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Is Martyrdom Mandatory? The Case of Gottfried Arnold
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Nineteenth-Century critics were entirely mistaken in supposing that political economy was the dismal science; it is in fact ecclesiastical history. Members of this society understand this better than any, exchanging, as they do, views and information mainly in print, and devoting their twice-yearly gatherings principally to encouraging the cheerfulness both of nature and of grace. Goethe had a word for it:
- Es ist die ganze Kirchengeschichte
- Mischmasch von Irrtum und Gewalt.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993
References
1 von Goethe, J. W., Zahme Xenien, Gedenkausgabe der Werke, 2, p. 402 Google Scholar; The Autobiography of J. W. von Goethe, ed. K. J. Weintraub (Chicago, 1974), 1, pp. 379–80.
2 The most useful of the older works on Arnold are Franz Dibelius, Gottfried Arnold. Sein Lehen und seine Bedeulung für Kirche und Theologie (Berlin, 1873); Max Goebel, Geschichte des christlichen Lebens in der rheinisch-westphalischen evangeiischen Kirche (Coblenz, 1849–52), 2, pp. 698–735. The most useful modern works are Erich Seeberg, Gottfried Arnold, die Wissenschaft und die Mystik seiner Zeit (Meerane, 1923); Hermann Dörries, Geist und Geschichte bei Gottfried Arnold (Göttingen, 1963); Ernst Benz, Die protestantische Thebais (Mainz and Wiesbaden, 1963); Jürgen Büchsel, Gottfried Arnold. Sein Verständnis von Kirche und Wiedergeburt (Witten, 1970); J. F. G. Goeters, ‘Gottfried Arnolds Anschauung von der Kirchengeschichte in ihrem Werdegang’, in B. Jaspert and R. Mohr, eds, Traditio-Krisis-Renovatio aus theologischer Sicht. Festschrift Winfried Zeller (Marburg, 1976), pp. 241–57; F. W. Kantzenbach, ‘Gottfried Arnold’, in M. Greschat, ed., Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte, 7, Orthodoxie und Pietismus (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 261–75; T. Stählin, Gottfried Arnolds geistliche Dichtung, Glauhe und Mystik (Göttingen, 1966). See also Klaus Wetzel, Theologische Kirchengeschichtsschreibung im deutschen Protestantismo, 1660–1760 (Giessen and Basle, 1983); J. Büchsel and D. Blaufuss, ‘Gottfried Arnolds Briefwechsel’, in D. Meyer, ed., Pietismus-Herrnhutertum-Enveckungsbewegung. Festschrift für Erich Beyreuther (Cologne, 1982), pp. 71–107.
3 On Quedlinburg, see Neveux, J. B., Vie spirituelle et vie sociale entre Rhin et Baltique au XVIIme siècle (Paris, 1967), p. 12, and passim.Google Scholar
4 There are a few details about this in Martin Schmidt, ‘Gottfried Arnold—seine Eigenarr, seine Bedeutung, seine Beziehung zu Quedlinburg’, in his Wiedergehurt und neuer Mensch (Witten, 1969), pp. 331–41. Sprögel officiated at the wedding of August Hermann Francke in 1694. See also Dibelius, Gottfried Arnold, pp. 55–67.
5 Cave, W., Erstes Christentum oder Gottesdienst der alten Christen in den ersten Zeiten des Evangelii, tr. J. C. Frauendorf (Leipzig, 1694).Google Scholar
6 Duffy, Eamon, ‘Primitive Christianity revived; religious renewal in Augustan England’, SCH, 14 (1977). pp. 287–300.Google Scholar
7 On this see Benz, Die proteslantische Thebais; H. D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast. John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (London, 1989), pp. 102, 347.
8 Goeters, ‘Gottfried Arnolds Anschauung’, pp. 247, 249.
9 Büchsel, Gottfried Arnold, pp. 32–75.
10 Die Zeichen dieser Zeit, bei dem Anfang der instehenden Trubsalen erwogen von einem der damit gute Absienten hat (Aschersleben, 1698). Cf. Goeters, ‘Gottfried Arnolds Anschauung’, p. 252 and n. 44.
11 On this cult see Benz, Ernst, Die Vision. Erfahrungsformen uni Bildwelt (Stuttgart, 1969), PP. 575–86 Google Scholar. An English example of Sophiolatry, with its characteristic ambivalence as to the gender of the object of the cult, is Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘Happy the man that finds the grace’, no. 674 in the current British Methodist hymnbook, Hymns and Psalms.
12 Gottfried Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (Frankfurt, 1729) [hereafter KKH] Vorrede (unpaginated), sections 1, 3, 5, 35.
13 KKH, 1, p. 202a.
14 KKH, 1, p. 509a.
15 KKH, 1, pp. 574–5, 578.
16 KKH, 1, p. 927.
17 KKH, 1, p. 20.
18 KKH, 1, p. 1201, section 5.
19 KKH, 2, p. 1178, section 13: 1, p. 1200, section 2.
20 KKH, 2, p. 1202, section 9.
21 Dibelius, Arnold, pp. 107, 131–47.
22 On this see Seeberg, Arnold, pp. 22–9.
23 Ehmann, K. C. E.. ed., Gottfried Arnolds sàmmtliche Lteder mil einer reichen Auswahl aus den freieren Dichtungen … (Stuttgart, 1856).Google Scholar
24 Büchsel, Arnold, p. 112; KKH, p. 1179, section 17.
25 Büchsel, Arnold, p. 115.
26 Ibid., pp. 116–17; Arnold, Gottfried, Die geistliche Gestalt eines evangelichen Lehrers (Halle, 1704), pp. 579–80, 615.Google Scholar
27 Christoph Coler, Jo., Historia Gothofredi Arnold… (Wittenberg, 1718), p. 237.Google Scholar
28 Ibid., p. 231.
29 Arnold, Gottfried, Historia el descriptio theologiae mysticae (Frankfurt, 1702), p. 22.Google Scholar
30 Das eheliche una unverehlichte Leben der ersten Christen (Frankfurt, 1702).
31 On the later Arnold see, besides the biographies quoted, Delius, Walter, ‘Gottfried Arnold in Perleburg (1707-1714)’, Jahrbuch für Berlin-Brandenburgische Kirchengeschichte, 43 (1968), pp. 155–60.Google Scholar
32 Büchsel, Arnold, p. 201.
33 It is of interest to English readers to note that a proposal, perhaps occasioned by the publication of the enlarged edition of the KKH at Schaffhausen (1740-2), to produce an English translation in weekly instalments of three sheets, though commended by a quotation from Bayle’s Dictionary, seems to have failed for lack of subscribers (Certain queries with their respective answers; by way of introduction to the Rev. Mr. Godfrey Arnold’s Impartial History of the Church and Hereticks (London, 1744) [BLT. 1794(6)]). I have not discovered the source of the proposal.
34 See my forthcoming paper on ‘Mysticism and Revival: the case of Gerhard Tersteegen’ in the Festschrift for Dr J. D. Walsh.