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

teacher. 366 However, the turning point in Weigel’s dialogue that reveals the previous
conversation as ironic comes when the priest offers a Bekenntnis of his own. Ich muß
bekennen, he begins, that God’s grace has long taught him that his absolution has no
power to forgive the sins of one who has not repented and sought forgiveness himself
from God and neighbour, just as the layman had argued. The layman is taken aback at
this turn of events, and rightly so, wondering why the priest did not simply say so sooner.
The priest responds that he was not sure that his Beuchtkind was not still ignorant of the
truth like the other members of his flock (‘sondern stundest noch in der Unwissenheit wie
die andern’). 367
Their real beliefs now out in the open, they reassure each other that they do
indeed belong to the circle of true believers, who came to true knowledge through God’s
grace and who now understand that Christ empowers no regent to govern his Church in
his stead: “Gott setzet keinen Menschen ann seine Stadt. Christus setzet keinen
Stadthaltter, er regieret selber die Kirche.” 368 They furthermore agree that their
consciences are clear (“ohne Vorletzung meines Gewissens”), that God will judge their
366 The Sister Katherine treatise is printed in an abridged version in Ann Marie Rasmussen, Ladies, Whores,
and Holy Women (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010), 54-91. I will return to this text
in greater detail in Chapter 4.
367 Weigel, Gespreche, 89.
368 Ibid, 97. The contrast between Weigel’s two dialogues highlights his growing pessimism following the
publication of the Formula of Concord. (The editor of the critical edition estimates that the Gespreche dates
from just before the Dialogus, which references the former. The Dialogus was discussed briefly in the
introduction and will be examined further in Chapter 4.) In this Gesprech, he imagines an isolated but
dedicated community of priests and laypeople, who might reach out to each other. In the later Dialogus,
Weigel paints a less positive picture. There is no sympathetic mutual consolation between priest and
layperson as in the Gesprech, only open hostility between the Concionator and the Zuhörer, and their
antagonistic debate ends only with their deaths. Moreover, even though Weigel has Christ appear to
strengthen the authority of the Auditor, Christ does not step onto the stage as the risen glorified Christ but
rather as Mors. Death’s relationship to Christ is ambiguous, for strange as it might seem, Death is not only
sent by him, but rather “is one with him.” Just as Christ is the door to life, so too is death: “Kentestu
Christum deinen Erlöser, so würdestu mich auch kennen und nicht fur mich erschrecken dörfen. Denn er
hat mich gesandt, ich bin mit ihm eins...Ich bin die Thür zum Leben so wol als Christus mein Herre, der
mich gesandt hat.”
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