grand prospects of halle pietism the acrobat,the project-maker and the shepherd

211 Pages·2016·2.06 MB·English

by  Kristian Mejrup

GRAND PROSPECTS OF HALLE PIETISM

THE ACROBAT, THE PROJECT-MAKER AND THE SHEPHERD
The PhD defence is scheduled to take place on
Friday 17 June at 13:15
The Faculty of Theology
Købmagergade 44-46
1150 København K.
Grand Prospects of Halle Pietism

The Acrobat, the Project-maker and the Shepherd

Kristian Mejrup

The Faculty of Theology
Department of Church History / SOLITUDES
University of Copenhagen
March 2016
Grand Prospects of Halle Pietism
The Acrobat, the Project-maker and the Shepherd

Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 64

© Kristian Mejrup 2016

ISBN nr. 978-87-93361-19-5

Printing and binding by
Reprocenter Grafisk.
University of Copenhagen

Published by:
The Faculty of Theology
University of Copenhagen
Købmagergade 44–46
1150 København K
Denmark
www.teol.ku.dk
PREFACE
First and foremost, I should like to thank my supervisor Mette Birkedal
Bruun for her skilled and encouraging supervision, for being generous with
her human and scholarly insights. The present study developed as part of a
three-year involvement (March 2013–2016) in the ERC research project:
SOLITUDES. Withdrawal and Engagement in the long Seventeenth Centu-
ry. I have worked closely together with project-leader Mette Birkedal
Bruun, Sven Rune Havsteen, Eelco Nagelsmit and Lars Nørgaard. I am
grateful to each one of them. I should like to thank in particular Sven Rune
Havsteen for being my co-supervisor over the last three years, for helpful
advice and support and for sharing his enormous knowledge and a world of
music, aesthetics and theology; Eelco for sharing his world of images and
buildings; Lars, il miglior fabbro, for friendship and inspiration, and for
never allowing a conversation to get dull.
There are also a number of friends and colleagues at the Faculty of The-
ology, whom I should like to give thanks: Geert Hallbäck, Gitte Buch-
Hansen, Mette Bundvad, Anne Gudme, Søren Holst, Mogens Müller and
Nils Holger Petersen. Thanks also to Christina Petterson for sharing expert
insights on capitalism, Herrnhut and Weber; to Mattias Bjerring-Nielsen
for exciting exchanges, shared interests and pleasant sauntering.
In 2014 I spent half a year at Halle at the Studienzentrum in the Francke
Foundations, and sincere thanks are due to a number of interlocutors in and
outside Halle: Christian Soboth – the man with the contacts and an incredi-
ble knowledge and view of literature – Pia Schmidt, Thomas Grünewald,
Claus Veltmann, Avi Siluk, Marita Gruner, Andrea Thiele, Anke Mies,
Britta Klosterberg, Katharina Loos – and particularly to Holger Trauzettel
for sharing his insights, friends and coffee breaks. Thanks to Veronika Al-
brecht-Birkner for giving me access to one of her unpublished works. I
have also treasured the ongoing conversations with my friend Andreas
Pithis. Thanks also to the PhD-students at the Classics department at the
University of Ghent, Thomas Velle, Maxim Rigaux, Tim Noens, Dina
Wouters, and their supervisor Wim Verbaal, for inspiration during two bril-
liant workshops in 2015.
David Seton and my supervisor Mette Birkedal Bruun have been inval-
uable for ameliorating my English.
Finally, I want to thank my family and friends for their loving care and
support. I am grateful to my parents, my two boys and my wife Louise:
åndsfyrste in everything she does.
In the process of preparing the manuscript for publication in Publika-
tioner fra Det Teologiske Fakultet, minor corrections have been made to
the text.
Copenhagen, March / May 2016.

INDEX
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9!
Part I: The Acrobat ......................................................................................................... 21!
1.1#From#head#to#heart#......................................................................................................................................#21!
1.2#Bible#readers#in#context#.............................................................................................................................#27!
1.3#Bible#readers#in#action#................................................................................................................................#36!
1.4#Sermon#on#rebirth#........................................................................................................................................#36!
1.5#Sermon#on#duty#towards#the#poor#.........................................................................................................#40!
1.6#Concluding#remarks#.....................................................................................................................................#47!
Part II: The Project-maker .............................................................................................. 49!
Grosse Aufsatz ................................................................................................................ 49!
2.1#Text#edition#......................................................................................................................................................#49!
2.2#GA#part#one#......................................................................................................................................................#51!
2.3#Addressing#insiders#and#outsiders#.........................................................................................................#52!
2.4#Seizing#the#acceptable#time#(A)#..............................................................................................................#55!
Excursus:#Pastoral#eschatology#.....................................................................................................................#58!
2.5#Seizing#the#acceptable#time#(B)#..............................................................................................................#63!
2.6#Revealing#God’s#kingdom#..........................................................................................................................#65!
2.7#Directing#active#passivity#..........................................................................................................................#67!
2.8#Divine#laundering#of#capital#....................................................................................................................#71!
2.9#The#good#soil#of#Halle#..................................................................................................................................#73!
GA2 ................................................................................................................................ 76!
3.1#GA#part#two#.....................................................................................................................................................#76!
3.2#Discourses#of#reform#....................................................................................................................................#77!
3.3#Seedling#nurseries#and#mud#holes#of#indecency#..............................................................................#84!
3.4#Personalizing#the#organization#..............................................................................................................#86!
3.5#From#doves#to#eagles#...................................................................................................................................#88!
3.6#Records#of#providence#.................................................................................................................................#90!
3.7#Orphanage#–#the#centre#of#an#industry#...............................................................................................#95!
3.8#Food#for#stomach#and#soul#........................................................................................................................#97!
3.9#Pastoral#formation#.....................................................................................................................................#104!
3.10#Mimicking#Paul#.........................................................................................................................................#109!
Excursus:#Trumpet#voices#and#apocalyptic#mirrors#............................................................................#113!
3.11#Bible#business#.............................................................................................................................................#118!
GA3 .............................................................................................................................. 123!
4.1#GA#part#three#................................................................................................................................................#123!
4.2#Capital#loans#and#trading#.......................................................................................................................#125!
4.3.#Luxury#and#disinterest#.............................................................................................................................#128!
4.4#Changing#the#world#from#the#pulpit#...................................................................................................#130!
4.5#Concluding#remarks#...................................................................................................................................#132!
Part III: The Shepherd .................................................................................................. 135!
5.1#Introduction#..................................................................................................................................................#135!
5.2#Paraenetical#and#pastoral#lectures#.....................................................................................................#135!
5.3#Collegia#for#godliness#................................................................................................................................#138!
5.4#Reassessment#of#Pauline#authority#.....................................................................................................#140!
5.5#Scriptural#cura#pastoralis#.......................................................................................................................#143!
The Titus lectures ......................................................................................................... 147!
6.1#Introduction#..................................................................................................................................................#147!
6.2#Longinian#intensity#....................................................................................................................................#150!
6.3#List#and#preface#...........................................................................................................................................#151!
7.1#First#lecture:#Tit#1:1–4#..............................................................................................................................#153!
7.2#Second#lecture:#Titus:#1:#5–9#..................................................................................................................#157!
7.3#Third#lecture:#Tit#1:10–16#.......................................................................................................................#160!
7.4#Fourth#Lecture:#Tit#2:1–6#........................................................................................................................#163!
7.5#Fifth#Lecture:#Tit#2:7–10#..........................................................................................................................#167!
7.6##Sixth#Lecture:#Tit#2:11–15#.....................................................................................................................#172!
7.7#Seventh#Lecture:#Tit#2:11–15#.................................................................................................................#176!
7.8#Eighth#Lecture:#Tit#3:1–7#........................................................................................................................#179!
7.9#Ninth#Lecture:#Tit#3:1–7#...........................................................................................................................#182!
7.10#Tenth#Lecture:#Tit#3:8–15#.....................................................................................................................#186!
7.11#Concluding#remarks#................................................................................................................................#188!
8.#General#conclusion#........................................................................................................................................#190!
Summary#................................................................................................................................................................#193!
Resumé#....................................................................................................................................................................#195!
Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 199!
INTRODUCTION
The first to take up the idea of comparing August Hermann Francke
(1663–1727) to a project-maker was Udo Sträter.1 He refers to Daniel De-
foe (1660–1731), the author of Robinson Crusoe, who in 1697 published
An Essay upon Projects. Defoe here described his age as a projecting age,
and the project-maker as a common figure. His Essay begins with the
words: “Necessity, which is allow’d to be the Mother of Invention, has so
violently agitated the Wizs of men at this time, that it seems not at all im-
proper, by way of distinction, to call it, The Projecting Age.”2 This descrip-
tion also fits the time of August Herman Francke’s reform movement. He
came to Halle in 1692, where he held a position as professor at the new
university, and, at the same time, worked as a minister in Glaucha on the
outskirts of the city. The reform, the institutions of which are today known
as the Francke Foundations, was inaugurated in 1695 and was consolidated
in a large orphanage, the construction of which was begun in 1698.
Francke’s project rapidly expanded from the church in Glaucha to several
devotional sites spread out over a pastoral landscape which had its main
centres on the university campus, on the grounds of the orphanage itself
and in local churches. This topographical spread is central to our under-
standing of Halle Pietism and its professionalization of pastoral care.
The orphanage was a synecdoche, so to speak, of industry, with a cluster
of schools, manufacturing businesses, student dormitories and refectories,
workshops, a printing house, a bookshop and an apothecary’s shop. The
movement strove towards financial autonomy and towards a reform of so-
ciety by means of education, rationalized charitable work and student fund-
ing. The orphanage at Halle did indeed belong to the projecting age. Ac-
cording to Defoe, this age was born out of a period of military conflict, and
it faced the disorder as well as the technological innovation that war
brought with it.3 Francke too represents the post-Thirty Year’s War era as
the backdrop against which his reform developed.4 It offers a cure to the
corruption caused by war. We could say that the projecting age was a reac-
tion to the ‘crises of the seventeenth century’.5 War had led to reform. The

1 Udo Sträter: “Der hallische Pietismus zwischen Utopie und Weltgestaltung”,
HF17:1 (2005), pp. 32–34.
2 Daniel Defoe: Essay upon Projects, London 1697, p. 1. Defoe speaks of “Projec-
tors”, but I prefer the term “project-makers”, which is closer to the German.
3 Defoe, Essay, pp. 1–5.
4 See part two, chapter three.
5 As described by Hartmut Lehmann: “Saving one’s Soul in an Age of Crises”, in
JEMC (2014) pp. 207–217.
10 Grand Prospects
post-war setting also gives a hint at why the project-maker’s “wiz” had be-
come agitated.
Sträter observed that the project-maker combines utopian ideas with
hard-headed business enterprise. This “Spagatstellung” made the figure
disreputable.6 The question, then, is whether Francke was a project-maker,
who sold bubbles inflated with the air of great words, or whether – by tak-
ing the character and the purpose of his project into consideration – such a
claim is misleading. The one place where he most clearly shows himself as
a project-maker is in the third part of the Grosse Aufsatz.7 Yet according to
Sträter, Francke was promoting not a soap-bubble project but a “Reich-
Gottes-Projekte”.8 This is, to my mind, a fair assessment. Francke is com-
parable to a project-maker, but the character of his project must be taken
into account, and the orphanage was certainly more solid than airy be-
guilement. Nonetheless it is worthwhile to linger briefly over Defoe’s de-
scription, since he in fact conveyed a nuanced understanding of the project-
maker.9 On the one hand, the figure is, beyond doubt, a trickster, a dabbler,
a dilettante, who profits from speculative ideas “blown up by the air of
great Words”.10 On the other hand he is often enough a skilled entrepre-
neur, whose projects are of benefit for the amelioration of society.11 There
are good and honest project-makers with ingenuity and integrity, and there
are others with neither. The misfortune is that there are “more Geese than
Swans”, and the number of dishonest project-makers, “who like Cuckolds
bear the reproach of other Peoples Crimes” is consequently the reason why
the term has become pejorative.12 So far so good. The project-maker is a
transitory figure, a squinter. He uses his wiz, his brains, for inventing,
planning and projecting, but his wiz are agitated, and his innovations are

6 Sträter, Weltgestaltung, p. 33.
7 See part two and my analysis of GA3.
8 Sträter, Weltgestaltung, pp. 33–34
9 Defoe distinguishes invention and inventors, on the one hand, and projects and pro-
jectors on the other. The contemporary project-maker is a distorted version of the inven-
tor, whose faculties are not unrelated to those of Cain. In fact Noah’s Ark and the tower
of Babel are adduced as examples of projects which at once are ridiculous and ingen-
ious. Defoe, Essay, pp. 19–20.
10 Defoe, Essay, p. 13.
11 “Projects of the nature I Treat about, are doubtless in general of publick Ad-
vantage, as they tend to Improvement of Trade, and Employment of the Poor, and the
Circulation and Increase of the publick Stock of the Kingdom; but this is suppos’d of
such as are built on the honest Basis of Ingenuity and Improvement; in which, tho’ I’le
allow the Author to aim primarily at his own Advantage, yet with the circumstances of
Publick Benefit added.” Defoe, Essay, p. 10–11. The honest “Projector” is also de-
scribed on p. 35. He contents himself with the reward of his invention.
12 Defoe, Essay, p. 33.