Johann August von Starck
Encyclopedia
Johann August Starck also Stark (October 24, 1741 – March 3, 1816) was a prolific author and controversial Königsberg
theologian, as well as a widely-read political writer now best remembered for arguing that an Illuminati
-led conspiracy brought about the French revolution
. Immanuel Kant
and Johann Georg Hamann
were among his acquaintances in Königsberg. His broadly deistic approach emphasized natural religion and smoothed over doctrinal differences among the various faiths.
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
theologian, as well as a widely-read political writer now best remembered for arguing that an Illuminati
Illuminati
The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...
-led conspiracy brought about the French revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
and Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
were among his acquaintances in Königsberg. His broadly deistic approach emphasized natural religion and smoothed over doctrinal differences among the various faiths.
Biography
- Johann August Starck was born in SchwerinSchwerinSchwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
(Mecklenburg) on 28 October 1741, the son of a Lutheran pastor. - Starck began his studies in theology and oriental languages at GöttingenGöttingenGöttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
in 1761 under Johann David MichaelisJohann David MichaelisJohann David Michaelis , a famous and eloquent German biblical scholar and teacher, was a member of a family which had the chief part in maintaining that solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages which distinguished the University of Halle in the period of Pietism.-Life and work:J. D...
(1717–91), with whom he later broke. - In that same year he was initiated into a French freemasonryFreemasonryFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
lodgeMasonic LodgeThis article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
at Göttingen and soon became an enthusiastic and evangelizing convert. - He also made the acquaintance of Anton Friedrich BüschingAnton Friedrich BüschingAnton Friedrich Büsching was a celebrated German theologian and geographer.His Erdbeschreibung was the first geographical work of any scientific merit. The first 10 parts feature the geography of Europe, the 11...
(1724–93), who taught at the university in Göttingen but left for St. Petersburg in 1761 to pastor the Lutheran congregation there and to direct the famous Petrina Academy, and in 1763 he offered Starck a post teaching Roman antiquity and Near Eastern (‘oriental’) languages. - While teaching in St. Petersburg, Starck had met a Greek by the name of Count Peter Melesino (or ‘Melissino’; 1726–97), a lieutenant-general in the Russian Imperial Army, and whose order of freemasonry claimed the clerics of the Templar Knights as its ancestors, and through whom the secret wisdom of the ancient EgyptiansEgyptiansEgyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
and JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
was claimed to have been preserved. - Starck filled this post for the next two years, all the while furthering his contacts in the world of freemasonry, and then traveled to ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1765 and obtained a position at the royal library working with ancient Near Eastern manuscripts. - Starck was awarded his magister degree from Göttingen in absentia in 28 August 1766, but his father’s illness soon brought him back to Germany, where he assumed a position as assistant rector at the gymnasium in WismarWismarWismar , is a small port and Hanseatic League town in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,about 45 km due east of Lübeck, and 30 km due north of Schwerin. Its natural harbour, located in the Bay of Wismar is well-protected by a promontory. The...
(1766-8). - Starck promoted the clerical brand of Templarism and in 1768 joined it to movement of Karl Gotthelf von HundKarl Gotthelf von HundKarl Gotthelf, Reichsfreiherr von Hund und Altengrotkau was a German freemason. In 1751, he founded the Rite of Strict Observance....
(1722–76), a union formalized in 1772. During this time he helped found a Strict ObservanceRite of Strict ObservanceThe Rite of Strict Observance was a Rite of Freemasonry, a series of progressive degrees that were conferred by the Order of Strict Observance, a Masonic body of the 18th century....
lodge at Wismar (February 1767) while teaching at the local gymnasium, - Starck returned to St. Petersburg in 1768, presumably on freemasonry business, before arriving in Königsberg on 28 September 1769 where he lived next door to Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
(1724–1804) — both were renting rooms from the book dealer Kanter, although Starck appears to have enjoyed free lodging. - Starck began teaching in the philosophy faculty as an associate professor of Near Eastern languages with the summer semester of 1770, the same semester Kant began his tenure as full professor of logic and metaphysics. Starck was also appointed as second court chaplain at this time.
- After moving to Königsberg he founded a second Clerical chapter (1770).
- In 1773 he received a doctorate in theology from Königsberg, legitimizing his appointment as 4th full professor of theology in 1772.
- He gave up his philosophy appointment in the fall of 1773, and the following April married Maria Albertine Schultz, the youngest daughter of the late Franz Albert SchultzFranz Albert SchultzFranz Albert Schultz was a Prussian divine and superintendent.He was born 25 September 1692 in Szczecinek. He studied at the University of Halle-Wittenberg philosophy under Christian Wolff and divinity. At this time he followed August Hermann Francke's pietism...
(1692–1763), a prominent pietist leader and professor of theology at Königsberg. - In 1776 Starck became the senior court chaplain at Königsberg, as well as third full professor of theology and the general superintendent of the East Prussian schools.
- Johann Georg HamannJohann Georg HamannJohann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
(1730–88) was a strident critic of Starck’s and much of the theology faculty and local clergy opposed him, especially G. C. Pisanski (1725–90), G. C. Reccard (1735–98), F. S. Bock (1716–85), and Kant’s close acquaintance and biographer L. E. Borowski (1740–1831). - Starck’s publication of Hephästion (1775), which traced certain features of ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
back to pagan roots, precipitated a strong reaction among clerics and the academic community, including a rebuttal by Pisanski (Antihephästion, 1776). - His broadly deistic approach emphasized natural religion and smoothed over doctrinal differences among the various faiths, such as in his anonymous Defense of Freemasonry (1770), that argued the wisdom found in the Eleusinian mystery religion, freemasonry, and Christianity were essentially all of a piece.
- Personal disagreements and conflict with the local consistory, as well as overwork, eventually led Starck to resign his various positions in March 1777, leaving PrussiaPrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
to teach philosophy at the gymnasium of Mitau - the capital of CourlandCourlandCourland is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...
and a center of freemasonry at the time. During this time he published a three-volume History of the Christian Church (1779–80) as well as an anonymous Honest Thoughts about Christianity (1780) that marked a conservative turn in his theology. - A shift towards the reactionary, first evident in Starck’s 1780 anonymous Honest Thoughts about Christianity, was complete in his widely-read Triumph of Philosophy (1803) — a work partly inspired by Abbé Barruel’s attack on freemasonry (1797) — wherein he claimed that the Illuminati, a freemasonry group founded by Adam WeishauptAdam WeishauptJohann Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati, a secret society with origins in Bavaria.-Early life:...
(1748–1830) in 1776, stood behind the French revolution and were secretly pursuing similar lawless and godless schemes in German lands and elsewhere. - The Prussian Crown Prince, later Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia was traveling through Courland at this time and a meeting with Starck appears to have caused the prince to leave the Strict Observance order.
- Starck’s views and personality soon made him unwelcome in Mitau, and in 1781 he secured an appointment at Darmstadt as the court chaplain and general superintendent of schools for GießenGießenGießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...
and Darmstadt, where he finished out his career. - Starck’s Ancient and New Mysteries (1782) revisited earlier work on ancient mystery religions and compared these with modern freemasonry; while finding some similarities, he rejected any historical continuity.
- In his anonymous 1809 plea for ecumenicism The Banquet of Theodulus, which enjoyed numerous editions, he argued that ProtestantismProtestantismProtestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
could not hold its ground against the naturalistic tendencies of the Enlightenment. - In 1811 he was raised to the nobility by the Großherzog of Hessen.
- Stark died in DarmstadtDarmstadtDarmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
on 3 March 1816.
Further reading
- Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, 1966), pp. 506–17.
- Hamberger (1798), vol. 7, pp. 614–6; (1825), vol. 20, pp. 578–9.
- Konschel, Paul, Hamanns Gegner, der Kryptokatholik D. Johann August Starck, Oberhofprediger und Generalsuperintendent von Ostpreußen (Königsberg, 1912).
- Pisanski, Georg Christoph, , ed. by Rudolf Philippi (Königsberg, 1886), pp. 565, 570, 592, 596, 601, 637, 708. Orig. publ.: Königsberg, 1790.
- Strieder, Friedrich Wilhelm, Grundlage zu einer Hessischen Gelehrten- und Schriftstellergeschichte (Kassel, 1806), vol. 15, pp. 225–37.
- Telepneff, Boris, ‘J. A. Starck and his Rite of Spiritual Masonry’ in Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge (London, 1929), vol. 41, pp. 238–84.
External links
- Biography of J.A. Starck
- The Templar Legend and the Clerics, Johann August von Starck as a freemason