Wycliffite Spirituality 9780809147656, 0809147653

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THE CLASSICS OF WESTERN

eS

SPIRITUALITY

A Library of the Great Spiritual Masters President and Publisher

Kevin A. Lynch, C.S.P. EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief

Richard J. Payne Associate Editor

John Farina Editorial Consultant Ewert H. Cousins—Professor and Director of Spirituality Graduate Program, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.

John E. Booty—Professor of Church History, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. Joseph Dan—Professor of Kaballah in the Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew

University, Jerusalem, Israel.

Albert Deblaere—Professor of the History of Spirituality, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. Louis Dupré—T.L. Riggs Professor in Philosophy of Religion, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Rozanne Elder—Executive Vice President, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Mich.

Mircea Eliade—Professor in the Department of the History of Religions, University of Chicago, Chicago, IIl. Anne

Fremantle—Teacher,

Editor and Writer, New York, N.Y.

Karlfried Froelich—Professor of the History of the Early and Medieval Church, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.

Arthur Green—Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Thought, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

Stanley S. Harakas—Professor of Orthodox Christian Ethics, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary, Brookline, Mass.

Jean Leclercq—Professor, Institute of Spirituality and Institute of Religious Psychology, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.

Miguel Leon-Portilla—Professor Mesoamerican Cultures

and Languages, National University of Mexico, University City, Mexico.

George A. Maloney, S.J.—Director, John XXIII Ecumenical Center, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.

Bernard McGinn—Professor of Historical Theology and History of Christianity, University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, III.

John Meyendorff—Professor of Church History, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y., and Professor of Patristics and Church History, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, Tuckahoe, N.Y.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr—Professor of Islamics, Department of Religion, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., and Visiting Professor, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Heiko A. Oberman—Director, Institute fuer Spaetmittelalter und Reformation, Universitaet Tuebingen, West

Germany. Alfonso Ortiz—Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N. Mex.; Fellow, The Center for Advanced Study, Stanford, Calif.,

Raimundo

Panikkar—Professor, Department of Religious

Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, Calif.

Jaroslav Pelikan—Sterling Professor of History and Religious Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Fazlar Rahman—Professor of Islamic Thought, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Chicago, Chicago, III. Annemarie

B. Schimmel—Professor of Hindu Muslim Culture,

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Sandra M. Schneiders—Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies and Spirituality, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif.

Huston Smith—Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. John R. Sommerfeldt—Professor of History, University of Dallas, Irving, Texas. David Steindl-Rast—Monk Pine City, N.Y.

of Mount Savior Monastery,

William C. Sturtevant—General Editor, Handbook of North American

Indians, Smithsonian

Institution, Washington, D.C.

David Tracy—Professor of Theology, University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, III.

Victor Turner—Willier: B. Kenan Professor in Anthropology, The Center for Advanced Study, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. Kallistos Ware—Fellow

of Pembroke College, Oxford;

Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies, Oxford University, England.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/pietistsselected0000unse

PIeTIsTS

elected Writings

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

PETER C. ERB PREFACE BY

F ERNEST STOEFFLER

PAGLISTARRESS NEW YORK « RAMSEY * TORONTO

ee

ee a Cover Art Born, raised and educated

in New

York, free-lance

ee

designer/illustrator

ROBERT

MANNING has received numerous commissions for religious theme books. The “woodcut” seemed a natural style to suggest the bold, dramatic spirit of the Pietists. The portrait is that of the movement’s founder, Spener, and the burning heart symbolizes the active evangelical emphasis of Pietist Christianity.

Acknowledgements The Publisher gratefully acknowledges the use of ‘Nine Public Lectures Concerning Saving Faith” reprinted by permission of the University of Iowa Press.

Material from Pia Desideria by Philipp Jakob Spener, translated by T. G. Tappert, © 1964 by Fortress Press is reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Copyright © 1983 by The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-60125

ISBN: 0-8091-2509-9 (paper) 0-8091-0334-6 (cloth) Published by Paulist Press 545 Island Road, Ramsey, N.J. 07446 Printed and bound in the United States of America

v1

Contents

PREFACE

1X

FOREWORD

xiil

INTRODUCTION

1 PIETISTS Selected Writings

PHILIPP JAKOB SPENER (1635-1705)

29

AUGUST HERMANN FRANCKEE (1663-1727) & THE HALLE SCHOOL

97

RADICAL PIETISM: GOTTFRIED ARNOLD

(1666-1714)

& GERHARD TERSTEEGEN

(1697-1769)

219

WURTTEMBERG PIETISM: JOHANN ALBRECHT BENGEL (1687-1752) & FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH OETINGER NICOLAS LUDWIG, COUNT VON ZINZENDORF

(1702-1782)

(1700-1760)

253

289

BIBLIOGRAPHY

331

INDEXES

341

Vil

Editor of this Volume PETER

ERB was born in 1943 in Tavistock, Ontario, Canada. He is

presently Assistant Professor of English and Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Erb’s specialization is in late medieval spirituality. After serving as pastor of the Amish Mennonite Church in Tavistock, he re-entered the aca-

demic world, completing his M.S.L. at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, and his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. He has published numerous articles, reviews and papers on Protestant spirituality. His books include Schwenkfeld in His Reformation Setting and The Spiritual Diary of Christopher Wiegner, and he is now working on a book entitled Toward a Definition of the Contemplative Life. He is the recent recipient of a Canada Council Grant to complete a book on Gottfried Arnold. Professor Erb has combined teaching and writing with an active career in research on Protestant monastic communities in North America, and Patristic scholarship among the Radical Reformers. Dr. Erb is Associate Director of the Schwenkfeld Library, Pennsburg, Pennsylvania and Managing Editor of Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses, the Canadian journal for religious studies. He has supervised doctoral and masters students at various universities in Canada and the United States. He resides in Waterloo, Ontario, with his wife,

Betty, and their two children, Catharine and Suzanne. Dr. Erb is a member

of the

Ostdeutscher

Kulturrat,

Kulterwerk

Schlesiens,

American Society of Reformation Research, American Society of Church History and the American Theological Library Association.

F. ERNEST graduate

Author of the Preface STOEFFLER was born in Germany in 1911. He is a

of Yale

Divinity

School,

New

Haven,

Connecticut

and

Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is currently Professor Emeritus of Religion at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Temple University. Professor Stoeffler is the author of The Rise of Evangelical Pretism (Leiden, 1965), German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 1973), and editor of Continental Pietism and Early

American Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976).

Vill

PREFACE

Pietism is today considered to have been one of the most influential Protestant reform movements since the Reformation itself. For reasons difficult to understand historians of Christianity, as well as historians in general, have either paid only marginal attention to it or ignored it altogether. During the past two decades, however, there has come about a decided change of attitude in the western world. In both Europe and America interest in its development, its impact, as well as in the literature associated with it, has increased markedly. In part this new interest has been the result of. an initial recognition on the part of historians of religion and of culture that we are dealing here with a much neglected field of study which deserves to be subjected to historical investigation. In the process of such scrutiny it gradually became clear that the historical study of Pietism is by no means an exercise in the stirring up of dry bones. The evidence which presented itself took on increasing contemporary significance. It began to lay bare the roots of much that is widely recognized as belonging to the very nature of Protestantism as it is practiced in the world in which we live. We now realize that, among other things, Pietism has been a powerful influence in the re-shaping of theological education so as to orient it toward the practical concerns of the churches. This has obviously remained an ongoing effort both on the theological and ethical levels. It strengthened the idea of the pastor’s task as a “calling,” which is to be entered into primarily for reasons of religious commitment rather than for the sake of other professional rewards. It profoundly influenced all components of both public and private worship within substantial segments of Protestantism. Thus preaching, which during the age of Protestant orthodoxy had been basically theological discourse, and not infrequently an exercise in theological polemics, was now oriented primarily toward the moral and religious commitment of the people in the pew. A vastly expanded hymnody had the same objective in mind. In some circles the singing of hymns,

PREFACE linked with appealing tunes, became the most attractive feature of worship in the churches and in the homes. Public prayer was frequently detached from liturgical forms, thus becoming the expression of the most deeply felt needs of the hour. Under the impact of Pietism, family worship became the norm rather than the exception among its adherents. To the father, and sometimes the mother, were delegated the priestly and intercessory functions of the entire household. The result was a new emphasis upon the need for, and the use of, devotional aids, with an appropriate explosion in the printing and distribution of such aids. Daily Bible reading, as well as frequent group discussion of the biblical message, was expected of anyone who professed to take his/her Christianity seriously. The difference between clergy and laity was thus minimized, and the sense of religious fellowship across traditional lines of ecclesiastical differentiation was enhanced.

A “brother,” or

“sister,” was anyone given to the same religious perspective, irrespective of his/her church affiliation. The universal insistence of Pietists

that the religious renewal basic to the Pietist understanding of the meaning of religiousness must express itself in conduct eventuated in a decided pressure to “do good.” Hence the rapid proliferation of a large variety of charitable institutions, including schools which were regarded as opportunities for the children of the poor to become productive members of society. Among the most profound changes which Pietism wrought within Protestantism was its bequest to the latter of a new vision of a world in need of the Gospel of Christ— hence the tremendous impulse it gave to the expansion of the Protes-

tant missionary enterprise. Though these and other concerns of early Pietism had to be modified in the course of time to meet the changing needs of successive generations of Christians, their influence upon the world Protestant community today can hardly be overlooked. Among Protestant groups in the East and in the West its subtly pervasive influence goes on. This would seem to be especially true of contemporary America where conservative Protestantism has become increasingly conspicuous, and where the religious self-understanding of today’s conservative Protestants exhibits various similarities with that of the early Pietists. Since the middle 1960’s a number of efforts have been made to open

up the field of classical Pietism to the English speaking public, as well as to create some appreciation of its influence upon our own religious

PREFACE institutions. One of the major difficulties has been, however, that to

most seminary students, pastors, and interested Christians in general the sources were inaccessible because they were largely unavailable in the English language. Thus Peter Erb’s anthology, drawn from many of these sources and presented in readable English, is rendering a most important service. While to some the selections which have been chosen may in the main be of historical interest only, to others they may well continue to serve as a fountain of religious inspiration. To the unbiased reader they still breathe the spirit of profound religious devotion which may well penetrate the shell of conventional religiosity and confront him with a divine imperative never experienced before. Fortunately the translator and editor of this volume has not restricted himself to an unduly narrow range of materials. The authors quoted represent a wide ecclesiastical and doctrinal spectrum which should serve to broaden reader interest among adherents of various Christian traditions. The religious perspective expressed in this anthology not infrequently met with implacable opposition, and sometimes with severe punishment, by fellow Protestants. One might wish that this example of past mistakes may strengthen our resolve to respect the religious convictions of our fellow human beings, and, if we must differ, we do so without rancor or recrimination.

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