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Kuhlmann, Quirinus

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Kuhl, Jean Gaspard

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a German visionary and religious enthusiast, was born at Breslau Feb. 25, 1651. He began to attract public attention at the age of eighteen, when, rising from a sick-bed, he claimed to have been, during his illness, in direct communication both with God and the devil, and asserted that the duty had fallen upon him of revealing to all nations the inspirations which he had received from the Holy Ghost. He quitted the University of Breslau, where he had been studying jurisprudence, and went at once to Holland, in 1673, to become a follower of the mystic Jacob Bohme (q.v.), as is shown by his Neubeigestrtter Bhcine (Leyden, 1674, 8vo). He found a congenial spirit in Johann Rothe, of Amsterdam, who claimed to be John the Baptist because his father's name had been Zacharias, and to this fanatic Kuhlmann dedicated his Prodromus quinquennii mirabilis (Leyden, 1674, 8vo). He also sought to enter into relations with Antoinette Bourignon, but does not appear to have succeeded. A letter of his, entitled De sapientia infusa Adamea Salomoneaque, dated Lubeck, Feb. 1675, shows that he was at that time a resident of that city. Another, addressed to sultan Mohammed IV, proves that he was in Constantinople in 1678. On Nov. 1, 1681, he published at Paris his Arcanun microcosnicum. curious and scarce, like all his works. After wandering through Switzerland, England, and Germany, he went, about 1689, to Russia, for the purpose of establishing there the " real kingdom of God." At first he succeeded in gaining a large number of partisans, and he may perhaps be considered as the founder of the yet existing sect of Duchobortzi (q.v.), or spiritual wrestlers. But the momentary religious freedom enjoyed by Russia under Basil Galitzin soon came to an end on the downfall of Sophia and the accession of Peter I to the throne. One of the first acts of the latter was the expulsion of the Jesuits, and his sentence of death on Kuhlmann and his disciple, Conrad Nordermann, supposed to have been occasioned mainly by the efforts of the Lutheran pastor Meinecke. They were both burned alive at Moscow, Oct. 4, 1689. Besides the above-named works, Adelung (Hist. de la folie humaine, 5:9) considers Kuhlmann as the author of forty-two other works, the principal of which are Epistolce theosophicce Leidenses (Leyden, 1674, 8vo): — Epistolarum Londinensiumn Catholica ad Wickeljfio- Waldenses, Hussitas, Zwinglianos, Luthersanos, Calvinianos (Rotterd. 1674, 12mo):-four pamphlets concerning his correspondence with Athanase Kircher were published under the style Kircheriana de arte mayna sciendi, etc. (London, 1681, 8vo). See B. G. Wernsdorf, De Fanaticis Silesio-rum et spectatim de Quir. Kuhlmanno (Wittemberg, 1698,1718); Museum Bremese, vol. ii; Moreri, Dict. Hlist.; Encyclop. Catholique de Fribourg; J. Gagarin, Un Document inedit sur l'expulsion des Jesuites de oMoscou en 1689, p. 27; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 28:263; Rotmund,Gelehrten Lexikon, vol. 3:s.v.; Bayle, Hist. Dict. 3:688 sq.; Hagenbach, Vorlesungen uber Gesch. d. evangel. Protestantismus, p. 316 sq.