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PIETISTS, JURISTS, AND THE EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT CRITIQUE OF PRIVATE CONFESSION IN LUTHERAN GERMANY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2015

TERENCE MCINTOSH
TERENCE MCINTOSH*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill E-mail: mcintosh@email.unc.edu
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Abstract

From the 1680s to the 1720s German Lutheran pastors’ use of private confession and suspension from Communion as a means of disciplining wayward parishioners generated seminal theological and intellectual debates. They were driven by Pietists and secular natural law jurists and concerned ultimately the purported corruption in the early Christian church that led to the abusive, unwarranted, and centuries-long intrusion of clerical power into secular affairs. By investigating these debates, this essay reveals in new ways the constructive collision of two different intellectual predispositions—one clerical, the other legal—that propelled the early Enlightenment in Germany. Letters from the 1680s and other writings of Philipp Jakob Spener, the father of German Pietism, show how he and fellow clergymen wrestled with specific pastoral challenges regarding the disciplining of allegedly unrepentant and incorrigible sinners. Christian Thomasius, a central figure in the early Enlightenment, and other secular natural law jurists vigorously rebutted the Pietists’ claims by critically examining the practice of confession in the primitive church, thereby exposing the historical origins of priestcraft. In doing so, Thomasius highlighted affinities between his work and that of the radical Pietist Gottfried Arnold, who had indicted the clergies of Christian churches for their unjust and inveterate persecution of religious dissidents. But Thomasius also faulted Arnold for weaknesses in his biblical scholarship. Thomasius's criticism points to the special form of biblical scholarship that secular natural law jurists had helped to develop and that predisposed them to embrace radical interpretations of Scripture, a potent stimulant of early Enlightenment thought.

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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , November 2015 , pp. 627 - 656
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the North Carolina German Studies Seminar and Workshop Series (Chapel Hill, NC, March 2010), the annual meeting of the German Studies Association (Oakland, CA, Oct. 2010), the Forschungszentrum Gotha für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien der Universität Erfurt (April 2011), the Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Pietismusforschung der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (May 2011), the Seminar für Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (May 2011), and the Triangle Intellectual History Seminar (Research Triangle Park, NC, Sept. 2011). The author is grateful for the helpful comments received at these presentations and from three anonymous readers. Grants from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and its University Research Council supported the research for this article.

References

1 Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran churches regarded private confession not as a sacrament but as an ecclesiastical rite that did not entail the enumeration of sins. See Articles 11, 12, and 25 of the Augsburg Confession (1530) and Articles 11 and 12 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1530). Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy J., eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, 2000), 44–5, 72–3, 185–218Google Scholar.

2 In 1698, six years after Francke had arrived in Glaucha, with a population of slightly more than five hundred souls, he refused to admit sixty-four men and women to the Lord's Supper. Albrecht-Birkner, Veronika, Francke in Glaucha: Kehrseiten eines Klischees (1692– 1704) (Tübingen, 2004), 20–22, 39–40Google Scholar.

3 Dürr, Renate, Politische Kultur in der Frühen Neuzeit: Kirchenräume in Hildesheimer Stadt und Landgemeinden, 1550–1750 (Heidelberg, 2006), 291–303Google Scholar. In general the Pietists found private confession wanting because pastors did not adequately examine the sincerity of confessants’ remorse and their resolve to cease sinning and because parishioners confessed their sinfulness superficially and mechanically. The jurists, however, criticized private confession because pastors used it to exclude allegedly unworthy parishioners from the Lord's Supper. Exclusion, the jurists contended, entailed the use of force to compel acceptable behavior and thus amounted to a form of compulsion—a secular punishment over which the sovereign alone and not the church possessed exclusive authority.

4 Müsing, Hans-Werner, “Speners Pia Desideria und ihre Bezüge zur deutschen Aufklärung,” Pietismus und Neuzeit, 3 (1976), 32–70, at 32–6, 38–42Google Scholar, reviews the early scholarship on Spener's relation to the early Enlightenment. See also Gierl, Martin, Pietismus und Aufklärung: Theologische Polemik und die Kommunikationsreform der Wissenschaft am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1997), 261–93Google Scholar; Ahnert, Thomas, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and the Reform of Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius (Rochester, NY, 2006), 28–9Google Scholar. On Halle and the origins of the early Enlightenment see Schindling, Anton, “Die protestantischen Universitäten im Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation im Zeitalter der Aufklärung,” in Hammerstein, Notker, ed., Universitäten und Aufklärung (Göttingen, 1995), 9–19, at 15–16, 18Google Scholar; Mulsow, Martin, “The Itinerary of a Young Intellectual in Early Enlightenment Germany,” in Fitzpatrick, Martinet al., eds., The Enlightenment World (London, 2004), 117–33, at 117–18Google Scholar.

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6 For the sake of brevity, the present article does not consider the related work of Gottlieb Gerhard Titius.

7 Hunter, Ian, The Secularisation of the Confessional State: The Political Thought of Christian Thomasius (Cambridge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 The inadvertent disclosure in the fall of 1682 of a letter that Fende had written in 1680 revealed his views and precipitated the scandal. Portions of the letter are in Spener, Philipp Jakob, Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit, 1666–1686, vol. 4, 1679–1680, ed. Wallmann, Johannes (Tübingen, 2005), 792–3Google Scholar. On Fende's relation to Schütz see Deppermann, Johann Jakob Schütz, 106, 123–34, 176, 180.

10 Deppermann, Johann Jakob Schütz, 187–9; Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener,” 318. On Spener's farewell in 1686 to Schütz and Fende see Friedrich, Martin, “Frankfurt als Zentrum des frühen Pietismus,” in Fischer, Roman, ed., Von der Barfüßkirche zur Paulskirche: Beiträge zur Frankfurter Stadt- und Kirchengeschichte (Frankfurt am Main, 2000), 187–202, at 202Google Scholar; Klaus vom Orde, “Philipp Jakob Spener und sein Frankfurter Freundekreis,” in ibid., 203–14, at 204; Spener, Philipp Jakob, Briefe aus der Dresdner Zeit: 1686–91, vol. 1, 1686–1687, ed. Wallmann, Johannes (Tübingen, 2003), 85–90 (6 Sept. 1686)Google Scholar.

11 On these two texts plus related writings see Deppermann, Johann Jakob Schütz, 190– 97; Blaufuß, Dietrich, “Einleitung: Überlieferung—Zusammenhang—Inhalt,” in Philipp Jakob Spener, Schriften, vol. 4, ed. Beyreuther, Erich (Hildesheim, 1984), 11–67, at 18–33Google Scholar; Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener,” 318–19.

12 Deppermann, Johann Jakob Schütz, 195 n. 690, 199.

13 Spener, Philipp Jakob, Der Klagen über das verdorbene Christenthum mißbrauch und rechter gebrauch . . . repr. in Spener, Schriften, vol. 4 (first published Frankfurt am Main, 1685), 103–398, at 248–53, esp. 252Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., 253–6.

15 Spener, Philipp Jakob, Theologische Bedencken und andere Brieffliche Antworten, 4 vols. in 5 (Hildesheim, 1999; first published Halle, 1700), 1/2: 269–81Google Scholar, where the last page bears the incorrect date of “167–.” The first four volumes of Spener, Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit, which cover the years from 1666 to 1680, do not include the letter, and Wallmann has noted that some letters in Theologische Bedencken that supposedly come from the end of this period are misdated. Johannes Wallmann, foreword to Spener, Philipp Jakob, Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit, vol. 3, 1677–1678 (Tübingen, 2000), v–ix, at viiiGoogle Scholar. Moreover, the letter addresses primarily issues that Spener would have confronted only after the disclosure of Christian Fende's missive in the fall of 1682. Spener mentioned near the end of his letter (at 281) the value of having a theologian publish a thorough and balanced treatment of these issues. On 4 June 1684 he disclosed his intention of writing such a work. See Blaufuß, “Einleitung,” 20–21. Thus one should date Spener's letter somewhere between October 1682 and May 1684.

16 An example of such circumstances would be the pastor's failure to warn the confessant sufficiently of the spiritual dangers of unworthily taking Communion. Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 4: 202 (1684).

17 Ibid., 1/2:270, 274, 276–77, 278.

18 Spener, Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit, 4: 756–7 (1680).

19 Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 4: 201–3 (1684).

20 Ibid., 4: 308–10 (1684). Spener's proposal for the reinstitution of lay elders probably came from Theophil Großgebauer's Wächterstimme aus dem verwüsteten Zion (1661), a work that influenced Spener enormously. See Strom, Jonathan, Orthodoxy and Reform: The Clergy in Seventeenth Century Rostock (Tübingen, 1999), 201–6, 219Google Scholar; Wallmann, Johannes, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus, 2nd edn (Tübingen, 1986), 162–3, 173–5Google Scholar; Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener,” 284, 294, 297. Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener, 243–5, highlighted also the influence of Joachim Betke's writings. On Joachim Betke (1601–63), a pastor in Brandenburg, see Martin Brecht, “Die deutschen Spiritualisten des 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Brecht, Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, 205–40, at 221–3; Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener,” 297, 320. In 1556, however, Erasmus Sarcerius had already called for the involvement of lay elders in church discipline. Erasmus Sarcerius, Von einer Disciplin . . . (Eisleben, 1556), 158r. On the importance of Sarcerius for Lutheran church discipline see Brecht, Martin, “Lutherische Kirchenzucht bis in die Anfänge des 17. Jahrhunderts im Spannungsfeld von Pfarramt und Gesellschaft,” in Rublack, Hans-Christoph, ed., Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland: Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1988 (Gütersloh, 1992), 400–20, at 403–6Google Scholar.

21 Spener, Philipp Jakob, Letzte Theologische Bedencken und andere Brieffliche Antworten, 3 vols., ed. von Canstein, Carl Hildebrand (Hildesheim, 1987; first published Halle, 1711), 1: 140–41 (13 Dec. 1684)Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., 1: 579–81 (concerning consistories in general), 585–8 (17 Feb. 1686). For the relevant passages in electoral Saxony's massive church ordinance of 1580 see Sehling, Emil, ed., Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Sachsen und Thüringen, nebst angrenzenden Gebieten. Erste Hälfte (Leipzig, 1902), 115, 408, 428, 431–4Google Scholar.

23 Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 4: 60–62.

24 Ibid., 62–4. See also ibid., 1/1: 675 (1686).

25 Spener, Briefe aus der Dresdner Zeit, 797–8 (1687).

26 Spener, Philipp Jakob, Briefe aus der Dresdner Zeit, vol. 2, 1688 (Tübingen, 2009), 82–3 (27 Feb. 1688)Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 85–6 (27 Feb. 1688).

28 Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 1/2: 297–9 (1689).

29 Mori, Ryoko, Begeisterung und Ernüchterung in christlicher Vollkommenheit: Pietistische Selbst- und Weltwahrnehmungen im ausgehenden 17. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2004), 1–4Google Scholar; Gierl, Pietismus und Aufklärung, 37.

30 Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 1/2: 195–7 (1690), 207–8 (1690), 208–10 (1690).

31 Ibid., 251– 54 (1690).

32 Ibid., 254–5.

33 Ibid., 255. See also ibid., 264–5 (1695).

34 Reyscher, August Ludwig, ed., Vollständige, historisch und kritisch bearbeitete Sammlung der württembergischen Gesetze, vol. 8 (Stuttgart, 1834), 192–3Google Scholar; Revidirte Kirchenordnung . . . Im Hertzogthumb Meckelnburg . . . (Rostock, 1602), 229r–v. See also Bezzel, Ernst, Frei zum Eingeständnis: Geschichte und Praxis der evangelischen Einzelbeichte (Stuttgart, 1982), 76–8, 159Google Scholar.

35 For a superb case study of this application see Gleixner, Ulrike, “Die ‘Ordnung des Saufens’ und ‘das Sündliche erkennen’: Pfingst- und Hütebiere als gemeindliche Rechtskultur und Gegenstand pietistischer Mission (Altmark 17. und 18. Jahrhundert),” in Peters, Jan, ed., Konflikt und Kontrolle in Gutsherrschaftsgesellschaften: Über Resistenz- und Herrschaftsverhalten in ländlichen Sozialgebilden der Frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen, 1995), 13–53, at 13–14, 15, 45Google Scholar.

36 Spener, Philipp Jakob, Briefwechsel mit August Hermann Francke, 1689–1704, ed. Wallmann, Johannes and Sträter, Udo (Tübingen, 2006), letter no 28 (9 July 1692), 118–19Google Scholar; no 31 (16 July 1692), 128–9. See also Spener, Letzte Theologische Bedencken, 3: 507 (15 July 1692).

37 Sträter, Udo, “Spener und August Hermann Francke,” in Wendebourg, Dorothea, ed., Philipp Jakob Spener—Leben, Werk, Bedeutung: Bilanz der Forschung nach 300 Jahren (Tübingen, 2007), 89–104, at 100–1Google Scholar; Albrecht-Birkner, Veronika, Francke in Glaucha: Kehrseiten eines Klischees (1692–1704) (Tübingen, 2004), 28–9Google Scholar.

38 Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 4: 308–9 (1684).

39 Drese, Claudia, “Der Berliner Beichtstuhlstreit oder Philipp Jakob Spener zwischen allen Stühlen?”, Pietismus und Neuzeit, 31 (2005), 60–97, at 95Google Scholar.

40 Spener, Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit, 3: 506 (1677); see also Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener, 220–21.

41 All the letters cited in the current essay appeared originally in Theologische Bedencken and Letzte Theologische Bedencken. For an incisive commentary on these publications see Sträter, Udo, “Von Bedencken und Briefen: Zur Edition der Briefe Philipp Jacob Speners,” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 40/3 (1988), 235–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Hinrichs, Carl, Preußentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preußen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971), 370–77Google Scholar; Bienert, Walther, Der Anbruch der christlichen deutschen Neuzeit dargestellt an Wissenschaft und Glauben des Christian Thomasius (Halle, 1934), 162–71Google Scholar; Kramer, Gustav, August Hermann Francke: Ein Lebensbild, 2 vols. (Halle, 1882; repr. Hildesheim, 2004), 2: 149–50Google Scholar.

43 Schorn-Schütte, Luise, Evangelische Geistlichkeit in der Frühneuzeit: Deren Anteil an der Entfaltung frühmoderner Staatlichkeit und Gesellschaft: Dargestellt am Beispiel des Fürstentums Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, der Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel und der Stadt Braunschweig (Heidelberg, 1996), 445–8Google Scholar. For Thomasius's own account of the affair and its consequences, plus a small selection of documents, see Thomasius, Christian, “Von Laster der beleidigten hohen Obrigkeit, wenn Evangelische Priester derselben die Absolution und das Abendmahl zu versagen sich unterfangen,” in Ernsthaffte . . . Thomasische Gedancken und Errinnerungen über allerhand auserlesene Juristische Händel, 4 (1721), 102–209Google Scholar.

44 Thomasius, Christian, Bedencken über die Frage: Wieweit ein Prediger . . . sich des Binde-Schlüssels bedienen könne (Wolffenbüttel, 1706), 38–49Google Scholar. Thomasius's invocation of the Judas argument to claim that Christ and the Apostles would have used only the Jewish ban, a secular and civil penalty that did not involve the exclusion from worship services, differs from Spener's, which aimed to establish whom a minister could and could not exclude from Communion.

45 Ibid., 49–60.

46 Ahnert, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment, 60–61, claiming, however, that the decline began in the second century; Grunert, Frank, “Antikerikalismus und christlicher Anspruch im Werk von Christian Thomasius,” in Mondot, Jean, ed., Les Lumières et leur combat: La critique de la religion et des églises à l’époque des Lumières. Der Kampf der Aufklärung: Kirchenkritik und Religionskritik zur Aufklärungszeit (Berlin, 2004), 39–56, at 42Google Scholar; Dreitzel, Horst, “Christliche Aufklärung durch fürstlichen Absolutismus: Thomasius und die Destruktion des frühneuzeitlichen Konfessionsstaates,” in Vollhardt, Friedrich, ed., Christian Thomasius (1655–1728): Neue Forschungen im Kontext der Frühaufklärung (Tübingen, 1997), 17–50, at 29 n. 30, 34–5Google Scholar; Pott, Martin, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” in Blaufuß, Dietrich and Niewöhner, Friedrich, eds., Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714): Mit einer Bibliographie der Arnold-Literatur ab 1714 (Wiesbaden, 1995), 247–65, at 255–6Google Scholar; Bienert, Der Anbruch, 433, 435–6, 453, 456–9; Seeberg, Erich, Gottfried Arnold: Die Wissenschaft und die Mystik seiner Zeit: Studien zur Historiographie und zur Mystik (Meerane in Sachsen, 1923; repr. Darmstadt, 1964), 509–10Google Scholar; Seeberg, , “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift, 31 (1920), 337–58, at 351–2Google Scholar.

47 Thomasius, Bedencken über die Frage, 4–6, 145–8, 150–51.

48 Thomasius, “Von Laster,” 191.

49 Ibid., 192–7.

50 Historia Contentionis inter Imperium et Sacerdotium . . . (Halle, 1722). The account of the work's origins in the preface differs from, but does not necessarily contradict, that in “Von Laster.” Concerning the former see Stephan Buchholz, “Historia Contentionis inter Imperium et Sacerdotium: Kirchengeschichte in der Sicht von Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” in Vollhardt, Christian Thomasius, 165–77, at 168.

51 On the many relations between Arnold and Thomasius see Ahnert, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment, 63–4; Buchholz, “Historia Contentionis,” 165–77; Pott, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” 247–65; Schubart-Fikentscher, Gertrud, “Thomasius zur Kirchengeschichte,” in Festschrift Guido Kisch: Rechtshistorische Forschungen (Stuttgart, 1955), 189–202, at 192–3, 199–200Google Scholar; Bienert, Der Anbruch, 434–8; Seeberg, Gottfried Arnold, 498–516; Seeberg, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” 337–58.

52 Hammerstein, Notker, Jus und Historie: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des historischen Denkens an deutschen Universitäten im späten 17. und im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1972), 205–65Google Scholar.

53 The following account of Arnold's career draws broadly on Hans Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus im 17. Jahrhundert,” in Brecht, Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, 391–437, at 410–16; Schneider, , “Der radikale Pietismus im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Brecht, Martin and Deppermann, Klaus, eds., Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. 2, Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1995), 107–97, at 116Google Scholar; Gierl, Pietismus und Aufklärung, 315–20.

54 On the sustained campaign against Arnold, including a work that Fecht wrote in 1714, see Gierl, Pietismus und Aufklärung, 321–3.

55 Nic[olaus] Hieron[ymus] Gundling, “Bericht und Bedencken über D. Johann Fechts Theologische Abhandlung Vom Kirchen-Bann,” in Gundling, Satyrische Schriften (Leipzig, 1738), 331–62, first published as [Gundling], review of De excommunicatione ecclesiastica . . ., by Johann Fecht, in Neue Bibliothec Oder Nachricht und Urtheile von neuen Büchern . . ., 3/21 (1712), 3–33; Gundling, “Vertheidigung Wider D. Johann Fechts Kurtze Nachricht Vom Kirchen- Bann” in Gundling, Satyrische Schriften, 363–426, first published as [Gundling], review of Kurtze Nachricht von dem Kirchen Bann . . ., by Johann Fecht, in Neue Bibliothec, 3/29 (1713), 739–802.

56 Gundling, “Vertheidigung,” 369.

57 Arnold, Gottfried, Die erste Liebe der Gemeinen JESU Christi . . ., Part 2 (Frankfurt am Main, 1696), 367–72, 374–8Google Scholar. See also Büschel, Jürgen, Gottfried Arnold: Sein Verständnis von Kirche und Wiedergeburt (Witten-Ruhr, 1970), 64–5Google Scholar.

58 Arnold, Gottfried, Die geistliche Gestalt eines evangelischen Lehrers . . . (Halle, 1704), 456, 461–5, 470–71, 483–4Google Scholar. See also Büschel, Gottfried Arnold, 183–4.

59 Arnold, Die geistliche Gestalt, 474–8.

60 Gundling, “Bericht und Bedencken,” 335, 343.

61 Thomasius, Christian, Höchstnöthige Cautelen . . . zu Erlernung Der Kirchen-Rechts- Gelahrheit . . . (Halle, 1713), 44, 161, 215, 216–17Google Scholar. Thomasius concluded later that control of the ban was practically “the sole and strongest means by which the clergy took the authority in ecclesiastical affairs from the princes.” Ibid., 289. Höchstnöthige Cautelen also criticizes Arnold's favorable treatment of mystics and mystical theology in the early church. Ibid., 44–5, 54. See also Thomasius, Cautelen zur Erlernung der Rechtsgelehrtheit (Halle, 1713; repr. Hildesheim, 2006), 504 n. (p), which refers to Arnold's deficiencies in discussing the primitive church.

62 The claim in Buchholz, “Historia Contentionis,” 167 n. 8, 172, that Thomasius in 1712 and 1713 drew heavily on Arnold's history of the early church lacks the needed qualification. Although the article refers briefly (176 n. 54) to Thomasius's criticism in Cautelae of Arnold's treatment of church discipline in the third century, Buchholz does not give the criticism its due. (He cites Thomasius's original Latin text, Cautelae circa Praecognita Jurisprudentiae Ecclesiasticae in usum Auditorii Thomasiani (1712).) The claim may have contributed to the erroneous statement in Martin Kühnel, Das politische Denken von Christian Thomasius: Staat, Gesellschaft, Bürger (Berlin, 2001), 154, that Thomasius originally dated the onset of the church's decline from the early fourth century. Schubart-Fikentscher, “Thomasius zur Kirchengeschichte,” 198–9, also implied this dating by Thomasius. Concerning the link between Thomasius's break with religious mysticism and enthusiasm around 1700 and his criticisms of Arnold's treatment of church history see Pott, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” 262–5.

63 Pertsch studied law in Halle from 1713 to 1716 under Thomasius and Justus Henning Böhmer, taught law in Jena, served as the first syndic in the city of Hildesheim from 1732 until 1743, and ended his career teaching at the university in Helmstedt. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, s.v. “Johann Georg Pertsch”.

64 Pertsch, Johann Georg, Das Recht Der Beicht-Stühle . . . (Halle/Saale, 1721), 23–6, 28–41Google Scholar.

65 Ibid., 160–70, 369–71. Twenty-five years earlier, Spener had struggled to demonstrate that the pastor in confession served a meaningful function. Spener, Theologische Bedencken, 1/1: 199–202 (1696). If and how Spener's letter relates to the Berliner Beichtstuhlstreit are unclear.

66 Pertsch, Das Recht der Beicht-Stühle, 53–70.

67 Pertsch, Johann Georg, Gründliche Vertheidigung der Lehre, Von der Macht Sünde zu vergeben . . . (Hildesheim, 1740)Google Scholar.

68 Pertsch, Johann Georg, Das Recht Des Kirchen-Bannes . . . (Halle/Saale, [1721]), 31–40, 44–60Google Scholar.

69 Thomasius, “Von Laster,” 209.

70 Rosenblatt, Jason P., Renaissance England's Chief Rabbi: John Selden (Oxford, 2006), 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Toomer, G. J., John Selden: A Life of Scholarship (Oxford, 2009), 692–4, 698–719Google Scholar, carefully details Selden's treatment of excommunication. Rosenblatt, Chief Rabbi, 244–53, highlights the stylistic difference between Selden's scholarly writings on excommunication and his discussion of the subject in February 1644 before the Presbyterians in the Westminster Assembly. On Selden and the Westminster Assembly see also Barbour, Reid, John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England (Toronto, 2003), 282–5, 288–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Ahnert, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment, 61, 146 n. 18; Dreitzel, “Christliche Aufklärung,” 29 n. 30, 34–5; Pott, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” 256; Bienert, Der Anbruch, 433, 435–6, 453, 456–9; Seeberg, Gottfried Arnold, 510; Seeberg, “Christian Thomasius und Gottfried Arnold,” 351–2. Thomasius discussed pagan philosophy in the church before Constantine's reign much more than he did Jewish ceremonies. See Thomasius, Christian, Rechtmäßige Erörterung der Ehe- und Gewissens-Frage . . ., in Thomasius, Auserlesene deutsche Schriften: Zweiter Teil (Frankfurt am Main, 1714; first published in 1689; repr. Hildesheim, 1994) Alr–A6v, 1–102, at 8–18Google Scholar; Thomasius, , Abhandlung vom Recht Evangelischer Fürsten in Mittel-Dingen oder Kirchen-Ceremonien, in Thomasius, , Auserlesene deutsche Schriften: Erster Teil (Halle, 1705; repr. Hildesheim, 1994), 76–209, at 87–8 (original Latin text appeared in 1695)Google Scholar; Thomasius, Cautelen zur Erlernung der Rechtsgelehrtheit, 124–8.

73 Thomasius, Erörterung der Ehe- und Gewissens-Frage, 18, 19–20; Thomasius, Freimütige, lustige und ernsthafte, jedoch vernunftmässige Gedanken oder Monatsgespräche . . ., vol. 3, Januar—Juni 1689 (Dec. 1689; repr. Frankfurt am Main 1972), 1063, 1078.

74 Thomasius, Binde-Schlüssels, 50–51, stated that the clergy used the small and large bans to punish not only vices but all forms of obstinacy toward the clergy. In 1713 he averred that second-century bishops and presbyters began to exclude from Communion Christians who held false beliefs or who disagreed with them over minor matters. Thomasius, Höchstnöthige Cautelen, 179–80.

75 Shuger, Debora Kuller, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity (Berkeley, CA, 1994), 34, 51–2Google Scholar.

76 When Thomasius used the methods of biblical antiquarianism, he did not necessarily seek to criticize the pre-Constantine church. In his controversial publication in 1714 on the Kebs-Ehe, in which he drew significantly on another of Selden's works, Thomasius argued nonjudgmentally that both the Old Testament and the early church did not prohibit all sexual relations outside marriage. See Christian Thomasius, Juristische Disputation von der Kebs-Ehe, in Thomasius, Auserlesene deutsche Schriften: Zweiter Teil, 437–521. Concerning this publication and the controversies see Schumann, Eva, “Christian Thomasius’ juristische Disputation ‘Von der Kebs-Ehe’ 1714,” in Lück, Heiner, ed., Christian Thomasius (1655–1728): Wegbereiter moderner Rechtskultur und Juristenausbildung. Rechtswissenschaftliches Symposium zu seinem 350. Geburtstag an der Juristischen Fakultät der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Hildesheim, 2006), 267–96Google Scholar; Buchholz, Stephan, Recht, Religion und Ehe: Orientierungswandel und gelehrte Kontroversen im Übergang vom 17. zum 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), 189–229Google Scholar.

77 Seeberg, Gottfried Arnold, 312–27, 506–9.

78 Thomasius, Höchstnöthige Cautelen, 25.

79 Hunter, Secularisation of the Confessional State.

80 Ibid., 22–3, 153. See also Ian Hunter, , Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 2001), 256CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunter, , “Christian Thomasius and the Desacralization of Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 61/4 (2000), 595–616, at 609–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Hunter, Secularisation of the Confessional State, 15, 58–60, 61–3, 65–6, 159–61.

82 Perhaps symptomatic of an inattention to the finer points in Thomasius's discussion of the pre-Constantine period, Hunter, Secularisation of the Confessional State, 77 n. 78, in emphasizing the jurist's high estimation of Arnold as a church historian, refers to Thomasius's Cautelen zur Erlernung der Rechtsgelehrtheit, 504 n. (p), without mentioning that the note criticizes the radical Pietist's deficiencies in treating the Old Testament and the primitive church.