The radical Reformation

Radicalism in the sixteenth-century Reformation first appeared in the stormy early years of the movement in Germany and Switzerland. Especially from 1521, the year when Luther was condemned at the Diet of Worms, a powerful current of popular evangelicalism convulsed society. During the early 1520s a cause which had begun with the defense of Luther in his conflict with Rome entered a phase of rapid proliferation. Evangelical preachers appeared in numerous towns, gaining a widespread following among the laity. And, contrary to popular stereotype, the laity did not always follow clerical leaders. From urban bases the Reformation quickly spread to the countryside. With this rapid growth, the reform movement inevitably became more diversified and its message more diffuse. Influential new centers of evangelical theology appeared, such as Zurich where Ulrich Zwingli emerged as the dominant figure. In addition to those of Wittenberg and Zurich, a variety of other Reformation programs were also initiated at the local level. Here preachers and laymen advanced dieir own understanding of slogans initially made popular by Wittenberg dieologians (“the pure gospel,” “Christian liberty,” “the priesdiood of all believers,” etc.). As the Reformation spread – dirough a flood of printed literature, but, more importandy for lay commoners, through sermons, public debates, and less formal oral channels – it also absorbed preexisting socio-economic grievances and political aspirations, and gained a revolutionary momentum. This popular movement culminated in the Peasants' War of 1524–26, or, as it has also been termed, the Revolution of the Common Man.

The immediate occasion for me to publish this oudine is the need to provide my audience with an introduction to the lectures on the Philosophy of Right which I deliver in the course of my official duties. This textbook is a more extensive, and in particular a more systematic, exposition of the same basic concepts which, in relation to this part of philosophy, are already contained in a previous work designed to accompany my lectures, namely my Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (Heidelberg, 1817).

The fact that this outline was due to appear in print and thus to come before a wider public gave me the opportunity to amplify in it some of those Remarks whose primary purpose was to comment briefly on ideas [Vorstellungen] akin to or divergent from my own, on further consequences of my argument, and on other such matters as would be properly elucidated in the lectures themselves. I have amplified them here so as to clarify on occasion the more abstract contents of the text and to take fuller account of related ideas [Vorstellungen] which are current at the present time. As a result, some of these Remarks have become more extensive than the aim and style of a compendium would normally lead one to expect.

On the law of God. How the law must be removed, and yet must be fulfilled.

Preface

No time has ever been so evil that God has not done something for mankind for which he cannot be thanked enough. Again, there has never been such prosperity in this world that some evil has not had to be feared. Not that God himself is so inconstant or takes pleasure in such unrest. Rather, everything carnal is so perverted that it always misuses what is at its disposal, even the very best things that God shares with it. Therefore the Lord always mixes his sweetness with salt for all his friends, as long as they stay in this world, so that the sweetness stays fresh, and his friends do not get lazy and dull.

Some people, even the majority, complain that die world is now filled with evil. This is indeed true. For although the world has always been an evil tree, it has never borne so much evil fruit as in our time. All history books and chronicles show the truth of this. But still, however much there is to complain about, there is much more that God should be thanked for if one does not look at things with a jaundiced eye. For, to say nothing of the secret work of God, if God has awakened the whole world only to ask what is the truth and to worry about error, all the treasures and values of the whole world cannot be compared to this.

The good is the Idea, as the unity of the concept of the will and the particular will, in which abstract right, welfare, the subjectivity of knowing, and the contingency of external existence [Dasein], as self-sufficient for themselves, are superseded; but they are at the same time essentially contained and preserved within it. – [The good is] realized freedom, the absolute and ultimate end of the world.

Addition (H). Every stage is in fact the Idea, but the earlier stages contain it only in more abstract form. For example, even the ‘I’ as personality is already the Idea, but in its most abstract shape. The good is therefore the Idea as further determined, the unity of the concept of the will and the particular will. It does not belong to abstract right, but has a complete content whose import encompasses both right and welfare.

Within this idea, welfare has no validity for itself as the existence [Dasein] of the individual and particular will, but only as universal welfare and essentially as universal in itself, i.e. in accordance with freedom; welfare is not a good without right. Similarly, right is not the good without welfare (fiat iustitia should not have pereat mundus as its consequence). Thus, since the good must necessarily be actualized through the particular will, and since it is at the same time the latter's substance, it has an absolute right as distinct from the abstract right of property and the particular ends of welfare.

Provident, honorable, and dear wise lords, first of all we offer our obedient and due service, because God almighty has sent to many of our hearts the spirit of truth with the revelation of his holy gospel. He enlightens all who believe in him. But the clerical mob, monks and parsons, knew how to suppress this [spirit] in many ways, without having any basis in truth. Still worse, together with their tyrannical followers they keep trying to hinder it as much as they can. And they like to see disturbances, in which [the work of] the devil, with the clergy as his tools, is characterized by division among the people into different parties about how we receive the mercy of God. And all friendly requests for them to stop have been useless. Since we should owe God more obedience than man [Acts 5:29], it is highly necessary that we eliminate godless things, and that we begin to reform ourselves, to develop godly, brotherly behavior in praise of almighty God and the honor of his holy word, Christ our Lord, and to institute brotherly unity. [It is necessary to do this] so that others, foreigners, do not seek to reform us, and so that they are not able to burden us. We want to free ourselves from the grievances which need imposes on us, and we want to support and maintain ourselves among one another as follows.

First, it is our request, desire and deep conviction that henceforth an honorable council and the congregation should have the power to install or remove a pastor in parish churches or in other churches.

Hegel was born on 27 August 1770 in Stuttgart, in the south German state of Wiirttemberg, son of a middle-class civil servant. His professional career, pursued entirely outside his home state, did not begin until he was over thirty, and was interrupted between 1806 and 1816. His eventual rise to prominence was meteoric: Hegel was offered a professorship at the University of Heidelberg in 1816, followed by an appointment two years later to the prestigious chair in philosophy at the University of Berlin which had had Fichte as its only previous occupant. Hegel occupied this position until his death from cholera on 14 November 1831. The influence of his philosophy began to decline even before his death, but its impact on Prussian academic life was perpetuated through the activity of some of his students, especially Johannes Schulze, who was Privy Councillor in charge of education from 1823 until the 1840s.

Hegel's first lectures on right, ethics and the state were delivered in 1817, during his first autumn at Heidelberg. As his text he used the paragraphs on ‘objective spirit’ from his newly published Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1816) (EH §§ 400–452). His second series of lectures came a year later in Berlin. He soon formed the intention of expanding his treatment of this part of the system in a longer text, which probably existed in draft well before his third series of lectures on right and the state were delivered in 1819–1820.

The brotherly agreement of some children of God concerning seven articles.

Among all who love God and are children of light may there be joy, peace, and mercy from our father, through the atonement of the blood of Jesus Christ, together with the gifts of the spirit, who is sent by the father to all believers for their strength, consolation, and perseverance through every grief until the end, amen. These children of light are dispersed to all the places which God our father has ordained for them, and where they are assembled with one mind in one God and father of us all. May grace and peace exist in all your hearts, amen.

Beloved in the Lord, brothers and sisters, our first and paramount concern is always what brings you consolation and a secure conscience, which has been misled previously. We are concerned about this so that you may not be separated from us forever, like foreigners, and almost completely excluded, as is just. We are concerned that you might turn, rather, to the truly implanted members of Christ, who are armed with patience and self-knowledge, and so that you may again be united with us in the power of one divine, Christian spirit and zeal for God.

It is also evident that the devil has slyly separated us through a thousand tricks, so that he might be able to destroy the work of God which has partly begun in us through God's mercy and grace.

In contract, right in itself is present as something posited, and its inner universality is present as a common factor in the arbitrariness and particular wills of those concerned. This appearance of right, in which right itself and its essential existence [Dasein], the particular will, coincide immediately – i.e. in a contingent manner – goes on, in the case of wrong, to become a semblance – an opposition between right in itself and the particular will as that in which right becomes a particular right. But the truth of this semblance is that it is null and void, and that right re-establishes itself by negating this negation of itself. Through this process of mediation whereby right returns to itself from its negation, it determines itself as actual and valid, whereas it was at first only in itself and something immediate.

Addition (H). Right in itself, the universal will, is essentially determined by the particular will, and thus stands in relation [Beziehung] to something inessential. This is the relationship [Verhältnis] of the essence to its appearance. Even if the appearance is in conformity with the essence, it is not in conformity with it from another point of view, for appearance is the stage of contingency, or essence in relation [Beziehung] to the inessential. But in the case of wrong, appearance goes on to become a semblance. A semblance is existence inappropriate to the essence, the empty detachment and positedness of the essence, so that in both [semblance and essence], their distinctness is [mere] difference.

An exposition of the second chapter of Daniel the prophet, preached at the castle of Allstedt before the active and dear dukes and rulers of Saxony by Thomas Müntzer, servant of the Word of God.

Allstedt, 1524.

First

The text of the above-mentioned chapter of the prophecy of Daniel the prophet was set forth and translated [from the Vulgate] in its clear literal sense and then the whole sermon, with the correct context, was set down as follows:

It is to be understood that poor, miserable, disintegrating Christendom can neither be counseled nor assisted unless diligent, indefatigable servants of God promote the Bible daily by reciting, reading and preaching. But if this is done, the head of many a pampered cleric must either suffer a continuous rain of hard blows or he will have to give up his profession. How can this be avoided when Christendom is being so terribly devastated by ravaging wolves? — as it is written about the vineyard of God in Isaiah 5[:19.] and Psalm 80[:9–14]. And St. Paul teaches in Ephesians 5[:19] how one should train oneself in the recitation of divine praises.

At the time of the beloved prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the others, the whole community of God's elect had fallen so totally and completely into idolatrous ways that even God himself could not help the people.

The moral point of view is the point of view of the will in so far as the latter is infinite not only in itself but also for itself (see § 104). This reflection of the will into itself and its identity for itself, as opposed to its being-in-itself and immediacy and the determinacies which develop within the latter, determine the person as a subject.

Since subjectivity now constitutes the determinacy of the concept and is distinct from the concept as such (i.e. from the will which has being in itself), and more precisely since the will of the subject, as the individual [des Einzelnen] who has being for himself, at the same time exists (i.e. still has immediacy in it), it follows that subjectivity constitutes the existence [Dasein] of the concept. – A higher ground has thereby been determined for freedom; the Idea's aspect of existence [Existenz], its real moment, is now the subjectivity of the will. Only in the will as subjective will can freedom, or the will which has being in itself be actual.

To the truthful and faithful proclaimer of the gospel, Thomas Müntzer at Allstedt near the Harz mountains, our true and dear fellow brother in Christ, etc.

May peace, grace, and mercy from God our father and Jesus Christ our Lord be with us all. Amen. Dear brother Thomas, for the sake of God do not be surprised that we address you without title and as a brother, because we want you to correspond with us. And do not be surprised that, without being asked and being unknown to you, we have presumed to establish a mutual correspondence. God's son, Jesus Christ, who appears to all who are to be saved as the sole master and head, and who calls us brothers – “his” through the one common word for all brothers and believers-has compelled us to create friendship and brotherhood, and to point out the following articles. In addition, your two pamphlets on contrived faith have caused us to write. Therefore, if you receive this letter with good intentions for the sake of Christ our saviour, and if God wills it, this letter will serve what is good, and will produce results.

In the past our ancestors fell away from the true God; from a knowledge of Jesus Christ and true faith in him; from the true, single, common, divine word; and from divine customs and Christian love and ways. And they lived without God, law, and the gospel in human, useless, unchristian practices and ceremonies.

Ethical life is the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action. Similarly, it is in ethical being that self-consciousness has its motivating end and a foundation which has being in and for itself. Ethical life is accordingly the concept of freedom which has become the existing [vorhandenen] world and the nature of self-consciousness.

Since this unity of the concept of the will with its existence [Dasein], i.e. with the particular will, is knowledge, consciousness of the difference between these moments of the Idea is present, but in such a way that each of these moments has become for itself the totality of the Idea and has the latter as its foundation and content.

The objective sphere of ethics, which takes the place of the abstract good, is substance made concrete by subjectivity as infinite form. It therefore posits distinctions within itself which are thus determined by the concept. These distinctions give the ethical a fixed content which is necessary for itself, and whose existence [Bestehen] is exalted above subjective opinions and preferences: they are laws and institutions which have being in and for themselves.

Zurich, before 17 January 1525

Wise, prudent, merciful, dear lords and brothers.

In your wisdom you certainly know how much strange talk is going around. Some maintain that a newborn child, as soon as it comes from the mother's womb, is to be baptized, and that this can be proved from holy Scripture. Others believe on the basis of the divine word that infant baptism is bad, false, and that (rather than being true) it was contrived by and grew out of the Antichrist, the pope, and his followers. Among those holding the latter belief, I too have been charged by some people with being a rebel and inhuman. But I have been accused too quickly and unjustly, and the accusation cannot be shown to have any truth. All those with whom I have had anything to do will testify that I have nowhere engaged in any rebellion, nor anywhere, in any way, taught or told them anything that has brought or can bring rebellion. For this reason I am accused unfairly. Since I am thus charged — even though untruthfully — I have thought it necessary that I now deliver to you, my merciful, dear lords a justification and explanation of my faith.

I would certainly have thought that, should you be presented with the truth, you would respect it. Your shepherds [the Zurich clergy] have repeatedly maintained [their interest in a disputation], and they have always negotiated with me on the following basis, namely that one should let Scripture speak, and that we should neither add to it nor delete anything from it.

The person must give himself an external sphere of freedom in order to have being as Idea. The person is the infinite will, the will which has being in and for itself, in this first and as yet wholly abstract determination. Consequently, this sphere distinct from the will, which may constitute the sphere of its freedom, is likewise determined as immediately different and separable from it.

Addition (H). The rational aspect of property is to be found not in the satisfaction of needs but in the superseding of mere subjectivity of personality. Not until he has property does the person exist as reason. Even if this first reality of my freedom is in an external thing [Sache] and is thus a poor kind of reality, the abstract personality in its very immediacy can have no other existence [Dasein] than in the determination of immediacy.

What is immediately different from the free spirit is, for the latter and in itself, the external in general – a thing [Sache], something unfree, impersonal, and without rights.