POWER AND SUFFERING IN MICHAEL SACHS' SCHOENE TRAGEDIA/VON STEPHANO DEM HEILIGEN MARTERER (1565)

Publisher： Rodopi

ISSN： 0300-693X

Source： Daphnis - Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur, Vol.28, Iss.1, 1999-06, pp. : 93-115

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Abstract

Michael Sachs, Lutheran churchman and prolific writer, dated the preface to this, his only drama, on his twenty-second birthday in 1564. Although a very young man, in the play he confidently explains the persecution of Peter, John, and Stephen reported in Acts 3-8 as a paradigm of the hardships endured by the Lutheran leadership of Germany after Luther's death. Carefully revising the biblical narrative, he makes police power in the secular state directly responsible for the apostles' martyrdom. He views their sufferings, and those of sixteenth-century Lutherans as well, in the light of the great model, the Passion of Christ. His dedicatory epistle to Katharina of Schwarzburg shows his eagerness to strengthen this remarkable woman's zeal in support of Lutheran clergy and teachers (to which group he belonged), and, more generally, to urge the use of political power in support of the evangelical church.