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]