Matthias Knutzen was a German-languaged critic of religion and the author of three atheistic pamphlets. In modernWestern history, he may be the first atheist known by name and in person.
Life
Matthias Knutzen was born at Oldenswort early in 1646. His parents were Berend Knutzen, organist in Oldenswort and his wife Elisabeth. In the same year Knutzen was born his father died. As a boy, Knutzen was sent to his brother Johann Knutzen, an organist in Königsberg in East Prussia, and attended there a secondary school from 1661 to 1664. In 1664, he registered at the university of Königsberg and in 1668, at the University of Copenhagen to study theology. In between he earned some money as a private tutor. In 1673, he took a position as a village schoolteacher and auxiliary preacher in the Kremper Marsch. However, he was dismissed at the end of that very year 1673, because he had sharply criticised the ecclesiastical authorities in his sermons. In the February 1674 he went to Rome and in the September 1674 to Jena. There, Knutzen distributed handwritten pamphlets with atheistic contents. The town and the university of Jena carried out an investigation. In order not to be arrested, Knutzen went first to Coburg and then to Altdorf near Nuremberg. On October 22, 1674, he was last seen in Jena. Then his track is lost. The author Johannes Moller wrote in his biography of North German writers, Cimbria Literata, that Knutzen had died in an Italian monastery, but that was probably only an invention made up to discredit both Knutzen and the Roman Catholic church.
Teachings
In his three pamphlets of 1674, Knutzen claimed that there was a sect or community called the “Gewissener” or “Conscientarians”. According to him, the Conscientarians had many members at different places, allegedly more than 700 at Jena alone. However, this claim is regarded as a disguise and the teachings which Knutzen spread as an alleged member of the Conscientarians were in fact his own. According to Knutzen, there are no transcendent entities such as God, the devil and immortal souls. The Bible is not plausible because of its many contradictions. The guidelines for human behavior should be reason and conscience. Therefore, both secular and ecclesiastical authorities are superfluous. In his Latin letterAmicus Amicis Amica! Knudsen summarizes his beliefs as:
Insuper Deum negamus, Magistratum ex alto despicimus, Templa quoque cum omnibus Sacerdotibus rejicientes. Moreover, we deny God, we despise authorities from above and we reject the churches together with all ministers.
The uppermost rule is for Knutzen, “Live honestly, do not harm anybody and give everybody what they deserve”, an old Roman legal principle according to Ulpian.
Writings
Epistola amici ad amicum , also under the title Amicus Amicis Amica!, 1674.
Gespräch zwischen einem Gastgeber und drei Gästen ungleicher Religion , 1674.
Gespräch zwischen einem Feldprediger namens Dr. Heinrich Brummern und einem lateinischen Musterschreiber , 1674.
Editions
M. Knutzen, ein deutscher Atheist und revolutionärer Demokrat des 17. Jahrhunderts. Flugschriften und zeitgenössische sozialkritische Schriften, ed. and prefaced by Werner Pfoh. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1965.
Matthias Knutzen: Schriften und Materialien, ed. by Winfried Schröder.. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog 2010.
Winfried Schröder, Matthias Knutzen: Flugschriften, in: Winfried Schröder, Ursprünge des Atheismus. Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart 1998, p. 420 f.
