Anti-Goeze

Anti-Goeze, a series of 11 polemical pamphlets addressed by G. E. Lessing in 1778 to Pastor J. M. Goeze of Hamburg. Its origin lay in the publication by Lessing in 1777 of some rationalistic comments on the New Testament by H. S. Reimarus, which provoked bitter attacks on Lessing by Goeze. Anti-Goeze is one of the most virulent polemical works of modern times, and its violence frustrates its defence of independent thought and tolerant judgement. The controversy was stopped by the intervention of Lessing's employer, the Duke of Brunswick, in July 1778. Nathan der Weise, written by Lessing a few months after the ban, is sometimes termed the ‘twelfth Anti-Goeze pamphlet’.