Customer Reviews

A Poisoned Chalice

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The microhistory, A Poisoned Chalice by Jeffrey Freedman traces the evolution of a crime in Zurich, Switzerland in the autumn of 1776. It was "a crime without parallel,"(Freedman, 102.) or so Johann Casper Lavater would have us think about the poisoning of the communion wine on the eve of an important liturgical event in the Christian calendar. Johann Lavater would be a key participant in the events after the poisoning and his adversary a philosopher from the school of the Aufkl?rung, Friedrich Nicolai. (Despite Lavater's rivalry with Nicolai, ironically, a portion of Lavater's early education was in the school of Aufkl?rung.) This crime, and the fervor it sparks in its aftermath, is a case study into the pressing debates in late Enlightenment thought and how the "public sphere" was used in those debates. The two opponents became embroiled in that debate as a result of the poisoning.

Freedman uses the information in the "public sphere" from the poisoning to reconstruct the events surrounding the crime and its aftermath. Freedman relies heavily upon accounts from German newspapers, leaflets on the street, and lastly, the dialogues between the two leading adversaries. Through these documents, Freedman explores what lay beneath the surface of this incident. He also explores the culture of the print media and explains how news accounts spread so rapidly in the German world. One does wonder why this incident did not spread beyond the German-speaking world. Given that there was a literary underground in France, and given that there was a certain freedom to the British presses, and given the heinous nature of this purported crime, why is there a lack of records in other nations? However, the documents that Freedman uses reveal the true nature of the debate between Christian orthodoxy and Enlightenment rationale. To his credit, Freedman interweaves the documents with a flowing narrative that reads like a murder mystery.

As it was a high liturgical celebration on the Christian calendar, Communion was to be given during that morning service. Preparations were made Wednesday night for the celebration of Holy Communion. Everything seemed normal during the preparations. That normalcy was changed when it came time to celebrate the Lord's Supper that next morning. Possible disaster was adverted when the clergy noticed that the wine did not look quite right after a few parishioners sipped the now murky wine. Something had happened, but what exactly? Slowly, an investigation began. The communion wine was tested. Johannes Gessner, doctor, amateur chemist, and professor, was given the task of running tests on the wine. As the "leading scientist in Zurich," authorities probably assumed that his findings would surely be accurate and unquestionable. Gessner conducted empirical experiments on the wine to discover what had tainted it. He found "true arsenic" in the wine, along with many other additives of a botanical nature. (Freedman, 20) Now, the pressure to find the perpetrator increased. Theories then abounded about who might have done the deed. Time passed, however, and no one was taken into custody.

The initial reporting of the crime was not widespread; in fact, it was primarily localized. It would grow, however, as the tale became more sensationalized. The story passed from one newspaper to another in the German-speaking world. Often times, the reports were lifted from one newspaper to the next. As time passed, the severity of the crime worsened. Some reports indicated that there were scores dead from the poisoning, but in reality, it was questionable if anyone died or even became ill. The sensational journalism caused citizens to pressure the authorities of Zurich to find the monster who could perpetrate such an unholy deed. The authorities now knew they needed to find a suspect.

Enter Hartmann Wirz, a gravedigger in Zurich. The authorities, almost desperate to find the person who committed the act, found this uneducated and cantankerous man to blame. He had crossed many townspeople, he was an easy target and his conviction would not have caused a significant backlash. Preachers began giving sermons on the crime. The most prominent of these was Johann Lavater. Lavater was a defender of orthodox Christianity, which he believed to be under attack by Enlightenment thinkers who viewed, at least in his mind, Christianity as a mere teacher of morality. He began railing against the immorality of Zurich, and more specifically, the Enlightenment. Lavater viewed this crime as a manifestation of that immorality. (Goodman, 93-96.) Newspapers across the German-speaking world reprinted his sermons. That is when Friedrich Nicolai took notice.

What was to follow between Lavater and Nicolai was an epistemological battle on the nature of knowledge and of evil. Lavater's discourse with Nicolai hinged on the "scientific" findings of the physician Gessner. Freedman argued that there was not an inherent hypocrisy in Lavater's reliance on science in this instance, despite the possible perception of such. Religion, to Lavater, was experienced through "religious empiricism," and as such, the type of science that found the presence of arsenic in the communion wine was empirical as well. Lavater's arguments relied upon the empirical findings of poison in the wine, specifically, the smell of garlic which is one indicator of the presence of arsenic. Lavater, however, still needed to apply meaning to the crime in his sermons and in subsequent debates with Nicolai. "Lavater turned to an analogic mode of reasoning....Adapting this practice to the interpretation of a contemporary event, Lavater related the poisoning to the crucifixion of Christ." To Lavater, the poisoner was equated to Judas, the betrayer of Christ. (Goodman, 101)

Nicolai, in response, employed the Cartesian method of questioning everything. He was determined to find the bais of Lavater's arguments and destroy it so that the rest of the preacher's arguments would tumble in turn. Nicolai had doubts whether a crime was even perpetrated. "To Nicolai, the whole official version of events [was] shot through with so many inconsistencies, invalid assumptions, and logical flaws as to be utterly unconvincing." (Goodman, 113) Nicolai systematically examined the reports of the tests run on the wine and "accepted nothing unless it could be clearly and irrefutably proved." (Goodman, 114) He found the official reports to be biased and ambiguous. He then theorized about what occurred, holding close to empirical methodology that he also championed. Nicolai believed that a motive was needed to establish that a crime had been committed. This statement suggests that Nicolai, himself, had preformed a judgment against the incident; a lack of motive would allow him to explain it all away. (Goodman, 134)

Lavater believed, as he preached in subsequent sermons and wrote in response to Nicolai's findings, that he was essentially arguing the issue out of existence. For Lavater, it was more than just the poisoning; it was also the existence of evil. Lavater now called the crime, schadenfreude, which in a loose translation from German is equated to a mischievous deed. He tied the crime to Satan as being the chief instigator of any such deed. (Goodman, 130) This was now a matter of good and evil to Lavater and he hinted that Nicolai, by his denial of the incident, was an accessory to the devil.

Nicolai could rightly be declared the winner in this debate on the poisoning of the wine, although Freedman admits that even Nicolai's explanations leave something to be desire. (Goodman, 155-156.) Lavater, after the debate between he and Nicolai, was humiliated in the public sphere. Ultimately, we left to ask if a crime had actually been committed. Nicolai, and Freedman himself, put forth theories that bring into such a conclusion into question. Was the wine poisoned? In all likelihood, no. Were Lavater and Nicolai important combatants in the struggle between Christian orthodoxy and the Enlightenment? Surely not due to the fact that Nicolai was attacked by his Enlightenment peers for his previous works, even by the infinitely more famous, Emmanuel Kant. What this is, however, is an interesting case study in the nature of the larger dispute.

One observer called it "the most unchristian, the most inhuman, the most outrageous, and the most unspeakable deed that has ever been committed or that ever will be committed." It is obvious that he was trying to make the event seem impressive, and he would have been disappointed to know that a couple of centuries later, just about no one remembers this infamy. It has been brought back into modern consciousness now by a surprising book, _A Poisoned Chalice_ (Princeton University Press) by Jeffrey Freedman. The crime was poisoning of the communion wine at the Zurich Cathedral in 1776, and there were clues that someone with access to the church interior had done the foul deed.

The crime created a sensation in the German papers (not the Swiss ones, for they were forbidden to report on local matters. The story swelled until it was reported that many communicants had died from the poisoning (none had). There had been no eyewitness, and chemical analysis of the wine was contradictory, but the crime was so diabolical that a culprit had to be found. He was a local gravedigger, but even though torture was used to get evidence, he was eventually freed because there wasn't any against him. Libelous handbills were pasted up in the town accusing magistrates, not the gravedigger, of the crime. Four years later, a whistleblower was charged with it, again with no evidence. Johann Caspar Lavater, an influential Zurich pastor, orated and published sermons that blamed the rationalists and freethinkers for the crime. He insisted that a depraved mind had carried out the poisonings, and such depravation could only have happened by inspiration of Satan himself, through the agency of those who favored more liberal religious views. Lavater was opposed by Friedrich Nicolai, a leader of the Enlightenment in his region. He and his fellows insisted that Christianity, whatever its merits, was not the only antidote to wickedness, that humans could form their own rational dictates about morality, and that Satan was a humbug. Specifically in the poisoning case, Nicolai published a lucid refutation of Lavater, showing, for instance, that no one had complained about effects of the wine until allegations of the poisoning had become widespread.

Freedman has his own theory about whether there was a poisoning or not, and who did it, but without revealing it here, it is safe to say that the case was not solved at the time nor will it be in the future. More importantly, he has connected this peculiar incident to the history of ideas. The nature of evidence, the limits of scientific testing, the existence of Satan, the credibility of original sin, and the degree to which reason may bring morality all were examined at the time in the mirror of the communion poisoning. _A Poisoned Chalice_ is a readable, entertaining account of a bizarre and mysterious little case, and the larger issues that were tied to it.

One observer called it "the most unchristian, the most inhuman, the most outrageous, and the most unspeakable deed that has ever been committed or that ever will be committed." It is obvious that he was trying to make the event seem impressive, and he would have been disappointed to know that a couple of centuries later, just about no one remembers this infamy. It has been brought back into modern consciousness now by a surprising book, _A Poisoned Chalice_ (Princeton University Press) by Jeffrey Freedman. The crime was poisoning of the communion wine at the Zurich Cathedral in 1776, and there were clues that someone with access to the church interior had done the foul deed.

The crime created a sensation in the German papers (not the Swiss ones, for they were forbidden to report on local matters. The story swelled until it was reported that many communicants had died from the poisoning (none had). There had been no eyewitness, and chemical analysis of the wine was contradictory, but the crime was so diabolical that a culprit had to be found. He was a local gravedigger, but even though torture was used to get evidence, he was eventually freed because there wasn't any against him. Libelous handbills were pasted up in the town accusing magistrates, not the gravedigger, of the crime. Four years later, a whistleblower was charged with it, again with no evidence. Johann Caspar Lavater, an influential Zurich pastor, orated and published sermons that blamed the rationalists and freethinkers for the crime. He insisted that a depraved mind had carried out the poisonings, and such depravation could only have happened by inspiration of Satan himself, through the agency of those who favored more liberal religious views. Lavater was opposed by Friedrich Nicolai, a leader of the Enlightenment in his region. He and his fellows insisted that Christianity, whatever its merits, was not the only antidote to wickedness, that humans could form their own rational dictates about morality, and that Satan was a humbug. Specifically in the poisoning case, Nicolai published a lucid refutation of Lavater, showing, for instance, that no one had complained about effects of the wine until allegations of the poisoning had become widespread.

Freedman has his own theory about whether there was a poisoning or not, and who did it, but without revealing it here, it is safe to say that the case was not solved at the time nor will it be in the future. More importantly, he has connected this peculiar incident to the history of ideas. The nature of evidence, the limits of scientific testing, the existence of Satan, the credibility of original sin, and the degree to which reason may bring morality all were examined at the time in the mirror of the communion poisoning. _A Poisoned Chalice_ is a readable, entertaining account of a bizarre and mysterious little case, and the larger issues that were tied to it.