Weigel, Valentin: Sämtliche Schriften. Neue Edition / Band 12,1-2: Kirchen- oder Hauspostille
Will-Erich Peuckert, Horst Pfefferl, Valentin Weigel, Winfried Zeller
The ›Kirchen- oder Hauspostille‹ (Church or House Devotional Book), written in 1578/79, has been handed down in three publications which are interdependent and represent a contradiction to the established practice of devotional books in the Lutheran church. Weigel transcribes the sermons he held in the main church service in a »clandestine« manuscript. Based on the outdated homiletic tradition, he used this to summarize his independent theological and philosophical convictions formed during these years, convictions which were strongly influenced by his study of the obligation to the »Formula of Concord«, which he saw as a constraint. It was in the ›Postille‹, that modern researchers saw Weigel‹s »most comprehensive, most famous work and at the same time the work most often attacked by orthodoxy« (S. Wollgast) as well as »one of Weigel‹s most magnificent products« (W. Zeller).