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Page 366

 

p~ k e THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG see

In 1531 there appeared at Strasburg Franck'a first great work, Chronica, ZeiOuch and Ge8chwhobibel. The frank criticisms in the book caused a great sensation, there being no party which had not received its share. Princes became aware of the dangerous character of the book, and prominent men like Erasmus entered their complaints. In 1531 Franck was imprisoned and his chronicle confiscated, but he was soon released

3. His and expelled from Strasburg. He Literary went to Esslingen where he established Activity. a soap factory for the support of his family. In 1533 he was permitted to settle at Ulm. Here he established a printing-press and printed some of his works which again brought him into conflict with the theologians and authori ties. At the instigation of Martin Frecht, first preacher at Ulm, Frunck was ordered in 1535 to leave the city, but he protested against this decision and was allowed to remain. He published several other works which, however, he was not allowed to print at Ulm. They appeared at Frankfort and again offended the theologians. Frecht suc ceeded in inducing the Town Council to expel Franck from Ulm in 1539. In 1540 a resolution written by Melanchthon was passed at the con vention of theologians in Schmalkalden in which Franck was accused of separation from the Church, contempt for the Bible and the ministry, and of heresy. These experiences naturally in creased the bitterness of his criticisms, but did not paralyze his energy. In 1539 he moved with his family and printing-press to Basel where he was active in the production and printing of numerous writings until his death.

Franck has left no adherents as he belonged to no party. The ecclesiastical leaders of the time did not understand his independence; they only recognized the incongruity of his ideas with their theology and the contradiction between his abstract idealism and their newly established Church. He was severely attacked by Luther, who criticized him for his pessimism and the lack of positive Christian thought in his works; the other Protestant theologians judged similarly. But in spite of all damnatory criticisms by theologians Franck's productions were circulated in numerous editions and remained popular for more than a century. Even more lasting and greater was their influence upon the development of free thought in the Netherlands. Franck was no original thinker in the higher sense. Most Of his thoughts on spiritualism were borrowed from the older philosophic mysticism, and he had too little of a religious nature to mark an epoch in the history of mysticism: While his works are superficial arid betray a lack of erudition, they are full of a glowing patriotism and pointed remarks and criticisms on the shortcomings of his people and his time. Franck's Chronica consists of three parts; the first comprises the time from Adam to Christ, the second treats of emperors

3. The and secular affairs, the third of popes Chroni- and spiritual affairs. The larger part Of the material has been taken from other works, but the book is original in its ar rangement, in its leading ideas, in its criticisms of

ecclesiastical phenomena of the past and present and of the political and social conditions of the people; it became very popular, and many later works of a similar kind were dependent upon it. Apart from the information on contemporaneous history and customs, the chief value of the book lies in the Ketzerchronik of the third part. Here Franck has compiled all the different beliefs which according to the judgment of Romanism would have to be considered heretical if it were consistent. Among the reformers appear the Anabaptists and enthusiasts; among the heretics rejected by thQ Church such as Mareion, Arius, Huss and Wyclif are found the great pillars of the Church-Augustine, Ambrose, etc.-in so far as they taught differently from the sixteenth-century Roman Church; by the side of the prophets of the Old Testament appear the sibyls, philosophers, and poets of the pagans--everything in alphabetical order with epitomes of their writings and pervaded by a delicate irony. Franck's purpose was to show the vain presumption of Rome and of all other sects in their claims to possess the only right faith. He criticises severely the violence of princes and the nobility, but not less the' stupidity of the mob in changing its faith like a garment, and the arrogance of the learned. He demands a decisive reform in State and society, being conscious of the misery and disorder of social and ecclesiastical conditions. The Weltbuch, Coamographie CTtibingen, 1534) appeared as the fourth part of the executive work.

Franck printed his Paradoxa, 880 Wunderreden at Ulm in 1534, and calls it the true and divine philosophy and theology for all Christians. Here he developed, on the basis of Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, Tauler and the Deutsche Theologie, his mystical and speculative theories on the relation between God and the world, God and sin, liberty and necessity, spirit and flesh, Christ and Antichrist. Subsequently there appeared his Germanise

Chroniwn (Frankfort, 1538) and Die 5. Other guldene Arch (Augsburg, 1538). In

Works. the latter work he placed side by side

passages from Holy Scripture, from the Church Fathers, and from illuminated pagans. By the side of Augustine is placed Hermes Trismegistus; by the side of Thomas, Orpheus; by the side of Plato, Tauler. Franck also translated Erasmus's "Praise of Folly" (1534) to which he appended treatises, one concerning the vanity of all human arts and sciences; the second concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the third concerning the praise of the " foolish divine word " and the difference between the internal and external word. Das Kriegabfchleixi des Friedena (Basel, 1539) was directed against the court preachers who justified war like the princes. Das verbiit8chierte Buch (1539) is a sort of concordance which is arranged in such a way that the contradictions in the letter of Scripture become prominent, and was intended to lead away from the letter to the spirit. Franck also published two collections of proverbs (Frankfort, 1541) which became popular and were enjoyed by Lessing.