Christoph Martin Wieland e il cristianesimo

Abstract

The religious debate is vivid and constant during the eighteenth century, different positions coexist and culminate in Deism and Hermeticism but also in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. Christoph Martin Wieland is one example of the many authors who reflect on the religious question in this climate of continuous alternation of opinions. This work focuses on two novels by Christoph Martin Wieland Peregrinus Proteus (1791) and Agathodämon (1799). In these texts, which are rarely studied and closely related, the reflection on Christianity is characterized by various angles of view. This paper intends to demonstrate how the Peregrinus Proteus also criticizes early Christianity and how the Agathodämon, while attributing to Christianity an important civilizing function on humanity, stresses the belonging of man to the divine principle. This idea was already anticipated in the first novel and it is now reinforced.