Abstract » Viskolcz
Prague 2009
Apocalypticism, Millenarianism, and Prophecy: Eschatological Expectations between East-Central and Western Europe, 1560-1670
Noémi VISKOLCZ
Millenarianism in Theory and in Practice in the Mid-Seventeenth Century: Johann Permeier’s Circle
In my paper I shall draw attention to a very special group from the middle of the 17th century, of which members lived in different regions of West and Central Europe, but their common religion and their German language united them, nevertheless. One finds in the centre of this group a man from Vienna/Austria, called Johann Permeier (1597-1644?). He was a talented organiser and propagandist of heretic ideas such as “Weigelianism”, millenarianism etc. He founded a virtual society (Societas Regalis Jesu Christi) with participants as Abraham von Franckenberg (Ludwigsdorf, Silesia), Lorenz Grammendorf (Berlin), Florian Crusius (Danzig) or Mechior Beringer von Königshofen (Pressburg, Hungary). In the first part of my talk I shall introduce Permeier and his circle, and the main sources and literature dedicated to this theme.
In the second part I shall take a look at those chiliastic books, pamphlets and manuscripts, which were read in this circle: first of all Johann Heinrich Alsted’s Diatribe (1627), then Joseph Mede’s Clavis Apocalyptica (1627), a book from the unknown Heinrich Meerbotius (Sententia definitiva, 1633) and finally Permeier’s interpretations to these works. Permeier himself also published a millenarian commentary on the Book of Daniel (Unpartheyische Censur) in 1644, in which he scrutinised the problem of millenarianism within Protestantism. According to his main idea the Reformed millenarians (Alsted, Mede, Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld) were coming before Lutherans.
Finally, I shall discuss the spread and influence of the Permeier-phenomenon that attracted truly considerable attention in contemporary Protestantism. Permeier’s followers were rejected as marginal heretics and were formally condemned as new prophets, enthusiasts, outsiders by such mainstream theologians as Osiander, Nicolaus Hunnius or Nicolaus Baring.
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