the common belief that trialby-fire expressed some kind of divine economy of justice, but perhaps he truly felt ambivalent about what seemed to be the incombustibility of some people and some objects. Incombustibility could be explained by

Miracle 127 natural causes (Mel discussed in his book the natural resistance to fire that was demonstrated by some people) and at the same time be a sign of divine providence. A few years later, Georg Wilhelm Wegner, priest in Germendorf (north of Berlin) and writer on scientific subjects, treated the same theme of trial-by-fire. In stronger terms than Mel, Wegner rejected the notion of divine government of the result of trials-by-fire and expressed his belief in natural explanations for the fact that sometimes (not very often, as he emphasised) people were found innocent in trials-by-fire. His view on book trial-by-fire was likewise negative, he doubted the veracity of the story about the conversion of the Russians to Christianity by a book trial-by-fire and condemned the archbishop who conducted it. By association, Wegner moved on to discuss the topic of incombustible books. Repeating a few stories about the preservation of books in fire, Wegner argued with confidence that despite similarities to the biblical miracle by which three men survived fire (in the book of Daniel), the contemporary preservation of books in fire was not miraculous. If God wanted to preserve a book miraculously, it must have been the Bible because Scripture was God’s own word. As far as he knew, Wegner added (clearly mistakenly), no Bible had so far been preserved undamaged in fire, albeit many a Bible was burned in fires. Books that survived fires did so, according to Wegner, either by accident or following natural circumstances. He offered a few possibilities: the reported books were tightly bound with strong boards and had an added layer of glaze for protection; the books were not actually in the flames; something separated the books from the fire; or some circumstances in the stories were silenced so that the report would appear miraculous.20 Surprisingly, even in the periodical Hessisches Heb-Opfer (1740) that had done so much to verify the story about the first unburnt Paradiesgärtlein and to substantiate the claim that it was a result of divine providence, the notion of a miracle in Langgöns in 1624 was indirectly rejected. Following the piece about Geilfusius and the piece about the inscription inside the unburnt book, the periodical put out a piece by a certain P. P. about the historical circumstances that made Arndt so popular. The author of the piece reacted to an argument made by the Giessen theologian Johann Jacob Rambach in an article on Arndt’s books (Hessisches Heb-Opfer, 1734), where Rambach suggested that the blessing of Arndt’s writings—demonstrated by the exceptional, widespread reception of his books—was due to a special divine care, a special providence in “the kingdom of grace” (Reiche der Gnaden). The author agreed with the argument, but added that several external human circumstances contributed to the divine blessing.21 The first was that Arndt’s writings appeared in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century, when edifying books were rare. Arndt’s writings appeared in an age when theologians and religious writers were not interested in the edification of the reader.

128  Miracle Had Arndt written in the present, the author claimed, when edifying literature was on the rise, his writings would have been no more popular than other edifying books. The second condition that shaped the reception of and market for Arndt was the controversy about Wahre Christentum. It helped the fate of a book substantially if it became the subject of a controversy from the beginning. The third fact that shaped the readership of Arndt’s books was the great support he received from many orthodox, and quite famous, theologians. The prefaces written for the different editions of his books, especially, contributed to his fame. A good preface, the author claimed, could sell a mediocre book. Not that Arndt needed it—he was a great theologian—but the support articulated by many theologians did enlarge the special divine blessing given to his books. Last, the fact that many copies of Arndt’s books, especially his Paradiesgärtlein, endured a trial-by-fire definitely contributed to the success of the books. For those that were convinced (of the validity and excellence of Arndt’s writings), it seemed highly probable that the multiple preservations of Arndt’s book indicated a divine will that the Arndian corpus of writings remain forever among Christians. These wondrous events have given Arndt’s writings a very special reputation; a fate that no other book could claim. Experience proved, the author argued, that the semblance of a miracle made powerful impressions on the human mind.22 It is difficult to decode what P. P. actually thought about incombustible books, or for that matter, about Arndt. His analysis, however, shows his understanding of how psychology and public relations were significant in structuring belief in the incombustible Arndt. The semblance (not the fact) of a special divine care, the appearance of a miracle, was in itself enough to engender a special interest in an otherwise common phenomenon. The stories about the unburnt books conferred on Arndt an unusual reputation and authority that other authors could not claim. At least for those already convinced of the value of Arndt’s religion, factual reports about the survival of his books in fire could easily be interpreted as a sign of divine providence. The link between events and meaning, between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, was made by those inclined to do so as well as, it should be added (though P. P. did not say it explicitly), by those who sought to make an argument in the controversy about Wahre Christentum and to promote Arndt’s theology, religion, and books. If “knowledge” about the incombustible Arndt enlarged the divine blessing (which is to say, helped make a readership and market for Arndt), then it is only reasonable to assume that some people employed this knowledge for the sake of vindicating Arndt and selling (and profiting from) his books. Hesitation, ambivalence, and caution are typical of the period up until roughly 1750. In the second half of the century, criticism is unequivocal, and strangely, a lot of the criticism was voiced in relation to a particular incombustible book, namely the double edition of Arndt that survived

Miracle 129 fire in Quedlinburg in 1733, and was kept at the Royal Library in Berlin. In his short history of the Royal Library, Johann Carl Konrad Oelrich described a few oddities kept at the manuscript chamber, one of which was the unburnt Paradiesgärtlein from Quedlinburg. These rarities were for Oelrich of no significance, but, seeing that some people collected such miracle stories (Wundergeschichte), Oelrich felt obliged to comment on the topic. Admitting that the phenomenon was perhaps common, Oelrich still could not comprehend how such accidental occurrences were called miracles, and, even less, why Arndt’s prayer book, of which perhaps 100,000 copies existed worldwide, should be the book that God would want to miraculously preserve so many times. If it was because the content of the book was important and deserved divine signs and miracles, why did no other books, no less ingenious, not even the Bible, experience the same? When secular books survived undamaged in fire, which they had done in the past, as Oelrich stressed, it was not regarded as a miracle but as coincidence. Anyone not taken in by prejudices must understand that a book bound in solid boards and locked with good clasps, as editions of Paradiesgärtlein commonly were (as the copy possessed by the Royal Library in Berlin as well as the Paradiesgärtlein preserved at the Herzog August library in Wolfenbüttel were), does not burn so fast as other books with less firm bindings.23 Oelrich dismissed the veneration of incombustible books as superstitious. He used sarcasm to emphasise the ignorance of natural causes that was demonstrated in miracle stories. Some thirty years later, the same dismissal of the whole idea of divine care for books was voiced again, this time more forcefully and with outright derision rather than sarcasm. In the third volume of Nützliches Allerley aus der Natur und dem gemeinen Leben (1786), priest in Quedlinburg and zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze reported on what he called “sanctimonious idolatry” (Frömmelnde Abgöttery) in the veneration of edifying books, such as Scriver’s Seelenschatz, Spener’s writings and especially Arndt’s Wahre Christentum and Paradiesgärtlein in the past. Goeze commented on the double edition of Arndt that was preserved in a fire in Quedlinburg, about which he read in a text that his predecessor in the office of parish priest composed. The unnamed priest wrote that “the people” were greatly amazed by the wondrous preservation of the “divine words.” The book circulated among the people and was “nearly worshiped” as a great wonder of God.24 For Goeze, the priest’s experience with the book was the result of fanaticism (Schwärmerey), which brought Lutherans very close to the notion of miracles held by the Catholics. Seeing that there were still people in his day who believed in such stories, Goeze offered a few rational explanations for the preservation of books in fire. If we accept that the books were miraculously preserved by God, what religious purpose would such a miracle have? Goeze could find none. Arndt’s books could be found

130  Miracle everywhere, by booksellers and in private homes. Were the contents of these books so important that not a single book should be destroyed? The Bible was more important and since each home possessed a Bible, then it followed that Bibles were often burned by fires. Would God give Arndt’s word greater care than he gave to his own words? Should the miracle put Arndt and his teachings in great esteem? Even if that lowered esteem of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus? According to Goeze, there could be no religious advantage in preserving one copy of Arndt’s book while letting a house of poor people and their belongings burn to ashes. Instead of a divine plan, Goeze suggested natural reasons. The book was tightly locked with clasps. Moreover, Arndt’s books were often printed in long formats on thin paper so that the sheets were held tightly together and therefore no drops of water could come between them. When such a book was equipped with clasps, the papers were held together even more tightly. Surely such books could survive fire—they would be charred rather than actually burnt. Goeze suggested a theoretical experiment. He would put a Bible, loose and open, in a fire together with a blasphemous book firmly bound and equipped with clasps. The first would burn, Goeze explained, the latter would survive the fire. Would that be a miracle? Dear people, Goeze called on his readers, be ashamed of such sanctimonious idolatry, which contradicted reason, nature, and experience.25 Even more scornful and dismissive was Gottfried Christian Voigt, whose history of Quedlinburg had been published by the latter part of the century. Voigt claimed that Quedlinburg was made a seed place for fanatics, a development that he directly attributed to the activity and writings of Johann Arndt, who lived and worked in Quedlinburg during the 1590s. Paradiesgärtlein and Wahre Christentum, according to Voigt, were no more than a procedure for the fabrication of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. The evidence for this fanaticism was in the many stories about the incombustible Arndt, of which Voigt recounted the one from Quedlinburg.26 Likewise, the Enlightenment philosophy professor from Jena, Justus Christian Hennings, in a work treating the ways in which fire and water catastrophes could be fought or avoided, rejected the idea of a miraculous preservation of books in fire altogether. While in previous ages, when superstition reigned, miracle was the explanation for all the stories about unburnt books (Arndt’s books and all the stories in Tentzel’s collection), now natural forces provided the explanation. Hennings did not even bother to explain these forces or to argue against the perception of miraculous intervention. He simply pointed out that it was wrong.27 Outright rejection or substantial scepticism toward the miracle of incombustible books is typical of the later eighteenth century. Armed with scientific convictions and rationalistic as well as historicist ways of thinking it was easy for authors such as Hennings, Voigt, Goeze, and Oelrich to dismiss the miraculous in phenomena that they perceived

Miracle 131 more and more as purely natural. The miraculous was not really part of their intellectual or emotional mindset. The case was different for earlier writers—as contemplative, careful, and analytical as the later ones who were still intellectually, religiously, and presumably also emotionally deeply engaged with a phenomenal world that was not purged of the divine and the inexplicable. Spener, Mel, Neumeister, and others coped with an event that, for them, was complex and suggestive. It resonated and needed to be interpreted, and divine intervention as a potential explanation could not be simply dismissed without serious consideration. It is, generally speaking, unknown whether readers of reports about unburnt books and visitors to libraries and cabinets of curiosities felt any discomfort with or ambivalence about claims that unburnt books were miraculous. We only know that clergymen as well as laymen writing about the topic in the first half of the eighteenth century struggled with incombustible books, perhaps in the same way that they struggled more generally with all material manifestations of the divine.

The Cessation of Miracles Commentary on and controversy about the nature of incombustible books (in the period 1620–1750) were typically not conceptual, theoretical, or strictly theological at their core. The discourse about unburnt Lutheran books was descriptive, factual, at times emotional, and ideological, searching for values and meanings—in other words, the religious language dominated. Only infrequently, texts about unburnt books displayed concern with terminology and rarely an interest in the broader topic of contemporary miracles, Lutheran or otherwise. Authors treating the topic have never suggested a definition of the term miracle—apart from Gottfried Tentzel, and even for him it was by a way of an appendix to his treatise rather than an introduction. The relation between the reported phenomena (unburnt books) and nature was only seldom expounded and the relation between miracle, wonder, and providence very infrequently discussed. Most surprisingly, the theological issue of post-apostolic miracles (in general) and Lutheran miracles (in particular) was only rarely considered. This seeming disinterest in theory is evidently (but less surprisingly) mirrored in the absence of unburnt books from the theoretical literature about miracles. The rich contemporary theoretical literature about the nature and theology of miracles entirely overlooked (as far as I can tell) incombustible books. The great orthodox theological syntheses of the period and the more specific treatises on miracles did not take notice of the vocal and frequent assertion that unburnt books were somehow the result of divine intervention. Even when the question of post-apostolic or contemporary miracles was discussed—and this happened frequently— and the necessity of miracles as a mark of the true church was considered, the legend about miraculous Lutheran books played no role.

132  Miracle Whereas the theologians seem to have taken no notice in their theoretical discussions of unburnt Lutheran books, the narrative discourse surrounding unburnt books was not entirely removed from the theoretical and theological treatment of miracles in the early modern period. Some of those who wrote on the topic, mostly from the 1720s onwards, but also before, were at least vaguely aware of the Lutheran theory of miracles, of theoretical literature about miracles, and of the assault on the Christian notion of miracles made by a few atheists, Benedict Spinoza, the English deists, and other sceptical minds. This knowledge of and reference to the broader debate about miracles in seventeenth- and e­ ighteenth-century Germany is only occasional and not systematic. It enables, however, a discussion about a difficult question: how was it possible for Lutherans, both more and less orthodox Lutherans, to refer rather liberally to miraculous unburnt books when: (1) the theory of miracles imposed strict conditions on what could be considered miraculous and when (2) Lutheran (in fact, Protestant in general) theologians expressed dislike, indeed suspicion, of contemporary miracles and some of them actually proclaimed the cessation of miracles? Lutherans believed in the miraculous; no doubt about that. However, Lutheran theologians (as well as Calvinist ones) from the time of Luther onwards frequently claimed that miracles were historical phenomena and therefore belonged to a specific period in the history of Christianity. In theory, they claimed, first rather inconsistently but later quite powerfully, miracles ceased in the post-apostolic period. Furthermore, Lutheran theologians claimed that miracles were subordinated to doctrine, which in itself was vouched for by God’s Word. In this sense, doctrine vouched for the authenticity of miracles, and not the other way around, as was traditionally believed and repeatedly suggested by Catholics. Indeed, miracles played an important role in Catholic-Lutheran controversies. These evolved around two issues. The first was the necessity of miracles for confirming the Lutheran Church as a true saving church, and the second was the authenticity of contemporary Catholic miracles, which the Catholics presented as evidence for the continuing validity of the Roman Catholic Church. Lutherans usually rejected both the necessity of (post-apostolic) miracles as well as the credibility of Catholic miracles. The Catholic argument was sometimes expressed in a syllogism: a church in which miracles occurred was a true church; miracles occurred within the Roman Catholic Church; ergo the Roman Catholic Church was a true church. In its most effective and most influential expression— pursued by the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine in the late sixteenth century—the Roman Catholic position was expressed in two propositions. Bellarmine argued that the “glory of miracles” was a mark of the true church in two ways. First, miracles were necessary to support a new faith or a new mission. Second, miracles were efficient and sufficient as a mark of the true church. From the first, Bellarmine deduced that his adversaries—the

Miracle 133 Protestants—did not have a true church; from the second, he deduced that the Roman Catholics did. The first was proven by recycling two stories about Luther, according to which Luther attempted to perform miracles—to cast out demons and to revive a dead man—in both cases without success. The second was proven by showing from historical chronicles that there had been miracles within the Church in each century from the time of the Apostles to Bellarmine’s time. Simply put, since Roman Catholics had miracles and Lutherans had none, only the Roman Catholic Church was a true church.28 The Protestant argument, on the other hand, was based, generally speaking, on four assertions: (1) the evangelical faith was no new faith, it was a renewal of the original Christian apostolic faith; (2) Holy Scripture rather than the supernatural vouched for the truthfulness of the Lutheran doctrine; (3) the miracles presented by Roman Catholics were not true miracles; and (4) miracles ceased at a certain point after the time of the Apostles.29 The first three arguments were firmly formulated by John Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion. In the prefatory address to King Francis of France, Calvin stated that the adversaries of the Reformation called the doctrine of the reformers a new doctrine of recent birth and that they demanded the reformers to show by which miracles (miracula) their doctrine was confirmed. To this Calvin replied that by demanding miracles the adversaries of the Reformation were unjust to the claims of the reformers. For the reformers’ doctrine was not a new gospel but the same Gospel of Christ that was confirmed by all the miracles that Christ and the Apostles had wrought. Further, Calvin rejected the Catholic claim that their own faith was confirmed by miracles down to his day as ridiculous since the Catholics suggested miracles “which might produce wavering in minds otherwise well disposed.” Anyhow, the very notion of confirmation by miracles was distorted by this claim. Calvin insisted that a doctrine should first be examined and ascertained according to Scripture and according to its goal, which was “to promote the glory not of men but of God,” only after a doctrine had thus been proved, it may receive confirmation from miracles. As to the fourth argument, it seems that Calvin was not so sure that miracles had altogether ceased after the Apostolic Age. He did not mention the cessation of miracles in the Institutes and in fact formulated the topic rather ambivalently when he wrote in the prefatory letter that “we [. . .] have no lack of miracles, sure miracles, that cannot be gainsaid.”30 He did suggest the cessation of miracles as a hypothetical possibility in his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. However, there are also indications that Calvin did not exclude the possibility of contemporary miracles.31 Typical of Martin Luther, he was not fully consistent in his remarks on miracles and especially about their cessation. In a recent examination of Luther’s views on miracles and wonders, Philip Soergel suggested

134  Miracle three strains of thought characteristic of Luther’s approach to the problem. First, Luther insisted that miracles did not confirm the sanctity of belief because the devil could also work wonders to deceive people. In this sense, Luther admitted the reality of post-apostolic miracles but, all the same, judged them to be demonically produced. Second, Luther believed that miracles were inferior confirmations for religious teaching, compared with the power of faith and God’s Word. True practice of ­religion—faith, sacraments, God’s Word—made the miracles of the saints redundant. The last, and most important, relates to how Luther depicted the Apostles’ miracles. Luther suggested that the Apostles were able to work miracles, for a time, in order to establish the Church; that their actual power as miracle makers was in their faith, not in their human agency; and that they could perform both miracles on the body (healing, for instance) as well as on the soul (turning one into a believer).32 Overall, it is clear that Luther did not think that his reformation needed miraculous confirmation but rather that miracles were inferior to belief and doctrine. He rejected the cult of the saints but not necessarily the reality of saints’ miracles. He stressed faith as the motor for working miracles and he privileged spiritual miracles (on the soul) over physical ones (on the body). As for the cessation of miracles, the question remains open. As Soergel argues, since Luther believed in the power of faith to work miracles, he could not deny the possibility of contemporary miracles, for faith was a resource open to all believers. Therefore, even if miracles in the general sense had ceased, which seems to be Luther’s view, spiritual miracles in theory could still be performed. More than his cessation theory, the distinction between the two types of miracles had a long-lasting influence. By the seventeenth century, the theory of the cessation of miracles appears to have been firmly established among Protestant theologians, although even at that time the theory was not unanimously espoused. The Jena theologian of the Lutheran orthodoxy, Johann Gerhard, treated the theory of miracles in the fifth volume of his Loci theologici (1617). Gerhard rejected the Catholic proposition that Protestantism needed to be established as a legitimate faith by miracles with the usual arguments: that Luther’s doctrine was no new faith; that miracles had not been and could not be a genuine, proper, and infallible mark of the true church; and that Catholic miracles were not genuine miracles. As to the historical aspect, Gerhard claimed that the gift of miracles, given to the early Church, was later withdrawn. He expressed the argument in a syllogism: whatever is not continually and at all times a property of the Church cannot be a genuine, proper, and infallible mark of the Church; miracles had not been a continuous property of the Church; ergo miracles were not a genuine, proper, and infallible mark of the Church. Miracles, according to Gerhard, were “the trumpets and heralds” pronouncing the original Gospel of Christ. Similar to the Old Testament miracles at Mount Sinai

Miracle 135 and during the Israelites’ wandering in the desert, which ceased once the Israelites arrived in the Promised Land, the miracles establishing the Gospel of Christ ceased once the Gospel was spread in the whole world. Gerhard did not offer a precise date for the cessation of miracles; instead he presented evidence, mainly from the Church Fathers, for the perception that, at a certain point during the development of the post-apostolic Church, miracles were not needed anymore, or at least did not occur anymore.33 Gerhard did not altogether give away the Lutherans’ claim for their share in the miraculous. In the last part of the section about miracles in the Loci theologici, under the title “Whether miracles occur in the Evangelical churches,” Gerhard emphasised that the Lutheran faith was no new faith and therefore needed no new validation. In the words of Augustine: “we are in that body in which they [the prophets and Apostles] did miracles.” That being said, he suggested that if “miracle” meant “everything that is done by the special grace and power of God, though that may not meet the eyes like external miracles,” then it could not be denied that Luther’s great and lasting reformation, achieved by a poor and unarmed monk against powerful foes, was an exceptional event. Gerhard wrote at length about why Luther’s reformation was so exceptional, and his conclusion was that it could not be denied that it was a miracle or at least “the next closest thing to a miracle” that “so many thousands of people were freed by the ministry of Luther and his fellow priests from the inveterate errors of the papacy.” This “spiritual miracle,” as Gerhard called it, that is, the Reformation itself, had a precedent in the view of the Church Fathers John Chrysostom and Augustine (previously summarised by Gerhard), according to whom the conversion of the world, effected through Jesus’s disciples, was a miracle. Perhaps not being entirely content with only spiritual miracles, Gerhard also suggested miracles done through Protestant martyrs (according to stories about the persecution of Protestants in Catholic England, narrated by John Foxe in Acts and Monuments, 1564 and later editions). Furthermore, he also claimed that a devil was driven from a possessed young person by Luther’s prayers.34 It is somewhat surprising that what Gerhard perceived as a Lutheran miracle was a change in the mind of many people rather than a change in the material world. It was otherwise conventional to regard miracles as deeds in the physical world and not exceptional acts of grace, which, according to conventional perception, had always been and still were performed regularly. However, Gerhard’s suggestion was not entirely an exception. As suggested earlier, Luther himself emphasised the importance (in fact, superiority) of spiritual miracles, even if Luther did not necessarily consider his own reformation to be a miracle. After Luther’s death, it became conventional to refer to the reformation, Luther’s work, and his writings as God’s work and indeed a miracle.35

136  Miracle The path suggested by Gerhard—an affirmation of the cessation of miracles, but refusal to renounce any claim to miracles within Lutheranism— was followed by others. In his treatise on miracles from 1650, the leading Strasbourg theologian, Johann Konrad Dannhauer, suggested that the premise for discussing miracles should be that miracles were rare, not purely in terms of numbers (after all, manna rained down regularly for forty years and Christ performed innumerable miracles), but in the sense that miracles happened within a defined and limited period of time in the past. If miracles, he argued, had to be done freely by God, if they had to overcome other insuperable necessities, if they had to be outside the usual, if they needed to have any value at all, miracles had to be rare, not a frequent event, given only as often as God found expedient. To show that the era of miracles was limited in time, Dannhauer cited evidence from Chrysostom, Augustine, and Gregory the Great.36 In the context of this evidence he went on to discuss whether in his time, when the Church had already been firmly planted, miracles were still needed within the Church (and only within the Church, he emphasised, since the power of miracles outside the Church, in gouging out new lands and converting the barbarians, was not to be denied), and whether it was necessary for Luther to produce miracles in confirmation of his vocation and mission. For the first question, the answer was negative. Nowadays, miracles were not necessary for confirming the faith. Figuratively speaking, when a child begins to walk he is helped by a sort of a carriage that would be an impediment to an adult. For the second question his reply was that: (1) new doctrines were not necessarily to be joined by the gift of miracles; (2) Luther did not profess a new doctrine; (3) even if he did, he was not obliged to prove the doctrine by miracles; and (4) Lutherans did not lack miracles.37 The latter point in Dannhauer’s argumentation is the most interesting. Reminiscent of Calvin, but firmly and explicitly, Dannhauer argued that Protestants could also prove their doctrine by miracles. Nevertheless, there was a catch. When speaking of Lutheran miracles, Dannhauer meant in fact the miracle of conversion. The greatest miracle of all, he argued with reference to Gregory the Great, was the miracle of conversion. Echoing Gerhard, he suggested that the fact that Luther liberated thousands from the “Babylonian captivity” was a great miracle.38 One of the most detailed and most interesting expositions of the problem of miracles is found in a disputation on miracles (1640, published in 1655) by the influential Dutch Calvinist theologian, Gisbertus Voetius (Gijsbert Voet). While Catholics often argued that miracles had continuously been part of the Church from the early Church to the present, showing evidence of miracles in each century from the time of the Apostles, Voetius emphasised the historical development in the frequency of miracles and explicitly stated that miracles had not ceased with the Apostles or at the time of the Apostles. He suggested evidence

Miracle 137 of post-apostolic miracles in the Church Fathers’ writings. However, his view was that the gift of miracles was to remain with the Church only until religion increased and paganism and Judaism were sufficiently defeated; until the Church—in the words of Augustine—was diffused and founded in the whole world. It is not easy to determine the time by which miracles ceased, but the number of miracles, according to Voetius, was gradually diminishing (after the apostolic age), especially in the fourth century. If miracles happened later, for the conversion of the yet unconverted gentiles, then these were nevertheless becoming more and more rare. Voetius added, figuratively, that just as a single swallow did not make it springtime, one chance miracle did not mean the continuation of “charisma.” By the time of Gregory the Great, miracles seem to have been an exception. As for the period from the sixth century to the establishment of the Protestant Churches (and his own time), Voetius was, for different reasons, suspicious of the credibility of any report regarding miraculous events. He did not dismiss the possibility of miracles after the fifth century, but he employed different forms of critical reading of the sources to reach the conclusion that not every claim of miracles should be trusted.39 Concerning the modern (post-Reformation) period, Voetius made a few observations. He rejected all the miracles that the papacy proclaimed.40 He insisted that asking early reformers, or contemporary Protestants, to perform miracles was unjustified, whether the demand was made by Catholics or by the Protestants themselves. He insisted that it was not true that Luther and Calvin had attempted to perform miracles. Most interesting, he stated that although miracles had never been attempted by the reformers, he would not deny the possibility that certain admiranda had taken place on account of the Protestant cause. At the same time, he refused to determine whether prodigia and mira—the type of admiranda that might have taken place in support of the Protestant cause—could truly be called miracles.41 This was a very careful formulation of an ambivalent approach to an apparently delicate matter. Whereas he would not deny that wonders and marvels in general (miranda), or prodigies (prodigia) and remarkable things (mira) in particular, might have been characterised as marvellous deeds/signs in support of Protestantism, he would not go so far as to nominally contradict the theory of the historical cessation of miracles by calling these miranda “miracles.”42 In Voetius’s theory of miracles, a little window was opened through which, in theory at least, marvellous events, wonders, and possibly some miracles could enter into the Protestant discourse of the contemporary reality; the unquestionable dividing line between miracles in the past and miracles in the present was made less unquestionable. The same could be seen in the way the Lutheran theologian from the University of Jena, Johannes Musäus, treated the topic in his disputation on miracles (1655). The gift of miracles, Musäus wrote, that was

138  Miracle associated with the planting of the Church was later on drawn back from the Christian Church. Musäus did not indicate exactly when the cessation of miracles took place, but he seems to have meant that miracles belonged to the biblical and apostolic period alone. Like others before him, he cited Chrysostom from the fourth century, Augustine from the fifth century, and Pope Gregory the Great from the sixth century, all of whom had mentioned the lack of or the cessation of miracles during their respective ages.43 Being forced to discuss some of Augustine’s pronouncements from which it could be understood that miracles did happen in his time, Musäus arrived at a more nuanced form of the theory of cessation. Augustine stated that in his time, when the world believed in Christ, miracles were not necessary. Contemporary miracles did happen, although they did not “illuminate” with the same clarity and they were not as widely published as the miracles of Christ and the Apostles. Musäus, therefore, specified that those miracles that Augustine (and other Church Fathers) declared to have ceased, of which Protestants stated that they do not happen anymore, and of which Roman Catholics claimed to happen regularly and continuously from the early Church until the present, these miracles were of such magnitude and glory that they were known and recognised by the whole world to be true miracles—other miracles, not so evident and not so public, might still happen.44 Musäus’s discussion of Augustine and the cessation of post-apostolic miracles is long and polemical. It becomes relevant (for the present discussion) when Musäus draws his own time into the discussion. He concludes that Augustine seems to have understood the miracles he reported— known only to a few—to be “works of divine providence” (opera divinae providentiae), of which Musäus judged that today “among us no one hastily would deny to happen.” For instance, when a sick person, beyond any hope, was nevertheless cured, or when a manifest and imminent danger waned. These hypothetical miracles, he emphasised, were brought about by a certain merit accepted by God and could not be categorised as proper public miracles that were known among the people.45 Musäus introduced the two categories of miracles—universal (intentional?) miracles and local (incidental?) miracles—to explain what seemed to be ambiguous in Augustine’s discourse about miracles. It does not seem as if Musäus really meant that contemporary miracles—small, local, unknown and unacknowledged—were actually miracles; not, at least, in the sense that they could vouch for anything (as Christ’s and the Apostles’ miracles did). Of course—Musäus seems to be saying—­ wondrous and providential events continued to happen in his own time as well, but these were not truly miracles. Despite the limitations on the validity of the theory of the cessation of miracles, there is no doubt that Lutheran/Protestant theologians did not believe in the necessity of miracles in order to argue for the validity of their churches and doctrines, and they were not inclined to suggest,

Miracle 139 in their controversy with Catholics, specific contemporary miracles as Lutheran miracles.

Unburnt Books and Cessation Theory: Five Cases In theory, incombustible books—the archetype in general or specific incidences—could have served as distinctive Lutheran miracles, signs of approval of the Lutheran Church. In fact, and in accordance with the theological doctrine, there are almost no indications that incombustible books were endowed with an empirical or ontological value in relation to interconfessional controversy regarding miracles and the marks of the true church. It does seem, though, that the early reports about unburnt books were produced in an atmosphere of Catholic-Protestant conflict, and they indicate Lutheran conviction that some kind of divine providence was taking care of things. This conviction was not developed into a conclusive argument about the validity of Lutheranism and the authenticity of the Lutheran Church. True, one of the very first reports about unburnt books actually indicated that the immediate reaction to the survival of Johann Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in Langgöns in 1624 was to consider whether it was a Lutheran, or even the first Lutheran, miracle. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Parisian gazette Mercure François of 1625 stated that the Lutherans regarded the preservation of the book in fire as the first of their miracles, since Luther had never made any. Others, however, regarded it as “a fabulous tale.”46 Being so unspecific, the report raises the question of who considered the incident to be a Lutheran miracle. Does the report say that some Lutherans prided themselves on finally having a miracle, or rather that some Catholics were concerned by the fact that the Lutherans finally had an authentic miracle of their own? This news story is open to interpretation. Surprisingly, no other media followed this line of reporting. The same ambivalence characterises another report in which the possibility of a Lutheran miracle is mentioned. Heine recorded a conversation that he had in 1688 at the library in Wolfenbüttel with theologian Gerhard Wolter Molan (van der Muelen) who told him how a certain prince who converted to Catholicism claimed that the Lutherans had no miracles and that the Paradiesgärtlein that endured fire in Langgöns in 1624 did not burn because it had a protective layer of glaze on it and not because of a miracle. Molan thought that the claim should be tested by throwing a book covered with a layer of glaze into the fire and seeing whether it burned or not. It is actually not at all clear whether Molan and Heine accepted the hypothesis that if the cause of preservation was not the glaze, then it was a miracle and therefor a Lutheran miracle.47 In this case, more than in the previous, it seems that the concept of a Lutheran miracle was a Catholic rather than a Lutheran concern. Apart from these two cases, the preservation in fire of books written by Lutheran authors,

140  Miracle and read and used by Lutherans, was not considered to be a distinctive Lutheran miracle. In the following, I  discuss five cases in which the discourse about incombustible books touched upon the conceptual and theoretical issues that occupied the theological literature about miracles. I discuss a riddle presented by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1651) and the question of the typology of miracles; a polemical work by Christian Kortholt (1679) and the question of miracles and confessional controversy; two texts from the early 1720s (Karl Gottfried Engelschall, 1721; Gottfried Tentzel, 1722) and the proper definition of miracles; Christoph Heinrich Westphal’s argumentation for the case of miraculous unburnt books (1733) and the miracle of Lutheranism; and Christian Hecht’s notion of miracles (1736) and its application to incombustible books. Biblical and Contemporary In his collection of instructive examples Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lustund Lehrreicher Geschichte (volume 2, 1651), before introducing the reader to the exemplary tale about Arndt’s unburnt book, Georg Philipp Harsdörffer presented a riddle. He introduced four categories of miracles (Wunderwerk) and the reader was challenged to find out to which category the Paradiesgärtlein miracle belonged. The first category was a miracle worked by God (Würcket Gott Wunderthat). It represented miracles made by God without the assistance of natural causes, for example, the biblical story about the sun being forced to stop its motion (Joshua 10:12). The second category was a miracle in which God employed natural effects supernaturally (natürliche Würckungen übernatürlich aussrichtet). An example of this type was the New Testament story about the withering of the fig tree (Mark 11:20); it could happen naturally, but not as quickly and unexpectedly. The third category was a miracle in which God gave unnatural power to natural means. The story about the healing of Naaman, who suffered from leprosy (2 Kings 5), was an example of this category. The fourth category was a miracle in which God employed natural means to such ends that these means, without God’s order, could never have been achieved. Harsdörffer’s example of this type of miracle was the Old Testament story about curing boils with a plaster of figs (Isaiah 38:21).48 Harsdörffer did not supply the correct solution for the riddle. The answer seems to depend on whether we focus on the means (fire) or on the effect (unburnt paper), and whether we focus on the behaviour of the fire or on the behaviour of the book/paper. Was it a miracle because the force of fire was made void and God implemented (for a short while) a new plan for nature, or was it a miracle because God somehow adjusted the course of nature to a particular necessity? Since Harsdörffer does not supply the correct answer and does not help the reader to solve the riddle,

Miracle 141 we have to consider the possibility that incombustible books fitted none of the categories. Would that mean that unburnt books were not miraculous at all? What then would that imply about the cessation of miracles? I discuss these questions below. Harsdörffer had a tendency to divide everything in four parts, as if the number four conveyed some form of harmony. In the introduction to his book, he introduced four types of virtue (Tugend), which he adopted from Plato: the virtues of purity, of respectability or civility (Ehrbarkeit), of the mind (Gemüt), and the exemplary virtue.49 The hundred tales in the second volume of his book were dedicated to the last virtue and were likewise divided in four parts; in each part, different pedagogical and rhetorical tools were introduced.50 The first tale in the volume, about praiseworthy alms, started with the assertion that four things in this world could be called strange.51 It is therefore not surprising that miracles, like strange things, consisted of four categories. This in itself might be mostly of aesthetic significance. What is important for Harsdörffer’s conception of miracles is the distinction between a supernatural event and different forms of cooperation between the immediate will of God and the regular course of nature. Stopping the motion of the sun, as it happened at Gibeon according to the book of Joshua, was so inconceivable, so contrary to or above nature (as miracles were often defined in the period), that it must have been the work of God alone. Other exceptional phenomena were difficult to explain, but not entirely inconceivable, in the sense that known natural forces and effects were involved. Therefore these wondrous phenomena could be understood as a form of less direct divine intervention in the regular course of nature; not a dispensation with natural laws altogether but an adjustment of existing natural phenomena. This distinction between miracles above or contrary to nature and miracles through nature was characteristic of the way contemporaries thought about miracles. It had its origins, like other aspects of the early modern understanding of miracles, in Thomas Aquinas’s conceptualisation of the topic. Aquinas treated the theme of miracles more than once and used different formulations to discuss the definition and meaning of miracles. In De potentia Dei, Aquinas suggested three types of miracles (miracula): deeds above (supra), contrary to (contra), and outside (praetor) nature. Miracles were above nature when nature in no way had the power to effect what God caused—for instance, giving life to dead bodies. Miracles were contrary to nature when a contrary disposition for the effect that God caused remained in nature, as when God preserved people in fire, with the power to burn remaining in the fire. Miracles were outside nature when God produced an effect that nature could also produce but did so in a different way. For instance, when God turned water into wine—nature could do it (the natural process of the growth of plants), but not in the same way as God.52 In the third book of Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas

142  Miracle suggested that the highest rank among miracles was held by works done by God that nature never could do. For example, that the sun reversed its course or stood still and that the sea opened up and offered a way by which people might pass. Even within this category, an order could be observed. The more events were removed from the capacity of nature the greater the miracle was, and thus it was more miraculous for the sun to reverse its course than for the sea to be divided. The second degree was held by events in which God did something that nature could do but not in the same order. To live, to see, to walk was natural. However, to live after death, to see after becoming blind, to walk after becoming ­paralysed—these could not be achieved by nature. Here too a gradation is evident, according to how far removed the event was from the capacity of nature. The third degree occurred when God caused what is usually done by the working of nature, as if apart from the operation of the principles of nature. For instance, a person may be cured by divine power from a fever that could be cured naturally.53 For Aquinas, it was not only a question of aspects but also of degrees; some miracles were simply greater than other miracles, even when they were of the same type.54 Aquinas’s three-tier ranking of miracles was adopted and expanded upon by a few theologians in the early modern period. It was adopted more or less word for word (from Summa contra gentiles) by Dannhauer in his treatise concerning miracles that was published just a year before Harsdörffer’s book. Dannhauer suggested that Aquinas’s different degrees should be reduced to two classes of miracles. First, negative miracles, that is, deeds inhibiting the course of nature. For example, the failure of fire to burn the three men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). Second, positive miracles, that is, deeds introducing new powers. For example, the healing of people by anointed oil (Mark 6).55 The observation that miracles often could be understood as either curtailment or enhancement (or change) of natural powers is no doubt relevant in reading biblical miracle stories, but at the same time, Dannhauer’s typology did not retain Aquinas’s degrees. Miraculous deeds were no longer perceived as more miraculous or less miraculous. The whole aspect of the effect of miracles on the beholder—the further from the regular course of nature a miracle appeared to be, the more miraculous it was—was not retained and miracles seemed to be, more strictly, a mere deviation from nature. Aquinas’s conception of diverse subversion of nature, without his gradation but with many more categories, was suggested in the work of the Halle Pietist theologian, Joachim Lange, Mosaisches Licht und Recht (1733). Lange discusses eight categories as a typology of the term miracle (Wunderwerck), but his detailed study of miracles proves to be less analytic and apparently not exhaustive (despite the high number of categories). The first category of divine intervention in the regular course of nature is the total suspension of all the effects of ordinary natural forces, as was demonstrated in the survival of the three men in the fiery furnace.

Miracle 143 The second category consists of natural means and forces that are raised above their own measures and effects, or forces that are supernaturally multiplied, as in the biblical stories wherein a small amount of food was sufficient to feed many people. The third category comprises effects that are achieved with only some portion of the means that are otherwise required for the regular natural process, as was demonstrated when Moses survived forty days on Mount Sinai without eating or drinking. The fourth category includes works of God in which the means are, so to speak, natural, but especially created for the specific end, such as when God supplied the Israelites in the desert with manna. In the fifth category, God alters the nature of things, such as the turning of water into blood or wine. The sixth category includes the extraordinary treatment— special blessing or punishment—of certain persons or whole places, such as when God sent the flood to annihilate everything on earth. The seventh category is of a different type, as Lange admits. It is simply a list of miraculous biblical phenomena, such as the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud in the story of the Exodus. The eighth category, somehow surprising, comprises occurrences “contrary to or wide above” the nature of things, such as when Balaam’s ass spoke (Numbers 22:28).56 These categories can be read as an introduction to miraculous phenomena in the Old and New Testaments, but can hardly be seen as a systematic analysis of the substance of miracles. Furthermore, Lange noted the existence of semi-miraculous phenomena, which he felt that he had to include in the chapter, yet he could not treat purely as miracles. He distinguished between miracles on the one side and special and exceptional providence (besondere und ausserordentliche Vorsorge Gottes) on the other side, wherein the latter came close to miracles but not quite. Under the banner of special and exceptional divine providence, Lange placed the biblical stories about the meeting between Eliezer and Rebecca as well as that between Rachel and Jacob. Likewise, Lange regarded the remarkable perseverance of the Christian martyrs and their ability to suffer pain as such an almost-but-not-quite miracle. Because of the martyrs, Lange concluded, God’s Church has never, even in the post-apostolic time, lacked “wonders and miracles” (Wundern und Wunderthäten), especially, Lange added ironically, under the Catholics, among which all kinds of fraud and deception were counted as miracle.57 In theorising about miracles, it felt essential to locate the exact substance, moment, or aspect in which what happened was not natural. Dannhauer thought that it was enough to differentiate between negative and positive intervention. Lange distinguished between all the ways in which God’s will interacted with nature. Harsdörffer suggested works beyond the capacity of nature and three different types of miracles through nature. No matter which system it was, the need for typology is clear. The question is therefore how this typology reflects on unburnt books. Now, it is possible to relate incombustible books to the typology

144  Miracle of Dannhauer. The failure of the fire to burn books fits nicely with the category of negative miracles in which God inhibits nature. Also in Lange’s typology unburnt books might find their place, most fittingly in the first category that comprises total suspension of the regular course of nature, exemplified in the preservation of the three men (obviously, an example that was used by others to relate to the preservation of Arndt’s book in the oven). However, the main point of the discussion should be different: the typology of miracles adopted by Harsdörffer, Dannhauer, Lange, and other theoreticians of the period was developed to deal with biblical stories and not with post-biblical miracles. The theoretical literature described, analysed, and categorised biblical miraculous stories, but it had almost nothing to say about post-apostolic or contemporary miracles. Theoreticians assumed that descriptions of exceptional events and marvellous phenomena in Scripture necessarily portrayed works of God and these had to fit into this or that category of miracles, but when Harsdörffer asked his readers to analyse the theoretical status of the preservation of Arndt’s book in fire without supplying his readers with an answer, perhaps he was indirectly admitting that unburnt books were not miracles of the same order as biblical miracles. Despite the similarities, it is unclear whether Harsdörffer would claim that incombustible books were of the same degree as the preservation in fire of the three men in the biblical story. One particular biblical story is interesting here. Harsdörffer suggested the station of the sun at Gibeon as an example of miracles done alone by God. That the sun at Gibeon stood still until the Israelites won the war was indeed often highlighted as the archetype of works above or contrary to nature. One example of the special treatment of this miracle demands a digression from the topic, but this digression will bring us directly back to the question of incombustible books. The celebrated religious self-exploration Religio medici was composed by the English physician Thomas Browne sometime in the 1630s. The book was published without the author’s knowledge in 1643 and again, the following year, this time with Browne’s permission and after he corrected the text. In this honest and individual exploration of religion, Browne discusses nature as the second “book” (the first being Scripture) from which he derived his faith. According to Browne, the ordinary effect of nature wrought more admiration in the heathens than miracles did in the Israelites; the natural motion of the sun made the heathens admire God more than the supernatural station of the sun affected the Israelites. Rather than exceptional events (such as the miracle at Gibeon), a major source of Browne’s religion was the “setled and constant course” of nature, which the wisdom of God had ordained. This settled course of nature was seldom altered or perverted by God. Like “an excellent Artist” who had “so contrived his worke,” God could effect change in nature with the “selfe same instrument” (the original created nature),

Miracle 145 without a new creation. Thus, God sweetened the water with a wood (the miracle at Marah, Exodus 15:22–27) and preserved the creatures in Noah’s Ark. God was like a skilful geometrician, who could “with one stroke of his Compasse” divide a straight line, but nevertheless did it in “a circle or longer way, according to the constituted and forelaid principles of his art.” However, Browne added, God sometimes perverted this rule (and performed evident miracles, such as stopping the motion of the sun), “to acquaint the world with his prerogative, lest the arrogancy of our reason should question his power, and conclude he could not.”58 Browne’s ideas about the course of nature and when this course is perverted are not entirely clear, but it seems that he meant that “the rule” (which God sometimes perverts) was a method of creation, namely the creation of a mechanism, which in its design and its own power could affect “the obscurest” things. Nature was an instrument that followed the rule inscribed in it by the creator, even when its course seemed irregular— for instance, when Moses sweetened the undrinkable water at Marah and made the water good for drinking by throwing a piece of wood into the water. This was, properly speaking, not a miracle, since the capacity for changing the quality of the water was inscribed in this piece of wood through God’s work of creation. This rule of nature was occasionally overturned in order to show the true extent of the power of God. Browne did not explain how this digression from the rule manifested itself, but it seems that he thought about evidently supernatural miracles, that is, direct interventions in the creation, like the “supernatural station” of the sun at Gibeon. Browne seems to have considered many biblical stories that indicated supernatural events to be descriptions of the divine mechanism that was capable of inexplicable changes in nature as part of its regularity. In a way, Browne’s perception was not far from Harsdörffer’s distinction between category one and the other three. What then would Browne say about unburnt books? Browne explicitly declared that he believed in the biblical and early Church miracles. As to the thesis that miracles ceased after that period, Browne “could neither prove nor absolutely deny, much less define, the time and period of their cessation.”59 Otherwise, Browne did not consider contemporary miracles. Would he consider unburnt books to be part of the settled and constant course of nature, a change in nature effected by the same instrument, or an effect “against or above” nature? This is a purely hypothetical question, yet still relevant, since incombustible books, more precisely the preservation of Arndt’s book in fire in 1624, was mentioned in an annotation to a Latin translation of Browne’s book that was published in Strasbourg in 1652. In this annotated edition of Religio medici, a note was attached to Browne’s suggestion that God sometimes perverts (negligere et evertere in the Latin version) his rule (artis suae rationem). The annotator, Levin Nicolaus von Moltke (Moltkenius), stated that all works of God were

146  Miracle miracles (miracula) and therefore it was silly to expect new miracles continuously. But, Moltke explained—repeating Browne’s argument—lest someone think that human affairs rather than God’s will determined the course of things, divine providence sometimes challenged this reasoning by performing supernatural miracles. Unlike Browne, Moltke was unequivocal about present-day miracles and he exemplified his argument with the incombustible Arndt. A book written by Arndt, Moltke wrote, was thrown into the fire by a Catholic zealot and remained there uninjured for an hour. You might conceive this to be unremarkable, he noted, seeing that fire only slowly burns firmly bound paper. Yet, the soundness of the book and the long duration of time it took Vulcan (the God of fire) to consume the book—Moltke actually used the term to consecrate, as if the trial of fire consecrated the book—are both evidence of divine providence.60 Moltke’s annotation is somewhat peculiar. The miracle story about Arndt’s book appeared as an answer to a question posed by Moltke: what signs predict the death of great princes? This question followed a similar one: what signs precede the destruction of or change in great empires? Perhaps he meant that the survival of the book was a sign of the coming death of the lieutenant who threw the book into the oven. Moltke further stated that he preferred not to substantiate his argument by miracles from the time of the early Church. Instead, he supplied the readers with references to stories about successful cases of trial-by-fire among the early Germanic nations, which he regarded as evident miracles. Moltke seemingly regarded the preservation of Arndt’s book as a legitimate and successful trial-by-fire in which divine intervention proved the “innocence” of Arndt and likewise signalled the coming punishment of the zealot who dared throw Arndt’s book into the fire. So what type of miracle was an incombustible book? Moltke seems to have regarded Arndt’s unburnt book as an example of evident miracles for which the archetype probably was the station of the sun. Moltke used this example to demonstrate Browne’s principle that sometimes God perverted the course of nature. But then again, Moltke clearly did not conceive of the unburnt book as an evident supernatural event. Since fire only slowly burns firmly bound papers, it was not remarkable that sometimes books did not burn to ashes. The miracle was, therefore, in the circumstances, not in the total negation of the regular course of nature. Incombustible books seem to testify to a more indirect divine intervention through the design or mechanism of nature itself. Would Harsdörffer agree to this observation? This is difficult to answer. The safest thing to say about Harsdörffer’s riddle is that by using a riddle without a clear solution, Harsdörffer signalled ambivalence. Yes, unburnt books were miraculous, possibly belonging to the first category (incombustibility of combustible material was often regarded as contrary to nature), possibly belonging to one of the other categories (as Moltke

Miracle 147 would probably have it), but Harsdörffer would not commit his admiration for the preservation of books in fire to a conceptual and theoretical examination. He thought that it was a miracle, and he meant that it signalled something about Arndt, yet he avoided dealing with the complex implications of defining something as a miracle. Could it be that his caution was because of the Lutheran theory of the cessation of miracles? Lutherans and Miracles Unburnt books figured in one theological treatise on miracles. The book was not a theory of miracles but a polemical work, and unburnt books were only briefly mentioned in it. Nevertheless, unburnt Lutheran books in this text have such a clear function that it enables us to ask a few questions regarding the link between miracles, Lutheran miracles, and unburnt books. In 1679 theology professor at Kiel University, Christian Kortholt, published a work on thaumatography (Thaumatographia), or more precisely, on miracles. Kortholt recounted a genuine, documented, contemporary miracle, and suggested how the miracle should be employed in controversy, first with atheists and second with the Catholics. The miracle that Kortholt was convinced was a true miracle was not an incombustible book, but the survival of books in fire did appear in Kortholt’s polemics. What happened in Hamburg in 1666 was quite well known in the town and was also narrated and published by the main protagonist of the story, yet Kortholt claimed that the story was not sufficiently acknowledged, so he narrated the whole episode in detail. Jürgen Frese, a cheese merchant from Hamburg and a religious enthusiast, was arrested for using offensive words in reference to a priest. In the detention cell, he met an unnamed “melancholic” man who had lost his faith in salvation. The man confided in Frese that only “signs and wonders” (Zeichen und Wunder) might change his mind and make him believe in salvation again. Frese, therefore, performed a trial-by-fire in order to convince the disillusioned believer. He first took a handful of glowing coals from the fireplace and showed his unharmed hand to the man. When the man was still unpersuaded, Frese pulled a large iron ring—which he had previously put in the fire—out of the fire. He held the glowing ring and showed the unbelieving man that his hand was still unaffected. At this point, five individuals entered the room—all testified to the miracle later. To make sure that the story was authentic and a true miracle, Kortholt approached Jürgen Frese in Hamburg and interviewed him as well as the witnesses. He also inspected the place in which the miracle took place, and investigated the iron ring and, indeed, got permission to take the ring with him back to Kiel.61 For Kortholt, this story was the perfect, final argument against atheism. Like many of his generation, Kortholt was concerned with the

148  Miracle growing diffusion of atheist thinking and behaviour arriving in Germany from the Catholic lands, especially France. What Kortholt (as well as other polemicists) understood by atheism was not modern atheism—the rejection of the existence of any deity—but a collection of ideas that contradicted Christian belief and a way of life that defied Christian conduct. Anti-atheist polemics flourished by the late seventeenth century on a European scale, and in this type of literature, the question of atheist repudiation of the notion of miracles, or more specifically of the function of miracles as valid proofs of religious arguments, was central. In his treatise, Kortholt suggests that a central tenet for those called atheists is that nothing in the universe is beyond nature. For the atheist, nothing is more difficult to admit than that nature is not always regular. Therefore, atheists insist that miracles have never taken place and that no miracles were happening in the present. Miracles were fabricated stories, simply fables.62 To counter atheist scepticism, Kortholt employs a series of arguments, proving that the Old Testament miracle narratives about Moses and the prophets as well as the New Testament miracle narratives about Jesus and the Apostles were all authentic reports. Having “proved” that miracles did happen in the past, Kortholt arrives at the question of the cessation of miracles, or in the metaphorical, biblical formulation, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” (Numbers 11:23). His answer is that it is false to claim that no “supernatural” things are to be found in the present. Leaving aside other examples, he writes, it is sufficient to recall what happened with Johann Arndt’s book some fifty years earlier. And to impress on the atheist the reality of the miracle, Kortholt narrates the stories of the preservation of the book in Langgöns in 1624 and in Kreutzendorff in 1645 with great detail and adds two reports about other unburnt books: the first is Johann Spangenberg’s postil that survived fire near Breslau, and the other is Joachim Lütkemann’s collection of sermons that survived fire in Rostock.63 Four incombustible books were supposed to be sufficient evidence that the Lord’s hand had not waxed short. If, nevertheless, the atheist was still doubtful and asked for contemporary evidence, not old stories—the reports about the survival of the books were twenty to fifty years old at the time Kortholt was writing—then Kortholt had the final and conclusive argument: a supernatural event, a miracle, happened in Hamburg only a few years earlier, namely, Jürgen Frese held a glowing iron ring in his hand and the hand remained unharmed. To prove that only a miracle of God could affect such a result, Kortholt explores hypothetical natural explanations, which he obviously rejects. Kortholt’s counterarguments are not important here; what is important is Kortholt’s suggestion that the successful trial-by-fire in Hamburg was a true supernatural event that successfully countered atheist criticism of the Christian notion of miracles.64 When the atheist conception of miracles was thus proven erroneous, Kortholt turns to the Catholic perception of miracles. To limit discussion

Miracle 149 to the necessary, Kortholt would not go into the question of whether miracles were a necessary condition for the true church and doctrine. He would only discuss whether miracles were a sufficient condition for the true church and doctrine. His hypothesis is therefore the following syllogism: a church in which miracles and wonders take place is a true church of God, where the true, saving teachings are found; miracles and wonders do happen in the Protestant Churches; therefore, the Protestant Churches are true churches of God. To prove the validity of the hypothesis Kortholt only needed one authentic contemporary miracle, which was at the same time also a Lutheran miracle. This miracle was the story about Jürgen Frese and the trial-by-fire that he performed in the presence of five witnesses in Hamburg.65 Interestingly, Kortholt excluded incombustible books from his controversy with the Catholics. They are simply not mentioned. The reason might be that he only needed one miracle to prove his point. Still, it is interesting that he chose a miracle that was only locally known and was performed by a man whose orthodoxy had to be proven—since Frese was regarded as an “enthusiast” at the time, was he truly Lutheran?— instead of a well-published, recurring miracle that was associated with different leading Lutheran authors, such as Johann Arndt, Johann Spangenberg, and Joachim Lütkemann. Moreover, just as the absence of incombustible books from the polemics with the Catholics is significant, the employment of incombustible books in the polemics with the atheists is significant. It demonstrates the importance that some contemporaries attributed to incombustible books as performative objects capable of influencing those who encountered them, rather than mere oddities or marvellous objects, the interest of which lay in their history and their irregular form. There are, in fact, indications that unburnt books were considered also by others to be effective in turning the minds of atheists back to a true faith in God. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, polemicists often suggested miracles as an argument against the doubts of atheists. As Hans-Martin Barth showed, they usually employed biblical miracles, but pagan miracles were employed too. A  few authors broadened the scope of miracles to include unconventional miracles. Kortholt’s employment of a contemporary Lutheran miracle seems, however, exceptional in this context.66 However, some of those engaged with unburnt books (not among theologians as such), attributed to incombustible books the potential to impact doubters and rejecters of Christianity. The idea that unburnt books proved the atheist wrong was expressed in 1711 by the Nordhausen priest Johann Joachim Meier in his historical dissertation about books and libraries that were consumed by fire. Meier reported a few cases of incombustible books, including the survival of a Bible in the terrible fire that consumed a large part of Nordhausen a year earlier, and concluded by expressing the hope that those who, either by weakness of

150  Miracle the intellect or wickedness of the times, tended to atheism and doubted God’s providence would recover a healthier state of mind upon seeing the unburnt Bible (in Nordhausen) and by holding it in their hands.67 Similarly, the same potential to convince atheists out of their disbelief was attributed to a Paradiesgärtlein that remained undamaged in a fire in 1733. As was mentioned earlier, Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who strongly rejected any divine involvement in incombustible books, discussed a certain unburnt Paradiesgärtlein and mentioned a preacher who believed that the news about the preservation of the book might help in the conversion of atheists and freethinkers.68 Finally, Gottfried Tentzel, in the very last entry in his collection, approvingly mentioned Kortholt’s employment of stories about miraculous incombustibility to combat atheism and doubt.69 It might seem unlikely, but the idea that the acknowledgement of miracles and, even better, engagement with miracles could turn the sceptics towards true belief, was perhaps not entirely unfounded. Admittedly, it would not make an impression on a critic like Spinoza. In his Tractatus theologico-politicus (published anonymously in 1670), Benedict Spinoza fully rejected the notion of miracles. Spinoza understood the common use of the concept of miracles to be completely erroneous. Common people, he argued, believed that miracles were events wherein nature deviated from her regular course, or in other words, these events were supernatural occurrences. This was nonsense, according to Spinoza, because “the virtue of nature is the very virtue and power of God, and the laws and rules of Nature are God’s very decrees, there can be no doubt that Nature’s power is infinite, and her laws sufficiently wide to extend to everything that is conceived even by the divine intellect.” There was, so to speak, nothing outside, above, or contrary to nature. Therefore, the only way to understand miracles was with respect to men’s beliefs. The meaning of “miracle” was simply “an event whose natural cause we—or at any rate the writer or narrator of the miracle—cannot explain by comparison with any other normal event.” Miracles were, for Spinoza, the result of the erroneous perception of ignorant men.70 Spinoza’s rejection of the ontology of miracles was answered in the literature about miracles, not only by narrating stories about the supernatural but also by employing conceptual arguments.71 However, it is unlikely that a special, emotional engagement with an unburnt book would have changed Spinoza’s view. Yet, Spinoza’s rejection of miracles was not typical of the criticism voiced by the sceptics of that time, especially the English deists. As Winfried Schröder showed, despite his great influence and attraction, Spinoza’s categorical rejection of miracles was not taken up by other sceptical thinkers. For the most part, the criticism of miracles belonged to the specific controversy about biblical miracles. Even when polemicists argued in principle against miracles, they did not necessarily suggest that miracles were contradictory to the notion of natural laws. In agreement

Miracle 151 with the conclusions of Robert M. Burns in his study of the debate on miracles in Britain in the eighteenth century, Schröder argues that rather than relating to the ontology of miracles, the most frequent arguments against miracles revolved around their relation to religion, their divine origins, and their use as evidence. The disagreement between supporters of miracles and (most) of the sceptics centred on the authority of miracles, not their physical possibility.72 Schröder identified three typical and central arguments. The first is that a process or event in the physical world (even when exceptional or inconceivable) can neither be proof of a doctrine that has no logical association with it, nor can it indicate the reliability of the founders of religions. The second is the ubiquity of miracles: all religions prove their exclusive truth by referring to miracles, which is, logically, impossible. The last is that reports about miracles are not reliable. Testimony about miracles is always suspect, either because of the small number of witnesses or because of the testimony’s bias, being always partial.73 If the debate about miracles was not about the possibility of events in the physical world that could not be explained by the natural laws but about the authority of miracles, perhaps it made sense to use a variety of miracles, and indeed contemporary miracles, to enhance (if not directly prove) the credibility of religion. If the sceptical mind (atheist, deist, or otherwise) was not, primarily, rebelling against the ontology of miracles but against their function in debates, then a more comprehensive argumentation, better documented, and not exclusively based on biblical narratives, could have made a difference. If this is the case, why were reports about miraculous events that took place among Protestants so uncommon in the polemical literature? The explanation might be that most Protestants held that miracles ceased in the post-apostolic age and therefore their argument was limited to biblical and ancient pagan miracles. Apparently, Kortholt disagreed. By accepting the Catholics’ assumption that miracles proved true doctrine (whether as necessary or as sufficient condition), Kortholt (in practice) accepted the continuity of miracles and the presence of miracles among Lutherans. Kortholt did not mention the theory of cessation. He ignored the topic. However, nothing indicates that he saw his use of contemporary Lutheran miracles as problematic. For him, the gift of miracles was not confined in time; miracles happened for and among Lutherans and the Lutheran doctrine and churches were confirmed by miracles. Proper Miracles In his 1721 work on the fires that hit Saxony, Carl Gottfried Engelschall deliberated on the meaning of unburnt books. Engelschall endorsed the theoretical cessation of miracles, but insisted emphatically on the practical possibility of miracles. We do not want to deny, Engelschall writes,

152  Miracle that every now and then it happens by chance that a book, if covered with something that the fire cannot easily burn, survives fire, and one should examine all the circumstances before one declares an event miraculous. Nevertheless, Engelschall continued, since God is the Lord and He alone makes miracles, it would not be inconsistent if we affirm that God made a miracle in order to demonstrate his omnipotence, to honour his sacred Word and to drive the people to praying. Even if we admit that the Church, which was planted and confirmed by so many miracles, needed no more miracles, and if it was true that for the confirmation of the faith no miracles should be expected, nevertheless, God has not surrendered his omnipotence. It is, he concluded, not against the teaching and rules of salvation to claim that God acts now in matters that do not concern faith as a miracle making God.74 Engelschall’s suggestion sounds like quite a digression from the conventional theory of cessation. Being aware of it, Engelschall added that since this doctrine, namely that God nowadays makes miracles but not in order to confirm the faith, was much abused by the “Fanatics”—here possibly meaning the Pietists—then he preferred to be on the side of those who regarded unburnt books as “wondrous occurrences” (Wundernswürdige Begebenheiten) in which the hand of God was involved rather than calling unburnt books “miracles” (Wunder-Wercke). A year after Engelschall downgraded unburnt books from “miraculous” to the less controversial “wondrous,” Gottfried Tentzel upgraded what was generally regarded as the miracle of unburnt books to a theoretically founded and proven supernatural “miracle.” Tentzel concluded his collection of narratives about incombustible books and pictures (the first, practically unknown, edition, 1722; and second enlarged edition, 1723) with a few theoretical and polemical comments. He stated the opinion of Theodor Crusius that, nowadays, having the bright light of the Gospel, miracles were not necessary, and retorted that nevertheless it did not mean that God’s hand had waxed so short that God was not able to perform miracles. The miracles that were recorded in his book satisfied, according to Tentzel, the five requirements that the Lutheran theologian Johann Andreas Schmid formulated in his discussion of miracles, and thus were properly founded and proven miracles. Tentzel quoted both the definition and the detailed requirements for a thing or event to be a miracle from a short discussion about miracles that appeared in a theological dissertation by Schmid in 1709. A  miracle was “an irregular, supernatural work of God, inconsistent with the potency of nature, either non-mediated or by means of an agent, occurring in the senses, and confirming the divine truth” (opus Dei sive immediate, sive mediate agentis, supernaturale, et naturae impossibile, quod in sensus praetor solitum incidit et veritatem divinam confirmat). To be a miracle, Schmid continued, an event had to: (1) be evidently proceeding from God; (2) be supernatural and impossible for human beings; (3) be perceived by the

Miracle 153 senses; (4) be rare and distinct from usual events; and (5) confirm the divine truth and not run contrary to it. According to Tentzel, the preservation of books in fire fulfilled these requirements.75 Both Engelschall and Tentzel relied in their evaluation of unburnt books on Lutheran theological Literature. For Engelschall it enabled (though uncomfortably) remaining within the paradigm of cessation theory; for Tentzel it meant an implicit break with the theory of cessation of miracles. In a footnote to his text, Engelschall referred the reader to Johann Conrad Dannhauer’s distinction between miracle (miraculum) and marvellous things (re mira). Dannhauer attempted in his 1664 treatise, Theia thearchiae, a systematic approach to the marvellous, out of the ordinary and divine providence (divinae providentiae extra ordinem mira) as he formulated it in the subtitle. At the beginning of his text, Dannhauer described singular, marvellous, mysterious events that were brought forth directly (without mediation) by God as “offspring of God,” referring to Acts 17:29: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” According to Dannhauer, all of God’s works indeed were divine—“offspring of God”—nonetheless, not all of the divine works were mirabilia, that is, extraordinary occurrences that evoked admiration. Only the unusual intervention of the divine, such as when water was turned into wine at the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1–11), were mirabilia; regular works of God, such as the yearly turning of water (rain) into grapes, were simply divine works, not mirabilia.76 In particular, works of divine providence (here meaning special and extraordinary divine providence) were manifestations of mirabilia: extraordinary, rare, unexpected, marvellous things worked through divine, not human, intention, (at the time) unperceived and unacknowledged by human beings, and intended to protect and help believers or to punish unbelievers.77 Now, this category of mirabilia or divine providence was, according to Dannhauer, not identical with the category of proper miracles. Whereas miracles had to be evident, perceived by the senses, above the power of nature (as well as angels), and made by God, mirabilia were not necessarily evident and not necessarily above nature.78 Mirabilia was a common category under which to place events that were not entirely regular yet not quite miraculous. Johannes Olearius, who was one of the main sources of Dannhauer’s discussion of mirabilia, distinguished between miracles (Wunderwerck) and wondrous things (wunderliche Ding). Miracles were works of God alone, were outside the regular course of nature, and were directed at God’s glory, confirming the saving truth and occurring for the edification of the orthodox (rechtgläubig) Church. Wondrous things appeared to the mind as marvellous and rare, even if they happened routinely in many places.79 Likewise, Schmid, the source of Tentzel’s definition of miracles, emphasised that both the scholastic and Lutheran theologians were in the habit of distinguishing

154  Miracle between miracula and mirabilia.80 The origin of this distinction is in the high middle ages, when theologians started to think about miracles as, specifically, supernatural works of God and not more generally as marvellous, extraordinary events which belonged (in an essential but intricate way) to nature. In the work of Albertus Magnus, mirabilia emerged as a category clearly distinct from miracles (miracula).81 Mirabilia were, like miracles, rare and extraordinary, but whereas miracles were thought of as supernatural and by no means reducible to some known power of nature, mirabilia were understood to be only exceptional and mysterious but still reducible to the natural. Thus, mirabilia commonly retained the function of invoking wonder, admiration, or anxiety, indicating the special attention of God (providence), without relegating such phenomena to the realm of the supernatural. The term enabled theologians, as well as less theoretically inclined authors, to indicate God’s intervention in the earthly life of human beings—exceptional natural phenomena, exceptional coincidences, an economy of blessing and punishment—without committing to a theory of proper (supernatural) miracles. When Engelschall employed the two categories and opted for mirabilia as the best description of unburnt books, he consciously made a polemical move. Since some authors (the fanatics!) voiced the view that miracles, proper miracles, were taking place, Engelschall thought it wise to be cautious when dealing with unburnt books, that is, potentially miraculous events. To avoid adding an unnecessary value to miracles, he suggested treating unburnt books as merely wondrous occurrences, relying on the common distinction between miracula and mirabilia. As such, mirabilia figured very rarely in the discourse about unburnt books, but the term providence, a type of mirabilia, was popular, and it enabled signalling unburnt books as worthy of admiration, inviting recognition of the divine and reflection on what they could signify as to the book, author, community, or confession. Just as the separation of mirabilia and miracula was a product of medieval thinkers’ preoccupation with the relationship between regular nature and irregular phenomena, so was the definition of proper miracles a product of these thinkers’ attempt to achieve a more precise, more systematic, and more restricted definition of miraculous phenomena. Tentzel in his definition of proper miracles quoted Johann Andreas Schmid, who himself referred his readers to an only slightly different definition proposed earlier by Voetius.82 In fact, plenty of definitions of miracles were suggested in the theological and polemical literature of the time. There were differences, but for the most part Lutheran authors agreed that to qualify as a miracle, an event had to be exceptional, contrary to the regular course of nature, and evidently a work of God.83 Ultimately, the source of these definitions was Thomas Aquinas.84 The scholastic and later Lutheran tradition for defining proper miracles limited the scope of the phenomenon. In his discussion of the definition of

Miracle 155 miracles, Schmid distinguished between miracula and mirabilia, between miracles for us (miracula quoad nos) and simply miracles (miracula simpliciter talia), and between ambiguous miracles (miracula aequivoce) and proper miracles (miracula proprie dicta). He stressed that miracles were supernatural and inconsistent with nature. Combined, these two conditions meant that miracles fully opposed the entire order of nature. Some works of God were partially beyond, above, or contrary to nature, such as the upwards movement of water in a tube. Such phenomena were not called miracles. There might also be natural phenomena that seemed to take place beyond or above all corporeal or inferior nature, yet were not above universal nature and the force of all the secondary causes, for instance, walking through air or on water. Proper miracles, therefore, transgressed all the powers of nature, active or passive, in such a way that natural secondary causes could not effect, by some action, some inclination, or some reception. Such were the miracles of God and Christ, for example, dispensing with the burning force of fire, turning water into wine, or stopping the motion of the sun. Further, according to Schmid’s definition, a miracle was a work of God recognised by the senses, which was a way to distinguish miracles from immanent or internal divine acts. The latter obviously also included supernatural works of God, yet should not be confused with miracles. Likewise, as miracles comprised only irregular works of God, this excluded supernatural works of grace experienced by the senses, since these happened continuously.85 Despite these very strict conditions regarding the nature of true miracles, Tentzel, relying on Schmid’s complex notion of miracles, claimed that incombustible books—all the tens of episodes that he narrated in his book—satisfied the five requirements of proper miracles. What moved Tentzel to such a bold claim, which placed some scantily documented and mostly insignificant stories that were not truly rare (Tentzel collected tens of episodes from a relatively short period) and were not self-evidently works of God, on equal footing with biblical miracles? Tentzel was no great theoretician. His collection lacks any attempt to reflect on the narratives he collected. His small book also lacked an introduction and the author refrained from commenting on the narratives, which were often direct quotations from his sources. The last entries in the book, in which he reacts to the Burckhardt controversy and quotes from Schmid, seem like a forced justification in the face of criticism and controversy, not like the calculated, reflective conclusion to a well-conceived argument about the incombustibility of books. Being aware of the (by now) controversial notion of unburnt books as miracles (following the criticism voiced by Burckhard), possibly even facing direct criticism (in response to the first edition of his book?), Tentzel seems to have hastily added a kind of apology at the end of his list of miracles. Incombustible books were nevertheless miraculous, he argued, and he proved it by saying (not showing) that his reports fulfilled Schmid’s five requirements for an event to be a miracle.

156  Miracle Was Tentzel rejecting the Lutheran theory of the cessation of miracles? He rejected the idea that the gift of miracles was restricted in time, but he nowhere suggested that miracles were needed to prove the authenticity of doctrine. In fact, his collection was generically Christian rather than specifically Lutheran or Protestant. In this sense, he expressed the same view of contemporary miracles as Engelschall. Their assumption was that miracles still happened in their time, but they did not assume that contemporary miracles were supposed to confirm a certain doctrine. Tentzel, perhaps somewhat carelessly, insisted on calling unburnt books proper miracles. Engelschall was also in favour of this classification (and supposedly also the theoretical consequences), but for polemical reasons he preferred the broader and less controversial term mirabilia. The Miracle of Lutheranism The most elaborate defence of the notion of the preservation of books in fire as miracles—once again as a reaction to Burckhard’s criticism— appeared in 1733 as part of the introduction to a new double edition of Arndt and turned out to be quite popular. It was reprinted in a few subsequent editions of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum.86 The author of the defence was Christoph Heinrich Westphal from Schwerin. Pious Christians at all times, Westphal wrote, had impartially attempted to record events in which “the finger of God and his glory” were proven. It was therefore appropriate that the miracle stories about the preservation of Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein in fire and water had come to the attention of the public. In the manifold preservation of the book, the wisdom of God had set, so to speak, Arndt’s book above the elements of nature. Therefore, Westphal offered in his piece a new miracle story, this time about Arndt’s Wahre Christentum. Those believing in the “divine miracle-hand,” he suggested, would recognise the Lord’s finger in this story. Those who see everything as unintentional or natural would probably not recognise it, but that must be due to their lack of sound and Christian reflection.87 In the following, Westphal reproduced a report about the survival of Arndt’s Wahre Christentum in Schwerin in 1697, written by the owner of the book, Johann Schultz, who lost his entire collection of books, manuscripts, maps, medals, and mathematical instruments in the fire. Inside the unburnt book, Schultz added a long and rather emotional inscription (in Latin) in which the religious element was highlighted.88 For Westphal, this story proved that the elements of nature were “all too small and much too weak” when the creator dissolved the ordained course of nature and sought to perform a praiseworthy wonder (Wunder). It is, therefore, wrong and thoughtless to set God above the elements and accord to him, in principle, the power to dissolve the course of these elements, and yet to maintain that it was plainly natural or an insignificant event when Holy Scripture or another religious book remained

Miracle 157 undamaged in fire. Westphal could find no cause in either writings or reason for not according high respect for the wondrous and supernatural preservation of Arndt’s books and the clear presence of God’s finger. The Wahre Christentum that was preserved in 1697 survived alone among plenty (in fact, 500) books, which all burned to ashes. So why not hold a book that survived by the hand of God in high esteem?89 Westphal stated that almost all of the scholars who held unburnt books as nothing relied on the weak and incorrect judgement of Burckhard. For Burckhard the belief in the incombustible Arndt was childish, a thing to which learned men do not pay heed, yet Burckhard, according to Westphal, still owed the reader some proof that abominable books also survived fire in the past, as Burckhard claimed. Further, he argued against Burckhard by claiming that it might happen that two very different things could have the same fortune. It might be that here (in relation to religious books) grace (Gnade) and there (in relation to abominable books) disgrace (Schande) produced the same effect.90 Similar to Engelschall, Crusius, and many others, Westphal emphasised that the clear Word of God needed no wonder, the doctrine of salvation was evident, and, therefore, no one should await further signs. But that did not mean that the hand of God was tied so that miracles could no longer occur. For who would search the unfathomable depths of the hidden wisdom of the kingdom of God? Westphal reminded the reader that the biblical story about the three men who survived unharmed in the fiery furnace was regarded as a true miracle, for we know (by the sense of touch) that fire consumes the human body and that thousands of martyrs were burned at the stake. So why should the survival of “an unburnt piece of paper, one unburnt miserable volume, one unburnt poor book” be regarded as natural or of no significance?91 Finally, after narrating how the finger of God was, once again, involved in preserving the unburnt Wahre Christentum in Schwerin, this time when the book was given to a bookbinder in order to have a new book cover made, Westphal suggested that whoever wanted to judge the matter as a reasonable man, must, at the very least, have humility and understanding and delay his judgement in these extraordinary and supernatural wonders (Wunder-Fällen) before he, out of prejudice and the presumed capacity of a scholar, dismissed the case.92 Essentially, Westphal’s argument was based on common sense: it was not reasonable to assume that the unusual preservation of books in fire was accidental and could be explained by natural circumstances. Thus, his argument was a proper reply—though longer and more ­argumentative— to Burckhard’s common sense rejection of the admiration accorded to Arndt’s unburnt books. However, Westphal also referred the reader to the theoretical literature that, according to him, supported the view that unburnt books were a wonder and that the hand of God was involved in their preservation.93 In his defence of the miraculous, Westphal did not

158  Miracle rely, as Tentzel did, on a specific definition of miracles, rather he relied on the Lutheran conventional perception of Luther’s Reformation and the main creedal texts of the Lutherans as extraordinary works of God. The topic was nicely summarised by Georg Heinrich Götze, the first author on Westphal’s reference list. In 1717, the second centenary of the Reformation, Götze published a book entitled Miracula catechismi Lutheri, wherein he suggested that just as the Augsburg Confession (1530) was the work of God’s finger and the Book of Concord (1580) was a miracle, so should one regard Luther’s small catechism (Der Kleine Katechismus, 1529) as a book of wonders (Wunder-Buch). The idea that the Augsburg Confession was a miracle or the result of divine intervention was expressed by the theologian Johannes Saubert in his Miracula Augustanae Confessionis (1631), which was also a book on Westphal’s reference list. The idea that Book of Concord was miraculous was voiced, according to Götze, by the theologian Martin Chemnitz, who said that at the time of its publishing the book was such a miracle (miraculum) that it was hard to believe that it ever happened.94 Of course, the term miracle in Götze’s treatise on Luther’s catechism as well as the term miracle in Saubert’s book on the Augsburg Confession and the use of the term miracle by Chemnitz when referring to Book of Concord is misleading. None seem to have actually meant that any of it was a miracle in the sense of being evidently supernatural or somehow not in agreement with the regular course of nature. The employment of the term was metaphorical. Götze’s use of the term Wunder-Buch was inspired by the verse in Psalms 111:4 “Er hat ein Gedächtniss gestifftet seiner Wunder” (He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered). These wonders were presented in the Bible as a kind of cabinet of rarities, and just as the law (the Bible) was miraculous in the sense of revealing the true word of God, so was Luther’s catechism—being a summary of the Bible—a Wunder-Buch, revealing the true word of God.95 Götze quoted the Lutheran theologian from Rostock, Paul Tarnow (Tarnovius), saying that Luther’s catechism should be called a miracle for being as valuable to the Church as grammar was to the schools. Clearly, this use of the term miracle was metaphorical.96 The whole idea was that the Reformation was so successful, so surprisingly and against all odds successful, that it must have been divinely ordained and thus marvellous. It was, however, not a proper miracle. Götze himself was cautious in his definition of extraordinary events, such as the survival of books in fire. In the third edition of his short treatise Todten Bibliothec (1707), he reported the case of a preacher from Ulm who had died and was put in the grave together with his much loved and much used Paradiesgärtlein. This episode prompted Götze to add three reports about the preservation of Arndt’s prayer book in fire. These reports reminded Götze about the story about the preservation of Philipp Jakob Spener’s catechism in fire in Arnsdorf in 1689. The book—clean

Miracle 159 and almost undamaged—“flew” out of a house and hit one of those attempting to put out the fire in the chest. The memory of this preservation made Götze—unexpectedly and somehow unnecessarily—add that he did not regard these reports as wonders (Wunder), so long as some of the circumstances of the events were unknown to him, yet he nevertheless would not reject these events as meaningless. His view was that by such examples, God demonstrated that he was able to snatch his Word from the fire and save it, even when some other books had to be destroyed.97 While Götze was cautious when talking about wonders in relation to unburnt books, and while the use of the term miracle in relation to the success of the Reformation was primarily metaphorical, these were precisely the “miracles”—Luther’s Reformation and the textual representations of this reformation—suggested in Lutheran-Catholic polemics as proof of Lutheran miracles. Westphal referred the reader to the article in Johann Gerhard’s Loci theologici, where Gerhard, as discussed earlier, had developed the notion that Luther’s Reformation was a kind of miracle, though even Johann Gerhard regarded it as a “spiritual miracle” and qualified the term by saying that the Reformation was a miracle or “the next closest thing” to a miracle (see above). For Gerhard, the miracle of the Reformation vindicated Lutheranism against unfavourable Roman Catholic judgement. For Götze, Saubert, and other similar authors, the miraculous perspective enhanced the story of the Reformation and the history of the Lutheran Church. What did Westphal mean by employing the term? Westphal cited literature about the miracle of Lutheranism to support his claim that the hand of God had not waxed short, that is, that miracles were still taking place, even though their function was not to confirm faith or truth. However, Westphal’s claim was fundamentally different from those of Götze, Saubert, Chemnitz, Gerhard, and others. He claimed that God still performed miracles as works contrary to or above nature, not “spiritual” or metaphorical miracles. The preservation of books in fire was for him a visible and evident intervention of God on earth. Westphal did not insist on calling unburnt books miracles because his position as a Lutheran controversialist gained something by it. He insisted on miracles because he believed that the regular course of nature was not a good explanation for some phenomena, such as unburnt books. For Westphal, the cessation of miracles did not mean that God could not perform miracles, only that miracles were no longer necessary to confirm the faith. A Moderate Notion of Miracles One of the contributors to the article on Arndt published by Hessisches Heb-Opfer in 1740 was Christian Hecht, a priest in Laubach (east of Giessen) and a regular contributor to the periodical.98 Hecht unearthed the evidence, originally recorded inside the unburnt book, that suggested

160  Miracle that two leading Giessen theologians rejected the notion of miracles and that the book was put to a kind of scientific trial-by-fire. The intention of the whole piece about Arndt was to disprove the idea that the story about the preservation of Arndt’s prayer book in 1624 was untrue, an opinion that was voiced by some “Thomas-Brüder” (some Thomists?) shortly before the publication of the article in Hessisches Heb-Opfer.99 The term miracle was not directly employed by Hecht or by the other contributors to the article, yet Hecht’s view on the question of miracles was expressed in 1736 in an article he wrote on the question of the miracles of King David. Further examination of this article would illustrate Hecht’s theory of miracles and possibly suggest Hecht’s view on incombustible books. Hecht’s piece from 1736 deliberates on whether Jesus was the only person from the tribe of Judea who performed miracles. Hecht’s unusual question was a reaction to a text that he had read a few years earlier, in which the Pietist writer Karl Hildebrand Canstein wondered about the fact that no miracle maker, apart from Jesus, came from the tribe of Judea. Canstein concluded that this was the case in order to avoid having anyone from this tribe—from which the Jewish Messiah was intended to come—appear as a messiah, apart, of course, from Jesus.100 For Hecht, Canstein’s surprise was misplaced, not only because Jesus had never performed miracles as a representative of the tribe of Judea but also because there was at least one Judean who did perform miracles, namely David, such as in his astonishing victory over Goliath.101 To establish his argument, Hecht turned to a proper definition of the term miracle, a definition according to which David’s victory was miraculous rather than merely heroic. Hecht employed the definition that the Halle Theologian Joachim Lange employed in his discussion of miracles in Mosaisches Licht und Recht (1733). According to Lange, a miracle (Wunderwerck) was “such an extraordinary act, which partly because of its supernatural nature and partly because of its essential properties and its purpose, belongs to no creature, neither angel nor human being, but rather to God alone, and is carried out directly or indirectly by him” (Eine solche ausserordentliche Handlung, welche theils ihrer übernatürlichen Beschaffenheit, theils ihrer wesentlichen Eigenschaften und ihres Zwecks wegen, keiner Creatur, und also weder Engeln, noch Menschen, sondern allein Gott zukommt, und von ihm mittelbar, oder unmittelbar, verrichtet wird).102 Lange supplied this definition with a few conditions, the most interesting of which was that a miracle must surpass the natural capacity of human beings and other creatures, as much as this natural capacity was known from human experience of the natural world. Since this knowledge is not complete and therefore the supernatural cannot be estimated with absolute certainty, a miracle must also be demonstrated by the nature of the act in question. Some acts, such as the revival of the dead,

Miracle 161 are evidently supernatural and can only be performed by God, either directly or indirectly. However, miracles are also recognisable by their purpose. Extraordinary acts that are directed at the salvation of men and are performed without fraud, although not supernatural by absolute measure, can only be accomplished by God and hence are true miracles. The acknowledgement that humanity’s incomplete knowledge of the natural world limits human capacity to judge what was natural and what was beyond the power of nature, forces Lange to extend his conception of miracles. Except from evident supernatural events (revival of the dead, making the blind see), Lange viewed extraordinary seemingly supernatural events as miracles. It depended on the nature of the event, its circumstances, and its purpose. Thus, the typical mark of a miracle was being extraordinary, rather than being evidently supernatural, and being edifying in some sense, that is, having a religious purpose.103 Although the theoretical and theological literature about miracles suggested many definitions (a couple of them were presented earlier), Hecht only employed Lange’s definition and did not discuss any discrepancies between Lange’s and earlier definitions. In a footnote, Hecht referred the reader to another definition. In his introduction to Vertheidigung der Wunder-Wercke des Herrn Jesu wider Woolston (Halle, 1732), a German translation of Zachary Pearce’s The Miracles of Jesus Vindicated (London, 1729?), the Dresden theologian Valentin Ernst Löscher briefly presented a few erroneous definitions of miracle (employed by the English deists and other sceptics104) and then suggested his own, correct, definition. Löscher asserted that three different concepts were found in the New Testament and employed by the Greek Church Fathers: sign (Zeichen), portent (portentum, Wunder), and miracle (Wunderwerck). A sign attracts the attention of people and signals for the soul that there is something significant at work. A wonder dismays and moves people religiously in a way that cannot be achieved by the forces of the body. A miracle is a work of God that incorporates both effects. According to Löscher a real miracle is something that “occurs not through physical or any other created force, but rather is effected by God alone, above the course and laws of nature, in fact, contrary to some of these, as proof of the divine truth, through a human being or a good angel” (weder durch physicalische, noch durch einen andern Geschöpfes Krafft geschieht, sondern allein von Gott über den Lauff und die Reguln der Natur, ja wider etliche derselben, zum Beweiss der göttlichen Wahrheit, durch einen Menschen oder guten Engel gewürcket wird).105 As in so many definitions, Löscher also emphasises the supernatural nature of this work of God. Yet, the relationship between a miracle and the regular course of nature is less important to Löscher. For him, a miracle immediately impresses the senses, prior to any contemplation and investigation. After an initial consideration, it moves the beholder to a religious bewilderment, since no natural cause can explain it. Finally,

162  Miracle after serious contemplation and investigation, when the religious circumstances, nature, and intention of the event are recognised and the intervention of the finger of God is acknowledged, the experience of the miraculous is completed.106 The most important for Löscher, and presumably most effective against the sceptical English thinkers, was the experience of the beholder, his acknowledgement of the work of God, and the religious purpose of the whole thing. It was this property of the definition, which appealed to Hecht. As Hecht understood the proper quality of a miracle, it was enough to show that an event was extraordinary and that it had religious significance in order to show that it was a miracle. Therefore, he attempted in his article to demonstrate that David’s victory over Goliath was exceptional (ausserordentlich).107 Hecht reported that he had sent a query to Johann Jacob Rambach, the Giessen theology professor and previous editor of the periodical, to ascertain his view regarding the miracles performed by David. Rambach wrote back, deliberating on a view espoused by Joachim Lange regarding David’s unusual slaying of the bear and the lion (1 Samuel 17:34–36), that David’s act was close to being a miracle, since indeed the natural forces were raised above their ordinary measure (supra mensuram suam ordinariam), yet it was more proper to refer to the special providence of God than to call it a miracle, since David had many natural advantages that explained his extraordinary victory over the bear and the lion. Despite Rambach’s unwillingness to employ the category of miracles in relation to David, Hecht insisted that the proper term to use was miracle.108 The actual arguments of Hecht for insisting on seeing in David’s victory over Goliath an exceptional (possibly unnatural) event are not so important. What is most relevant here is that Hecht was not writing simply as a biblical exegete who suggested a possible interpretation of a biblical story based on his understanding of specific biblical verses. Hecht insisted on applying a theoretical definition, which he believed necessary for his argument. He, therefore, concluded his investigation by arguing that David’s triumph satisfied all of Lange’s conditions for a miracle: (1) the act was extraordinary and supernatural; (2) David was a man of God; (3) the act taught that God could help when all natural help was exhausted; and (4) the purpose of it was to demonstrate to the Israelites that David was the right man for the monarchy.109 The topic of David and his extraordinary acts is a common focus in biblical exegesis; applying theory to the topic turned it into a debate about the meaning and function of miracles both in biblical settings and in general. Hecht’s suggestion that David’s victory was miraculous was soon rejected in a new article in Hessisches Heb-Opfer.110 Friedrich Balthasar Grandhomme, a Lutheran preacher, contended that David’s triumph was indeed admirable, but he dared not call it a miracle. When a phenomenon was uncommon, and the explanation for it was not easily found, one was

Miracle 163 moved to admiration. However, admiration was not a sufficient sign that the admired phenomenon was miraculous. Grandhomme suggested the following definition, which he borrowed from theologian Christian Eberhard Weismann (who, in fact, only quoted from Johann Musäus): properly speaking, miracles were rare and unusual effects that were performed by God and were above the capacity of all the ordinary created nature (effectus rari & insoliti, supra ordinem totius naturae creatae a Deo producti).111 In light of this definition, Grandhomme claimed, there was no justification of calling the outcome of the fight between David and Goliath a miracle. Grandhomme then showed how a careful reading of the sources, knowledge of the historical precedents and the specific circumstances, and common sense could explain the victory, which hence was neither supernatural nor extraordinary. David’s victory was not a miracle; it was a result of David’s natural powers under the special providence of God.112 Hecht retorted in a new piece for Hessisches Heb-Opfer and emphasised that in his first piece about the topic he showed that if one employed Lange’s definition, not just any definition, then one could call David’s victory a miracle. And he went on to mention the definitions discussed by Weisman himself (on whose book Grandhomme relied in his article) and other definitions.113 Despite the mastery of theoretical stuff demonstrated by Hecht and his opponent, it seems that the main point of the argument was how exceptional the acts of David were. If they were truly exceptional then they could be perceived as miracles, if they were only relatively exceptional (aided by the circumstances) then the acts should more properly be placed under the category of special providence. This means, I  think, that the use of the theoretical literature was only secondary. If one had the inclination to multiply the miraculous, as Hecht apparently had, one could find an inclusive definition of miracles, which would prove his case. There were enough definitions for a miracle that both stringent and moderate opinions could find support in the theoretical literature. The real question is whether Hecht or anyone else involved in the debate would also apply Lange’s (or anyone else’s) definition to contemporary exceptional events. In the 1740 article about Arndt (to which Hecht was a contributor), the preservation of books in fire was not called a miracle. It was suggested that God’s providence (Vorsorge) cared for the book, the preservation in Langgöns was called a wondrous preservation-story (wunderbare Erhaltungs-Historie), the book was a precious work (kostbar Werck), and finally, the survival of the book was a wondrous event (wunderbare Begebenheiten) and an apparent miracle (anscheinendes Wunderwerck).114 Strangely, it looks as if the article was written by an opponent of Hecht and not by Hecht (or others of the same mindset): rather than calling the unburnt book a miracle, the preservation of the book was described as the result of the special providence of God, and rather than identifying the event as evidently miraculous it was suggested that it was only seemingly a miracle.

164  Miracle Not only Hecht and the other contributors to the 1740 article were cautious when dealing with Arndt. Rambach, the Giessen theologian who denied that David’s victory over Goliath should be called miraculous, entirely ignored the preservation of Arndt’s books in fire and water when he addressed the question of the special blessing (Segen) given to Arndt’s writings in an article in 1736. Rambach was well aware of the many stories about Arndt—he contributed in the 1730s both a general introduction and a biographical introduction to a few editions of Wahre Christentum and Paradiesgärtlein—but apparently Rambach did not consider the stories important enough to be mentioned. Most interesting is what Joachim Lange—on whom both Hecht and Rambach relied in considering the question of miracles—would have said about unburnt books. Like Rambach, in fact before him, Lange wrote about the special blessing given by God to Arndt’s books. Unlike Rambach, he did not hesitate to include the incombustibility of Arndt in his discourse. To deny this special blessing—he wrote in 1722 in an introduction to Arndt’s Wahre Christentum—would be to deny God’s providence. God crowned Wahre Christentum (not to mention, Lange added in parenthesis, Paradiesgärtlein, which was often wondrously preserved in fire), more than other similar books, with a special blessing.115 In sum, the Halle theologian Lange had a relatively non-restrictive approach to miracles and his typology of the phenomena (discussed earlier in this chapter) was indeed very inclusive. He was an open supporter of Arndt and his writings and believed that everyone should read them. He did mention the legend about Paradiesgärtlein (he believed the stories were reliable) and he propagated the idea that a special blessing and special providence had formed the legacy of Arndt’s writings. The Giessen theologian Rambach continued the tradition that attributed special blessing to Arndt’s books, yet he used a different vocabulary. Regarding the use of the term miracle, he was more reserved than Lange when dealing with the preservation of books in fire, and he was more reserved than Hecht when writing about King David. Hecht himself was quite bold in his use of Lange’s definition of miracles in relation to biblical miracles— he showed, though, no such boldness in discussing incombustible books. Despite the differences between the three, none seem to have considered incombustible books to be proper miracles.

Notes 1. Zufällige Relationen von alten und neuen denckwürdigen Geschichten, Urkunden, Documenten . . . und anderen Sachen . . . betreffend, vol. 6 (Ulm: Schumacher, 1718), 538. 2. Johann Christoph Heine, Theatrum Providentiae Divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen . . . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen  .  .  . recht wunderlich erhalten könne (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697), 706–7.

Miracle 165 3. Georg Henrich Götze, Todten Bibliothec, zum drittenmahl eröffnet An. 1707 (Lübeck: Schmalhertz, 1707), 20. 4. “Arnds Paradiessgärtlein, vom neuen im Feuer erhalten,” in Acta historicoecclesiastica, Erster Band (Weimar: Hoffmann, 1734–6), part 5, 653–4. 5. Johann Arndt, Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede (Ulm, 1694), preface (no pagination). 6. Laurentius Surius, De probatis sanctorum historiis, vol.  6 (Köln: Quentel, 1575), 372 (Cap. 16). 7. Carl Gottfried Engelschall, Trauriges Andencken, So wohl Der FeuersBrünste überhaupt, Als auch Der vielen fatalen Feuers-Brünste In Sachsen (Dresden and Leipzig: Mieth, 1721), 138. 8. Ibid., 141–3. 9. Philipp Jakob Spener, Consilia et judicia theologica latina, opus posthumum (Frankfurt am Main: Zunner, 1709), part 3, 679. 10. Heine, Theatrum providentiae divinae, 709. 11. Christian Heinrich Erndtel, De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis MDCCVI et MDCCVII facto relatio ad amicum D. G. K. A. C. (1710), 6. 12. Johann Georg Burckhard, Epistola ad amicum: qua ea, quae C. H. E. D. in relatione de itinere suo Anglicano & Batano, annis 1706 & 1707 facto, de Augusta bibliotheca Wolfenbuttelensi (Hanover: Förster, 1710), 57–8. 13. Christian Heinrich Erndtel, De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis 1706 et 1707 facto: relatio ad amicum D. G. de K. A. C., 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: Janssen-Waesbergius, 1711), 16–17, 35. 14. Theodor Crusius, Vergnügung müßiger Stunden oder allerhand nützliche zur heutigen galanten Gelehrsamkeit dienende Anmerckungen (Leipzig: Rohrbach, 1713–18), part 2, 112–13. 15. Ibid., part 4, 44–5. 16. Erdmann Neumeister, Geistliche Bibliothec, Bestehend aus Predigten Auf alle Sonn- und Fest-Tage des Jahrs Nach Anleitung allerhand Geistlicher Bücher gehalten und mit Neuen Liedern beschlossen (Hamburg: Liebezeit and Felginer, 1719), 860–1. 17. Johann Georg Schelhorn, “De libris combustis,” in Amoenitates literariae, quibus variae observationes, scripta item quaedam anecdota et rariora opuscula exhibentur, tvumus septimvs (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Bartholomaeius, 1727), 165–7. 18. Conrad Mel, Schau-Bühne der Wunder Gottes in den Wercken der Natur: Oder, Teutsche Physic Worin Die Lehr-Sätze deutlich erkläret (Cassel: Cramer, 1732), vol. 1, 174–207; on trial-by-fire, 201–5; on Paradiesgärtlein, 204. 19. Ibid., vol. 1, 203. 20. Georg Wilhelm Wegner, Schau-Platz Vieler Ungereimten Meynungen und Erzehlungen, vol. 2 (Berlin: Haude, 1739), 11th issue, 1737, 260–2. 21. “Anmerknung von einigen äusserlichen Hülfe-Mitteln,” Hessisches Heb Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 169–70. 22. Ibid., 168–79; on incombustible books, 178–9. 23. Johann Carl Conrad Oelrich, Entwurf einer Geschichte der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin: Haude und Spener, 1752), 134–5 n. 1. 24. Johann August Ephraim Goeze, Nützliches Allerley aus der Natur und dem gemeinen Leben für allerley Leser, vol.  3 (Leipzig: Weidmann und Reich, 1786), 209–10. See also in Alfred Messerli, “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot,” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 263. 25. Goeze, Nützliches Allerley, 3, 210–15. 26. Gottfried Christian Voigt, Geschichte des Stifts Quedlinburg, vol. 3 (Quedlinburg: Levischen Schriften, 1791), 344.

166  Miracle 27. Justus Christian Hennings, Die Mittel, den menschlichen Leib und dessen Glieder gegen die mancherley Arten des Feuers und die nachtheiligen Folgen des Wassers zu schützen: auch Menschen und Kostbarkeiten aus diesen Gefahren zu retten (Ansbach: Haueisen, 1790), 27–31. 28. “De notis ecclesiae, in” Operum Roberti Bellarmini Politiani, Tomus Secundus: De Controversiis Christianae Fidei, Adversus Huius Temporis Haereticos (Cologne: Gualtherus, 1619), Book 4, 206–15. First published in 1588. 29. On the cessation of miracles, see D. P. Walker, “The Cessation of Miracles,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, eds. Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus (Washington, DC: Folger Books, 1988); Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 225–32; Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 21–33. On cessation theory in the Middle Ages, see Klaus Schreiner, “ ‘Discrimen veri ac falsi’: Ansätze und Formen der Kritik in der Heiligenund Reliquienverehrung des Mittelalters,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 48 (1966): 20–1. 30. John Calvin, Ioannis Calvini institutio christianae religionis, vol. 1 (Berolini, 1836), 7–10; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 9–12. 31. Walker, “The Cessation of Miracles,” 112. On Calvin and miracles, see Moshe Sluhovsky, “Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century Huguenot Thought,” Renaissance and Reformation 19, no. 2 (1995): 9–11. 32. Philip M. Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination: The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 33–46. 33. Johann Gerhard, Locorum theologicorum cum pro adstruenda veritate, tum pro destruenda quorumvis contradicentium falsitate, per theses nervos, solid & copios explicatorum tomus quintus (Jena: Steinmann, 1617), article 275, 1236–41. In English, Benjamin T. G. Mayes, ed. Theological Commonplaces: On the Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2010), 623–7. 34. Gerhard, Locorum theologicorum, article 286, 1170–4; Theological Commonplaces: On the Church, 653–8. 35. See, for instance, a sermon that was preached by Tobias Lotter, theologian and preacher in Stuttgart, in 1617, the centenary for the Lutheran Reformation, in Würtembergisch Jubel-Jahr, Das ist, I. Fürstliche Außschreiben vnnd Bevelech deß Durchleuchtigen Hochgebornen Fürsten vnd Herrn, Herrn Johann Friderichen, Hertzogen zu Würtemberg . . . II. Christliche Predigten. Auff das Evangelische Lutherische Jubel Fest . . . III. Sampt angehencktem Summarischen Außzug der Historien von D. Martin Luthern (Stuttgart: Johann Weyrich Rößlin the older, 1618), 117–32. See also the variety of responses to the achievements as well as to the personality of Luther in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Ernst Walter Zeeden, Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums (Freiberg: Herder, 1950), vol. 2. The association of Luther with God’s work was not an exception; see, for instance, Johannes Müller’s discourse on the divine origins of the Reformation, 111–15. 36. Johann Konrad Dannhauer, Meletema de miraculis veris falsisve, quo Achilles Papaeus (miraculorum gloria) emasculatus in ruborem datur (Strasbourg: Heyden, 1650), 33–7. 37. Ibid., 37–8. 38. Ibid., 44–6.

Miracle 167 39. Gisbertus Voetius, Selectarum disputationum theologicarum, pars secunda (Ultrajecti: Waesberghe, 1655), 1012–16. 40. Ibid., 1017–22. 41. Ibid., 1022–4. 42. On Voetius and miracles in the context of reformed theology, see Aza Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625–1750, Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 197–205. 43. Johann Musäus, Disputatio theologica de miraculis utrum ex illis doctrinae vel ecclesiae pontificiae veritas probari possit (Jena: Sengenwaldius, 1655), articles XXX-XXXIII, fols. B4v–C1r. See the cessationist views of the three Church Fathers in Jon Mark Ruthven, On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-biblical Miracles (Tulsa, OK: Word and Spirit Press, 2008), 16–19. 44. See the long discussion about Augustine in Musäus, Disputatio theologica de miraculis, articles LXXIIX–XCVI, fols. F2r–G4v. See Augustine’s formulation in articles LXXIIX–XXC, fols. F2r–F3r (from Augustine’s The City of God, chapter 8). 45. Ibid., article XCI, fol. G2r. 46. Mercure François, vol. 10 (Paris, 1625), 309. 47. Heine, Theatrum Providentiæ Divinæ, 706–7. 48. Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten, vol.  2 (Hamburg: Naumann, 1651), 6. 49. Ibid., fol. a2r. 50. Ibid., fol. a5r. 51. Ibid., fol. ar. 52. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1932; repr., 1952), Question 6, Article 2, Objection 3. Thomas Aquinas, The Power of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chapter  6, Article 2, Objection 3, 166–7. See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin Text and English Translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries, vol. 14: Divine government (London: Blackfriars, 1975), Question 105, Article 8, 86–7. 53. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book 3, trans. Vernon J. Bourke, Reprinted. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), part II, Chapter 101, 82–3. 54. See more on Aquinas and miracles, in Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215 (London: Scolar Press, 1982), 19–21; Michael E. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Mircacle, 1150–1350 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Lorraine Daston, “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 1 (1991): 96–8. 55. Dannhauer, Meletema de miraculis, 15. 56. Joachim Lange, “Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift,” in Mosaisches Licht und Recht, das ist, Richtige und Erbauliche Erklärung der fünff bücher Mosis (Halle and Leipzig: 1733), Der Abhandlung, Part 2, Section 2, 7th Perception, 3rd Clause, 61–2. 57. Ibid., 62. See also Lange’s earlier discussion about divine providence in his book, where the distinction between miracles and exceptional providence is less clear, Part 1, Section 3, 2nd Perception, 5th Clause, 29.

168  Miracle 58. Thomas Browne, Religio medici, in Geoffrey Keynes, ed. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume I (London: Faber & Faber, 1964), Section 16, 24–5. 59. Ibid., Section 27, 38. 60. Thomas Browne, Religio medici, cum annotationibus (Strasbourg: Spoor, 1652), Section 15, 90. 61. Christian Kortholt, Theologische zu Beförderung der Gottseeligkeit angesehene Tractätlein (Kiel: Reumann, 1679), 309–26, quotation 316. See also O. Beneke, Hamburgische Geschichten und Denkwürdigkeiten zum Theil nach ungedruckten Quellen erzählt (Hamburg: Perthes-Besser & Mauke, 1856), 165–8. 62. Kortholt, Theologische zu Beförderung, 333. 63. Ibid., 356–65. 64. Ibid., 367–8. 65. Ibid., 376–90. 66. Hans Martin Barth, Atheismus und Orthodoxie, Analysen und Modelle christlicher Apologetik im 17. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1971), 297–300. 67. Johann Joachim Meier, Hephaistos bibliolenthrios, Vulcanus Musis inimicus. ie. dissertatio historica de libris et bibliothecis igne absumptis (Nordhausen: Cöler, 1711), fol. b4r. 68. Goeze, Nützliches Allerley, 3, 211. 69. Gottfried Tentzel, Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder, 2nd ed. (Arnstadt, 1723), 55. 70. Benedict Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), Chapter 6, quotation p. 73. 71. See, for example, Johann Musäus, Introductio in theologiam, qva de natura theologiae, naturalis, et revelatae (Jena: Bielck, 1679), Section 2, Chapter 5, Section 2 (posterior), Section iii, 391; Johann Andreas Schmid, Dissertatio theologica inavgvralis de absolvtione mortvorvu excommvnicatorvm sev tumpanicorvm in ecclesia Graeca (Helmsted: Hammius, 1709), 53. 72. Winfried Schröder, Ursprünge des Atheismus, Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998), 271. See also Robert M. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, from Joseph Glanvill to David Hume, Lewisburg (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981). 73. Schröder, Ursprünge des Atheismus, 271–4. 74. Engelschall, Trauriges Andencken, 141–3. 75. Tentzel, Verzeichniß, 54–5. I have not been able to see the first edition from 1722, which was substantially shorter. 76. Johann Conrad Dannhauer, Theia thearchiae, sive divinae providentiae extra ordinem mira, definita & exemplis illustrata (Strasbourg: Spoor, 1664), 1. 77. Ibid., 2–5. 78. Ibid., 5–6. 79. Johannes Olearius, Die Wunderliche Güte Des Allerhöchsten, Welche Er denen, so Ihm Kindlich vertrauen, Väterlich erweiset (Leipzig: Wittigau, 1662), Chapter 3, 18. 80. Schmid, Dissertatio theologica, 50–1. 81. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, 21. 82. Schmid, Dissertatio theologica, 50. See Voetius, Selectarum disputationum, 965. 83. See the discussion about definitions, in Christian Eberhard Weismann, Quaestiones nonnullae insigniores ex doctrina de miraculis (Tübingen: Sigmund, 1729), 4–11. See also Valentin Ernst Löscher’s preface to Zachary Pearce, Vertheidigung Der Wunder-Wercke Des Herrn Jesu Wider Woolston  .  .  . aus dem Englischen übersetzt von M. George Paul Strobel . . . nebst einer Vorrede . . . Valent. Ernst Löscher (Dresden and Leipzig: Heckel, 1732).

Miracle 169 84. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin Text and English Translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries, vol. 15: The world order (London: Blackfriars, 1970), Question 110, Article 4, 14–17. 85. Schmid, Dissertatio theologica, 50–4. 86. The report “Historischer Bericht, Was sich im Jahr 1697: den 24sten Aprilis, in der Schwerinischen Feuers-Brunst mit des Gottseeligen Superintendentens, Herrn Johann Arndts Buch vom wahren Christentum, Merckwürdiges zugetragen,” first appeared in Johann Arndt, Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum . . . beygefügt . . . Gebet-Buch oder Paradis-Gärtlein (Schiffbeck by Hamburg: Holle, 1733), XXXr–XXX4v. It was also included in, for instance, Sechs Bücher vom wahren Christenthum . . . Nebst dem Paradies-Gärtlein . . . Mit einer historischen Vorrede Herrn Johann Jacob Rambachs (Züllichau: Weisenhaus, 1734); Sechs Bücher Vom Wahren Christenthum . . . Nebst dem Paradies-Gärtlein . . . Mit Herrn D. Rambachs Historischem Bericht (Hof: Leidenfrost, 1736); Sechs Bücher Vom Wahren Christenthum . . . Nebst dem Paradies-Gärtlein . . . Mit einer Vorrede Herrn D. Joachim Langens (Erfurt: Jungnicol, 1736). 87. Arndt, Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum  .  .  . beygefügt  .  .  . GebetBuch oder Paradis-Gärtlein, fol. XXXr. 88. Ibid., fols. XXXv–XXX2v. The story was first reported in Historische Remarques, November 9, 1700, in Der Historischen Remarques Uber die Neuesten Sachen In Europa: Anderer Theil Auf das MDCC Jahr, (Hamburg: Reumann, 1700), 347–9. 89. Arndt, Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum  .  .  . beygefügt  .  .  . GebetBuch oder Paradis-Gärtlein, fols. XXX2v–XXX3r. 90. Ibid., fol. XXX3r. 91. Ibid., fols. XXX3r–v. 92. Ibid., fol. XXX4r. 93. Ibid., fols. XXX4r–v. 94. Georg Heinrich Götze, “Miracula catechismi Lutheri,” in CatechismusBibliothec Bestehend aus verschiedenen Catechetischen Schrifften (Leipzig: Richter, 1722), 712–14. 95. Ibid., 711–13. 96. Ibid., 713. 97. Götze, Todten Bibliothec, 19–21. 98. On Hecht, see Ernst Friedrich Neubauer, Nachricht von den itztlebenden Evangelisch-Lutherischen und Reformirten Theologen in und um Deutschland (Züllichau: Verlag des Waisenhauses, 1743), part 1, 133–46, part 2, 573–5. 99. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht,” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 154. 100. Karl Hildebrand Canstein, Harmonie und Auslegung der Heiligen vier Evangelisten. oder Die Schriften der Evangelisten, in eine Zusammenfügung gebracht, und nach ihrem Wort-Verstande von Versicul zu Versicul erkläret (Halle: Verlegung des Waysenhauses, 1718), Part 4, Chapter 24, 469. 101. Christian Hecht, “Christian Hechts schriftmäßige Untersuchung der Frage: Ob es ein Character des Messiä gewesen, daß er einzig und allein unter allen andern, so iemals aus dem Stamm Juda entsprossen, habe sollen Wunder thun?” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 11 (1736): 89–91. 102. Ibid., 92. See Lange, “Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift,” 60. 103. Lange, “Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift,” 60–1, and further 64–7, the fifth clause.

170  Miracle 104. Valentin Ernst Löscher, Preface, in Pearce, Vertheidigung der Wunder Wercke, fols. X2r–X8v. 105. Ibid., fols. XXr–XXv. 106. Ibid., fols. X8v–XXv. 107. Hecht, “Schriftmäßige Untersuchung,” 94. 108. Ibid., 95–7. 109. Ibid., 98–9. See the four conditions for an event to be regarded as a miracle in Lange, “Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift,” 64. 110. Friedrich Balthasar Grandhomme, “Hrn. M. Grandhomme Untersuchung: Ob die Erlegung Goliaths durch ein Wunderwerck geschehen,” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 13 (1737). 111. Ibid., 209. See in Weismann, Quaestiones, 392. 112. Grandhomme, “Untersuchung,” 210–16. 113. Christian Hecht, “Bescheidene Antwort auf Hrn. M. Grandhomme Untersuchung: Ob die Erlegung Goliaths durch ein Wunderwerck geschehen,” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 18 (1738). 114. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht,” 164, 167, 178. 115. Joachim Lange, foreword, here from Johann Arndt, Sechs geistreiche Bücher vom Wahrem Christenthum . . . nebst einer Vorrede Von dem ungemeinen Segen und Nutzen . . . von D. Joachim Langen (Halle: Verlegung des Waisenhauses, 1759), 53–4.

Works Cited “Anmerknung von einigen äusserlichen Hülfe-Mitteln.” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 168–80. Aquinas, Thomas. The Power of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. ———. Quaestiones Disputatae de potentia Dei. Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1932. 1952. ———. Summa contra gentiles, Book 3. Translated by Vernon J. Bourke. Reprint ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975. ———. Summa Theologiae, Latin Text and English Translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries. Vol. 15. The world order. London: Blackfriars, 1970. ———. Summa Theologiae, Latin Text and English Translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries. Vol. 14: Divine government. London: Blackfriars, 1975. “Arnds Paradiessgärtlein, vom neuen im Feuer erhalten.” In Acta historicoecclesiastica, Erster Band. Weimar: Hoffmann, 1734–6. Arndt, Johann. Paradiss-Gärtlein, voller christliche Tugenden, wie dieselbigen durch andächtiger, Lehr- und Trostreiche Gebett, in die Seele zu pflanzen seyn . . . mit hr. D. Eliae Veiels Vorrede. Ulm, 1694. ———. Sechs Bücher Vom Wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem ParadiesGärtlein . . . Mit einer historischen Vorrede Herrn Johann Jacob Rambachs. Züllichau: Weisenhaus, 1734. ———. Sechs Bücher Vom Wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem ParadiesGärtlein . . . Mit einer Vorrede Herrn D. Joachim Langens. Erfurt: Jungnicol, 1736. ———. Sechs Bücher Vom Wahren Christenthum  .  .  . Nebst dem ParadiesGärtlein . . . Mit Herrn D. Rambachs Historischem Bericht. Hof: Leidenfrost, 1736.

Miracle 171 ———. Sechs geistreiche Bücher vom Wahrem Christenthum  .  .  . nebst einer Vorrede Von dem ungemeinen Segen und Nutzen . . . von D. Joachim Langen. Halle: Verlegung des Waisenhauses, 1759. ———. Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum  .  .  . beygefügt  .  .  . Gebet-Buch oder Paradis-Gärtlein. Schiffbeck by Hamburg: Holle, 1733. Barth, Hans Martin. Atheismus und Orthodoxie, Analysen und Modelle christlicher Apologetik im 17. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1971. Bellarmine, Robert. Operum Roberti Bellarmini Politiani, Tomus Secundus: De Controversiis Christianae Fidei, Adversus Huius Temporis Haereticos. Cologne: Gualtherus, 1619. Beneke, O. Hamburgische Geschichten und Denkwürdigkeiten zum Theil nach ungedruckten Quellen erzählt. Hamburg: Perthes-Besser & Mauke, 1856. Browne, Thomas. Religio medici, cum annotationibus. Strasbourg: Spoor, 1652. Burckhard, Johann Georg. Epistola ad amicum: qua ea, quae C. H. E. D. in relatione de itinere suo Anglicano  & Batano, annis 1706  & 1707 facto, de Augusta bibliotheca Wolfenbuttelensi. Hanover: Förster, 1710. Burns, Robert M. The Great Debate on Miracles, from Joseph Glanvill to David Hume. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845. ———. Ioannis Calvini institutio christianae religionis. Vol. 1. Berolini, 1836. Canstein, Karl Hildebrand. Harmonie und Auslegung der Heiligen vier Evangelisten. oder Die Schriften der Evangelisten, in eine Zusammenfügung gebracht, und nach ihrem Wort-Verstande von Versicul zu Versicul erkläret. Halle: Verlegung des Waysenhauses, 1718. Crusius, Theodor. Vergnügung müßiger Stunden oder allerhand nützliche zur heutigen galanten Gelehrsamkeit dienende Anmerckungen. Leipzig: Rohrbach, 1713–18. Dannhauer, Johann Conrad. Meletema de miraculis veris falsisve, quo Achilles Papaeus (miraculorum gloria) emasculatus in ruborem datur. Strasbourg: Heyden, 1650. ———. Theia thearchiae, sive divinae providentiae extra ordinem mira, definita & exemplis illustrata. Strasbourg: Spoor, 1664. Daston, Lorraine. “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe.” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 1 (1991): 31–124. Der Historischen Remarques Uber die Neuesten Sachen In Europa: Anderer Theil Auf das MDCC Jahr. Hamburg: Reumann, 1700. Engelschall, Carl Gottfried. Trauriges Andencken, So wohl Der Feuers-Brünste überhaupt, Als auch Der vielen fatalen Feuers-Brünste in Sachsen. Dresden and Leipzig: Mieth, 1721. Erndtel, Christian Heinrich. De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis 1706 et 1707 facto: relatio ad amicum D. G. de K.A.C. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: JanssenWaesbergius, 1711. ———. De itinere suo Anglicano et Batavo annis MDCCVI et MDCCVII facto relatio ad amicum D. G. K. A. C., 1710. Gerhard, Johann. Locorum theologicorum cum pro adstruenda veritate, tum pro destruenda quorumvis contradicentium falsitate, per theses nervos, solid  & copios explicatorum tomus quintus. Jena: Steinmann, 1617. Gerhard, Johann, Theological Commonplaces: On the Church. Edited by Benjamin T. G. Mayers. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2010.

172  Miracle Goeze, Johann August Ephraim. Nützliches Allerley aus der Natur und dem gemeinen Leben für allerley Leser. Vol. 3. Leipzig: Weidmann und Reich, 1786. Goodich, Michael E. Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–1350. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Götze, Georg Heinrich. “Miracula catechismi Lutheri.” In CatechismusBibliothec Bestehend aus verschiedenen Catechetischen Schrifften. Leipzig: Richter, 1722. ———. Todten Bibliothec, zum drittenmahl eröffnet An. 1707. Lübeck: Schmalhertz, 1707. Goudriaan, Aza. Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625–1750, Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Grandhomme, Friedrich Balthasar. “Hrn. M. Grandhomme Untersuchung: Ob die Erlegung Goliaths durch ein Wunderwerck geschehen.” Hessisches HebOpfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 13 (1737): 207–21. Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp. Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte: Mit vielen merckwürdigen Erzehlungen/ klugen Lehren/ verständigen Sprichwörtern/ tiefsinnigen Rähtseln/ wolerfundnen Gleichnissen/ artigen Hofreden/ wolgefügten Fragen und Antworten. Vol. 2. Hamburg: Naumann, 1651. Hecht, Christian. “Bescheidene Antwort auf Hrn. M. Grandhomme Untersuchung: Ob die Erlegung Goliaths durch ein Wunderwerck geschehen.” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 18 (1738): 776–91. ———. “Christian Hechts schriftmäßige Untersuchung der Frage: Ob es ein Character des Messiä gewesen, daß er einzig und allein unter allen andern, so iemals aus dem Stamm Juda entsprossen, habe sollen Wunder thun?” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerckungen 11 (1736): 89–100. Heine, Johann Christoph. Theatrum Providentiae Divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen  .  .  . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen . . . recht wunderlich erhalten könne. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697. Hennings, Justus Christian. Die Mittel, den menschlichen Leib und dessen Glieder gegen die mancherley Arten des Feuers und die nachtheiligen Folgen des Wassers zu schützen: auch Menschen und Kostbarkeiten aus diesen Gefahren zu retten. Ansbach: Haueisen, 1790. Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume I. London: Faber & Faber, 1964. Kortholt, Christian. Theologische zu Beförderung der Gottseeligkeit angesehene Tractätlein. Kiel: Reumann, 1679. Lange, Joachim. “Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift.” In Mosaisches Licht und Recht, das ist, Richtige und Erbauliche Erklärung der fünff bücher Mosis. Halle and Leipzig, 1733. “M. I. M. S. Authentique Nachricht.” Hessisches Heb-Opfer, Theologischer und philologischer Anmerchungen 22 (1740): 152–9. Meier, Johann Joachim. Hephaistos bibliolenthrios, Vulcanus Musis inimicus. ie. dissertatio historica de libris et bibliothecis igne absumptis. Nordhausen: Cöler, 1711. Mel, Conrad. Schau-Bühne der Wunder Gottes in den Wercken der Natur: Oder, Teutsche Physic Worin Die Lehr-Sätze deutlich erkläret. Cassel: Cramer, 1732.

Miracle 173 Mercure François. Vol. 10. Paris, 1625. Messerli, Alfred. “Die Errettung des Paradiesgärtleins aus Feuers- und Wassernot.” Fabula 38, no. 3/4 (1997): 253–79. Musäus, Johann. Disputatio theologica de miraculis utrum ex illis doctrinae vel ecclesiae pontificiae veritas probari possit. Jena: Sengenwaldius, 1655. ———. Introductio in theologiam, qva de natura theologiae, naturalis, et revelatae. Jena: Bielck, 1679. Neubauer, Ernst Friedrich. Nachricht von den itztlebenden Evangelisch-­ Lutherischen und Reformirten Theologen in und um Deutschland. Züllichau: Verlag des Waisenhauses, 1743. Neumeister, Erdmann. Geistliche Bibliothec, Bestehend aus Predigten Auf alle Sonn- und Fest-Tage des Jahrs Nach Anleitung allerhand Geistlicher Bücher gehalten und mit Neuen Liedern beschlossen. Hamburg: Liebezeit and Felginer, 1719. Oelrich, Johann Carl Conrad. Entwurf einer Geschichte der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin. Berlin: Haude und Spener, 1752. Olearius, Johannes. Die Wunderliche Güte Des Allerhöchsten, Welche Er denen, so Ihm Kindlich vertrauen, Väterlich erweiset. Leipzig: Wittigau, 1662. Pearce, Zachary. Vertheidigung Der Wunder-Wercke Des Herrn Jesu Wider Woolston . . . aus dem Englischen übersetzt von M. George Paul Strobel . . . nebst einer Vorrede . . . Valent. Ernst Löscher. Dresden and Leipzig: Heckel, 1732. Ruthven, Jon Mark. On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-biblical Miracles. Tulsa, OK: Word and Spirit Press, 2008. Schelhorn, Johann Georg. “De libris combustis.” In Amoenitates literariae, quibus variae observationes, scripta item quaedam anecdota et rariora opuscula exhibentur, tvumus septimvs. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Bartholomaeius, 1727. Schmid, Johann Andreas. Dissertatio theologica inavgvralis de absolvtione mortvorvu excommvnicatorvm sev tumpanicorvm in ecclesia Graeca. Helmsted: Hammius, 1709. Schreiner, Klaus. “ ‘Discrimen veri ac falsi’: Ansätze und Formen der Kritik in der Heiligen- und Reliquienverehrung des Mittelalters.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 48 (1966): 1–53. Schröder, Winfried. Ursprünge des Atheismus, Untersuchungen zur Metaphysikund Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998. Shaw, Jane. Miracles in Enlightenment England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Sluhovsky, Moshe. “Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century Huguenot Thought.” Renaissance and Reformation 19, no. 2 (1995): 5–25. Soergel, Philip M. Miracles and the Protestant Imagination: The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Spener, Philipp Jakob. Consilia et judicia theologica latina, opus posthumum. Frankfurt am Main: Zunner, 1709. Spinoza, Benedict. Theological-Political Treatise. Translated by Samuel Shirley. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.

174  Miracle Surius, Laurentius. De probatis sanctorum historiis. Vol. 6. Köln: Quentel, 1575. Tentzel, Gottfried. Verzeichniß einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder. 2nd ed. Arnstadt, 1723. Voetius, Gisbertus. Selectarum disputationum theologicarum, pars secunda. Ultrajecti: Waesberghe, 1655. Voigt, Gottfried Christian. Geschichte des Stifts Quedlinburg. Vol. 3. Quedlinburg: Levischen Schriften, 1791. Walker, D. P. “The Cessation of Miracles.” In Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, edited by Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus, 111–24. Washington, DC: Folger Books, 1988. Walsham, Alexandra. Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind, Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215. London: Scolar Press, 1982. Wegner, Georg Wilhelm. Schau-Platz Vieler Ungereimten Meynungen und Erzehlungen. Vol. 2. Berlin: Haude, 1739. Weismann, Christian Eberhard. Quaestiones nonnullae insigniores ex doctrina de miraculis. Tübingen: Sigmund, 1729. Würtembergisch Jubel-Jahr, Das ist, I. Fürstliche Außschreiben vnnd Bevelech deß Durchleuchtigen Hochgebornen Fürsten vnd Herrn, Herrn Johann Friderichen, Hertzogen zu Würtemberg  .  .  . II. Christliche Predigten. Auff das Evangelische Lutherische Jubel Fest . . . III. Sampt angehencktem Summarischen Außzug der Historien von D. Martin Luthern. Stuttgart: Johann Weyrich Rößlin the older, 1618. Zeeden, Ernst Walter. Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums. Freiberg: Herder, 1950. Zufällige Relationen von alten und neuen denckwürdigen Geschichten, Urkunden, Documenten . . . und anderen Sachen . . . betreffend. Vol. 6. Ulm: Schumacher, 1718.

5 “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia”

The study of incombustible books in the preceding chapters demonstrates three general tendencies. The first is that the historical trajectory of the legend about incombustible books deceives the eye. The later trend of reporting, narrating, preserving, and collecting incombustible books does not reflect its modest beginnings. Stories about unburnt books originated in the 1620s and 1630s—years of war, catastrophe, and persecution. The reports from that period reflect this fact, in the sense that the stories belong to the greater polemic between Catholics and Lutherans and to the general interest in prodigies and symbolic events as significant comments on the political and religious conflict. Even the most renowned event, the one that came to dominate the whole discourse on unburnt books, namely the survival of Johann Arndt’s prayer book in Langgöns in 1624, did not resemble the later stories. It was originally understood as a Lutheran sign, not as a general marker of divine benevolence or as an affirmation of the book and its author. It was neither dramatic nor traumatic, as the later cases often were. The peak era of incombustible books was the last quarter of the seventeenth century through the first quarter of the eighteenth century. During this period, reports about unburnt Lutheran books abounded. Persecution and war were no longer relevant; nor was the potential of such stories to be employed in anti-Catholic polemics of any substantial significance. Accidental urban fires were the settings for these unburnt books. Arndt’s books dominated the scene, but other books, most interestingly a few Bibles, were also a point of interest. When stories multiplied, the idea of collecting them seemed meaningful too. First, collections of narratives involved Arndt’s prayer book, later, from the second decade of the eighteenth century, assembling narratives and collecting them involved Lutheran books in general. There were scattered reports about unburnt books in the 1730s, but later interest seems to be waning (though it did not entirely disappear) and scepticism and criticism accumulated. After 1750, it was common to dismiss the whole idea as irrelevant and superstitious. It is telling that pastor Geilfusius’s Paradiesgärtlein, the book that was kept at the

176  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” princely library in Butzbach in 1624 and still stirred interest in 1740, had been thrown away by 1772; the desired wondrous book was now apparently seen as an old, slightly damaged, useless relic.1 The second general tendency is that the social profile of the phenomenon is less one-dimensional than both some contemporaries tended to think and historians have suggested. In 1719, Erdmann Neumeister noted the risk generated by an excessive preoccupation with incombustible books. He recommended particular caution when dealing with miracles so that simple-minded folk would not think that unburnt books were directly given by the Holy Spirit and were equal to or even surpassed the Bible.2 Yet, incombustible books were not merely the preoccupation of the unlearned and the simple-minded. It might be true that those who were unlearned and untrained in theology were particularly fond of incombustible books—though this remains a matter of speculation—and it is true that some of the original owners of the books that survived fire and many of the pious people who found copies of Arndt’s prayer book in the ashes were men and women of low social status. The fact is, nevertheless, that to turn the accidental survival of an object in fire into an interesting, attractive, and significant object, the involvement of the learned, the powerful, and often the clergy was necessary—people with the interest, the knowledge, and the means to promote such an endeavour. The work of the clergy was vital in the efforts to turn books that accidentally survived fire into significant objects. The involvement of local pastors and superintendents was crucial for “authorizing” the preservation of the book and for ensuring greater knowledge and reception of the story. They were involved in gathering evidence, displaying unburnt books, mentioning them in sermons, writing reports about the circumstances of the books’ preservation, contributing inscriptions inside the books, and keeping them. Clergymen also contributed reports to the lists of miracles about Arndt’s book, they contributed prefaces to his book, they mentioned unburnt books in devotional literature, and they contemplated and discussed the meaning of the preservation of such books. Besides the clergy, powerful political figures also aided in the making of incombustible books. The active involvement of a few princes and their administrations in the storing of famous unburnt books in princely libraries and archives must have made the practice prestigious. Perhaps their desire for such books created an incentive to find even more unburnt books. Likewise, the acquisition of unburnt books by some of the leading princely libraries contributed to the general trend of placing unburnt books in institutional or private libraries. Apart from their storage, the dissemination of reports and stories about the books was crucial in turning them into significant, meaningful signs. Initially, it was chroniclers, historians, and contributors to journals who formed the textual shape of the events in which books were found undamaged in fire. They reported the initial story, sometimes a very crude

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 177 story in which no clear significance was suggested. However, the idea of incombustibility was usually promoted by another type of narrator. Publishers and editors, primarily of Arndt but not only of Arndt, employed narratives about the preservation of books in fire to promote their publications. Beginning in the 1640s, Arndt’s prayer book was regularly prefaced with a list recording the many incidents during which it had been miraculously preserved in fire. A  few other publishers also advertised new editions of books by narrating the survival of earlier editions in fire. The influence of the publishers of Arndt was no doubt central to making the incombustibility of Arndt conventional knowledge. The third general tendency is that incombustible books were not simply whichever books accidentally survived half-burnt in one of the many fires that hit early modern German towns. Indeed, which of these surviving books became significant objects? Books of Johann Arndt; Bibles in German; a few prayer books, such as Johann Habermann’s Christliches Gebetbuch; hymnals, usually bound together with Arndt’s prayer book; a few books of homilies and sermons, such as Johann Heermann’s Laborum sacrorum continuatio and Johann Spangenberg’s Kinder-postil; and one or two catechisms. Altogether, these books represent the “literary trinity of the Lutherans” (namely, devotional works, hymnals, and Scripture) rather well.3 Incombustible books were books that were used by Lutherans in their daily conduct as Christians: reading, praying, singing, and meditating. They were books that demanded repeated use and consequently often invited attachment. They were not necessarily informative, not primarily scholarly, and definitely not scientific. No standard work in theology is among the incombustible books of early modern Lutheranism. They were neither rare nor special nor expensive. Rather, they were used as common reading (and re-reading and contemplating) material. During this period, unburnt books were kept, repaired, and given memorial inscriptions; they were celebrated and shown to local audiences in the immediate wake of the ravage of fire and later during sermons; they were filed away in archives, libraries, and rarity collections. They were made the focal point of elaborate, dramatic, and didactic narratives as well as the topic of religious discourses. An effort was made to collect and assemble reports about these books. More than a few writers declared them miracles, wonders, or expressions of divine providence. What kind of things, then, were unburnt Lutheran books? Naturally, these books were different things to different people, depending on the specific circumstances in which the preservation of each book took place, and no single designation could possibly describe their essence correctly. Still, all unburnt books shared a formal attribute, namely their potential to serve as a sign, to signal and give meaning. An incombustible book had resonance. It had the power “to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world.”4 This formal attribute, which was common to all the books that survived fire and were marked by the catastrophe, can serve

178  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” as a platform on which to address questions about the meaning attributed to these unburnt books. In the following, I discuss unburnt books as wonders, as signs of canonised knowledge, and finally as relics. In his work on the practice of placing models of boats inside Calvinist churches in the Netherlands, Willem Frijhoff has shown that despite their likeness to votive boats, the boats hanging inside post-Reformation Calvinist churches had little to do with the pre-Reformation use of votive objects. Frijhoff “excavated” four historical strata in order to study the attribution of meaning to model boats in Dutch churches: a votive, a corporate, a commemorative, and a community stratum. Despite the formal and material continuity, the meaning of the practice developed and changed with the progress of time and changing circumstances. Although the model boat was often fashioned on the traditional votive boat, it did not carry forward past devotional practices, rather the model invested the boat with new religious, professional, corporate, or communal meaning.5 Like Dutch model boats, incombustible books were collected over a long period of time. When categorised as miracles, as God’s works, they echoed previous practices of veneration of objects. Yet, it might be the case that unburnt books acquired their significance, indeed their developing and changing meanings, in spite of and not necessarily because of the employment of previous categories and practices. If this is the case, then the category of miracle is only the beginning of the discussion about the meaning of unburnt books. The language of miracles formed a large part of the discourse about unburnt books. If an unburnt book was a miracle, what function did the miracle have? An unburnt book was not a Lutheran miracle. It did not vouch for the veracity of Lutheran doctrine and it was not a sign that the Lutheran Churches were true, saving churches. Nor was an unburnt book conceived as a miracle mediated by a holy man, a saint, or a miracle maker. An unburnt book was not an astounding event beyond all comprehension, a work contrary to or above nature. Unburnt books, presumably miraculous books, had almost no actual role in polemics, either with Catholics or with sceptics. Calling the preservation of a book in fire a miracle or turning it into a miracle story seems devoid of any significant and practical meaning. Although it enabled only indecisive signification, the miracle was nevertheless a pregnant category that may have made sense, not strictly as theory or doctrine but as a framework for experiencing and pronouncing wonder. It allowed for surprise, bewilderment, admiration and disbelief, and it facilitated an epistemological moment during which cognition was momentarily suspended; wonder was after all inherently contained in the semantic field of the central terms that were used in the discourse: Wunder, Wunderwerck, Wunder-Geschicht. Yet the wondering that was at the very core of the narrative about unburnt books, their conservation and collection, was often hidden by the employment of the formal categories

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 179 of miracle, wonder (prodigy), and providence. Apparently, incombustible books had only little to do with experiencing—in the absence of the mediation of language, conventions, and theology—the unpredictability of nature and the improbable, and only figuratively meaningful, turns of fates from disaster to consolation, from nothing to something, from loss to possession.6 Wonder as emotion and “epistemological passion”—as some historians have called it—is typical of early modern attitudes towards the phenomenological world.7 Wondering was also, originally, an important component of the Christian theory of miracles. But if wondering was an important component of stories about unburnt books, then it was hidden rather well; in narratives about unburnt books, wonder figured only rarely, apart from nominally as a component in the vocabulary through which narrators characterised the event. Wondering agents, men and women who indicated amazement, excitement, and disbelief, were not regular characters in stories about the preservation of books in fires. While happiness, relief, thankfulness, and religious emotions were not absent from reports about books that survived fires, wonder, and disbelief were a rarity. Interestingly, the wonder that was absent from textual description, was aptly captured in one illustration in a Paradiesgärtlein from 1721 (see Figure 3.6). In the emblem-style illustration, two mythological figures try to destroy Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein while the hand of God literally protects it. On the left, a female figure holds a torch pointed down at the book while the book remains intact. The woman’s eyes are wide open and so is her mouth, a black hole in a disfigured face, perhaps an exaggerated attempt to express disbelief. On the right, a male figure pours water on the book; his narrow eyes and closed mouth indicates intensity and stubbornness, as if he cannot accept the fact that the book is not getting wet.8 A similar tension and suspense is crudely but successfully depicted in an illustration from 1697 (see Figure 3.7). Here, the innkeeper (who found Arndt’s book in the oven) faces the book, surrounded by flames, with eyes almost closed; beside her a dog is looking at the oven and in the background the maid stands, her figure stiff, as if frozen in the middle of some action, her gaze fixed on the innkeeper in expectation. The notion of wonder contained at least a token of scepticism or disbelief; a nominal or temporal refusal to recognise the meaning and significance of an occurrence, a cognitive moment preceding judgement. Conceptually, the notion of wonder and the Christian miracle are related, in both there is potentially a moment of ignorance and indecision. But while in the experience of wonder, the agent responsible for the unlikely occurrence is not explicitly recognised, in miracle (as defined theologically), divine agency is assumed. Initially, Arndt’s unburnt book from Langgöns was understood, at least by some reporters, as a wonder, an aberration of nature, like trees dripping blood, unusual appearances of

180  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” the sun, or unknown insects, in fact, like all those wonders that regularly caught the attention of early moderns. Johann Amos Comenius reported the preservation of two Bibles in a fire in Bohemia in a chapter  about prodigies, the most unusual of which was a flying dragon that was seen “flaming horribly” throughout Bohemia and Silesia in 1624. A flaming dragon stirs amazement, fear, and uneasiness; in other words, it inspires wonder; only later does cognition interfere and suggest signification.9 Of course, wonders in general and especially warning signs were known to be a part of the constellation of an amenable nature that was engineered to reveal divine will. Still, exceptional phenomena evoked awe, amazement, awkwardness, uneasiness, and fear, not simply joy and recognition of the divine. The later development of the legend about Arndt and, in fact, the whole discourse and practice of incombustible books diverged from this original understanding, as if wonder was no longer seen as a proper reaction. At this later point, stories that intended to “prove” Arndt’s orthodoxy, the worth of other authors, or God’s care for Lutheran books had apparently no need for pre-theorised, undefined, wondrous reactions. To prove the value of a book or approve a controversial author, the language of miracle (rather than the epistemology of wonder) was better suited. While the term miracle captured a formal aspect of incombustible books, and the term wonder was not actually an outlet for expressing wonder, curiosity, or scepticism, one common biblical metaphor, or indeed a metonym, suggested an elasticity that was absent in the term miracle and disallowed by the concept of wonder. This metonymy suggested that an unburnt book was a touch of the divine that left its tangible mark in the material world. For some of the contemporaries who contributed to the discourse about incombustible books, an unburnt book was a sign that the Lord’s hand had not “waxed short.” This claim employed a verse from the Old Testament in which God encountered Moses’s scepticism concerning God’s promise to feed the Israelites in the desert, some 600,000 people, by the rhetorical question: “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” which was immediately answered by God: “Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not” (Numbers 11:23). Lutheran polemicists tied their claims to this verse in order to bolster their assertion that sometimes, even in their lifetimes, God demonstrated his power and his will by interfering benevolently in the lives of human beings. Seeing divine will at work in the consuming flames of an urban fire, contemporaries referred to the hand, the finger, or footsteps of God as something visible and tangible in the inexplicable preservation of books. Thus, in his book on the incombustible Luther, Justus Schöpffer referred to “footsteps of divine providence” (die Fussstapffen Göttlicher Fürsehung) and “the finger [.  .  .] of the great God” (den finger [.  .  .] des grossen Gottes).10 Christoph Heinrich Westphal mentioned “the finger of God” (der Finger Gottes), “the un-shortened hand of God” (die unverkürzte Hand Gottes), “the divine wonder-hand” (Die Göttliche

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 181 Wunder-Hand), and “the finger of the Lord” (Den Finger des Herrn), all on the first page of his defence of the notion of miracle in unburnt books.11 These references to God’s limbs and to the visual effects of the traces of these limbs were imprecise formulations of a complex religious reality. They had the quality, however, of effectively communicating a perception of God as a responsive, close, and benevolent deity. It did not matter how exactly God left his mark on the universe and (usually) whether it could be defined as a miracle or not—this was a question for theologians and philosophers. The hand of God, and his other limbs, linked the divine with the earthly, the regular with the irregular, the seen with the unseen; it could be rendered visually, as in some of the illustrations of the miracle of Arndt (see Figures 3.5 and 3.6). It made sense where there was no sense at all. It related the anecdotal and seemingly meaningless preservation of one book to a greater scheme wherein it took its place as an important correction of, and supplement to, the destruction and loss meted out by the power of fire. The hand of God was a moral presence, not a theoretical doctrine about the natural and the supernatural. It suggested benevolence, care, consolation, and relief, not an analytical, cognitive superstructure. Because of benevolent divine intervention, an unburnt book somehow compensated for the loss of other books. Its preservation was intended, just as the destruction of the other books was. The hand of God let the flames devour some books while at the same time preventing the flames from devouring others. Thus, an unburnt book was a link to, a sign of, a metonym for the burnt books. However, could the preserved book compensate for the other books in the sense that the knowledge preserved in the one book compensated for and substituted the knowledge lost in the others? This question is discussed in Copia Librorum, a fascinating study of imaginary libraries in which Dirk Werle studied the early modern conceptual opposition between the universal library and the burnt library as a means of formulating a more basic opposition between conservation and annihilation, old and new, reproduction and invention, decadence and progress. The idea, or rather myth, of a universal library was associated with antiquity and especially with the great library of Alexandria. A universal library was imagined as a library in which all necessary knowledge was stored, either in the sense that all the disciplines of knowledge were represented or more radically in the sense that all the books existing in the world were collected there. The idea of total knowledge implied the finite nature of knowledge—the library as a total representation of the universe and all that one needed to know. The opposite conception was the imagined empty, or burnt, library— the ultimate catastrophe of total loss of all knowledge, of forgetting everything that was ever known. At the same time, the imagined burnt library also offered an opportunity for renewal, progress, and

182  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” knowledge-production that was free from stagnation, tradition, and history. The loss of libraries, especially the loss of the knowledge accumulated in antiquity, made it possible for early modern authors to dream of or promote modern knowledge. From this perspective the accidental burning of books (though not necessarily whole libraries) functioned as natural selection—some books were destroyed to make place for new, better books; instead of fidelity to the past, catastrophic loss ushered in progress.12 One variation of the idea of book burning as a historical tool for selection was implicitly expressed in the legends of incombustible books. When one book survived the annihilation of a whole collection then it was implied that this preserved book alone contained the truth. According to Werle, this conception was expressed in Tentzel’s Verzeichniss einiger im Feuer unverletzt erhaltenen Schrifften und Bilder, in which many reports about fire testified to the “canonisation” of the only book that survived in the fire, whether it was Arndt’s Paradiesgärtlein, a Luther Bible, or another book. Thus, in Tentzel’s narrative, the legend about an incombustible book, and the accumulative effect of the survival of all the books, had the function of making a divinely ordained selection of books that constituted a limited corpus of legitimised and canonised knowledge.13 Werle’s discussion of the opposing visions of the universal library and the burnt library is compelling. Likewise, his interpretation of Tentzel’s narrative as representing a radical view on the theme of burnt libraries as natural (or divine) selection is convincing in terms of an implicit view contained in the text. Further, his suggestion that there was a link between the incombustible Paradiesgärtlein and Arndt’s own view on books is an interesting dimension of the attribution of incombustibility to Arndt. However, in terms of the actual history of those unburnt books that were preserved and stored in early modern libraries, the suggestion that unburnt books represented the canonisation of selected books and the rejection of all the rest requires further consideration. Many contemporaries perceived the books that remained untouched by fire as belonging to libraries and collections, supplying and enlarging their inventories, rather than as the symbolic negation of the contents of those libraries and collections. In a sense, once a book survived the trial of fire, it was no longer a functioning book but a thing, a piece of evidence, a monument; it gave meaning not through its text but through its materiality. True, in theory, the preservation of a Bible in fire could be interpreted as a sign of the supremacy of Scripture and the redundancy of all other books. Yet, there seems to have been little interest in such ­re-canonisation of the Bible. In fact, the majority of unburnt books did not contain theological, humanistic, or scientific scholarship as such. They were devotional books, prayer books mostly, and Bibles. It is hard to see how, in a practical sense,

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 183 their survival promoted any notion of modern, progressive knowledge. In the one case in which a collection of books of scholarly value was lost in a fire, namely the destruction of the library of Heinrich Arnold Stockfleth in 1701, the irreplaceable loss of Stockfleth’s manuscripts was stressed, not the de facto canonisation of the one Bible that survived the fire. Even the most typical of all stories, the repeated survival of Arndt’s prayer books, does not support the idea of canonisation. The survival of Arndt’s prayer book did not make his other books redundant. On the contrary, the prayer book vouched for Arndt’s truly important book, his devotional manifest Wahre Christentum. Altogether, it seems that clergymen were wary of essentialising the content of unburnt books as well as their authors (see also below). While scorched and charred books do not appear to have undergone processes of canonisations, this did not mean that the notion of ­canonisation—in the sense of either validation or enhancement of a book’s content as a consequence of the loss of other books—did not cross the minds of those who found the books, kept them, saw them in libraries, or read about them. Intuitively, the ability to compensate—­emotionally and religiously (though not necessarily intellectually)—for the loss of other books, may have been the main appeal of unburnt books. To compensate for other books, unburnt books had to, themselves, grow somehow in significance. This sometimes meant that the books (or their authors) were “certified” in the sense that they were proven orthodox, or at least that their contents were proven worthy of reading and of publishing. Such enhancement of the significance of the unburnt book sometimes meant that it stood in diametrical opposition to those books that did not survive. The book—it was often stressed—remained untouched by the flames in the middle of the ashes of other books. Therefore, the preserved book often deserved some form of veneration. Still, if this was canonisation, it did not entail the redundancy of other books, compensation for lost knowledge, or superiority of scholarship. While the possible canonisation of unburnt books did not entail an analogous canonisation of knowledge, it might have entailed some form of canonisation of their authors; a fact that caused some clergymen to express concern. Johann Christoph Heine, for instance, cautioned his readers against canonising the author of an unburnt book and turning him into a saint or miracle maker. Praise and honour should only be given to God, he insisted.14 The fear of essentialising books that survived catastrophes and making them or their authors holy, suggests an analogy to another type of early modern Lutheran thing, namely Luther relics. Were incombustible books a sort of relic similar to the objects that belonged to, or were associated with, Martin Luther and which contemporaries highly esteemed? In 1710, when Johann Georg Burckhard harshly criticised the belief in incombustible books, which for him was only appropriate for boys and

184  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” foolish women, he linked the unburnt Paradiesgärtlein that was kept at the Herzog August Library with the Luther relics that were kept there: a drinking glass and a spoon.15 The juxtaposition of Luther relics and the unburnt Arndt in Burckhardt’s text, as well as, apparently, in the collection of the Herzog August Library seems arbitrary, yet it also suggests a better understanding of the potential of unburnt books to become special Lutheran objects. Things that were in Luther’s possession during his life attracted Lutherans after his death. Objects owned by the reformer, such as household goods, such as up to seventeen cups (Lutherbecher), furniture he used, and places associated with him, such as the houses he lived in, places related to his development as a reformer, trees and wells associated with his name, were recognised as significant. They attracted pilgrims and were occasionally associated with healing powers. The belief in the power of “relics” of the reformer, their employment as healing objects, and the collection of them was popular. Accordingly, the early eighteenth century saw an attempt to document and authenticate the relics of the reformer that were extant in different collections in Germany. Lutheran relics were not necessarily treated as holy, powerful, and miraculous things. Nor were they simply treated with academic, scientific detachment. The Lutheran theory of relics credited them with great importance and yet it was claimed that they were not to be venerated and definitely not to be perceived as efficacious, as traditional relics had been. In the traditional Christian usage, relics (reliquiae) were the physical remains of a deceased saint or martyr or objects, such as clothes, that had been in physical proximity to a saint or a martyr. Relics invited veneration and offered an efficacious medium for appealing to divine powers.16 Although Martin Luther opposed the cult of relics and although Protestants in general rejected relics and the notion of their efficacy,17 it does seem that something suggestive of the Catholic cult of relics existed in early modern Lutheranism. This quasi-cult took the form of a great interest in, collection of, and engagement with narratives about material remains from the time of Luther and objects related to the reformer. It is generally recognised, and has been forcefully demonstrated in the work of Stephan Laube, that in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries objects related to Martin Luther were often regarded with awe, were sometimes associated with miraculous powers, were seen as and indeed were called “relics,” and were turned into rarities and museum exhibits.18 The Lutheran affection for relics offended reformed Protestants— Luther relics reminded them of Catholic idolatry—and was mocked by Catholics since such relics were not true relics.19 It was also considered inappropriate by some Lutherans. Gottfried Arnold, for example, criticised the Lutheran obsession with Luther relics. In his ecclesiastical history (1699), he attempted to create a realistic portrait of Martin Luther,

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 185 a biography critical of some aspects of the reformer and clearly critical of the hagiographical attitude of his contemporaries towards Luther. Arnold objected to treating Luther as a prophet, a man of God, and an apostle. One finds all kinds of “superstition” (Aberglauben) among the people, he wrote in relation to the way Luther was remembered, so that his name and person are worshipped by people ignorant of his teachings. It was well known what “idolatry” (Abgötterei) took place when Luther’s house burned down in Eisleben in 1689, he wrote. Many thousand fragments from the house were taken and used against toothache and other afflictions.20 Such uses of relics in the traditional sense—attributing magical and miraculous powers to material remains—was condemned not only by sceptics like Arnold. Those very authors who fostered interest in and veneration of the material remains of Luther opposed it too. Georg Heinrich Götze, who wrote the influential De reliquiis Lutheri in 1703, emphasised the memorial character of the Luther relics, in opposition to the miraculous use of Catholic relics. Relics of Luther, he asserted, were not to be used to encourage worship; they were only suitable for memorialising the reformer. For support, he quoted from the inscription that was placed above the gravestone of Martin Luther in St.  Michael’s Church (Stadtkirche) in Jena: “non Cultus, sed memoriae gratia” (not for worship, but for the sake of memory), meaning that the life-size bronze relief of the reformer that hung on the wall of the church was intended only to commemorate Luther and not intended to encourage acts of devotion or veneration (Figure 5.1).21 This inscription could be read as the Lutheran theory of relics in five words. In reality, however, the line between cult and memory was perhaps more difficult to demarcate than Götze imagined. The gravestone of Luther, a bronze relief, was made three years after Luther’s death and was intended for Luther’s burial place, the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. It depicted Luther standing, looking straight ahead, and holding a little book, presumably a Bible. Due to political developments—by 1548, Wittenberg was no longer part of the territories of Johann Friedrich, Elector of Saxony, who ordered the gravestone—the gravestone was never placed at Luther’s burial place. It was taken by the elector’s sons and in 1571 Duke Johann Wilhelm placed it in Jena, a university town and part of the territories of the Ernestine dynasty. Wilhelm did this in a conscious attempt to gain prestige for Jena as the true capital of Lutheranism, the “new Wittenberg,” set against the old Wittenberg, which was controlled by the new Saxon elector from the Albertine dynasty. The bronze relief has since become one of the best-known and most iconic representations of Luther. Notwithstanding the inscription, the monument, according to the study of Ruth Slenczka, fostered rather than impeded the cultic veneration otherwise reserved for saints. The size, form, and material of the

186  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” monument indicate a conscious attempt to represent Luther as a prince rather than as a university professor. The additional work on the monument suggests a saint-like treatment. Special architecture added to the image, such as symbols surrounding Luther, new colouring, a placement near the altar, and, most importantly, a glass wall made of many small windows all contributed new significance to the gravestone. Placing a gravestone behind glass was exceptional and stemmed from the traditional style reserved for the presentation of relics in reliquaries. By putting Luther behind glass, supplying top protection for the monument, and enabling only limited visibility, the bronze relief of Luther was presented as a full-size relic of the reformer. Slenczka concluded that even more than a relic in a shrine, Luther’s image resembled the Corpus Christi in a sacrament house.22 While the staging of the monument signalled the veneration associated with relics, the inscription above the image indicated otherwise. It insisted that Duke Johann Wilhelm had ordered the image of Luther installed in the church not to encourage prayer but strictly in memory of Luther. It is as if the inscription was made to prevent what the monument invited. The inscription, as well as the rest of the added architecture, is no longer in the church, only the relief has been preserved. However, the inscription can be read in an engraving of the monument that was made for the Weimar Bible. The paradox of the Luther relief was reproduced in the early eighteenth century in writings about the material remains of the life of Luther. Götze emphasised the commemorative character of Lutheran relics—as opposed to the miraculous use of Catholic relics—and quoted from the Jena inscription: “non Cultus, sed memoriae gratia.”23 Accordingly, he

Figure 5.1 Inscription on top of Luther’s gravestone Biblia, Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft (Nürnberg: Wolfgang Endter, 1670). Copperplate engraving, detail. The Royal Library, Copenhagen (shelf mark: 1, 77 00355). Source: Photograph by author.

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 187 exposed the gap between Lutheran theology and Lutheran reality in his time. He suggested a non-cultic notion of the material remains of Luther while insisting on the traditional term relics (reliquiae). Perhaps for the learned and educated the material remains of Luther’s life could be distinguished from true relics (traditional or Catholic saints relics), but for some Lutherans the attraction of the material remains lay in their performative power, whatever that might be, rather than in the disinterested observation and commemoration of their historicity. Unlike the objects associated with Luther, unburnt books were not designated as relics. Typically, they were not perceived as holy and efficacious or as having the power to heal. Books (like images) were not traditionally regarded as relics, even when associated with Luther.24 In a sense, if books were relics at all, they must be regarded as irregular ones. Body parts, clothes, utensils, or furniture could be relics because of their physical proximity to a saint or an extraordinary religious personality; they shared, so to speak, in his holiness and power. In that sense, books could only be relics of their owners, but their owners were not saints or exceptional religious figures, their owners were ordinary readers. If unburnt books were relics, whose relics were they? Unburnt Luther Bibles, for instance, were not relics of Luther. Similarly, unburnt Paradiesgärtlein or Wahre Christentum were not, strictly speaking, relics of Johann Arndt. These books, and all the other unburnt books, could not share in the religiosity of their authors since they had no physical association with them. Still, if we designate objects in which historicity and devotion combined, in which devotion was suggested upon the acknowledgement of historical value, as relics then books might function as a sort of relics. Unburnt books were associated with narratives situated in particular historical circumstances and in relation to concrete historical figures. At the same time, they were approached as devotional things presenting narratives about unlimited and intangible divine presence, a reminder of God. Turned into library books or artefacts in an archive or a museum, their historical significance was underscored, but under different circumstances incombustible books called for devotion and prayer. In Quedlinburg, where a double edition of Arndt was preserved in a fire, a local pastor used the unburnt book for private prayers and let it circulate among the townspeople; it was nearly worshipped as a great wonder of God. In Nordhausen, commemoration and prayer converged when the historical narrative about the fire was read aloud from the inscription inside the Brandbibel during a special sermon on the memorial day of the great fire that devastated the town. On one occasion, the treatment of an unburnt book was truly reminiscent of the treatment of holy historical objects, namely in Gross Peisten where an unburnt Paradiesgärtlein was kept in a silver box in the church. Every Sunday during service, the book was taken out and placed on the altar for the whole congregation to see (see details on these cases in Chapter 3).

188  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” The association of incombustible books with prayer and devotion was there from the very beginning. Some of the early narratives reported the preservation of prayer books, especially Arndt’s prayer book. In the enlarged and popular narrative about the finding of Arndt’s book in 1624, the innkeeper who had found the undamaged book inside the oven decided to keep the book for herself and to use it for her daily prayers.25 Later, when this narrative appeared in prefaces to new editions of Arndt’s book, this tendency grew stronger; the enormously popular Paradiesgärtlein was prefaced by a story about the preservation in fire of the same prayer book (the same book the reader was holding), the preservation of which prompted a devoted Christian woman to pray daily from the same book for the rest of her life. The connection between incombustibility and devotion, in the narrative about Arndt as well as in the wider practice generated around the incombustible books, was conspicuous. As historical and devotional objects, incombustible books faced the same challenge as Luther relics: non cultus sed memoriae gratia! People were perhaps supposed to perceive and study the books’ history with detachment, but, evidently, the books also invoked attachment. They were kept everywhere with the explicit intention of commemorating an historical event and divine intervention, but the material object that evoked the memory—the unburnt book—suggested another form of interaction, namely devotion. The book suited the needs of praying people and, for some, the actual sight, smell, and touch of the unburnt book was enough to stimulate spiritual improvement. This does not mean that in their regular engagement with unburnt books, Lutherans distinguished between historical cognition and devotional activity. Yet it seems that for some observers the enthusiasm with which these books were celebrated and the emotional attachment they evoked, were excessive, if not devotional hysteria. That is why Johann Georg Burckhard severely reproved the relatively harmless reference to Arndt’s unburnt book in Christian Heinrich Erndtel’s description of the collection of Herzog August Library. Erndtel’s mere mention of the book made Burckhard react because, for Burckhard, the book conjured up pilgrimage, impiety, and folly—all of which were not suitable for a serious author.26 Now, there is no evidence that anyone ever regarded unburnt books as magical efficacious objects. In this sense, incombustible books were neither traditional nor Lutheran relics. It seems to me, however, that the tension between their historicity and devotional appeal, between narrative and practice, was not truly resolved. When books were stored in a princely or town library or in another collection, they were reduced to historical evidence, to things containing the potential, perhaps even the intention, to appeal to cognition. Yet, when owners and clergymen kept the books and when they were kept in a church or a religious institution, unburnt books had the potential to turn into devotional Lutheran objects.

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 189

Notes 1. Curt Michaelis, “Dionysius Klein von Eßlingen, ein vergessener deutscher Poet des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 37 (1920): 126. 2. Erdmann Neumeister, Geistliche Bibliothec, Bestehend aus Predigten Auf alle Sonn- und Fest-Tage des Jahrs Nach Anleitung allerhand Geistlicher Bücher gehalten und mit Neuen Liedern beschlossen (Hamburg: Liebezeit and Felginer, 1719), 860–1. 3. On the “literary trinity,” see Patrice Veit, “Das Gesangbuch in der Praxis Pietatis der Lutheraner,” in Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland, ed. Hans-Christoph Rublack (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1992), 435. 4. As Stephen Greenblatt formulated it in “Resonance and Wonder,” in Learning to Curse. Essais in Early Modern Culture (New York: Routledge, 2007), 229. First published in 1990. 5. Willem Frijhoff, “Votive Boats or Secular Models? An Approach to the Question of the Figurative Ships in the Dutch Protestant Churches,” in Embodied Belief. Ten Essays on Religious Culture in Dutch History (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002), 233. 6. On wonder and early modern wonders, see Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998); Michael Funk Deckard and Péter Losonczi, eds., Philosophy Begins with Wonder: An Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy, Theology, and Science (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011); Sarah Tindal Kareem, Wonder in the Age of Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 35–54. 7. Daston and Park, Wonders, 13–20; Kareem, Wonder in the Age of Enlightenment, 35–41. 8. This is evident in the Frankfurt edition of 1721 that was issued by Matthias Andreä (extant at the Royal Library, Copenhagen). The similar illustration that appeared in the printing of the same edition by Johann Philipp Andreä is of lesser quality and the style is less expressive. 9. Johann Amos Comenius, Historia persecutionum ecclesiæ Bohemicæ, jam inde a primordiis conversionis suæ ad Christianismum, hoc est, anno 894 ad annum 1632 (Amsterdam, 1648), 411; Johann Amos Comenius, The History of the Bohemian Persecution (London, 1650), 356. 10. Justus Schöpffer, Unverbrandter Luther Oder Historische Erzehlung von D. Martino Luthero und dessen im Feuer erhaltenen Bildniß Bey Gelegenheit des II. Evangelischen Jubel-Jahres (Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1718), “Vorrede des Verfassers.” 11. Johann Arndt, Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum  .  .  . beygefügt  .  .  . Gebet-Buch oder Paradis-Gärtlein (Schiffbeck by Hamburg: Holle, 1733), fol. XXXv. 12. Dirk Werle, Copia librorum, Problemgeschichte imaginierter Bibliotheken 1580–1630 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2007), 390–433. 13. Ibid., 428. 14. Johann Christoph Heine, Theatrum providentiae divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen . . . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen  .  .  . recht wunderlich erhalten könne (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697), 709. 15. Johann Georg Burckhard, Epistola ad amicum: qua ea, quae C. H. E. D. in relatione de itinere suo Anglicano & Batano, annis 1706 & 1707 facto, de Augusta bibliotheca Wolfenbuttelensi (Hanover: Förster, 1710), 57–8. See pictures and short descriptions of the Luther relics at the library in Wolfenbüttel in Harald Meller, ed. Fundsache Luther. Archäologen auf den Spuren

190  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” des Reformators (Stuttgart: Theiss, 2008), 315 (F16), 320 and 322 (F 29), 321 (F 27). 16. On relics generally, see Arnold Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (München: Beck, 1994), especially 149–66. 17. On Luther’s criticism of saints and relics, see ibid., 236–41; Klaus Schreiner, “ ‘Discrimen veri ac falsi’: Ansätze und Formen der Kritik in der Heiligenund Reliquienverehrung des Mittelalters,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 48 (1966): 44–7; Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 228–46. 18. Stefan Laube, Von der Reliquie zum Ding, heiliger Ort-WunderkammerMuseum (Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2011); “Von der Reliquie zum Relikt: Luthers Habseligkeiten und ihre Musealisierung in der frühen Newzeit,” in Archäologie der Reformation, Studien zu den Auswirkungen des Konfessionswechsels auf die materielle Kultur, eds. Carolla Jäggi and Jörn Staecker (New York: De Gruyter, 2007), 199–232; “Luther, ‘die Lutherin,’ das Lutherhaus— Erinnert und inszeniert,” in Lutherinszenierung und Reformationserinnerung, eds. Stefan Laube and Karl-Heinz Fix (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002). See also Mirko Gutjahr, “ ‘Non cultus est, sed memoriae gratia’: Hinterlassenschaften Luthers zwischen Reliquien und Relikten,” in Fundsache Luther. Archäologen auf den Spuren des Reformators, ed. Harald Meller (Stuttgart: Theiss, 2008), 100–105. See also the list of related legends about portraits of Luther, the places he lived, and places associated with him, in Heidemarie Gruppe, “Katalog der Luther- und Reformationssagen des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Volkserzählung und Reformation, Ein Handbuch zur Tradierung und Funktion von Erzählstoffen und Erzählliteratur im Protestantismus, ed. Wolfgang Brückner (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1974), no. 96–120, pp. 306–9. 19. On Catholics, see Laube, Von der Reliquie, 210–11. On Calvinists, see Georg Heinrich Götze, De reliquiis Lutheri diversis in locis asservatis singularia (Leipzig: Emmerich, 1703), 32–4. 20. Gottfried Arnold, Unparteyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie, von Anfang des Neuen Testaments bis auff das Jahr Christi 1688 (Frankfurt am Main: Fritsch, 1699), part II, book XVI, Chapter V, 47. On Arnold’s critical, yet by no means unsympathetic, treatment of Luther’s teachings, reformation, and personality, see Ernst Walter Zeeden, Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums (Freiberg: Herder, 1950), vol. 1, 171–88. 21. Götze, De reliquiis Lutheri, 32; Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, Curieuse Bibliothec oder Fortsetzung der monatlichen Unterredungen einiger guten Freunde . . . von Anno 1689 bis 1698 (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Stock, 1704), 390. 22. On the inscription and the gravestone, see Ruth Slenczka, “Bemalte Bronze hinter Glass?—Luthers Grabplatte in Jena 1571 als ‘protestantische Reliquie,’ ” kunsttexte.de 4 (2010). This paper was published in the conference proceedings Grabmal und Körper—zwischen Repräsentation und Realpräsenz in der, edited by Philipp Zitzisperger, www.kunsttexte.de. 23. Götze, De reliquiis Lutheri, 32; Tentzel, Curieuse Bibliothec, 390. 24. Laube, “Luther, ‘die Lutherin,’ das Lutherhaus—Erinnert und inszeniert,”15. 25. Johannes Frontinus, Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht/ was sich zu LangenGöns in Hessen/ mit  .  .  . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat (Darmstadt, 1627), fol. iiir. 26. Burckhard, Epistola ad amicum, 57–8.

“Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” 191

Works Cited Angenendt, Arnold. Heilige und Reliquien, die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart. München: Beck, 1994. Arndt, Johann. Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum . . . beygefügt . . . GebetBuch oder Paradis-Gärtlein. Schiffbeck by Hamburg: Holle, 1733. Arnold, Gottfried. Unparteyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie, von Anfang des Neuen Testaments bis auff das Jahr Christi 1688. Frankfurt am Main: Fritsch, 1699. Burckhard, Johann Georg. Epistola ad amicum: qua ea, quae C. H. E. D. in relatione de itinere suo Anglicano  & Batano, annis 1706  & 1707 facto, de Augusta bibliotheca Wolfenbuttelensi. Hanover: Förster, 1710. Comenius, Johann Amos. Historia persecutionum ecclesiæ Bohemicæ, jam inde a primordiis conversionis suæ ad Christianismum, hoc est, anno 894 ad annum 1632. Amsterdam, 1648. ———. The History of the Bohemian Persecution. London, 1650. Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150– 1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998. Deckard, Michael Funk, and Péter Losonczi, eds. Philosophy Begins with Wonder: An Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy, Theology, and Science. Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011. Freeman, Charles. Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. Frijhoff, Willem. “Votive Boats or Secular Models? An Approach to the Question of the Figurative Ships in the Dutch Protestant Churches.” In Embodied Belief: Ten Essays on Religious Culture in Dutch History, 215–34. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002. Frontinus, Johannes. Außführliche Relation Und Warhafftiger Bericht/ was sich zu LangenGöns in Hessen/ mit . . . Herrn Johann Arndts Paradißgärtlein . . . Wunderwerck zugetragen hat. Darmstadt, 1627. Götze, Georg Heinrich. De reliquiis Lutheri diversis in locis asservatis singularia. Leipzig: Emmerich, 1703. Greenblatt, Stephen. “Resonance and Wonder.” In Learning to Curse. Essays in Early Modern Culture, 216–46. New York: Routledge, 2007. Gruppe, Heidemarie. “Katalog der Luther- und Reformationssagen des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Volkserzählung und Reformation, Ein Handbuch zur Tradierung und Funktion von Erzählstoffen und Erzählliteratur im Protestantismus, edited by Wolfgang Brückner, 295–324. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1974. Gutjahr, Mirko. “ ‘Non cultus est, sed memoriae gratia’: Hinterlassenschaften Luthers zwischen Reliquien und Relikten.” In Fundsache Luther: Archäologen auf den Spuren des Reformators, edited by Harald Meller, 100–105. Stuttgart: Theiss, 2008. Heine, Johann Christoph. Theatrum providentiae divinae Oder neuer anmuthiger Schau-Platz: Auf welchem mehr als 500. Personen  .  .  . bezeugen/ Daß die gnädige Vorsorge Gottes für die Menschen . . . recht wunderlich erhalten könne. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1697. Kareem, Sarah Tindal. Wonder in the Age of Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

192  “Non cultus sed memoriae gratia” Laube, Stefan. “Luther, ‘die Lutherin,’ das Lutherhaus–Erinnert und inszeniert.” In Lutherinszenierung und Reformationserinnerung, edited by Stefan Laube and Karl-Heinz Fix, 11–34. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002. ———. Von der Reliquie zum Ding, heiliger Ort–Wunderkammer–Museum. Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2011. ———. “Von der Reliquie zum Relikt: Luthers Habseligkeiten und ihre Musealisierung in der frühen Newzeit.” In Archäologie der Reformation, Studien zu den Auswirkungen des Konfessionswechsels auf die materielle Kultur, edited by Carolla Jäggi and Jörn Staecker, 430–66. New York: De Gruyter, 2007. Meier, Johann Joachim. Hephaistos Bibliolenthrios, Vulcanus Musis inimicus. ie. Dissertatio Historica De Libris Et Bibliothecis Igne Absumptis. Nordhausen: Cöler, 1711. Meller, Harald, ed. Fundsache Luther: Archäologen auf den Spuren des Reformators. Stuttgart: Theiss, 2008. Michaelis, Curt. “Dionysius Klein von Eßlingen, ein vergessener deutscher Poet des 17. Jahrhunderts.” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 37 (1920): 121–6. Neumeister, Erdmann. Geistliche Bibliothec, Bestehend aus Predigten Auf alle Sonn- und Fest-Tage des Jahrs Nach Anleitung allerhand Geistlicher Bücher gehalten und mit Neuen Liedern beschlossen. Hamburg: Liebezeit and Felginer, 1719. Schöpffer, Justus. Unverbrandter Luther Oder Historische Erzehlung von D. Martino Luthero und dessen im Feuer erhaltenen Bildniß Bey Gelegenheit des II. Evangelischen Jubel-Jahres. Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1718. Schreiner, Klaus. “ ‘Discrimen veri ac falsi’: Ansätze und Formen der Kritik in der Heiligen- und Reliquienverehrung des Mittelalters.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 48 (1966): 1–53. Slenczka, Ruth. “Bemalte Bronze hinter Glass?–Luthers Grabplatte in Jena 1571 als ‘protestantische Reliquie.’ ” kunsttexte.de 4 (2010). Tentzel, Wilhelm Ernst. Curieuse Bibliothec oder Fortsetzung der monatlichen Unterredungen einiger guten Freunde . . . von Anno 1689 bis 1698. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Stock, 1704. Veit, Patrice. “Das Gesangbuch in der Praxis Pietatis der Lutheraner.” In Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland, edited by Hans-Christoph Rublack, 435–54. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1992. Werle, Dirk. Copia librorum, Problemgeschichte imaginierter Bibliotheken 1580–1630. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2007. Zeeden, Ernst Walter. Martin Luther und die Reformation im Urteil des deutschen Luthertums. Freiberg: Herder, 1950.

Index

Albertus Magnus 154 Andrea, Johann Valentin 13 Arndt, Friedrich 99 Arndt, Johann 43 – 4; special blessing 127 – 8, 164; writings (see Paradiesgärtlein; Wahre Christentum) Arnold, Gottfried 46 – 7, 184 – 5 atheists 56, 147 – 50 Augsburg Confession 59, 90 – 3, 158 August, Elector of Saxony 90 August I, Herzog of Braunschweig-Lüneburg 73 Babylonian furnace 14, 34, 45, 127, 142, 144, 157 Barth, Hans-Martin 149 Bartholin, Thomas 13 – 14 Bellarmine, Robert 132 – 3 Bible 48; Brandbibel 1 – 3, 55 – 6, 94 – 7, 187; incombustible Bibles 48 – 56; Luther Bibles (see Luther, Martin); preserved in fire 1, 17, 26, 27, 48 – 56, 57 – 9, 79 – 80, 81, 84, 89, 93 – 6, 98, 120, 122, 125, 127, 130, 149 – 50, 158, 180, 182 – 3, 187; Weimar Bible 53 – 6, 186; Wittenberg Bible 50, 79 Binder, Casper 55 Book of Concord 91 – 3, 158 Brenz, Johannes 49 Broke, Matthias von 77 Browne, Thomas 144 – 6 Brückmann, Franz Ernst 78, 87 Burckhard, Jacob 78 Burckhard, Johann Georg 123 – 5, 157, 183 – 4, 188 Burns, Robert M. 151 Bynum, Caroline 10 – 11

cabinet of art (Halle) 83 – 7 Calov, Abraham 1 Calvin, John 133 Calvinists 8 – 9 canonisation 122 – 3, 182 – 3 Canstein, Karl Hildebrand 160 Catholics and miracles 8 – 9, 26 – 7, 28 – 9, 31, 51, 57, 122, 129, 132 – 4, 136, 138, 139, 148 – 51, 175 Chemnitz, Martin 158 Cieslak, Katarzyna 104 Clüver, Johannes 32, 120 Cogel, Friedrich 37 combustible material 5, 75, 120 – 1, 146 Comenius, Johann Amos 13, 26 – 7, 49, 180 conversion 136 – 7, 31 – 2; and books 14 – 16, 125, 127, 150 Crusius, Theodor 124 – 5, 152, 157 Dannhauer, Johann Konrad 136, 142 – 4, 153 Dreyhaupt, Johann Christoph von 86 – 7 Dürr, Renate 9 edifying books 1, 6 – 7, 25, 28, 45, 81, 86, 125, 127 – 9 Eire, Carlos 9 Ende, Johann Joachim Gottlob am 92 Endter, publishing house 54 Engelschall, Karl Gottfried 122, 151 – 6 Erndtel, Christian Heinrich 78, 123 – 5, 188 Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha 76 Ernst III the Pious, Herzog of Sachsen-Weimar 54

194 Index Feustel, Christian 54 – 5, 93 – 4 fire 12 – 15; in Arnsdorf 158 – 9; Arnstadt 49; Bautzen 84; Beesen 84; Bockenem 77 – 8; Brandis 41 – 2; near Breslau 28 – 9; Coburg 89; Copenhagen 12; Crimmitschau 76; Dresden 58, 89 – 90; Eisleben 58 – 9; Görlitz 47 – 8; Kindelbrück 50; Kirchheim unter Teck 78 – 9; Kreutzendorff 45; Laucha bey Naumburg 84; Lautenberg 84; Leipheim 37 – 8; Marpach 79; Münchberg 53; Mutzschen 41; Naumburg 39; Neuhausen 96, 108; Nordhausen 1 – 2, 55 – 6, 96; Nürnberg 57, 79; Pfarenheim 82; Quedlinburg 98; Rostock 30; Schlöben 76; Schwerin 64, 156; Sorau 25; suburb of Leipzig 27 – 8; Tribsees 41; Winkel 50; Zittau 82 Francke, August Hermann 85 – 8; see also incombustibility Franz (Ferenc) III Nádasdy, Count 50 Freedberg, David 10 – 11 Frese, Jürgen 14, 147 – 9 Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia 98 – 9 Frijhoff, Willem 8, 178 Frontinus, Johannes 33 – 5, 36 – 7, 46, 59, 75, 82 Funcke, Gabriel 47 – 8 Geier, Martin 27, 58 Geilfusius, Justus 31, 35, 73 – 5 Gerhard, Johann 1, 134 – 6, 159 Gleich, Johann Tobias 52 – 3 God’s hand see hand of God Goeze, Johann August Ephraim 99 – 100, 129 – 30, 150 Götze, Georg Heinrich 59, 121, 123, 124, 158 – 9, 185 – 6 Grandhomme, Friedrich Balthasar 162 – 3 Grundmann, Martin 28 – 9 hand of God 14, 17, 48, 88, 101, 103, 121 – 2, 126, 148, 152, 157, 159, 179 – 81; see also providence Happel, Georg Eberhard 29 – 30 Harsdörffer, Georg Phillip 45 – 6, 140 – 7 Hartmann, Johann Gottlob 26 Hecht, Christian 159 – 64

Heermann, Johann 27 – 8, 30, 123, 177 Heine, Johann Christoph 30, 77 – 8, 121, 122 – 3, 139, 183 Hennings, Justus Christian 130 Herzog August Library 77 – 8, 106, 123 – 5, 139, 184, 188 Heym, Christoph 98, 125 Hofmann, Paul 13 Holberg, Ludwig 12 Höpfner, Wilhelm Christian 50, 80 – 1 hymn books 7, 177; preserved in fire 27 – 8, 58, 78 – 9, 82, 84 incombustibility (fire resistance) 14, 29, 87, 89, 101, 126 – 7 Jakubowski-Tiessen, Manfred 8 Johann Wilhelm, Herzog of SachsenEisenach 50, 81 Juncker, Christian 57 Kettner, Friedrich Ernst 26 Keyssler, Johann Georg 57 Kindervater, Johann Heinrich 2, 56, 58, 95 – 6, 120 Kirchenordnung 90 – 3 Kless, Johann 54 – 5, 98 Kortholt, Christian 30, 147 – 51 Kühne, Hartmut 7 Lange, Joachim 84, 142 – 3, 160 – 4 Laube, Stephan 184 Lehman, Hartmut 8 library 7, 72 – 82, 84 – 5, 98, 129 – 31, 176 – 7, 183 – 4, 188; burnt 56, 149; home library 12 – 13, 13 – 14, 41 – 2, 52, 54, 93 – 4; imaginary 181 – 2; see also Herzog August Library Löscher, Valentin Ernst 88, 161 – 2 Luther, Martin: catechism 54, 90, 99, 158; gravestone in Jena 54, 185 – 6; incombustible 6, 56 – 9; Luther Bibles 1, 48 – 9, 51, 54 – 9, 79 – 80, 89, 93, 98; Luther cult 6, 8, 55; Luther relics 183 – 8; on miracles 133 – 6; portraits of 54, 186; portraits preserved in fire 6, 14, 17, 57 – 9 Lutherans: and cessation of miracles 132 – 3; and miracles 7 – 11; persecuted 31 – 2; and Scripture 48; and unburnt books 14, 17, 119,

Index  195 122 – 3, 139 – 40, 147 – 51, 177, 187 – 8; view of Luther 57 – 9, 184 Lütkemann, Joachim 30, 58, 125, 148 – 9 Magic 7, 8, 9, 185, 188; natural magic 74 – 5, 109n6 marvel 8 – 9, 18, 32, 53, 122 – 4, 137, 153 – 6, 158 materiality (of books) 10 – 11, 72, 92 – 3, 103, 106, 108, 182 Meier, Johann Joachim 56, 149 Mel, Conrad 126 – 7 Melanchthon, Philipp 90 – 2 Mentzer, Balthazar 74 Messerli, Alfred 6, 36 mirabilia see marvel miracle 17 – 18; biblical 140 – 7, 159 – 64; cessation of 131 – 8, 147, 148, 151 – 3, 156, 159; controversies about 131 – 3, 147 – 51; definition and typology 17, 141 – 4, 152 – 5, 160 – 4; Lutheran miracles 5 – 10, 147 – 51; miracle of Lutheranism 156 – 9; sun in Gibeon 140 – 2, 144 – 6, 155; see also Babylonian furnace miranda see marvel Mollen, Johann Georg 41 Moltke, Levin Nicolaus von 120, 145 – 7 Moravian brethren 26 – 7 Musäus, Johannes 137 – 8, 163 Neickel, Casper Friedrich 78 Neumeister, Erdmann 125, 131, 176 Oelrich, Johann Carl Konrad 129, 130 Olearius, Johannes 153 Opitz, Martin 28 Osiander, Lukas (the younger) 43 – 5 Otto, Johann Richard 1 – 2, 56, 86, 95 – 6 Paradiesgärtlein 36; buried with owner 159; emblems in 103 – 6; illustrations in 101 – 8, 179; kept in libraries 72 – 88, 96, 98 – 9, 121, 123, 129; as miracle 121 – 2, 123 – 5, 127 – 30, 139, 140; narrative about 4 – 7, 10, 31 – 48; prefaces to 36 – 41, 44, 164; preserved in fire 4, 6, 17,

31 – 6, 37 – 8, 39 – 40, 41, 45, 50, 59 – 60, 76, 77, 79, 80 – 1, 82, 83, 84, 87, 96, 98 – 9, 121, 150; sign of orthodoxy 44 – 7 Pfefferkorn, Oliver 6 – 7, 83 – 4 Philipp III, Landgrave of HessenButzbach 31, 34, 73 – 6, 81 pietists 44, 82 – 3, 88, 142, 152, 160 piety 7, 9, 43, 123 – 4 Pilarik, Esaias 52, 120 Pilarik, Stephan 50 – 3 prayer book 4, 6, 26, 39, 81, 177, 182 – 3, 188, 39; see also Paradiesgärtlein Pritius, Johann Georg 82 prodigy 8, 18, 27, 32, 52, 120, 137, 175, 179 – 80 Protestants: and cessation of miracles 132 – 8, 151; and miracles 5, 7 – 9, 17; and relics 184; suppression of 26 – 7, 31 providence 8, 17 – 18, 34, 41, 48, 52 – 3, 55, 56, 58, 82, 87 – 8, 95 – 6, 120, 122, 126 – 8, 138, 139, 146, 153 – 4, 177, 179, 180; special providence 88, 121 – 2, 127, 143, 153, 162 – 4; see also hand of God Rambach, Johann Jacob 127, 162, 164 Reformation: as miracle 158 – 9; and miracles 8 – 9, 133 – 5 relics 14, 184; Luther relics 56, 59, 123 – 5, 183 – 8 Saubert, Johannes 158 Schamel, Johann Martin 39 – 40 Scharfe, Martin 5, 44 Schelhorn, Johann Georg 125 – 6 Schelwig, Samuel 46 – 7 Schenda, Rudolf 8 Schmid, Johann Andreas 152 – 5 Schöpffer, Justus 57 – 8, 80 Schröder, Winfried 150 – 1 Schultz, Johann 94, 156 Schwenckfeld, Casper 43, 74 Scribner, Robert 6, 56, 58 – 9 Scriver, Christian 39 – 40, 52, 129 Slenczka, Ruth 185 – 6 Sluhovsky, Moshe 8 Soergel, Philip 133 – 4 Spangenberg, Johann 28 – 9, 125, 148, 149, 177

196 Index Spener, Jakob Philipp 3, 55, 121, 122, 126, 129, 131, 158 Spinoza, Benedict 132, 150 St. Aquinas, Thomas 154, 141 – 2 St. Augustine 135, 137, 138 St. Dominic 16 St. Edmund of Canterbury 122 Stern, publishing house 1, 45, 93 Stieffler, Johann 51 Stockfleth, Heinrich Arnold 54 – 5, 94 – 5, 120, 183 superstition 9, 11, 99, 129 – 30, 175, 185 Tarnow, Paul 158 Tentzel, Gottfried 16 – 17, 26, 30, 49 – 53, 58, 76, 80, 130, 131, 152 – 6, 182 Thirty Years War 4, 25, 27 – 8, 30 – 2, 35 trial-by-fire 14, 47, 75, 125 – 8, 146, 147 – 9, 160 unburnt books 1 – 7, 14 – 17; canonisation of 181 – 4; illustrations of 100 – 8; kept in libraries 72 – 88; as miracles (see Catholics and miracles); as relics 184 – 8; as religious objects 88 – 100; reports about 25 – 43; unburnt Bibles 48 – 56; and wonder 178 – 81

Varenius, Heinrich 43 – 6 Veiel, Elias 38, 48 – 9, 79, 121 Vladimir the Great 14, 16 Voetius, Gisbertus 136 – 7, 154 Voigt, Gottfried Christian 130 Vulpius, Johann 59 Wahre Christentum 43; controversy about 43 – 7, 74, 128; emblems in 104; preserved in fire 39 – 40, 42, 47 – 8, 83 – 4, 94, 98 – 100, 156 – 7 Waisenhaus (Halle) 83 – 8 Waisenhaus (Nordhausen) 1 – 2, 58, 95 – 6 Wanckel, Johannes 26 Weber, Max 9 Weck, Anton 90 Wegner, Georg Wilhelm 127 Weigel, Valentin 43, 74 – 5 Weismann, Christian Eberhard 163 Weismann, Ehrenreich 78 Werle, Dirk 181 – 2 Westphal, Christoph Heinrich 156 – 9, 180 Winckelmann, Johannes 74 wonder 8, 18, 29, 52, 86 – 7, 133 – 4, 137, 143, 149, 157 – 9, 178; wondering 179 Wundergeschicht 34 – 5, 125, 129 Zedler, Johann Heinrich 17 Zwingli, Huldrych 14