 The controversy itself was the result of long-simmering tensions between Wolff and the Pietists. Wolff’s turn to lecturing on philosophical topics, such as metaphysics (including a treatment of natural theology), beginning in 1710, not to mention his discussion in the German Logic of Scriptural interpretation, provoked the ire of the theology faculty and led to warnings to their students about attending Wolff’s lectures (on account of his “Atheisterey”; cf. Beutel 2007: 165–6). The publication of Wolff’s German Metaphysics in 1719, with its peculiar proof of God’s existence and apparent endorsement of natural necessitation, provided a broad target for their critical attention. This largely behind-the-scenes friction broke into the open with Wolff’s address on 12 July 1721, on the occasion of the transition of the pro-rectorship from himself to Lange, in which he defended the consistency of Confucian (i.e., non-Christian) practical philosophy with Enlightened reason (and Wolffian moral philosophy in particular; cf. M. Albrecht 1985).