No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Danish Catechism in Action? Examining Religious Formation in and through Erik Pontoppidan's Menoza
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2019
Abstract
In 1737 Erik Pontoppidan, a Danish bishop of pietist leanings, published a Lutheran catechism, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth unto Godliness), which became the Church of Denmark's official catechism for the following fifty years, with new editions being printed in Norway into the twentieth century. For a figure largely overlooked by modern scholarship, he has enjoyed an extraordinarily lengthy influence over Christian formation in Scandinavia and in Norwegian immigrant communities in the USA. Pontoppidan not only left behind this ‘official’ programme of Christian education, but also an unofficial blueprint, Menoza (1742–3). This opbyggelse (‘edifying’) novel recounts the conversion of an imaginary Indian prince, Menoza, and his subsequent travels around Europe. Menoza might even be said to offer its readers an alternative or additional Lutheran catechism in literary form. This article examines Menoza's Christian formation in the light of Pontoppidan's official catechism. Which topics of the catechism receive emphasis or are downplayed? Does the progression and linking of doctrinal topics match the catechism's layout or does the author restructure Christian theology for pedagogical purposes? The article also considers the non-doctrinal elements of the characters’ catechesis, especially in relation to pietist expectations regarding conversion. What indoctrination, intentional or unintentional, into the vocabulary and experience of pietist culture did Pontoppidan offer his Scandinavian readers?
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019
Footnotes
Research for this article received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 676258.
References
1 Printing continued into the twentieth century, although Hallgeir Elstad writes that Pontoppidan's book was phased out towards the end of the nineteenth: ‘Til erstatning for Pontoppidan. Et blikk på noen opplysningskatekismer i Danmark og Norge’, Dansk teologisk tidsskrift 72 (2009), 161–80, at 180. More recently Dag Thorkildsen has again articulated the importance of the work for generations of Norwegians in shaping their understanding of Christianity: ‘Lutherdom og nasjonal identitet i Norden’, Teologisk tidsskrift 1 (2017), 42–54, at 51.
2 Horstbøll, Henrik, ‘Pietism and the Politics of Catechisms: The Case of Denmark and Norway in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Scandinavian Journal of History 29 (2004), 143–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 146. It is unclear if Horstbøll is referring here to the catechism as one of the largest book projects in Denmark, in Scandinavia or in the whole of Europe. He might also have in mind the large annual standing order for about ten thousand copies from a single publishing house in Copenhagen: ibid. 151. Horstbøll's statement aims to impress upon his readers that the book was not only intended to reach every corner of Denmark and Norway but that probably it actually did so: ibid. 151–2.
3 For more detailed discussion of conversion and pietism, see the recent study by Jonathan Strom, German Pietism and the Problem of Conversion (University Park, PA, 2017), which seeks to complicate the narrative of an established conversion paradigm within German pietism. This article seeks rather to read Pontoppidan's texts in the light of one another, drawing out the similarities in order also to find differences of emphasis.
4 The term ‘state pietism’ refers to official political support for pietism during the reign of Christian VI (1730–46). However, pietism was present in Denmark before and after this: Bach-Nielsen, Carsten and Ingesman, Per, eds, Kirkens Historie, 2 vols (Copenhagen, 2012), 2: 304–16Google Scholar.
5 Munck, Thomas, ‘Literacy, Educational Reform and the Use of Print in Eighteenth-Century Denmark’, European History Quarterly 34 (2004), 275–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 299. Munck discusses some of the practical difficulties and results of the decree. The history of literacy and book culture in Scandinavia has also been discussed in Appel, Charlotte, Læsning og bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark (Copenhagen, 2001)Google Scholar; Dahl, Gina, Books in Early Modern Norway (Leiden, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 In 1771, a Danish priest, Peder Saxtorph, edited and simplified the text, reducing Pontoppidan's work to about a hundred pages; by comparison, the 1752 edition of Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed is 208 pages. This edited work, Udtog af Dr. Erich Pontoppidans Forklaring, til de Eenfoldiges Nytte (Extracts of Doctor Erik Pontoppidan's Explanation, for the Use of the Simple), was also widely used in Norway.
7 Horstbøll, ‘Pietism and the Politics of Catechisms’, 152.
8 Brøndsted, Mogens, Pontoppidans, ’Historien om “Forklaring” i Danmark og Norge’, Fund og Forskning I Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger 12 (1965), 47–65Google Scholar, at 65.
9 See <https://www.worldcat.org>.
10 Sverdrup, Harald Ulrik, Luther's Small Catechism: Explained in Questions and Answers (Minneapolis, MN, 1900)Google Scholar, online at ‘Project Gutenberg’: <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36081>, accessed 28 December 2017. The translator's preface from this edition names Pontoppidan's Explanation. For information linking various editions of the work, see ‘Luther Seminary Catalog’, online at: <https://luthersem.on.worldcat.org/oclc/854308792> and Worldcat, at: <http://www.worldcat.org/title/luthers-small-catechism-explained-in-questions-and-answers/oclc/747742676/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true>, both accessed 28 December 2017.
11 Jonathan Strom names three types of conversion: from one religious tradition to another, from one Christian confessional group to another, and an ‘inward change of heart’ in a Christian. The last is most associated with pietism, but he observes that all three would be recognized by pietists. Moreover, he writes that despite the large body of research on conversion, ‘at present, there is no systematic understanding of conversion for early modern Europe’: ‘Pietist Experiences and Narratives of Conversion’, in Douglas H. Shantz, ed., A Companion to German Pietism, 1660–1800, Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 55 (Leiden, 2014), 293–318, at 293–4. This article deals with conversion stories of all three types, but the third type is present in each example.
12 ‘Hvad er genfødelsen eller den nye fødsel? Det samme som en levende tros meddelelse eller opvækkelse af den åndelige død, omvendelse og oversættelse fra mørket til lyset, fra Satans magt til Gud’ (‘What is rebirth or the new birth? The same as the awakening from spiritual death to a living faith, repentance and movement from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God’): Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed udi en eenfoldig og efter Muelighed kort dog tilstrekkelig Forklaring over Sal. Doct. Mort. Luthers Liden Catechismo (Copenhagen, 1752), 119. Translations from Danish or Norwegian editions of Pontoppidan's texts are my own.
13 ‘Udvortes tørre Væsen’: Erik Pontoppidan, Menoza. En asiatisk Prinds, som drog Verden omkring og søgte Christne, særdeles i Indien, Spanien, Italien, Frankrig, England, Holland, Tydskland og Danmark, men fandt lidet af det, han søgte [Menoza, an Asian Prince, who travelled around the world seeking Christians, especially in India, Spain, Italy, France, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, but found little of what he sought], 3 vols (Copenhagen, 1860), 1: 33.
14 Ibid. 1: 75–87 (letter 7).
15 Menoza is referring to the difference between full immersion (and possibly naked) baptism and a baptism by affusion or aspersion: ibid. 1: 95.
16 ‘Sød Smag af sin Naade, som jeg ret holdt for hans Kjærligheds Udøselse i mit Hjerte’: ibid. 1:101.
17 ‘Af Guds forekommende Naade opvakt til at søge mere Lys’: ibid. 1: 8.
18 Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Copenhagen, 1752), 125.
19 Ibid. 128. Note that renewal here is a daily task, not a single event. Earlier in the catechism, Pontoppidan notes that rebirth, justification and renewal can all be understood by the term ‘sanctification’, although usually sanctification refers specifically to renewal: ‘Hvad forstås ved det ord helliggørelse? I en vidtløftig mening begriber det i sig disse tre uadskillelige ting, genfødelsen, retfærdiggørelsen og fornyelsen. Ellers betegner det ofte alene den daglige fornyelse’: ibid. 119.
20 Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 95.
21 Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, 169–77.
22 Ibid. 188–92.
23 Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 124–5.
24 ‘Kan I føre mig vel til Lands igjen, da bliver min Forpligtelse mod Eder større end imod noget Menneske paa Jorden’: ibid. 125.
25 ‘Har Sorgen i mit Hjerte en Ganske anden Art … . Nu seer og Føler jeg, hvad jeg har at sørge for, og I min bitterste Sorrig selv finder jeg en underlig sød Smag’: ibid. 126.
26 Ibid. 127.
27 ‘Saa levende og kraftig i mit Hjerte som nu’: ibid. 128.
28 ‘Ak ja min Jesu! drag mig efter dig’: ibid.
29 The name of the count is given as W***, a literary practice of the period that could either shelter the author from legal liability if the character was an actual person or be used as a literary trope to suggest this count was a real person. The count's story perhaps fits more closely the other English translation of omvendelse, ‘repentance’.
30 ‘Christus udryddes iblandt de Christne, og at man I høj Grad har glemt hans Sind’: Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 168.
31 Ibid. 170.
32 ‘Ting, som i sin Natur synes uskyldig, og dog ved Misbrug bliver syndig’: ibid.
33 ‘[E]n ydmyg og aarvaagen Christen aldrig bør holde sig sikker nok’: ibid. 171. This type of Christian watchfulness is also commanded by Pontoppidan in his catechism: Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, 46, 65.
34 Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 171–3.
35 ‘[T]il at fornøje og for lyste Smagen, Sindet eller de øvrige Sandser’: ibid. 173.
36 Ibid. 175; see also Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, 66.
37 Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 177. The reference is to his poor farmers, presumably tenants on his family's estate, whose rent he has squandered.
38 Ibid. 177–8.
39 Ibid. 199.
40 ‘[A]lt hendes Væsen havde hidindtil været af Verden og ikke af Faderen, som ved sit Sandheds Ord føder os til nye Kreaturer’: ibid. 209.
41 See ibid. 173–5.
42 ‘Madame, De er endnu ingen Christen’: ibid. 206.
43 Ibid. 169.
44 ‘At omvende sig, er, hiertelig at kiende, føle, fortryde og hade sin begangne Synder, ja al sin syndige Naturs Vanart, inderlig længes efter Guds Naade i Christo, og alvorlig faae i Sinde, at forbedre sit Levnet’: Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, 170 (Q. 675).
45 ‘En aandelige Smerte og Bedrøvelse, der sonderknuser Hiertet, og kommer det ligesom til at svie, ja undertiden trykker Graad og Taare af Synderens Øyne’: ibid. 171 (Q. 682).
46 Skarsten, Trygve, ‘Erik Pontoppidan and his Asiatic Prince Menoza’, ChH 50 (1981), 33–43Google Scholar, at 40.
47 Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 21.
48 ‘[A]t spørge Vej til Himlen’: ibid.
49 Ibid. 20.
50 Ter Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage (Berkeley, CA, 2001) 374; he argues that the noble savage as a rhetorical device was already present in the seventeenth century.
51 The plot of Menoza fits quite well with Tera Pettella's description of eighteenth-century novels that rely upon familiar patterns set up by earlier texts, including devotional texts. She writes of David Simple: ‘[I]t incorporates a number of formal characteristics that become even more marked in novels as the century progresses: meandering plots, monotonous successions of inset narratives, calamitous trials, as well as irksome (to modern sensibilities) didacticism. These characteristics are familiar to eighteenth-century readers because they appear in a variety of popular texts throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including epic and heroic romance. Likewise, devotional texts possessed a remarkable number of the formal features that are associated with novels, such as emphatic, intrusive narrators, affective engagement, and elaborate introductory material that framed occasions for instruction’: ‘Devotional Readings and the Novel Form: The Case of David Simple’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 24 (2011–12), 277–99, at 280. She argues for a ‘stability of established religious reading practices’: ibid. 279.
52 ‘Faa Ord til den fornuftige Læsers tjenlige Efterretning’: Pontoppidan, Menoza, 1: 3.
53 ‘En af de allerældste Læremaader er at forestille Sandhed, ej alene i klare, tørre og nøgne Regler, men ogsaa, for det menneskelige Gemyts Skyld, under Exempler, Lignelse, Parabler og Fictioner’: ibid. 6.
54 ‘Skriftets Paafund, Maade og Sammenhæng’: ibid.
55 ‘Den er særdeles livfull og interessant og har derfor vært meget lest helt til vår tid … . Den innholder kristlige livsvisdom av blivende verd og er et smukt minnesmerke om pietismens rike åndsliv I dens blomstringstid’: Erik Pontoppidan, Menoza, transl. Andreas Fleischer (Oslo, 1931), 5.
56 ‘[I]midlertid er det en Selvfølge, at en Bog som den nærværende ikke paany udgives nærmest som Opbyggelsesbog for Nutids-Christne, men deels som et Mindesmærke om en historisk Personlighed og et bevæget Tidsrum i vor Kirke, deels som en nyttig og fornøjelig Læsning for Folk, som vide at sondre imellem fromme Betragtninger og Troesartikler’: Pontoppidan, Menoza (Copenhagen, 1860), Preface, paragraph 5. Horstbøll describes some of the political and ecclesiastical tensions over the use of Pontoppidan's catechism, both when it was first published and in nineteenth-century Denmark. He also notes the differences in attitudes towards Pontoppidan in nineteenth-century Denmark and Norway: Henrik Horstbøll, ‘Læsning til salighed, oplysning og velfærd. Om Pontoppidan, pietisme og lærebøger i Danmark og Norge i 17- og 1800-tallet’, Fortid og Nutid, June 2003, 83–108.
57 Pontoppidan, Menoza (1860), Preface, paragraph 7.
58 Safstrom, Mark, The Religious Origins of Democratic Pluralism: Paul Peter Waldenstrom and the Politics of the Swedish Awakening 1868–1917 (Eugene, OR, 2016), 32Google Scholar.
59 The promotion of literacy and reading in nineteenth-century Norway has been examined more closely in relation to Hans Nielsen Hauge, a revival figure, who was certainly familiar with Pontoppidan. Haukland even writes that ‘reading defined the Haugeans as a group’: Haukland, Linda, ‘Hans Nielsen Hauge: A Catalyst of Literacy in Norway’, Scandinavian Journal of History 39 (2014), 539–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
60 Noll, Mark and Hindmarsh, Bruce, ‘Rewriting the History of Evangelicalism: W. R. Ward, 1925–2010’, Books and Culture: Christian Review 17/2 (2011), 8Google Scholar, online at: <https://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2011/marapr/historyevangelicalism.html?paging=off>, last accessed 22 November 2018.
61 In reference to the pre-Cartesian conception of truth, Catherine Pickstock writes ‘for as long as every thought had to be tested for its celestial or alternatively hellish origin, every thought was an act of ethical discernment, and “to be in the truth” was an act of ethical performance’: Catherine Pickstock, Repetition and Identity (Oxford, 2013), 121. While certainly post-Cartesian, Pontoppidan and the pietists might have recognized the epistemologically complicated nature of truth (who is allowed to interpret the Scriptures, for example) and the linking of truth to ethical action. A narrative, which displays ethical action, is thus potentially more pedagogically appropriate than a catechism.
62 See especially Hindmarsh, Bruce, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahlberger, Christer and Wachenfeldt, Per von, eds, Moravian Memoirs: Pillars of an Invisible Church (Skellefteå, 2017)Google Scholar; Bähr, Andreas, ‘Fear, Anxiety and Terror in Conversion Narratives of Early German Pietism’, German History 32 (2014), 353–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Lieburg, Fred A., Living for God: Eighteenth-Century Dutch Pietist Autobiography (Lanham, MD, and Oxford,. 2006)Google Scholar; Becker-Cantarino, Barbara, ed. and transl., The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Petersen, written by herself: Pietism and Women's Autobiography in Seventeenth-Century Germany (Chicago, IL, and London, 2005)Google Scholar.
63 These were authored by two British evangelical women, Emma Leslie and Charlotte Tucker. Potentially, the later reception history of Menoza enters into a milieu which is decidedly gendered: see especially Havens, Hilary, ed., Didactic Novels and British Women's Writing, 1790–1820 (Abingdon, 2016)Google Scholar.
64 ‘Popular mischaracterizations of Christian readers as close-minded ignore the transformational presuppositions of devotional reading and its often unstated but crucial reliance upon the plenitude of meaning in a text’: Corley, Liam, ‘The Jouissance of Belief: Devotional Reading and the (Re)Turn to Religion’, Christianity & Literature 58 (2009), 252–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 255.
65 See Pontoppidan's, early work, Troens-Speyl, forestillende Guds-Børns Kiende-Tegn (Copenhagen, 1740)Google Scholar; transl. du Moulin, Peter as The Mirror of Faith: By which the Children of God may be known (Minneapolis, MN, 1927)Google Scholar.