JUNG-STILLING, JOHANN HEINRICH - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. VII, p. 399

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

JUNG-STILLING, JOHANN HEINRICH. — Pietist, b. at Grund (Hilchenbach) on 12 Sept. 1740, d. at Karlsruhe on 2 Apr. 1817. In 1787 he was professor of economic and administrative sciences at the University of Marburg. Goethe made him famous by publishing, without his knowledge, the first part of *Heinrich Stillings Jugend* in 1777; in this and in his many other works (*Sämtliche Werke*, 12 vols., Stuttgart 1841–42) J.-S. stands among the most suggestive followers of Pietism, into which there also flows the legacy of the abandonment of 17th-century Quietism.

His life and writings are permeated by a profound religiosity that discerns in every smallest thing the direct and constant intervention of Providence, by a “longing for heaven” that colors every act of life, and by a notable taste for the esoteric: “he who is assailed by mysteries must defend himself with mysteries.” J.-S. was a convinced anti-Enlightenment and anti-Jacobin: he saw in the principles of 1789 the beginning of an era of de-Christianization.

Bibl.: R. Morax, *Le docteur H. S.*, Paris 1914; H. Grellmann, *Die Technik der empfinden am Erziehungssprache*, 3 vols., Freiburg 1924; H. R. G. Günther, *J.-S. Ein Beitrag zur Psychologie des deutschen Pietismus*, Munich 1928 (2nd ed., ibid. 1948); G. Necco, *Lo spirito filieto*, Rome 1929, p. 180; G. H. Reuter, *J. H. J.-S. als Staatswissenschaftler*, diss., Giessen 1930; E. Craveri Croce, *Studi di letteratura tedesca. La «Giovinezza» di J. S.*, in *Quaderni della Critica*, 13 (1949), pp. 33–44; 14 (1949), pp. 18–33; R. Paoli, *Goethe e S. ovvero pietismo e romanticismo nella prima autobiografia romantica*, Rome 1949. For further bibliography, J. Körner, *Bibliographisches Handbuch des Schrifttums*, Berne 1949, p. 259.