Part in Pastoral Reform (§ 9).
Promotion of Lay Religion (§ 10).
Cooperating Forces (§ 11). II. Pietism at Halle.
Prestige of Francke and his Institutions (§ 1).
The term Pietism connotes a movement in behalf of practical religion within the Lutheran Church of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Established at Halle by Philipp Jakob Spener, and following distinct and individual courses of development in Halle, Wurttemberg, and Herrnhut, it received a bond of union in its conviction that the type of Christianity then prevailing in Lutheranism stood in urgent need of reform, and that this
PIETISM.
Unsuccessful War on Pietism (§2).
One-sided Nature of the Movement (§3).
Effect on Theological Study (§ 4). III. Pietism in Wurttemberg.
Pietism Cordially Welcomed (§ 1).
Separatism and Tubingen Influence (§2).
Attitude toward Moravians (§ 3). IV. The Spread of Pietism. V The Nature and Influence of Pietism.
Complexity of Pietism (§1).
Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism (§2).
Disadvantages of Pietism (§ 3).
Influence on the Church (§ 4).
Religious Training and the Bible (§5).
Effect on Theology and Union (§ 6).
Forerunner of Religious Freedom (§7).
Conventicles and Lay Cooperation (§8).
Separatistic Tendencies (§ 9).
Rigid Austerity (§ 10).
Philanthropic and Missionary Activity (§ 11).
Pietism and the Enlightenment (§ 12).
Development and Origin (§ 13). VI. Later Development.
Factors and Growth (§ 1).
Character of Modern Pietism (§ 2).
Estimate of the Movement (§ 3).
could be brought about by " piety," or living faith made active and manifest in upright conduct.
I. Philipp Jakob Spener: Philipp Jakob Spener, the founder of Pietism, was born at Rappoltsweiler (33 m. s.w. of Strasburg), Upper Alsace, Jan. 23, 1635; d. at Berlin Feb. 5, 1705. His parents gave him a devout education, and he received still more lasting religious impressions from his godmother, the widowed Agatha von Rappoltstein (d. 1648)
Pietism
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
and her chaplain, Joachim Stoll (1615-78), rinding additional spiritual nourishment in such works as the Vom wahrcn Christentum of Johann Arndt (q.v.) and German translations of the English devotional writers Emanuel Sonthomb (Emanuel Thompson?), Lewis Bayly, Daniel Dyke, and Richard Baxter.
Spener began his university studies at Strasburg in May, 1651, devoting himself primarily to history, philosophy, and philology, and receivi. Early ing his master's degree in 1653. He Life and later gained a reputation as a student Education, of genealogy and heraldry, particularly through his voluminous Opus heraldicum (2 vols., Frankfort, 1690). His theological teachers were Johann Schmidt (1594-1658), Sebastian Schmidt (1617-96), and especially Johann Konrad Dannhauer (q.v.). It was to the latter scholar that Spener was chiefly indebted for his living interest in the writings of Luther and the assertion of the religious rights of the laity, as well as for his subsequent avoidance of separatistic tendencies. As a student he lived a quiet, reserved life; his acquaintance confined itself to a few sympathetic friends; and his Sundays were devoted to serious reading and singing hymns with these friends, as well as to the composition of his Soliloquia et meditationes sacrce. He terminated his formal studies in 1659, and spent the next three years at Basel, Geneva, and Tubingen. Here his chief object was further knowledge of languages, literature, and history, but at the same time his religious development was profoundly influenced, notably by his acquaintance with Jean de Labadie (see Labadie, Jean de, Labadists), whom he met in Geneva. Though many desired Spener to remain in Wurttemberg, he accepted, in Mar., 1663, the position of assistant preacher at the cathedral in Strasburg, an appointment which was particularly attractive to him, since it allowed him time to pursue his studies and to attend lectures; and in the following year he received his theological doctorate.
Spener now planned to live a quiet scholar's life, and eventually to become a professor of theology. In 1666, however, he was called as senior to Frankfort, where he not only found that his 2. Frank- new office restricted his customary and fort and the congenial scholastic leisure, but also Collegia that his Lutheran orthodoxy was Pietatis. doubted, and that he was accused of Calvinistic tendencies. Accordingly, on the eighth Sunday after Trinity, 1667, he delivered a sermon on " necessary caution against false prophets," among whom he classed the Reformed, who had a small congregation at Frankfort. Spener afterward regretted the attitude here taken against the Reformed, however, and sought as far as possible to prevent the circulation of his sermon. Very different, and far happier, were the results of his sermon on July 18, 1669, on the " vain righteousness of the Pharisees." Here he described this ineffectual righteousness of the Pharisees as that superficial security which is content with an external subscription to the orthodox Lutheran Church, and which is satisfied with a merely intel-
lectual attachment to pure doctrine, outward participation in divine service and the sacraments, and abstinence from gross sins and vices. Most of his hearers were disposed to feel that Spener demanded too much from frail men, but others were startled into a salutary dread and were aroused to serious repentance.
It was those thus affected who, a year later (1670), participated in the Collegia pietatis, or private devotional gatherings, which Spener assembled twice a week in his house, this course being a decided innovation, though at first the meetings escaped attack. At the same time, Spener by no means restricted himself to the care of his little band of conventicle people, but strove to arouse and maintain personal and vital Christianity by preaching, by ecclesiastical discipline, and, most of all, by improving and animating the catechizings held each Sunday. His catechetical sermons and his catechism itself, the Erklarung der christlichen Lehre nach der Ordnung des kleinen Katechismus Luthers (Frankfort, 1677), were a fruit of these endeavors, as well as several annual series of sermons.
The event that formed an epoch in Spener's life and attracted wide attention was the publication of his little Pia desideria (Frankfort, 1675). In this work Spener first depicted the Christianity of his period, which left much to be desired in every rank and station. Nevertheless, God had
3. The Pia promised better times for the Church Desideria. militant, which were to begin when
Israel should have become converted and papal Rome should have fallen. Meanwhile he proposed the following helpful measures: the word of God must be more widely diffused among the people, this end being furthered by discussions on the Bible under the pastor's guidance; the establishment and maintenance of the spiritual priesthood, which is not possessed by the clergy alone, but is rather constituted by the right and duty of all Christians to instruct others, to punish, to exhort, to edify, and to care for their salvation; the fact must be emphasized that mere knowledge is insufficient in Christianity, which is expressed rather in action; more gentleness and love between denominations are needed in polemics; the university training of the clergy must be changed, so as to include personal piety and the reading of books of edification, as well as intellectual knowledge and dogmatic controversies; and, finally, sermons should be prepared on a more edifying plan, with less emphasis on rhetorical art and homiletic erudition.
Concretely regarded, these fundamental ideas of the Pia desideria were not new, but the very fact that Spener's treatise made so great a stir, and within a few years evoked a complete literature of
its own, shows how imperative it was
4. Attacks to emphasize such principles afresh, on Teach- But amid much approval, there was,
ings and from the very first, no lack of opposi-
Collegia. tion. This turned especially on the
reiterated recommendation of private
devotional gatherings in the Pia desideria. It was
only now that the Frankfort conventicles became
a center of general observation, visited by many,