Protestant Reformer Thomas Müntzer’s „Fürstenpredigt“
The book deals with the criticism of unjust government in the so called “Fürstenpredigt” (Sermon to the Princes) of the radical Protestant reformer Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) – Luther’s main adversary during the inner-Protestant conflicts in the early Reformation period and the Peasant Wars of 1525. The aim of the book is an analysis of the socio-historical and cultural backgrounds of Müntzer’s criticism in the context of a cultural history of politics. The sermon, with the original title “Auslegung des andern Unterschieds Danielis” (“Interpretation of the Second Chapter of Daniel“), is a radical criticism of the late medieval and early modern idea of a translatio imperii, of which the text of Daniel 2 is the main biblical source. The narrative about the succession of the four empires in Daniel 2 has been a paramount text already in the late antique discourse on the legitimation of political power and became a main source of theological legitimation of governmental power in the medieval and early modern German Empire and its states. Müntzer breaks with the traditional interpretation of the text, and gives a radical re-interpretation emphasizing that the political power of the princes is only conditional in the period of the last empire, awaiting the coming of God’s kingdom. If the princes do not obey the word of God and engage themselves in actively fostering the spread of the gospel, their rule is doomed and must be given to the common man.
The book shows that Müntzer’s interpretation is deeply rooted in the contemporary belief in a presentic eschatology – also shared by Luther and the humanistic elites, but with different consequences. Thus, Müntzer has re-activated the critical potential of the original Aramean book of Daniel, which is also found in the writings of the church fathers before Jerome and Augustin, which have established the present legitimatory paradigm. Müntzer himself was convinced that he himself was a chosen prophet of God and a second Daniel, preaching the gospel to the princes and leading the common man to salvation by establishing God’s kingdom on earth, here and now. The study gives further attention to Müntzer’s own engagement in local politics and tries to explain why his plan to establish a divine rule has failed because of his neglect of real politics.