Daniel Cramer


Daniel Cramer was a German Lutheran theologian and writer from Reetz, Brandenburg. He was an opponent of the Ramists and the Jesuits.

Life

He became professor and archdeacon at Stettin. Earlier, in the 1590s, he was at the University of Marburg, writing on Aristotle.

Writings

Cramer is remembered for his emblem book The True Society of Jesus and the Rosy Cross. It was reprinted with different titles: Emblemata sacra, and Emblematum sacrorum, composed with the academic and poet Conrad Bachmann. The 1624 edition is the better known. This was followed by the Octaginta emblemata moralia nova.
The common denominator of all the Cramer's emblems is a mystic heart, represented in the most different situations: chained, crowned, nailed to a cross, to the roots of a rosary, endowed with wings, undermined by the devil, and so on.
The books of emblems composed by Daniel Cramer are considered by some scholars as expressions of the Rosicrucian thought. Indeed, various clues suggest that Cramer was a member of the Rosicrucian brotherhood.
Daniel Cramer wrote also neo-Latin drama, and controversial works in theology. For the Duke of Pomerania, Philipp II, he became involved in writing the church history Pomerania; his preaching in front of Philipp is recorded.

Works