CORPUS SCHWENCKFELDIANORUM
Published under the Auspices of the Schwenkfelder Church Pennsylvania
Supplement Volumes I-III:

A Rediscovered Corpus of Radical Reformation Bible Exegesis

VALENTIN KRAUTWALD

II: Valentin Krautwald: In evangelium secundum Iohannem annotata. Vorlesung über das Johannesevangelium (1529). 2024. In Vorbereitung / forthcoming. ISBN 978-3-87320-875-9

Radical Reformation Bible exegesis has largely been neglected by researchers. This Supplement to the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum presents hitherto unknown lectures on the New Testament held by Valentin Krautwald in Liegnitz, Silesia, between 1526 and 1530. The texts offer new insights into the emergence of Schwenckfeldianism and its intellectual sources.
Krautwald, the pioneer of Greek and Hebrew studies among the Silesian humanists, only entered theological debates when he was already sixty years old. Starting with an expert opinion on the Eucharistic Controversy of 1525, Krautwald gradually developed an original theological system. Eventually, he rejected both the traditional Roman Catholic Church and the new worship and doctrines introduced by the Reformers. Krautwald did not publish any of his theological works himself. His ideas were popularized and propagated by the Silesian nobleman Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig, who had gone into exile in Southern Germany in 1529. For the rest of the sixteenth century, Schwenckfeldian Spiritualism became the most influential form of religious dissent among Southern German urban elites and the lower aristocracy.
In 1526, the Duke of Liegnitz attempted to establish an evangelical university in the capital of his principality. Krautwald was appointed lecturer at the short-lived and poorly documented "Gymnasium Legnicense." Overlooked by pre vious research, extensive notes of Krautwald's lectures have survived in manuscripts in Prague, Munich, Cambridge and Wolfenbüttel.
Krautwald based his lectures on the New Testament scholarship of Erasmus and on his own reading of the church fathers. The newly-discovered texts document Krautwald's theo logical radicalization and the formation of Schwenckfeldian doctrine. Manuscript copies of Krautwald's lectures were circulated and studied within Schwenckfeldian circles, but were forgotten in the seventeenth century. The critical edition includes historical introductions, German summaries of Krautwald's Latin expositions, critical notes, and various indices.

Already published:
Volume I: Valentin Krautwald: In evangelium Matthaei annotata.

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