Johann Lorenz von Mosheim als Prediger der Aufklärung/Johann Lorenz von Mosheim as Preacher of the Enlightenment

• Applicant: Sophia Farnbauer
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 542530633

The dissertation is dedicated to both the sermons and the homiletics of Johann Lorenz von Mosheim in a programmatic double orientation. As outstanding pieces of German prose, Mosheim's Heilige Reden über wichtige Wahrheiten der Lehre Jesu Christi shaped the sermon culture and language of the 18th century and have gone down not only in sermon history but also in literary history, as mentions by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Christoph Martin Wieland show. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693-1755) was one of the outstanding theologians of the 18th century and in the beginning of Enlightenment theology. His importance for homiletics (theory) and sermon culture (practice) of the 18th century has already been emphasised many times, but a detailed presentation and appreciation of these revealing sources has so far been lacking. This is a considerable research desideratum which the present work seeks to fill. It does this in two ways, by examining Mosheim from the perspective of Enlightenment research as well as from the perspective of sermon research. The joint study of homiletics and sermons represents a methodological novelty in the historiography of preaching, which has already been named as a desideratum but has not yet been carried out in a comparable way. The combination of the two research perspectives of Enlightenment studies and sermon research can also correct the previous image of Mosheim to the effect that he becomes more visible than before as an actor of an Enlightenment theology. This can be illustrated by two aspects: Through his function as president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft in Leipzig (1732-1738), which was decisively shaped by Johann Christoph Gottsched, Mosheim acted in the sense of an Enlightenment preaching. He himself was already widely known at this time because of the prose of his sermons, which was considered exemplary. In the circle of the German Society, there was a productive reception of foreign-language sermon literature, especially English and French. Mosheim himself played a significant role in this and also endeavoured to convey corresponding sermons in his textbooks, including an edition of the sermons of John Tillotson (1630-1694). This study is therefore not - as it might seem at first glance - devoted to a purely theological-historical subject that is only fruitful for church-historical research, but can also claim to be adaptable for philosophical, literary and general historical research on the Enlightenment.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants