Note 11 — Chapter XVIII · GERMAN FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Reading edition
2. While, however, clerical action could drive such a movement under the surface, it could not prevent the spread of rationalism in all directions; and there was now germinating a philosophic unbelief
11
under the influence of Spinoza. Nowhere were there more prompt and numerous answers to Spinoza than in Germany,
12
whence it may be inferred that within the educated class he soon had a good many adherents. In point of fact the Elector Palatine offered him a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg in 1673, promising him “the most ample freedom in philosophical teaching,” and merely stipulating that he should not use it “to disturb the religion publicly established.”
13
On the other hand, Professor Rappolt, of Leipzig, attacked him as an atheist, in an
Oratio contra naturalistas
in 1670; Professor Musæus, of Jena, assailed him in 1674;
14
and the Chancellor Kortholt, of Kiel, grouped him, Herbert, and Hobbes as
The Three Great Impostors
in 1680.
15
After the appearance of the
Ethica
the replies multiplied. On the other hand, Cuffelaer vindicated Spinoza in 1684; and in 1691
F. W. Stosch
, a court official, and son of the court preacher, published a stringent attack on revelationism, entitled
Concordia rationis et fidei
, partly on Spinozistic lines, which created much commotion, and was forcibly suppressed and condemned to be burnt by the hangman at Berlin,
16
as it denied not only the immateriality but the immortality of the soul and the historical truth of the Scriptural narratives. This seems to have been the first work of modern freethought published by a German,
17
apart from Knutzen’s letter; but a partial list of the apologetic works of the period, from Gegenbauer onwards, may suffice to suggest the real vogue of heterodox opinions:—
1662. Th. Gegenbauer. Preservatio wider die Pest der heutigen Atheisten. Erfurt.
1668. J. Musæus. Examen Cherburianismi. Contra E. Herbertum de Cherbury.
1668. ,, Anton Reiser. De origine, progressu, et incremento Antitheismi seu Atheismi.18 Augsburg.
1670. Rappolt. Oratio contra Naturalistas. Leipzig.
1672. J. Müller. Atheismus devictus (in German). Hamburg.
1672. ,, J. Lassen. Arcana-Politica-Atheistica (in German).
1673. —— Besiegte Atheisterey.
1673. ,, Chr. Pfaff. Disputatio contra Atheistas.
1674. J. Musæus. Spinozismus. Jena.
1677. Val. Greissing. Corona Transylvani; Exerc. 2, de Atheismo, contra Cartesium et Math. Knutzen. Wittemberg.
1677. ,, Tobias Wagner. Examen ... atheismi speculativi. Tübingen.
1677. ,, K. Rudrauff, Giessen. Dissertatio de Atheismo.
1680. Chr. Kortholt. De tribus impostoribus magnis liber. Kiloni.
1689. Th. Undereyck. Der Närrische Atheist in seiner Thorheit ueberzeugt. Bremen.
1692. Jenkinus Thomasius. Historia Atheismi. Altdorf.
1696. J. Lassen. Arcana-Politica-Atheistica. Reprint.
1697. A. H. Grosse. An Atheismus necessario ducat ad corruptionem morum. Rostock.
1697. ,, Em. Weber. Beurtheilung der Atheisterei.
1700. Tribbechov. Historia Naturalismi. Jena.
1708. Loescher. Prænotiones Theologicæ contra Naturalistarum et Fanaticorum omne genus, Atheos, Deistas, Indifferentistas, etc. Wittemberg.
1708. ,, Schwartz. Demonstrationes Dei. Leipzig.
1708. ,, Rechenberg. Fundamenta veræ religionis Prudentum, adversus Atheos, etc.
1710. J. C. Wolfius. Dissertatio de Atheismi falso suspectis. Wittemberg.
1713. J. N. Fromman. Atheus Stultus. Tübingen.
1713. ,, Anon. Widerlegung der Atheisten, Deisten, und neuen Zweifeler. Frankfort.
[Later came the works of Buddeus (1716) and Reimmann and Fabricius, noted above, vol. i, ch. i, § 2.]