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HANS ERICH BÖDEKER Fragmente Lessing was deliberately and against the wishes of his orthodox opponents addressing a reading public which had become accustomed to dealing with theological writings. Ihe polemics surrounding the Fragmente reveal that at least in Protestant Germany, the “Fragmentenstreit” involved broad sections of the educated classes. The debate about religion as “an issue of the human being” (J. J. Spalding) had been transferred into the bourgeois public sphere and multiplied by the flourishing moral weeklies, review journals, and literary journals. Even the contemporary works of literature reflected a preoccupation with religious subjects.’ In part the debate with theology and the biblical worldview took the form of a superficial discussion of theological despotism and superstitious stupidity. No one castigated this discussion more sharply than Lessing: “Don’t dare tell me about the freedom of thought and writing that you have in Berlin. It amounts to nothing more than the freedom being put on the market together with many a stupidity directed against religion. An honest man must soon be ashamed to make use of this freedom.”!° On the other hand, Lessing himself experienced in the “Fragmentenstreit” and later Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) in the “Atheismusstreit” (Atheism Debate)" that neither Protestant theologians nor the Protestant Church were strongholds of toleration or Enlightened breadth of mind. The most powerful intellectual impetus of the Enlightenment and its real driving force derived not from a rejection of belief, but from a new ideal devotion, a new piety created from new forms of religion. Indeed, the Enlightenment, 8 Cf for instance KirscHER, Roger, Théologie et Lumiéres. Les théologiens “éclairés“ autour de la revue de Friedrich Nicolai “Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek (1765-1792), Villeneuve-d’Asq, Septentrion, 2001. ° Cf. still SCHONE, Albrecht, Säkularisation als sprachbildende Kraft. Studien zur Dichtung deutscher Pfarrersöhne, 2nd ed., Palaestra, Vol. 226, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968.; see also MARTENS, Wolfgang, Literatur und Frömmigkeit in der Zeit der frühen Aufklärung, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1989.; FRIEDRICH, H. E. - HAEFS, W. — SOBOTH, C. (eds.), Literatur und Theologie im 18. Jahrhundert. Konfrontationen - Kontroversen - Konkurrenzen. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2011, and WEIDNER, Daniel, Bibel und Literatur um 1800, München, Wilhelm Fink, 2011. 10 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing to Friedrich Nicolai (25.8.1769), in: LACHMANN, Karl (ed.), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Sämmtliche Schriften, 3rd ed., 23 Vols., Stuttgart-Berlin-Leipzig, G. J. Géschen, 1886 — 1924, (hereafter cited as Lessing Schriften LM), vol. 17, 298. 1 For further discussion see KODALLE, Klaus — Michael OHsT, Martin (eds.), Fichtes Entlassung. Der Atheismusstreit vor 200 Jahren. Kritisches Jahrbuch der Philosophie, Vol. 4, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 1999.; Essen, Georg — DANz, Christian (eds.), Philosophisch-theologische Streitsachen. Pantheismusstreit — Atheismusstreit — Theismusstreit. Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2012, and for the biograhical background see LA Vora, Anthony, J., Fichte. The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762-1799, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, especially chapters 12 and 13. * 90 ¢
