the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

when they heard the Lord himself speak, so why should he expect his fellow theologians
to be converted by his own merely human preaching. 14 Through the Preacher, Weigel
asks if he is betraying his own beliefs. The Preacher suggests that the Layman should
regret making an oath he did not believe, citing Christ’s command (once in German and
then pompously repeated in Latin) that his disciples acknowledge him publicly on Earth
in order to be acknowledged before God in Heaven (Luke 12:8): “Wer im Herzen gleubet
und mitt dem Munde bekennet, der wirdt seilig: Qui me confitetur coram hominibus
etc.” 15 The question of Weigel’s cowardice comes up often in the secondary literature.
August Israel is quick to defend him (“Es war nicht Mangel an Mut, der ihn abhielt, auch
nach außen hin und streitbar aufzutreten”) and offers the reader only the explanations that
Weigel gives in his own defence (the time was not right, he would only have harmed
himself, etc.). 16 Rufus Jones is less considerate, writing that there is “one blemish on his
really beautiful character...[namely that] he lacked that robust, unswerving conscience
which compels a man who sees a new vision of the truth to proclaim it, to champion it,
and to suffer and even die for it when it comes into collision with views which his own
soul has outgrown.” 17 Although I agree with Weeks that “our object can hardly be to pass
judgment on his behavior,” since Weigel’s moral fibre is hardly a historical question,
nevertheless, the historical and intellectual context of Weigel’s very agitated inaction is
certainly a fascinating one to investigate, because Weigel offers a theology of non-action
14 Ibid, 61.
15 Weigel, Dialogus, 61.
16 August Israel, M. Valentin Weigels Leben und Schriften: Nach den Quellen dargestellt (Zschopau: F. A.
Raschke, 1888), 3.
17 Rufus Matthew Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries (London: Macmillan and Co.,
1914), 139.
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