The Radical Reformation, Paracelsian Networks, and Pseudo-Weigelian Alchemy

This chapter sketches theological and intellectual developments of the Reformation era that allowed rebirth to emerge as something distinct from baptism, after which it proceeds to show how rebirth came to be strongly associated with alchemy. Drawing on the legacy of Paracelsus, the spiritualist theologies of Caspar Schwenckfeld and Valentin Weigel sharply contrasted inward rebirth with the outward ritual of baptism. Particularly Weigel and his followers departed from the conception of forensic justification dominant in Lutheran orthodoxy. They posited rebirth as an alternative account of how believers could attain salvation. Pseudepigraphic texts attributed to Weigel first closely associated this understanding of rebirth with alchemy in the late sixteenth century.

Grip kirkes veggmalerier: 1600-tallskirken som møtested og grensepost for teologi og kongemakt

On the island Grip in Western Norway there is a stave church with wall paintings from 1621. The motives are from both the Old and the New Testament, and as the paintings were made in the period of Lutheran orthodoxy, their message has been understood to support the central Lutheran ideas concerning grace and faith. However, the 17th century was also the period when absolute monarchy developed, and some church historians claim that the church was the area where this form of government first was realized. Based on the assumption that the church can be seen as a meeting place of heavenly and earthly power, this article discusses whether it is likely that the wall paintings could be read by the congregation in a way that also supported the power of the actual king in Denmark-Norway. If that should have been the case, the interpretation would rely on a much older tradition of reading, the medieval quadriga.

Dyscyplinowanie społeczne w szpitalach elbląskich w XVII w.Dyscyplinowanie społeczne w szpitalach elbląskich w XVII w.

Social disciplining in Elbing hospitals in the 17th century The article undertakes the problematics of rules and range of social disciplining and forming a proper model of behaviour attempted by the city authorities in the instance of urban hospitals in Elbing (Elbląg) of the 17th century. The following ordinances for the 17th century Elblag hospitals have been analysed in that respect: St. Elisabeth’s from 1617, 1625 and 1651, the Holy Spirit’s from 1631 and 1651 (including the project from around the half of the 17th century), Corpus Christi’s from 1651 and St. George’s from 1657, as well as the ordinance of an orphanage established at St Elisabeth hospital (Kinder‑Haus) from 1698 and two memorial statements of the Hospital Office (Spital‑Amt) dated around the half of the 17th century containing postulates referring to the necessity of introducing changes in the current hospital ordinances. In effect, various forms of disciplining as well as mechanisms of maintaining social control have been discussed, which comprise the following aspects: 1. forming religious attitudes conforming with the spirit of Lutheran orthodoxy (doctrinal assumptions, religious education basics); 2. disciplining through compulsory religious practices; 3. disciplining through social hierarchy consolidation (prayers in the intention of the City Council, respect for principal authorities, ban on cursing on the authorities or reprimanding alms, complaining about hospital food); 4. disciplining through enforced work; 5. disciplining abnormal moral behaviour (drunkenness, fornication, theft, fraud, gambling); 6. controlling verbal, symbolic or physical aggression; 7. time rationing (strictly normalised day schedules) and space rationing (ban on leaving the hospital, maintaining cleanness in the occupied quarters); 8. shaping expected features of character (godliness, obedience, the ability of coexisting in a group); 9. disciplining verbal behaviour (ban on swearing, making noise, gossiping, disturbing religious practices by talking) and behavioural patterns (ban on dancing and binges). Also, the system of penalty sanctions issued by hospital authorities against people breaking the ordinance rules has been analysed; moreover, an attempt to reconstruct the hierarchy of social harmfulness of misdemeanours depending on the type of penalties has been undertaken.

Concluding Remarks

This chapter suggests that part of the early seventeenth-century debate between the theologians of Tübingen and the theologians of Giessen on the question of the communicatio idiomatum represents the conflicting structures of Brenzian and Chemnitzian accounts of the hypostatic union. At issue was the human nature’s possession of divine attributes during Christ’s earthly life, affirmed by the Tübingen theologians and denied by the Giessen ones. The 1624 Decisio saxonica ruled in favour of Giessen, and thus in effect against Brenzian understandings of Christ’s kenosis. Lutheran orthodoxy requires that some (and not all) divine attributes are communicated to the human nature. It concludes with puzzles about the way in which the genus maiestaticum might be possible at all, given the denial of any distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies.

‘Quietismus Sacer’ – Engaging Religious Adversaries

This essay explores a critical reaction to the turbulence born out of the debate on Quietism at the end of the 17th century. Caspar Exner (1627–1704), a minister and subscriber to Lutheran Orthodoxy, wrote a report in 1689 on the recent outburst of what in his view was misleading theological assumptions. His refutation of so-called false doctrines turned out to be an ambiguous road for engaging religious adversaries. Urged to assess a specific and contested topic, Exner developed a method that confronted religious renewal in general. It is the aim of this essay to demonstrate how rectification was a means for appropriating and moderating contested ideas and surpassing confessional boundaries.

Crusius, Christian August (1715–75)

Crusius was a pivotal figure in the middle period of the German Enlightenment, linking Pufendorf and Thomasius with Kant. Though sometimes wrongly characterized (for example, by Hegel) as a Wolffian, he was instead an important critic of that position. His system reflected a new alliance between Pietism and Lutheran orthodoxy, offering a comprehensive antirationalist, realist, and voluntarist alternative to the neoscholastic tradition as renovated by Leibniz. Crusius was important in Kant’s development and helps us understand the latter’s philosophical Protestantism. Born a pastor’s son in Leuna bei Merseburg, in Saxony, Crusius was educated at Leipzig and much influenced there by the Thomasian professor A.F. Hoffmann (1703–41). Interested in both philosophy and theology throughout his career, he accepted a chair as extraordinary professor of philosophy at Leipzig in 1744. In 1750, however, he became ordinary professor of theology, also retaining his teaching post in philosophy until his death. His reputation as a philosopher peaked in Germany during the 1750s and 1760s, mainly on the basis of four scholastic manuals published in German during 1744–9. His greater theological reputation as founder of a ‘biblico-prophetic’ school emphasizing the inspirational unity of Scripture lasted well into the mid-nineteenth century.

Zum Wechselverhältnis von Orthodoxie und Aufklärung. G. E. Lessings allegorische Zeitdiagnostik in Herkules und Omphale

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing stands out among the thinkers of the 18th century for his refusal to synthesize theology and philosophy. But due to his notorious ambivalence about religious questions, even Lessing’s contemporaries remained uncertain whether he ultimately sided with the former or the latter. The short dialogue Hercules and Omphale is, to the detriment of research on this topic, largely unknown. I show that the dialogue offers in a nutshell Lessing’s comprehensive analysis of the intellectual and religious situation of his time. By calling on the mythical travesty of the Asian queen and the Greek hero, Lessing illustrates the mutual attraction that has led astray both Enlightenment philosophy and contemporary Lutheran orthodoxy. Implicitly, his diagnosis of the aberrations of philosophy and theology sheds light on Lessing’s own position. The twofold criticism is an attempt to restore theology as well as philosophy in their genuine forms and to reestablish their proper relationship. Through his twofold restitutio in integrum, Lessing is able to reopen the quarrel between orthodoxy and the Enlightenment and, thus, to radically renew the all but forgotten theologico-philosophical antagonism.

Leipzig, Saxony, and Lutheran Orthodoxy

This chapter examines the dominance of Lutheran orthodoxy in Leipzig from the beginning of the German Reformation to the nineteenth century. Lutheran orthodoxy was an older, more Catholic form of Lutheranism that was closer to Luther’s earliest teachings. Saxony was divided between Albertine Saxony (Catholic) and Ernestine Saxony (Lutheran). Because it was an important Catholic city, Leipzig’s adoption of Lutheranism in 1539 retained all aspects of Catholic liturgy that were not in direct conflict with Reformation theology. In 1697, the conversion of Elector Friedrich August I created a situation of a Catholic monarch in Dresden ruling over the Reformation stronghold of Saxony. This paradox would influence church theology and music for centuries, including the retention of a sixteenth-century liturgy that resembled the Catholic liturgy, along with corresponding music. Pietism and rationalism were also threats to Lutheran orthodoxy. Church Superintendent Johann Georg Rosenmüller would modernize the liturgy beginning in 1785.

Viljens frihed og ufrihed i ældre luthersk tradition

Martin Luther and early Lutheran tradition claimed that God wills both life and death. There is, however, an asymmetry between God’s will for life and God’s will for death. The article explores how this asymmetry has been handled in different ways within the early Lutheran tradition. Also, the Formula of Concord (1577) understood divine predestination to be the cause of human faith. Later Lutheran Orthodoxy understood human faith to be the reason for divine predestination. In the 1880’s these two positions gave rise to a controversy among North American Lutherans. Their main arguments are reproduced.Martin Luther himself believed that everything happened by necessity, but he understood this to be compatible with a distinct version of a free will. In modern philosophical parlance, Luther was a compatibilist. In this, later Lutheran Orthodoxy did not follow the reformer. It moved towards synergism.

Between New Ideals and Conservatism: The Early Lutheran Church Interior in Sixteenth-Century Denmark

This essay examines how the Lutheran Reformation changed church spaces in the Danish kingdom after 1536—the official year of Reformation in Denmark. Rather than addressing the long-term consequences of the Reformation, the essay demonstrates how the ideas of the first and second generation of reformers came to be expressed in churches; that is, how the reception of Lutheran thinking was materialized in church interiors prior to what is commonly known as the period of Lutheran orthodoxy. This early period of change, spanning the second half of the sixteenth century, is particularly fickle and difficult to grasp, not only because many of the first Lutheran Church fittings were replaced in later centuries, but also because the speed at which the new religious ideals found their way into churches varied greatly from region to region. Nevertheless, certain trends emerged that are still evident today. While these short-lived, idealistic attempts at a new evangelical church interior failed as a whole, they nevertheless left a pronounced impact on the churches in general.