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German Pietism, 1670–1750

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

W. R. Ward
W. R. Ward
Affiliation:
21 Grenehurst Way, Petersfield, Hants GU31 4AZ
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Extract

German Pietism and cognate movements in the Reformed world, especially in the Netherlands, the Rhineland, Switzerland and Hungary, continue to be one of the most strenuously contested and assiduously worked fields not only of modern church history, but of the history of religious belief and practice not ecclesiastically orientated. Their bibliography is augmented by some 300 contributions a year by scholars from Finland to the United States, though the bulk of the work is German, and much of the rest is presented in German. A brief survey (which must necessarily exclude the literature relating to Austria and Salzburg) can do no more than sample what has been happening in this area since the Second. World War, and suggest its connexions with the older work, some of which remains of first class significance. Fortunately the journal Pietismus und Neuzeit (now published at Gottingen by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht) has since its inception in 1974 carried not only papers of high quality, but a bibliography of the year's work. This was the achievement, until his untimely death in 1990, of Klaus Deppermann, and aimed strenuously to be complete. His successors have been daunted by the magnitude of this task, and do not promise to compass all the non-German literature; but no doubt will trace most of what is really important.

Type
Bibliographical Survey
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 1993 , pp. 476 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 ‘The crisis of piety’ in Protestantism is well treated by Winfried Zeller in his collected essays Theologie und Frömmigkeit, 2 vols, Marburg 1971–1978Google Scholar, especially in ‘Protestantische Frömmigkeit im 17. Jahrhundert’, i. 85–116Google Scholar.

2 The wider background to this doctrine is discussed by Ward, W. R., ‘Pastoral office and the general priesthood in the Great Awakening’ (Studies in Church History xxvi, 1989), 303–28Google Scholar.

3 Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Eng, . trans., London 1931, ii. 715Google Scholar.

4 The essay which gave its title to this volume was published only posthumously, but it distilled the essence of Schmidt's work for a generation.

5 This collection includes an expanded version of the paper ‘Speners Wiedergeburtslehre’, originally published in the Theologische Literaturzeitung lxxvi (1951), cols 17–30Google Scholar.

6 The reprint (Darmstadt 1974) includes two supplementary chapters of the biography of interest to this theme, which had appeared in a posthumous collection of his essays: Oestreich, Gerhard (ed.), Preussen als historisches Problem, Berlin 1964Google Scholar.

7 Der Hallesche Pietismus, 178; Deppermann, Klaus, ‘Die politische Voraussetzungen für die Etablierung des Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preussen’, PuN xii (1986), 51–2Google Scholar.

8 Leube had studied in England and wrote about English humanism, and also about the French image of Germany and Luther. His papers in the field under discussion were reprinted as Leube, Hans, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, Bielefeld 1975Google Scholar.

9 Kruse, Martin, ‘Preussen und der frühe Pietismus’, JBBKg liii (1981), 9–20Google Scholar.

10 Similar findings had already been reported in the extraordinary work of Hirsch's, Emanuel old age and blindness, Geschichte der neuem evangelischen Theologie, 5th edn, Gütersloh 1975, ii. 126–7, 152–5Google Scholar.

11 The following contributions represent a wider discussion: Rüttgardt, Jan Olaf, review of Spener, Schriften, i, PuN vii (1981), 230–4Google Scholar; Wallmann, ‘Überlegungen und Vorschläge zu einer Edition des Spenerschen Briefwechsels, zunachst aus der Frankfurter Zeit’, ibid. xi (1985), 345–53; Kurt Aland, ‘Zur Ausgabe der Werke Philipp Jakob Speners’, ibid, xii (1986), 127–44; Blaufuss, D., Spener-Arbeiten, 2nd edn, Bern 1980Google Scholar; idem, PietismusForschungen, Frankfurt 1986, 1–116.

12 An impression of the substance of this may be obtained from Aland, Kurt, Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe, Gütersloh 1960, 523–42Google Scholar.

13 Michalkiewicz, Stanislaw, ‘Einige Episoden aus der Geschichte der schlesischen Bauernkämpfe im 17. und 18. Jh.’, in Maleczynska, Eva (ed.), Beiträge zur Geschichte Schlesiens, trans, from Polish by Schweinitz, B., East Berlin 1953, 356–400Google Scholar.

14 On this see Menk, G., ‘Spener und Waldeck’, HJLg xxxiii (1983), 171–92Google Scholar; Mack, R., ‘Forschungsbericht: Pietismus in Hessen’, PuN xiii (1987), 200–2Google Scholar; Barthold, F. W., Die Erweckten improtestantischen Deutschland während des Ausgangs des 17. und der ersten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts, besonders die frommen Grafenhöfe, repr. from Historisches Taschenbuch, ed. Raumer, Friedrich von, 1852–3, Darmstadt 1968, i. 162, 246–8Google Scholar.

15 In the work referred to in n. 14 above.

16 On which subject see the privately published works of Kneifel, Eduard, Geschichte der evangelisch-augsburgischen Kirche in Polen, Niedermarschacht 1962Google Scholar; Die evangelischaugsburgischen Gemeinden in Polen 1555–1939, Vierkirchen n.d.; Die Pastoren der evangelischaugsburgischen Kirche in Polen, Eging n.d.

17 In 1977 the Moravians at last succeeded in replacing this journal with a general theological journal and forum for the discussion of current issues, Unitas Fratrum, published by the Friedrich Wittig Verlag of Hamburg (from 1978 the twice-yearly issues were numbered consecutively, and have now reached no. xxxii). The history of the Unity has always been a principal constituent of the journal, however, and two recent double numbers, xxiii/xxiv (1988) on Herrnhaag, and xxix/xxx (1991) on the Brethren in Switzerland, form considerable historical monographs. UF also reviews the literature of Moravian historiography.

18 This theme was reopened by Ward, W. R., ‘Enlightenment in early Moravianism’, in Augustijn, C., Holtrop, R. N., Meyjes, G. H. M. Posthumus and Wall, E. G. E. van der (eds), Kerkhistorische Opstellen aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. J. van den Berg, Kampen 1987Google Scholar.

19 The question of the transition is discussed in Ward, W. R., ‘The renewed unity of the Brethren: ancient Church, new sect or interconfessional movement’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library lxx (1988), pp. lxvii–xciiGoogle Scholar. The feud is treated from the Moravian standpoint by Reichel, Gerhard, ‘Die Entstehung einer Zinzendorf-feindlichen Partei in Halle und Wernigerode’, ZKg xxiii (1902), 549–92Google Scholar(repr. in Zinzendorf. Materialen und Dokumente, Reihe 2, xii. 635–78). See also Beyreuther, E., ‘Halle und die Herrnhuter in den Rezensionen der Göttingischen Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen auf dem Hintergrund niedersachsischer Religionspolitik zwischen 1739 und 1760’, JGNSKg lxxiii (1975), 109–34Google Scholar(repr. in idem, Frommigkeit und Theologie, Hildesheim 1980, 219–44).

20 A useful biography of whom is given by Reichel, Gerhard, August Gottlieb Spangenberg, Tübingen 1906Google Scholar(repr. in Zinzendorf: Materialen und Dokumente, Reihe 2, xiii. 1–307).

21 For this whole question, and Spangenberg's embarrassments in particular, see Ward, W. R., ‘Zinzendorf and money’ (Studies in Church History xxiv, 1987), 283–306, esp. pp. 301–2Google Scholar.

22 In particular Uttendörfer, Otto, Zinzendorfs Weltbetrachtung, Berlin 1929Google Scholar; idem, Zinzendorfs religiöse Grundgedanken, Herrnhut 1935; and Zinzendorfs christliches Lebensideal, Gnadau 1940Google Scholar; Bettermann, Wilhelm, Theologie und Sprache bei Zinzendorf, Gotha 1935Google Scholar; Eberhard, Samuel, Kreuzes Theologie: das reformatorische Anliegen in Zinzendorfs Verkiindigung, Munich 1937Google Scholar; Renkewitz, Heinz, Zinzendorf 2nd edn, Herrnhut 1939Google Scholar; Zinzendorf Gedenknbuch, ed. Benz, Ernst and Renkewitz, Heinz, Stuttgart 1951Google Scholar; Blanke, Fritz, Zinzendorf und die Einheit der Kinder Gottes, Basel 1950Google Scholar.

23 E.g. in a paper by Schmidt, Martin, ‘Zinzendorf und die Confession Augustana’, in Der Pielismus als theologische Erscheinung, 284–317Google Scholar. Cf. Gärtner, Friedrich, Karl Barth und Zinzendorf Theologische Existenz Heute NF 40, Munich 1953Google Scholar.

24 The capacity for absorption can, of course, be made a reproach by those who speak from older theological standpoints. Leiv Aalen (1906–83), sometime professor of Dogmatics at Oslo, assessing Zinzendorf by the standard of the Formula Concord, regarded him (as Hok, Gösta, Zinzendorfs Begriff der Religion, Uppsala 1948Google Scholar, had already presented him) as promoting a rake's progress which ended in Schleiermacher(who received a Moravian education). See, inter alia, Aalen, L., Die Theologie desjungen Zinzendorf Berlin-Hamburg 1966Google Scholar, and ‘Zinzendorf als Kommentator der Confession Augustana’, UF xvii (1985), 57–67Google Scholar. See also Aalen's, contribution, ‘Die “esoterische” Theologie des Grafen von Zinzendorf’, to the Beyreuther Festschrift, 207–63Google Scholar.

25 Among the older but still valuable texts see Veeck, Otto, Geschichte der reformierten Kirche Bremens, Bremen 1909Google Scholar, and Iken, J. F., Joachim Meander: sein Leben und seine Lieder, Bremen 1880Google Scholar.

26 This work, which was completed by another hand, lacks the originality of the author's paper on the Inspired, noted above, but remains extremely useful. It underlay the classification of religious types in Ernst Troeltsch. On this see Wichelhaus, Manfred, Kirchengeschichtsschreibung und Soziologie im neunzehnten Jahrhundert und bei Ernst Troeltsch, Heidelberg 1965, 177Google Scholar.

27 There is material in English about this in Tanis, James, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies: a study in the life and theology of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, The Hague 1967CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Frelinghuysen, a Westphalian, is an example of the way the Reformed of this area could develop not only into Pietists but revivalists.

28 The general argument of this paragraph is developed on a larger scale with valuable bibliographical references by Faulenbach, Heiner, ‘Die Anfange des Pietismus bei den Reformierten in Deutschland’, PuN iv (1977–1978), 190–234Google Scholar.

29 TREv. 633 s.v. Berlin.

30 Not till 1980 did the MEKgR begin to record contributions in the journals. For a public lament on the state of the art in the Rhineland, see Meyer, Dietrich, ‘Pietismusforschung im Rheinland, 1965–85’, PuN xiii (1987), 153–80Google Scholar.

31 Geschichte der neuern evangelischen Theologie, ii. 208Google Scholar.

32 ‘Der radikale Pietismus in der neueren Forschung’, PuN viii (1982), 15–42Google Scholar; ix (1983), 117–51.

33 He also attempted to compress a vast theme into a narrow compass in ‘Religious toleration in Germany, 1648–1750’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century cci (1982), 115–41Google Scholar.

34 By contrast Martens, Wolfgang, Literatur und Frömmigkeit in der Zeit der fruhen Aufklärung, Tübingen 1989Google Scholar, deals largely with the literary preferences and prejudices of Halle.

35 The essence of the controversy, in which Forsthoffs viewpoint, rather than his considerable familiarity with Tersteegen was at stake, may be gathered fromForsthoff, H., ‘Die religiöse Grundcharakter Tersteegens’, MRKg xxii (1928) 1–22Google Scholar; Winter, F., ‘Die Frömmigkeit Gerhard Tersteegens in ihrem Verhältnis zur französisch-quietistischen Mystik’, Theologische Arbeiten aus dem rheinischen wissenschaftlichen Prediger-Verein xxii (1927), 1–165Google Scholar; idem, ‘Zur Frömmigkeit Tersteegens und zum Problem der Mystik’, MRKg xxii (1928), 128–43.

36 van Andel, Cornells Pieter, Gerhard Tersteegen: Leben und Werk-sein Platz in der Kirchengeschichte, German (enlarged) version, Düsseldorf 1973Google Scholar.

37 Nor, for local background, to his Geschichte der evangelischen Kirche von Cleve-Mark und der Provinz Westphalen, Iserlohn 1867Google Scholar.