A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

in Johann Conrad Dippel (1673-1734), who developed a system of rationalistic mysticism, and as to whom, says an orthodox historian, "one is doubtful whether to place him in the class of pietists or of rationalists, of enthusiasts or of scoffers, of mystics or of freethinkers." [1263] The son of a preacher, he yet "exhibited in his ninth year strong doubts as to the catechism." After a tolerably free life as a student he turned Pietist at Strasburg, lectured on astrology and palmistry, preached, and got into trouble with the police. In 1698 he published under the pen-name of "Christianus Democritus" his book, Gestäuptes Papstthum der Protestirenden ("The Popery of the Protestantizers Whipped"), in which he so attacked the current Christian ethic of salvation as to exasperate both Churches. [1264] The stress of his criticism fell firstly on the unthinking Scripturalism of the average Protestant, who, he said, while reproaching the Catholic with setting up in the crucifix a God of wood, was apt to make for himself a God of paper. [1265] In his repudiation of the "bargain" or "redemption" doctrine of the historic Church he took up positions which were as old as Abailard, and which were one day to become respectable; but in his own life he was much of an Ishmaelite, with wild notions of alchemy and gold-making; and after predicting that he should live till 1808, he died suddenly in 1734, leaving a doctrine which appealed only to those constitutionally inclined, on the lines of the earlier English Quakers, to set the inner light above Scripture. [1266]