Matthias Vehe-Glirius [antikvár]

PREFACE Scholars investigating sixteenth- and seventeenth-century official writings, ecclesiastical documents or private letters relating to the history of Anti-trinitarianism often encounter the name of a mysterious figure whom contemporary writers called either Matthias Vehe, or Matthias Glirius, sometimes simply Matthias, or "the Jewish Doctor". The radical Antitrinitarian referred to by these various names disseminated his doctrines from the Pfalz to Transylvania, from Poland to the Netherlands in the two decades between 1570 and 1590. His "popularity" among his contemporaries was due to the fact that he represented the most radical Antitrinitarian theological conception in the sixteenth century. His views evoked resonse in both Western and Eastern Europe. First he won over a few town councillors in Cologne, then drew into the sphere of his influence the Transylvanian Unitarian bishop Ferenc Dávid, later on Simon Budny, the leader of the Antitrini-tarians in Lithuania, and towards the end of his life he was active, spreading " Judaistic" tenets, in the region of Emden. The writings which have come down to us from various groups of his followers, unanimously praise him for his deep knowledge, his sincere devotion and Christian piety. His antagonists describe his teaching as Judaism, Sabbatarianism or dangerous heresy and himself as the Anti-Christ and "detestable". However, neither the former nor the latter disclose any closer information about him; they only indicate that he summarized his most heretic views in his book entitled ''Mattanjah". In the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature dealing with Antitrinitarian issues his name and the title of his work are mentioned sporadically, in the form of peripheral references in certain biographical and bibliographical compilations. In most instances even these data are inaccurate and contradictory. In the attempts to lift the mist about the figure of this theoretician hiding under various names, no particular relief was produced by the discovery of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing either, who in his study of 1774, re-assessed the historical developments in Heidelberg in the early 1570s, and emphatically called attention to Matthias Vehe, then an active figure there, identifying him with the person of Matthias Glirius, who appeared in Transylvania and Poland in subsequent years. (G. E. Lessing, Werke, v. XXI. Hrsg. Leopold Zschamack, Hildesheim—New York 1970.)