Monumenta testium veritatis. Catalog of the Printings of Protestant "Witnesses of the Truth" in the 16th and 17th Centuries and Edition of the "Opus arduum valde"

• Applicants: Dr. Christoph Galle; Professor Dr. Wolf-Friedrich Schäufele
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 319267188

The Churches of the Reformation founded their alleged identity of being the true church of Christ not only in a dogmatical or ethical way but even in a historical one. While the papal church throughout history had apostatized from its divine calling, the reformers saw themselves in succession of medieval predecessors, who were lined up by God as witnesses of the truth even in times of decline. At the beginning was the thesis - formulated already in 1519 - of Jan Hus being Luther's precursor; Luther, Melanchthon and their followers gradually developed an explicitly reformatory and protestant view of ecclesiastical history and the reformation was presented as goal and end of a series of evangelical witnesses of the truth. This concept had impact on both the concept of history and the discourse on protestant identity even beyond premodern times. In its classical shape, the paradigm of witnesses of the truth was represented by the "Catalogus testium veritatis" published by Matthias Flacius Illyricus in 1556 and again in 1562. In a modified way it even can be found in the Protestant martyrologies written by Ludwig Rabus, Jean Crespin and John Foxe. In contrast to these works another important medium that helped establishing the narrative of the historical identity of Protestantism, has not yet been explored systematically: the printings of medieval texts that were procured by reformers or reformatory minded printers for claiming these or their authors as witnesses of the truth. Luther himself arranged a number of such printings and added his own prefaces, especially during the years 1522-1528. Furthermore there have been several similar printings in the 16th and 17th centuries in different European countries. This project aims to create a complete repertory of printings that were used as evangelical witnesses of the truth all over Europe until this discourse lost its significance, which is being dated to the 17th century by recent research. Thus we shall create an instrument for reconstructing the personal, local and temporal dynamics of the production of this special kind of protestant literature as well as measuring its importance for the confessional conflicts of their time. A first evaluation of the data shall take place at a conference of experts. The repertory will be supplemented by a critical edition of an important example of a printed "witness of the truth". For this purpose, the "Opus arduum valde" has been selected, a commentary of the Book of Revelation, that has its origins in 14th century England, was adopted by radical exponents of the 15th century Bohemian Hussites, passed to the Baltic states and reached Luther, who prepared a printout with his own preface, that was published in Wittenberg in 1528.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Romolo Cegna