Abraham a Santa Clara

Abraham a Santa Clara (Kreenheinstetten, Hegau, Württemberg, 1644-1709, Vienna), ecclesiastical name of the Augustinian friar, Johann Ulrich Megerle. An innkeeper's son, he was educated at the Jesuit college at Ingolstadt and then at the Benedictine university at Salzburg. He entered his Order in 1662, was ordained in 1668, and was sent to Vienna as penitential preacher in 1672. His popular mode of preaching attracted attention in high circles and he was given the style Imperial Preacher (Kaiserlicher Prediger). He was subprior in Vienna in 1677, prior in 1680, was transferred to Graz in 1683, and from 1695 occupied a high position in his Order in Vienna.

Abraham applied the gifts that were apparent in his preaching to his moral writings. His style bubbles over with homely and caustic wit, with proverbs and common sayings aptly or drastically applied, and with an extraordinary exuberance of vocabulary. This lively writing, which is reflected in the vivid unconventionality of his titles, is applied to the serious purpose of moral reform, for his works hold up a mirror to the folly and vice of the world, and especially to Vienna, which he knew and served.

Abraham was an indefatigable and inexhaustible publicist, and only the titles of the principal works are given here. The first of his moral satirical works is Mercks Wienn (1680, ed. W. Welzig, 1983), which vehemently derides and castigates the foibles and sins of the Viennese, a message underlined by the epidemic of plague raging at the time and the threat of Turkish invasion. Auff, auff ihr Christen (1683) urges unity and strength against the Turkish siege of Vienna. Judas der Ertz-Schelm (4 vols., 1686-95) purports to be a biography of Judas Iscariot, based on legendary accretions, but its narrative form is constantly interrupted and distorted by Abraham's irrepressible inventiveness and by his addiction to illustrative episodes and anecdotes. Reminiscent of Brant's Narrenschiff are Wunderlicher Traum von einem grossen Narren-Nest (1703, ed. A. Haas, 1969) and Karn voller Narrn (1704). A series of moral satires followed at the end of the century, with Heilsames Gemischgemasch (1704), Hey! und Pfuy! Der Welt (1707, pt. repr. 1969), and Wohl angefüllter Wein-Keller (1710). A hundred male follies are derided in Centifolium stultorum (1709), and an equal number of feminine ones in Mala galina (1713). Abraham's spontaneous and kaleidoscopic humour caused him at one time to be regarded as a literary buffoon, but his moral purpose is clear and persistent, and he is one of the few writers of the century who succeeded in turning baroque exuberance to homely and popular account.

A false image was also unintentionally created by Schiller, who modelled the sermon of his eccentric Capuchin in Wallensteins Lager (see Wallenstein) on some of Abraham's more outrageous puns and locutions.

Abraham's Werke (3 vols.), ed. K. Bertsche, appeared 1943-5, and selections as Auslese (6 vols.), ed. H. Strigl, 1904-6, and Auswahl, ed. W. Höllerer, 1959.