Writing Birds, Butterflies, and Other Insects: Metaphors of Mortality and Metamorphosis in Eighteenth-Century Religious Literature

ABSTRACT

The mortality of man and the possibility of life after death are recurring themes in eighteenth-century German and Swiss literature. Animal imagery serves as an idiosyncratic poetic device for illustrating the inevitability and finality of death or the metamorphosis of the body in preparation for eternity. This article explores the functions of animal metaphors of mortality and metamorphosis in three eighteenth-century works of religious literature. Gessner’s epic poem Der Tod Abels (1758) describes how the discovery of a dead bird prompts Eve to reflect on her responsibility for human mortality. Klopstock’s hymnic poem ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ (1759) questions the impermanence of life by example of a little insect, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’. In Lavater’s play Abraham und Isaak (1776), the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly proves that death is the threshold to eternity. The article offers a new perspective on the German-language tradition of Christian poetry and Bibeldichtung across literary genres and the role of animal imagery in it.

KEYWORDS:

• eighteenth century
• religion and literature
• Bibeldichtung
• Gessner
• Klopstock
• Lavater

Introduction

Animals play an important role in the Bible: perhaps the most famous example is the serpent that convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. In the literary reception of the Bible and in Christian poetry of the eighteenth century, the animal world likewise features prominently. Johann Caspar Lavater’s play Abraham und Isaak (1776), for instance, retells the Old Testament narrative of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22. 1–19) with all its key moments, from the departure of father and son to Moriah through to the appearance of the angel that prevents Isaac’s death. However, the frontispiece of the play merely shows a butterfly, an insect that cannot be found anywhere in the relevant biblical passage. The butterfly is about to emerge from its chrysalis, it looks up towards the sky and seems ready to fly away.¹ Why is there a butterfly on the title page of the play, what is its role in the dramatic action, and how does it relate to the Bible and the Christian religion? Through the example of three works of religious ‘Dichtung' written by the Swiss writers Lavater and Salomon Gessner, as well as by the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, this article explores animal metaphors and their poetic functions in eighteenth-century German-language literature.

The animal imagery in the three selected works, it will be argued, serves as a pivotal means of reflecting on the tensions between Christian concepts of mortality and eternity, and the notion of metamorphosis. In Gessner’s prose epic Der Tod Abels (1758), an adaptation of the Old Testament narrative of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4. 1–14), the motif of a dead bird is used for the purpose of making the biblical Eve contemplate her responsibility for human mortality. In Klopstock’s hymnic poem ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ (1759), the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ prompts the lyrical speaker to question the notions of immortality and life after death. The final section of this article is dedicated to Lavater’s play on Abraham, Isaac, and the butterfly. Based on a comparative analysis of these three works, it will be shown that animal metaphors are an idiosyncratic poetic device of eighteenth-century religious literature for illustrating different concepts related to the process and consequences of dying, such as the finality of death, the eternal life of the soul, or the metamorphosis of the body. At the same time, the distinction between humans and animals is blurred, and so is the distinction between body and soul.

Mourning Birds: Gessner’s ‘Der Tod Abels’ and the Mortality of Mankind

In Gessner’s prose epic Der Tod Abels, both the Garden of Eden and the world beyond it are crowded with animals. Lions, deer, eagles, and other creatures inhabit the idyllic place where Adam and Eve have settled after the Fall and where Cain will slay his brother Abel. One species that has a special function within Gessner’s fauna are the birds. They are not only part of the manifold of God’s creation, but they also serve as a metaphor of mortality.² Gessner was mainly known for his Idyllen (1756; 1772),³ and Der Tod Abels, written in five cantos, has also been described as a ‘pastoral idyll’,⁴ a ‘Prosagedicht’,⁵ or a ‘biblical epic in prose’.⁶ It is Gessner’s only literary adaptation of a biblical narrative, but Abel’s death was a popular theme in eighteenth-century literature. As Daniel Weidner highlights, Der Tod Abels can be considered a response to Klopstock’s prose play Der Tod Adams (1757), even though rather than focusing on the death of the first man, Gessner concentrates his attention on the very first death, a subject that was also taken up by Klopstock’s wife Meta in the play Der Tod Abels (1757).⁷ Besides the importance of Klopstock’s work for Gessner’s Der Tod Abels, several scholars have pointed out the significance of John Milton and his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667),⁸ Johann Jakob Bodmer’s prose translation of which was, in John L. Hibberd’s words, one of Gessner’s ‘sources of stylistic inspiration’.⁹

One potential model for Gessner’s bird imagery is a conversation between Adam and Eve in the fourth book of Milton’s Paradise Lost. In a scene before the Fall, with an atmosphere that, as Hibberd points out, resembles Gessner’s idyllic writing,¹⁰ Eve declares her love to Adam by referring to the delight she has in nature when she is with him, and she describes the singing of the birds as part of the delightful nature. In Bodmer’s German translation, Episches Gedichte von dem verlohrnen Paradiese (1742), the passage reads as follows:

Die vollkommen-schöne Eva gab ihm darauf folgende Antwort: […] Indem ich mich bey dir aufhalte, vergesse ich aller Zeit; alle Jahrszeiten, und ihre Abwechselungen, sind mir gleich angenehm. Lieblich ist die Luft der Morgenstunde, lieblich sein Anbrechen unter dem verzükenden Gesange der frühesten Vögel, angenehm die Sonne, wenn sie frühe ihre östlichen Strahlen auf dieses anmuthvolle Land ausbreitet, auf Kräuter, Bäume, Früchte, und Bluhmen, die von dem Thau schimmern; wohlriechend der fruchtbare Erdboden nach einem sanften Regen, und lieblich die sanfte Ankunft der Abendfreude, und die stille Nacht, mit diesem ihr geweihten Vogel, und diesem schönen Monden, und diesen Juweelen des Himmels, ihrem Sternengefolge: Aber weder die Luft der Morgenstunde, wenn sie unter dem Gesange der frühesten Vögel anbricht, noch die aufgehende Sonne in diesem ergetzlichen Lande, noch die Kräuter, Früchte, und Bluhmen, noch der liebliche Geruch nach einem sanften Regen, noch der milde angenehme Abend, noch die stille Nacht mit diesem ihr geheiligten Vogel, noch das Spazieren beym Monden, oder dem schimmernden Strahlen der Sternen, ist ohne dich lieblich.¹¹

In the original by Milton, Eve speaks of the ‘earliest birds’ that sing in the morning (iv. 642, 651), as well as of the ‘solemn bird’ of the night (iv. 648, 655).¹² This imagery serves first and foremost to illustrate Eve’s bliss. By translating ‘solemn’ as ‘geheiligt’ (pp. 175, 176),¹³ Bodmer emphasizes the religious dimension of the bird metaphor. Klopstock, too, uses the bird motif in his epic poem Der Messias (1748–73), but here the birds are silently wandering around, illustrating the absence of an idyllic atmosphere.¹⁴

The configuration of Gessner’s bird motif in Der Tod Abels, though in many ways reminiscent of Milton’s and Klopstock’s, is much more elaborate with regard to its religious connotations. In the first canto, the birds are presented as part of the bucolic nature of the world beyond Paradise, which forms, as Weidner points out, a cultivated version of the Garden of Eden.¹⁵ At the same time, they serve as a representation of Abel as well as of mankind in general. The motif is introduced when Abel’s wife Thirza asks him to praise God with a hymn just after the birds have woken up for their morning song: ‘Geliebter! Izt, da die Vögel zum Morgenlied erwachen, sei mir gefällig, und singe mir den neuen Lobgesang, den du gestern auf der Flur gedichtet hast.’¹⁶ Thirza’s mention of the singing birds bears resemblance with Milton’s ‘earliest birds’ that sing in the morning. Yet besides emphasizing the idyllic scenery, it has the purpose of prompting Abel to follow the birds’ example. In this way, Gessner draws a parallel between them and Abel, and the latter’s ensuing hymn of praise extends this parallel from himself to all humans, as he demands that like the birds, all creatures shall worship God: ‘Die Natur feiert den Morgen und opfert dem Herrn der Schöpfung Dank. Ihn soll jedes Geschöpfe loben, ihn, der alles schaffet und erhält; […] ihm singet der Vögel mannigfaltiger Chor hoch in der Luft oder von den Wipfeln der Bäume der Morgensonn’ entgegen.’¹⁷ Imagining shortly thereafter how God once created the animals, Abel implicitly evokes the creation of man. Moreover, he is certain that one day, humans will inhabit the entire earth and praise God everywhere and every single morning. That the birds do so already now highlights the connection between birds and humans: one day, all humans will follow the example of the praying Abel, who follows the example of the singing birds.

The poetic function of the birds as a metaphor of mankind in general and Abel in particular is reinforced in the second canto, when Abel prompts Adam and Eve to reminisce about the time they were expelled from the Garden of Eden and started inhabiting the, in Robert M. Maniquis’s words, ‘pastoral world’¹⁸ beyond it. In this context, Gessner extends the bird imagery to include Cain as well. Adam’s account constitutes a meta level that is, as Weidner and Heike Gilbert point out, embedded in the overall narrative as a kind of flashback.¹⁹ His memory of his and Eve’s first ‘Brautnacht’ in the Garden of Eden before the Fall evokes Milton’s ‘solemn bird’ of the night, as Adam remembers the night as follows: ‘nie hatten die Lieder des nächtlichen Vogels so harmonisch getönt.’²⁰ Also, the contrast to life after the Fall is foreshadowed by the example of the animal world, with the birds in a prominent role with regard to the violence that shapes human co-existence after the Fall: Adam tells his family how he suddenly saw animals behaving cruelly to each other and laments that unlike before, he and Eve were no longer ‘die gebietenden Herren dieser Geschöpfe’.²¹ Now, there was ‘Feindschaft unter den Vögeln in der Luft’.²² The hostile behaviour of the animals and especially of the birds is rather reminiscent of Klopstock’s birds in Der Messias, in the sense that they abstain from singing and thus do not create an idyllic atmosphere. Specifically, it is a foreshadowing of Cain’s murder of Abel: while the singing birds of the first canto represent the praying Abel, the hostile birds of Adam’s recollection indicate the future estrangement of the brothers. The idyllic world beyond the Garden of Eden is thus deceptive.

Having established the metaphorical relationship between birds and humans, Gessner, in a passage that Maniquis rightly describes as Adam and Eve’s ‘discovery of death’,²³ presents a dead bird as a symbol of human mortality. In his account, Adam remembers Eve’s encounter with two birds, one dead, the other mourning. Lamenting that only the Fall she herself caused brought mortality to God’s creation, animals and humans alike, Eve is now certain that one day, death will tear apart herself and Adam, too:

Da sah Eva zur Seite einen Vogel, wie er ängstlich und mit traurigem Geschrei in kleinen Zirkeln umherflattert, dann ohnmächtig mit bebendem Gefieder auf einem niedern Gesträuche sich setzte. Sie trat näher, und ein andrer Vogel lag leblos vor dem Trauernden im Grase. Lang betrachtet ihn Eva über ihn gebückt; da hub sie von der Erd’ ihn auf und wollt’ ihn wecken. Er erwachet nicht, sprach sie, und legte mit zitternder Hand ihn ins Gras hin. Er wird nimmer erwachen. Izt fing sie an zu weinen. Der du da traurest, so redete sie ihn an, vielleicht, ach! vielleicht war’s dein Gatte! Ich bin’s, die Fluch und Elend über die Erde, über jedes Geschöpfe gebracht hat, du unschuldig Leidender, ich bin’s, ich Elende! […] wenn dies der Tod ist, und wenn der uns angedrohete Tod auch so ist, o wie fürchterlich! und wenn er dann so von mir dich trennte, und du — o — Adam! ich bebe! ich kann nicht mehr!²⁴

That both the surviving bird and Eve mourn the dead indicates that death is final, as the Christian notion of the afterlife is not existent in Gessner’s Old Testament world: neither the body nor the soul are meant for eternity.

The dead bird causes Eve to reflect on her responsibility not only for the death of the animals, but also for human mortality, subverting the distinction between animals and man: the incident demonstrates that death concerns all parts of God’s creation. In a similar vein, Adam states that God’s curse of mortality (Genesis 2. 17) includes all creatures alike. The few animals that once inhabited the Garden of Eden, he reports, have left it together with Adam and Eve, for the reason that they, too, have become mortal. According to Adam, there should not be death and decay in the Garden of Eden. Finally, the blurred line between animals and humans is also emphasized through the human attributes of the birds; they are, for instance, able to mourn. The psychological depiction of the Old Testament characters, which Gilbert points out,²⁵ is thus reflected in the humanizing depiction of the animals; as is Eve’s desperation in the portrayal of the mourning bird.

Eve’s and Cain’s emotional reactions to the death of Abel in the fourth canto reinforce the metaphorical connection between birds and humans. Like the bird that bewails the death of its companion, Adam and Eve start mourning when they discover the body of Abel shortly after he has been murdered by Cain. Now Eve reflects on her responsibility for Abel’s death, a poetic repetition of her previous preoccupation with her responsibility for the mortality of mankind after the Fall:

Mein Sohn! mein Sohn! rief sie und winselte auf der erkalteten Leiche. O Gott! sein starres Auge wendet sich nicht zu mir! Sohn! Sohn, erwache! vergebens ruf ich, ach! vergebens. Er ist tot! Das, das ist der Tod! der nach der Sünde uns angefluchte Tod! Und ich — o unaussprechliche Marter! meine Gebeine beben, ich habe zuerst gesündigt!²⁶

Eve feels guilty about Abel’s death as in the case of the dead bird before, the discovery of which thus serves as a foreshadowing that only the readers and not Adam and Eve themselves are able to understand. When Cain, in the fifth canto, reflects on his deed during the night, the birds have stopped singing: ‘der nächtliche Vogel sang weit umher schüchtern keinen Laut’.²⁷ The absence of the nightly bird is reminiscent of the silent birds in Klopstock’s Der Messias and contrasts the singing bird in the Garden of Eden during Adam and Eve’s first ‘Brautnacht’ in Der Tod Abels. At the same time, the fact that the birds have now become silent emphasizes Cain’s unhappiness and agitation after his deed.

The deceptive idyll of Gessner’s prose epic Der Tod Abels features various animals that are not part of the Old Testament narrative of Cain and Abel, yet it is birds that have a particular poetic function as an allegory of human mortality. The bird motif highlights the contrast between Adam and Eve’s idyllic existence in the Garden of Eden and the hostility that shapes mankind after the Fall, the difference between a world with and without sin. As such, the birds represent not only the animal world itself, but also, as mentioned earlier, mankind in general, as well as Cain and Abel in particular. Before Abel’s death, the birds prompt Eve to reflect on her responsibility for mortality. What the bird imagery does not indicate is what happens after death. In the Old Testament world of Der Tod Abels, the Christian message of divine salvation and resurrection, of the immortality of the soul after the death of the body, is still unknown.

Mortal Insects: Klopstock’s ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ and the Impermanence of Life

The immortality of the soul is at the centre of Klopstock’s hymnic poem ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ (1759). By the example of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, Klopstock addresses the problem of human mortality in light of the possibility of life after death. The pietist poet was widely known for his religious writing, especially his epic poem Der Messias about the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While written in free rhythms,²⁸ ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ shares, as Katrin Kohl points out, some of the themes of Der Messias,²⁹ for example the imagery surrounding the creation and natural phenomena.³⁰ Kohl shows that even though ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ is not based on the Bible, it contains a number of biblical references, especially to chapters 36–38 of the Book of Job, a passage that revolves around God’s role as creator and the way he treats his animals.³¹ The ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, however, the little insect whose fate is contemplated in ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, does not have a specific predecessor in the Bible.

As a recurring motif in ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is key for the lyrical speaker’s reflections on death, its inevitability, and its consequences. The nineteenth-century edition of the Brothers Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch defines ‘frühlingswurm’ as ‘ein im frühlinge zum vorschein kommender wurm oder wurmartiges thier, wie die raupe u. s. w., auch ein käfer’,³² and the related entry ‘frühlingswürmchen’ cites ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ as an example. In the hymnic poem, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is a little insect the exact nature of which is not described in detail, though the second canto of Klopstock’s Der Messias features a ‘Würmchen’ that might have been a model for it:

Mit dem Laute, womit der Lästerer endigte, rauschte

Vor den Fuß des Messias ein wehendes Blatt. An dem Blatte

Hing ein sterbendes Würmchen. Der Gottmensch gab ihm das Leben.³³

That the Messiah decides to bring the little insect to life again highlights his powers and his goodwill, as well as the fact that even a creature as small as the ‘Würmchen’ is worthy of life. In ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, the little insect is also a symbolic representation of man, especially with regard to its fate after death.

The ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is mentioned in four sections of ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, all of which are embedded in the speaker’s reflections on the finality of death and the question of whether it concerns humans and animals alike. That this issue is explored through a little insect is not despite its potential insignificance, but precisely because of it:³⁴ the speaker does not seek to praise the grand aspects of God’s creation, such as the oceans, but the small ones, such as a drop of water. Although Gerhard Kaiser rightly points out that the speaker perceives the world as infinite, as his notion of the ocean emphasizes,³⁵ he is primarily concerned with, in Kohl’s words, ‘the tiniest of God’s creatures’.³⁶ Everything that was created by God, no matter how small, deserves attention. At first glance, the little insect represents the animal part of God’s creation, whereas the speaker represents mankind. However, like in Gessner’s Der Tod Abels, the line between animals and humans is blurred: the reflections of the speaker on the mortality of the animals are, as it turns out, also projections that are related to mankind, rather than only to the inner life of the animals or the conditions they live in.

One poetic function of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is, in Kohl’s words, to represent the ‘tellurian context’³⁷ of man. As the speaker wonders whether or not the little insect is immortal, it constitutes a means of reflection for him to contemplate the mortality of the body and the immortality of the soul.³⁸

 Aber, du Frühlingswürmchen,

Das grüngolden

Neben mir spielt,

Du lebst;

Und bist, vielleicht — —

Ach, nicht unsterblich!³⁹ (29–34)

The speaker not only states explicitly that the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is alive but also notices that it is playing, expressing a certain joy of living and suggesting its young age: the green-golden colour and the attribute ‘Frühling’ indicate that the little insect is rather at the beginning than at the end of its life; its playfulness may thus very well be a sign of its innocence. Speculating that the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ might not be immortal, the speaker, as Kohl argues, raises the question of whether death means the same for all parts of God’s creation,⁴⁰ implying that the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ may have a life after death. At the same time, Jean Murat rightly points out that the speaker’s contemplations also question the potentially privileged status of mankind in creation.⁴¹

The notions of mortality and immortality in ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ are connected to a view of death that is shaped by the Christian message of the New Testament. By the example of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, the speaker indirectly distinguishes between body and soul, again highlighting the potentiality of eternal life for the latter. This distinction is evident from the second mention of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, shortly after the first mention of death.

 Ich bin herausgegangen,

Anzubeten;

Und ich weine?

 Vergieb, vergieb dem Endlichen

Auch diese Thränen,

O du, der seyn wird!

 Du wirst sie alle mir enthüllen

Die Zweifel alle

O du, der mich durchs dunkle Thal

Des Todes führen wird!

 Dann werd ich es wissen:

Ob das goldne Würmchen

Eine Seele hatte?⁴² (35–47)

The speaker here describes the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ as a golden ‘Würmchen’, without the attributes of the colour green and spring that previously indicated its youth. His use of the past tense, ‘had a soul’, implies that like man, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is mortal: one day, it — or at least its body — will have died. The inferred distinction between body and soul paves the way for an interpretation of death as transition: only the soul may ‘survive’ the death of the body. The speculations on whether the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ has a soul thus concern the speaker’s own afterlife as well.⁴³ The one who will be will lead man through the dark valley of death, an allusion to Psalm 23. 4:⁴⁴

Und ob ich schon wandert im finstern Tal

fürchte ich kein Unglück

Denn du bist bey mir

Dein Stecken und Stab trösten mich.⁴⁵

As the speaker does not expect to be led to, but through the valley, death is presented as a threshold to a life after death. Throughout the hymnic poem, God is not only called ‘Herr’ (55, 58, 71, 85, 88, 100, 102, 109, 118), Jehovah (105, 119, 120, 121, 131, 133), ‘der Ewige’ (51, 75), and ‘Unendlicher’ (71, 81), but also ‘Vater’ (90, 94) and even ‘Unser Vater’ (124), a clear reference to the New Testament and the coming of the Messiah.

The distinction between soul and body is taken up in the third mention of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ and linked with the notion of the impermanence of life for all creatures. While the second mention revolves around the soul of the little insect, the third reference focuses on the question of what death will do to the insect's body:

 Warest du nur gebildeter Staub,

Würmchen, so werde denn

Wieder verfliegender Staub,

Oder was sonst der Ewige will!⁴⁶ (48–51)

The assumption that the body of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is made of dust and will become dust again refers to God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3. 19: ‘denn du bist Erden | und solt zu Erden werden.’⁴⁷ That the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ shares this attribute with man suggests that it is also a representation of man. At the same time, the fact that God is called ‘der Ewige’, as opposed to man, ‘der Endliche’, stresses the power God has over the fate of the bodies and the souls of both the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ and the speaker. Through this imagery, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, at first glance a representation of the animal world and the smallest parts of God’s creation, turns into a representation of mankind itself, enabling the speaker to reflect on the impermanence of life.

The fourth and final mention of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ brings together the questions concerning the mortality and the soul of the little insect by blurring the distinction between man and animals even more when it comes to the notion of the afterlife:

 Alles ist stille vor dir, du Naher!

Ringsum ist Alles stille!

Auch das goldne Würmchen merkt auf!

Ist es vielleicht nicht seelenlos?

Ist es unsterblich?⁴⁸ (95–99)

The parallel structure of the two questions in lines 98 and 99 suggests that for the speaker, having a soul means being immortal. Consequently, immortality does not mean the eternal life of the body, but the eternal life of the soul. The framing of these thoughts as questions rather than facts stresses that the speaker remains uncertain about whether all of God’s creatures have the same status regarding death. This uncertainty is resolved by, as Kaiser rightly concludes, the speaker’s indications of God’s benevolence.⁴⁹

Klopstock’s ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is a metaphorical representation of both mortality and immortality, emphasizing the potentiality of life after death. It epitomizes not only the animal world but also man itself, and the speaker’s contemplations of its fate after death are therefore contemplations of his own fate as well. Similar to the birds in Gessner’s Der Tod Abels, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ prompts the speaker to put his concerns about death into words, but it also makes him question the very finality of death that Gessner’s birds represent. Rather, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is a means of distinguishing between the body and the soul which implies that despite the death of the body, the life of the soul may continue. This distinction is not made in Gessner’s Der Tod Abels. Alluding to the benevolence of God, ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, by the example of the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’, foregrounds the possibility of the eternal life of the soul.

Isaac and the Butterfly: Lavater’s ‘Abraham und Isaak’ and Bodily Metamorphosis

Lavater’s three-act prose play Abraham und Isaak (1776) explores the potentiality of life after death for both the soul and the body. The title page shows the pivotal scene of the dramatization of the Binding of Isaac: Abraham and Isaac’s encounter with a butterfly that emerges from its chrysalis.⁵⁰ Lavater wrote several literary works concerned with the Christian religion, for instance the New Testament epics Jesus Messias; oder, Die Zukunft des Herrn (1780) and Jesus Messias; oder, Die Evangelien und Apostelgeschichte in Gesängen (1783–86). His four-volume work Aussichten in die Ewigkeit (1768–73), too, engages with Christian theology, especially, as Karl Pestalozzi points out, with the notion of the afterlife.⁵¹ Lavater’s only biblical play, Abraham und Isaak,⁵² belongs to a long tradition of literary adaptations of Genesis 22. 1–19,⁵³ but the butterfly imagery distinguishes it from previous works. Based on Pestalozzi’s interpretation of the play as a work of ‘hidden theology’,⁵⁴ it will be argued that the butterfly’s metamorphosis epitomizes the Christian notion of resurrection, presenting death as a threshold to eternity.

The motif of the butterfly in Abraham und Isaak is rooted in Lavater’s preoccupation with Charles Bonnet’s natural philosophy.⁵⁵ In 1769, Lavater translated the second part of Bonnet’s Palingénésie philosophique (1769) into German,⁵⁶ several years before the first evidence of his work on Abraham und Isaak in 1773.⁵⁷ Bonnet uses the metamorphosis of the butterfly to exemplify that the world is constantly in development, and Lavater translates his words as follows:

Unsre Welt war wahrscheinlicher Weise in der Gestalt des Wurmes oder der Raupe: Gegenwärtig ist sie unter der Gestalt der Puppe. Die letzte Hauptveränderung wird ihr die Gestalt des Schmetterlings anziehen.⁵⁸

Bonnet seeks to embed his argument in Christian thought,⁵⁹ equating God’s deeds for humans with God’s deeds for butterflies and other creatures,⁶⁰ thus suggesting the use of the butterfly as a metaphor of man, its metamorphosis as a metaphor of human life. In Lavater’s Vermischte Schriften, Zweyter Band (1781), a letter or letter excerpt dated 15 September 1775 highlights Lavater’s Christian understanding of the butterfly metaphor:⁶¹

In der Geburt streifen wir die Nachgeburt — im Tode den irdischen Körper — in der Auferstehung vermuthlich noch eine Hülse — ab. Wir sterben als Raupen im Tode, als Puppen bey der Auferstehung. Die Puppe läßt die Raupenhülse liegen, und nimmt nichts mehr davon auf. Der Papillon läßt die Puppenhülse liegen, und nimmt nichts mehr davon auf. Der Zeitpunkt, wo die Puppe der Raupe sich entwindet — d. i. wo ein unsichtbarer Luftleib z. E. dem Erdenleib sich entwindet — ist — Ihre Partikularauferstehung; […] Ich habe nie keine Auferstehung des ganzen irdischen Leibes gelehrt. — Du säest, sagt Paulus, nicht den Leib, der werden soll.⁶²

Lavater reuses Bonnet’s butterfly metaphor to illustrate the process of resurrection. By referring to the new body the caterpillar receives through its metamorphosis into a butterfly, Lavater dissolves the distinction between body and soul as he implies that human beings, like caterpillars, will not be disembodied but simply have a different, spiritual body after death. The final sentence in the quotation is a reference to the New Testament (i Corinthians 15. 37), and another sentence in the same passage explicates Lavater’s argument: ‘Es wirt gesäyet ein natürlicher leyb | unnd wirt auferston ein geystlicher leyb’ (i Corinthians 15. 44).⁶³ Lavater thus perceives death as a transition to eternal life, comparable to the metamorphosis of the butterfly, whose figurative resurrection concerns humans as a whole, body and soul.⁶⁴

In Abraham und Isaak, Lavater presents an even more explicit Christian modification of Bonnet’s butterfly metaphor, linking the Binding of Isaac with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first act features Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac’s praise of God’s benevolence,⁶⁵ a foreshadowing of God’s merciful treatment of Isaac. Ralf Georg Bogner rightly emphasizes that the play depicts the biblical characters in a psychologizing manner:⁶⁶ once Abraham learns that he must sacrifice Isaac, an order he keeps secret,⁶⁷ he is devastated but still calls God ‘der Erbarmer’ (as in Isaiah 54. 10) and, alluding to the New Testament, ‘Gott der Lebendigen und nicht der Toten’ (as in Matthew. 22. 23; Mark 12. 27; Luke 20. 38).⁶⁸ Pestalozzi shows that Abraham’s prayer to God throughout the action features implicit references to the Psalms and the New Testament,⁶⁹ and both Pestalozzi and Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer point out that the final ‘Morgenmahl’⁷⁰ Abraham shares with Sarah and Isaac is an allusion to the Last Supper, ‘das letzte Abendmahl’.⁷¹ The frequent references to the New Testament highlight the Christian dimension of the play.

The depiction of Isaac as a type of Jesus Christ⁷² is first and foremost established through the metamorphosis of the butterfly, whom Adam and Isaac encounter twice in the third act. After having arrived at the place where the sacrifice is supposed to take place, the still unknowing Isaac discovers a butterfly that is emerging from its chrysalis. As Ursula Caflisch-Schnetzler highlights, Abraham takes the sight of the butterfly as an opportunity to explain how its metamorphosis from the state of a caterpillar works.⁷³ In this context, Isaac’s question of whether the butterfly, too, was created by God stresses the resemblance between the insect and man. The subsequent conversation revolves around God’s role in the butterfly’s fate:

Abraham (erst schweigend) Gott! Welch ein Stral in meine Nacht … Wie lehrst du Gott uns — Großes durch Kleines — —

Isaak Wuchs das Thierchen dort an der Staude?

Abraham (steht auf, nimmt Isaak an der Hand, und geht mit ihm zur Staude hin)  Nein, mein Sohn; es war erst ein kriechender, vielfüßiger Wurm, der auf der Erde kroch an der Staude herauf, hängte sich dran, starb und doch nicht — streifte seine äusserliche Gestalt ganz ab; todt lag der vorige Wurm da — und statt seiner — die erst halb lebende Gestalt, aus welcher sich der Vogel hervordrängte —

Isaak Der Wurm, der im Staube kroch, der ist zum schönen fliegenden Vogel geworden?

Abraham Ich bethe Gott an, der einen Stral des Lichts in meine Seele sendet — Der kriechende Wurm ist zum fliegenden Vogel geworden. Wunderbare Verwandlung — So oft sah’ ich sie — aber nie mit diesem Blicke, diesem Lichtgedanken nie — So führt Gott durch den Tod ins neue, freyere Leben! So führt er von Leben zu Leben! — So … ⁷⁴

The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly demonstrates that death is not final but a threshold to eternity. At this point, only Abraham knows about Isaac’s imminent death, so only he may understand that the butterfly is also a metaphorical representation of Isaac, implying that the latter’s death will result in the metamorphosis of his body, from a natural to a spiritual one. As the butterfly metaphor suggests that God does not demand Isaac’s death for reasons of cruelty but rather for the purpose of elevating him, the problem of theodicy is resolved. Although Abraham does not explicitly mention Heaven, he alludes to it by stating that the butterfly, first a crawling worm, has now become a flying bird, an allusion to its ability to soar towards the sky. In a similar vein, he affirms Isaac’s question of whether, after having died, man will be lifted beyond the clouds, hinting at the notion of eternity.

The caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly makes sense of the imminent sacrifice: the divine commandment of Isaac’s death is reframed as an act of divine benevolence. Pestalozzi argues that the observation of the metamorphosis convinces Isaac that death elevates man to a greater state of being,⁷⁵ and Mahlmann-Bauer claims that it makes Isaac himself hope for resurrection.⁷⁶ These assertions are true of the second encounter with the butterfly: during the first one, Isaac is not able to fully grasp the butterfly’s significance for his own fate as he does not know that he is the one to be sacrificed. Therefore, as Caflisch-Schnetzler points out, Isaac first interprets the insect and its transformation as a metaphor of mankind in general.⁷⁷ Aware of his role in the sacrifice, his interpretation changes during the second encounter:

Abraham Aus einem kriechenden Wurme schafft der Herr — Schau den lebenden, bunden [bunten] — den lehrenden Vogel. (Der Schmetterling fliegt vorbey)

Isaak O Vater! was sagt mir dein inniger, herrlicher, Gottes voller Blick — dein Blick in die beßre Welt — Dein Blick voll Auferstehung und ewigen Lebens!⁷⁸

When Abraham is about to tie Isaac to the sacrificial altar, the butterfly, now emerged from its chrysalis, flies past them. This second encounter with the insect, as Caflisch-Schnetzler argues, makes Isaac reflect on the possibility of resurrection and eternal life for himself.⁷⁹ However, that he refers to Abraham’s facial expression in this context indicates that he only understands the metaphorical significance of the butterfly through Abraham, possibly because the latter has understood it already during the first encounter.

Neither Abraham nor Isaac, as Mahlmann-Bauer stresses, are able to know that their interpretation of the caterpillar’s metamorphosis points to the New Testament:⁸⁰ that the butterfly itself alludes not only to mankind in general and Isaac in particular, but also to Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection long in the future. Isaac, who, through his death, is supposed to undergo a metamorphosis similar to that which the butterfly underwent, serves as a type of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, this is evident from the New Testament reference in the words of the angel who tells Abraham and Isaac not to proceed with the sacrifice after all:⁸¹

Der Engel (in Lichtschimmer aus dem Gebüsche) Leg deine Hand nicht an den Knaben! Du hast gesiegt! du bist bewährt erfunden!⁸²

In the New Testament (i Thessalonians 2. 4), God gives mankind the gospel because they have proven themselves worthy of it. That Lavater includes a reference to this verse connects his dramatization of the Old Testament narrative with the Christian message. Abraham and Isaac’s reactions after having received the redeeming message, on the other hand, reinforce the typological link between Isaac and Jesus Christ. Isaac says: ‘Ich war schon todt, und bin lebendig wieder’, and Abraham replies: ‘bist auferstanden mir vom Tode’, whereupon Isaak exclaims ‘Auferstehungsfreude!’ twice.⁸³ Mahlmann-Bauer points out that Abraham and Isaac interpret the prevention of Isaac’s death as a resurrection from death.⁸⁴ Moreover, their remarks about Isaac’s resurrection evoke the fate of Jesus Christ. While Mahlmann-Bauer is right in her claim that the metamorphosis the caterpillar undergoes must be first and foremost understood as a metaphor of Isaac’s survival,⁸⁵ both his survival, a symbolic resurrection, and the metamorphosis also allude to Jesus Christ, not least because only his fate makes eternal life after death possible in the first place.

The butterfly motif in Abraham und Isaak is, as indicated earlier, inspired by Bonnet’s natural philosophy, according to which the world evolves in the fashion of a butterfly. In Lavater’s play, as in his religious writings, the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly alludes to the life of man and represents human death as a threshold to eternity, introducing the notion of immortality. The poetic function of this metaphor is linked with three levels of meaning: firstly, it is only the observation of the butterfly that makes Abraham and Isaac believe in resurrection. The fate of the butterfly dissolves the distinction between body and soul by illustrating Lavater’s conviction that after death, the body undergoes a metamorphosis that forms the foundation for the immortality of the soul. Secondly, the butterfly represents Isaac and frames God’s demand of his death as a merciful act, solving the problem of theodicy and thereby comforting father and son. And finally, both the butterfly and Isaac are representations of Jesus Christ, the former in a metaphorical and the latter in a typological way: a level of meaning that goes beyond Gessner’s and Klopstock’s animal metaphors.

Conclusion

What does the animal imagery in Gessner’s prose epic Der Tod Abels, Klopstock’s hymnic poem ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, and Lavater’s play Abraham und Isaak reveal about Christian notions of mortality, death, and the afterlife in German and Swiss religious literature of the eighteenth century? The metaphors the three writers choose for their reflections on the nature of death differ, and so do the messages each of them conveys. Gessner’s birds bring the discovery of mortality, Klopstock’s ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ prompts the contemplation of life after death, and Lavater’s butterfly establishes that death is a threshold to eternity. However, in all three works, the animal imagery engages with the consequences of death for the dualism of body and soul, whether by reinforcing, questioning, or dissolving it, and behind all three cases is a similar poetic strategy: the animals themselves serve as a means of reflection for both the literary characters who encounter them and the readers while blurring the distinction between animals and humans.

In all three cases, animal motifs are a key means of approaching theological and philosophical questions surrounding death. There are no dead and mourning birds in the biblical narratives surrounding the Fall or Cain and Abel; the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’ is not even defined as a proper species; and the Binding of Isaac in the Old Testament does not feature a transforming caterpillar. And yet, Gessner, Klopstock, and Lavater, in their literary adaptations of the Bible and religious poetry, incorporate such animal metaphors into a Christian belief system in form of a nuanced imagery, thereby exploring the potential of this imagery for connecting faith, Holy Scripture, and literature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah I. Fengler

Sarah I. Fengler is a DPhil student in Modern Languages at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and Jesus College, University of Oxford. She studied Comparative Literature, Scandinavian Studies, and Political Science at the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany), with semesters abroad at the University of Bergen (Norway) and Cornell University (USA). Her doctoral thesis focuses on European Old Testament tragedies in the Age of Enlightenment and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP) and the Baillie Gifford Scholarship.

Notes

1 Karl Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie: Lavaters religiöses Drama ‘Abraham und Isaak’ und Schillers Operette ‘Semele’ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), p. 18.

2 On the general significance of imagery in Gessner’s work, see Lothar van Laak, ‘Der Wandel der Bildlichkeit bei Salomon Gessner’, in Salomon Gessner als europäisches Phänomen: Spielarten des Idyllischen, ed. by Maurizio Pirro (Heidelberg: Winter, 2012), pp. 61–78.

3 On the form of the idylls, see John L. Hibberd, ‘Salomon Gessner’s Idylls as Prose Poems’, The Modern Language Review, 68.3 (1973), 569–76 (p. 569); see also Wolfgang Adam, ‘Gessner-Lektüren’, in Salomon Gessner als europäisches Phänomen, ed. by Pirro, pp. 9–38 (pp. 11–13).

4 Robert M. Maniquis, ‘Solomon Gessner’s Der Tod Abels and the Gentle Death of Sacrifice’, in Reconceptualizing Nature, Science, and Aesthetics: Contribution à une nouvelle approche des Lumières helvétiques, ed. by Patrick Coleman (Geneva: Slatkine, 1998), pp. 167–84 (p. 171).

5 Daniel Weidner, ‘“Bibeldichtung” und dichterische Darstellung: Kain in der Literatur um 1800. Klopstock, Gessner, Coleridge Byron’, Arcadia: Internationale Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft, 43.2 (2008), 299–332 (p. 312).

6 Hibberd, ‘Salomon Gessner’s Idylls as Prose Poems’, p. 575.

7 Weidner, p. 312.

8 Weidner, p. 312; Maniquis, p. 177.

9 Hibberd, ‘Salomon Gessner’s Idylls as Prose Poems’, p. 574. On Gessner’s reception in Europe, see: Ricardo J. Quinones, The Changes of Cain: Violence and the Lost Brother in Cain and Abel Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Wiebke Röben de Alencar Xavier, ‘Salomon Gessner in der portugiesischen Aufklärungsbewegung’, in Salomon Gessner als europäisches Phänomen, ed. by Pirro, pp. 225–66; Wiebke Röben de Alencar Xavier, Salomon Gessner im Umkreis der Encyclopédie: Deutsch-französischer Kulturtransfer und europäische Aufklärung (Geneva: Slatkine, 2006), pp. 79–84.

10 Hibberd, ‘Salomon Gessner’s Idylls as Prose Poems’, p. 574.

11 Johann Jakob Bodmer, Johann Miltons Episches Gedichte von dem verlohrnen Paradiese: Faksimiledruck der Bodmerschen Übersetzung von 1742, ed. by Wolfgang Bender (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965), pp. 175–76.

12 John Milton, Paradise Lost, in John Milton: The Major Works, ed. by Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 355–618 (pp. 436–37).

13 See also: Hibberd, ‘Salomon Gessner’s Idylls as Prose Poems’, p. 574; John L. Hibberd, Salomon Gessner: His Creative Achievement and Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 98.

14 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Der Messias, ed. by Elisabeth Höpker-Herberg [Werke und Briefe: Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, Werke IV, i: Text] (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974), p. 61 (third canto, 619), p. 172 (eighth canto, 401).

15 Weidner, p. 313.

16 Salomon Gessner, Der Tod Abels, in Gessners Werke: Auswahl, ed. by Adolf Frey (Berlin: Spemann, 1884), pp. 99–186 (p. 105, first canto).

17 Gessner, p. 106 (first canto).

18 Maniquis, p. 175.

19 Heike Gilbert, ‘“Eine Hölle wütet in meinem Innern!” Kain und Abel und das Menschenbild der Empfindsamkeit’, in Kain und Abel: Die biblische Geschichte und ihre Gestaltung in bildender und dramatischer Kunst, Literatur und Musik, ed. by Ulrike Kienzle (Frankfurt/Main: Haag und Herchen, 1998), pp. 85–93 (p. 85–86); Weidner, p. 312.

20 Gessner, p. 121 (second canto).

21 Gessner, p. 119 (second canto).

22 Gessner, p. 119 (second canto).

23 Maniquis, p. 176.

24 Gessner, pp. 121–22 (second canto).

25 Gilbert, pp. 91–93. 

26 Gessner, p. 163 (fourth canto).

27 Gessner, p. 178 (fifth canto).

28 On Klopstock’s free rhythms, see also Leif Ludwig Albertsen, ‘Poetische Form bei Klopstock’, in Klopstock an der Grenze der Epochen: Mit Klopstock-Bibliographie 1972–1992, ed. by Kevin Hilliard (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995), pp. 68–79.

29 Katrin Kohl, Rhetoric, the Bible, and the Origins of Free Verse: The Early ‘Hymns’ of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999), p. 60.

30 Kohl, p. 60.

31 Kohl, pp. 148–49.

32 ‘frühlingswurm’, in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 2nd inst. (1866), iv.1.1 (1878), col. 317, l. 31, <https://www.dwds.de/wb/dwb/frühlingswurm> [accessed 13 November 2023].

33 Klopstock, Der Messias, p. 37 (second canto, 620–22).

34 Kohl, p. 149.

35 Gerhard Kaiser, Klopstock: Religion und Dichtung (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1963), p. 49.

36 Kohl, p. 119.

37 Kohl, p. 114.

38 Kohl, p. 119.

39 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, in Oden, ed. by Elisabeth Höpker-Herberg and Horst Gronemeyer [Werke und Briefe: Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, Werke I, i: Text] (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), pp. 171–81 (p. 174).

40 Kaiser, pp. 77–78; see also: Kohl, pp. 119–20.

41 Jean Murat, Klopstock: Les thèmes principaux de son œuvre (Paris: Soc. d’éd. Les Belles Lettres, 1959), pp. 241–42.

42 Klopstock, ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, p. 174.

43 Inka Bach and Helmut Galle, Deutsche Psalmendichtung vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte einer lyrischen Gattung (Berlin: De Gruyter 1989), p. 275.

44 Kohl, p. 106; p. 150.

45 Martin Luther, Biblia: Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft. Deudsch (Wittemberg: Lufft, 1545), p. CCXCIV, modernized spelling.

46 Klopstock, ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, p. 174.

47 Luther, p. CCXCIV.

48 Klopstock, ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’, p. 178.

49 Kaiser, p. 102.

50 The illustration was most likely created by Johann Rudolf Schellenberg; see Ursula Caflisch-Schnetzler, ‘Abraham und Isaak: Einführung’, in Johann Caspar Lavater: Ausgewählte Werke in historisch-kritischer Ausgabe, ed. by Horst Sitta and others, 10 vols plus 2 supplemental vols (Zurich: NZZ Libro, 2001–[2019]), v: Werke 1772–1781, ed. by Ursula Caflisch-Schnetzler (2018), pp. 831–66 (p. 831).

51 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 8; Karl Pestalozzi, ‘Lavaters Utopie’, in Literaturwissenschaft und Geschichtsphilosophie: Festschrift für Wilhelm Emrich, ed. by Helmut Arntzen and others (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), pp. 283–301 (p. 283).

52 Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer, ‘Abraham, der leidende Vater: Nachwirkungen von Gregors von Nyssa in Exegese und Dramatik (im 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert)’, in Isaaks Opferung (Gen 22) in den Konfessionen und Medien der frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Johann Anselm Steiger and Ulrich Heinen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), pp. 309–98 (p. 384).

53 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 10; Mahlmann-Bauer.

54 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, pp. 1–2; Pestalozzi derives this concept from a quotation from Martin Opitz’s Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (1624).

55 On Lavater’s preoccupation with Bonnet, see: Daniela Kohler, Eschatologie und Soteriologie in der Dichtung: Johann Caspar Lavater im Wettstreit mit Klopstock und Herder (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), pp. 17–21.

56 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 386; see also: Kohler, p. 17.

57 Caflisch-Schnetzler, p. 851; Pestalozzi, ‘Lavaters Utopie’, p. 284.

58 Johann Caspar Lavater, Herrn C. Bonnets, verschiedener Akademien Mitglied, Philosophische Palingenesie. Oder Gedanken über den vergangenen und künftigen Zustand lebender Wesen. […] Aus dem Französischen übersetzt, und mit Anmerkungen herausgegeben von Johann Caspar Lavater. Ersther Theil (Zurich: bey Orell, Geßner, Füeßli und Compagnie, 1770), p. 302.

59 Kohler, p. 17; Pestalozzi, ‘Lavaters Utopie’, p. 284.

60 Pestalozzi, ‘Lavaters Utopie’, p. 285.

61 Johann Caspar Lavater, Vermischte Schriften, Zweyter Band, in Lavater: Ausgewählte Werke, v, 407–759 (pp. 526–30).

62 Lavater, Vermischte Schriften, Zweyter Band, pp. 529–30.

63 Die gantze Bibel/der ursprünglichen ebraischen und griechischen Waarheyt nach auffs aller treüwlichest verteütschet (Zurich: Froschouer, 1531), p. CCLXXIX; modernized spelling.

64 Pestalozzi, ‘Lavaters Utopie’, p. 285; see also: Kohler, p. 17; Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 385.

65 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 12; Caflisch-Schnetzler, p. 846.

66 Ralf Georg Bogner, ‘Ein Bibeltext im Gattungs- und Medienwechsel: Deutschsprachige Abraham-und-Isaak-Schauspiele der frühen Neuzeit von Hans Sachs, Christian Weise und Johann Kaspar Lavater’, in Isaaks Opferung ed. by Steiger and Heinen, pp. 435–48 (p. 447).

67 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, pp. 12–14; see also Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 389.

68 Johann Caspar Lavater, Abraham und Isaak, in Lavater: Ausgewählte Werke, v, 875–980 (i. 6 [p. 905]; i. 7 [p. 910]); Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 15; see also Caflisch-Schnetzler, pp. 847, 850.

69 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 15.

70 Lavater, Abraham und Isaak (i. 8), p. 913.

71 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 387; Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 14.

72 On the topic of Christian typology in Abraham und Isaak, see Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 14; Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 387.

73 Caflisch-Schnetzler, pp. 847–48.

74 Lavater, Abraham und Isaak (iii. 2), p. 946–47.

75 Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, p. 19.

76 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 390.

77 Caflisch-Schnetzler, pp. 850–51; see also Pestalozzi, Dichtung als verborgene Theologie, pp. 15–18.

78 Lavater, Abraham und Isaak (iii. 2), p. 967.

79 Caflisch-Schnetzler, pp. 847–48.

80 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 391.

81 Mahlmann-Bauer, pp. 340–41.

82 Lavater, Abraham und Isaak (iii. 2), p. 970.

83 Lavater, Abraham und Isaak (iii. 2), p. 971.

84 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 391.

85 Mahlmann-Bauer, p. 391.