Frauen Im Pietismus

Erkenne die biblische Wahrheit von Gottes ursprünglicher und unveränderter Absicht der vollen Gleichstellung der Frau
God‘s Word to Women von Katharine Bushnell ist eine bahnbrechende Studie, die jede Schriftstelle über Frauen sorgfältig untersucht.

From the seventeenth century through the first decades of the eighteenth century, a wave of millenarianism swept Europe. A range of authors across the religious spectrum discussed the coming „Final Judgement“ and offered competing scriptural interpretations about the „end of times.“ Some of the most popular books were those of so-called Philadelphians, who wanted to build a community of brotherly love in anticipation of the New Jerusalem. The frontispieces of certain Philadelphian books made visual arguments that seemed to prove the interpretations presented in the books. This article presents some of these frontispieces and focuses in particular on the large copperplate engraving in Johanna Eleonora Petersen’s opulent „Anleitung zu gründlicher Verständniß der Heiligen Offenbahrung“ of 1696. In one image, this artwork expresses all of the central Philadelphian tenets, including the fall of Babylon, a coming 1000-year reign of Christ, the union of righteous Jews and Christians and the doctrine of a female person in the godhead.

The article outlines the extraordinary life and career of Anna Nitschmann, a peasant refugee who rose to the highest administrative levels of the eighteenth-century Moravian Church (called in the era, "Herrnhuter" or "Brüderkirche"). Today Nitschmann is usually remembered as the second wife of Count Zinzendorf, the organizer and leader of the church's first generation. Yet their marriage took place only three years before before both Nitschmann and Zinzendorf died, and came long after Nitschmann had built an impressive church career, traveling as a preacher and missionary to the American colonies and then becoming head administrator of all women in the church. Years before the marriage to Zinzendorf, she carried the title of "Jüngerin" parallel to Zinzendorf's designation as the "Junger." Based on extensive archival research, including many newly discovered documents, Martin traces Nitschmann's career, as well as the church's attempts in the nineteenth century to obscure evidence of Nitschmann and other high-ranking women.

In the 1690s the Pietist movement swept through Bern. The new ‘born again’ did not yet call themselves ‘Pietists,’ but instead imagined themselves and other religious dissenters as part of the ‘true church.’ These early Pietists felt a strong kinship, in particular, with their Anabaptist neighbors. They often worshiped with Anabaptists, took up many of their same concerns and tried to assist Anabaptists when authorities persecuted them. Officials thus dubbed the new religionists ‘Half-Anabaptists’ and eventually they moved to suppress these early Pietists, exiling or imprisoning those who refused to meet the obligations of the state church. Authorities were especially disturbed at the prominence of women leaders in Pietist circles. In their 1699 crackdown on Pietism, Bern officials used the participation of women in order to discredit the religious movement, claiming that women’s activity in the public sphere could undermine the entire social order.

This essay draws on unpublished manuscript sources in the Archive of the Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle as well as relevant studies by other scholars of Pietism. Illustrating Pietism’s deep debt to Anabaptism in Bern, the essay calls for increased study of the relationship of the two groups to one another, not just as belief systems, but especially as social and cultural movements.

The essay explores the parallels between the Republic of Letters and the so-called Invisible Church. Both communities arose from the desire to overcome the divisions brought about by the Reformation and the splintering of Protestantism into further confessions. Religious reformers and scholars thus shared similar universal goals: the betterment of society and the world. Central interests for both were history, biblical criticism and tolerance. International correspondence networks were the glue that held these virtual communities together and both relied on similar structures of patronage and communication.
After comparing the two communities in general, the essay analyses the correspondence of one sub-group within the Invisible Church, the Philadelphians, to illustrate how they used correspondence networks as a discursive space in ways that paralleled practices in the Republic of Letters. The Philadelphians, whose most important leaders in the German territories were Johann Wilhelm Petersen and Johanna Eleonora Petersen, had a massive impact on nonconformists from London to Zurich. The letters of the group show that the key doctrine of apokatastasis panton or universal salvation was worked out in a multi-party conversation in letters. The doctrine paved the way for a more „enlightened“ approach to religion that did not center on eternal damnation. The group’s correspondence also served as an alternative site of education for participants.
Finally the essay questions the way that historians have traditionally labelled some individuals as „scholars“ and others as religious „radicals“. Often these designations have mainly to do with the individuals‘ institutional status. „Radical Pietists“ who fled persecution and settled in North America provide an example. So long as they were in opposition to the German state church, they were labelled as fringe figures, but upon arrival in North America some could be re-categorized as „scholars“. In light of such contradictions and of the many overlaps between the two communities, the essay calls into question a strict division between the Republic of Letters and the Invisible Church.

Histories of Early Modern religion in Europe typically contrast the activities of ordained theologians with those of laity. The thought and writings of the former usually constitute " theology " and those of the latter " piety. " The result has long been a divided history. Confessional church historians have written histories that were essentially genealogies of (male) officer holders, while scholars of folklore, culture or literature analyzed the contributions of laity. Since the so-called cultural turn, the contributions of laity as organizers, transmitters and patrons of Early Modern religious movements are being recognized. What has been less studied are the intellectual achievements of laity, many of whom possessed deep knowledge of theology, history, and ancient languages and played important roles in Early Modern religious history. This article provides an overview of the main issues and the development of lay theology in the period and argues for increased study of the phenomenon.

The article traces the influence of Jacob Böhme's concept of "Sophia," a female element in the godhead, from 1600 into the eighteenth century. Based on Böhme's concept , different groups within the dissenting milieu offered competing plans for the organization of society. To overcome gender difference, some implemented sexual-religious rituals, while others promoted celibacy. The previously unresearched correspondence of Anna Magdalena Francke with the "Angelic Brethren" reveals that such ideas were not limited to a radical fringe, but reached into the heart of the powerful Franckesche Stiftungen.

This is the final instalment of a paper about Charles and Anne Steinkopff in London and a network that reached to Australia and New Zealand.  (Other references include America, Canada, Ireland, Prussia, Hungary, Hong Kong/China...). 'Stepping stone capsules' are included in the essay to illustrate the bridge to Australasia. This includes the Anglican-Prussian Bishopric, the German Hospital at Dalston, Hymnody and translation, the Evangelical Alliance, German emigration to Victoria and the Chinese Society for Furthering the Promotion of the Gospel to China...
I also offer some musings and reflections.

The article compares women's speech in two eighteenth-century Pietist communities: Halle and Herrnhut. The ecstatic prophetess, Adelheid Sybille Schwartz, serves as an example of women's preaching in the early Halle community, while the administrator and preacher, Anna Nitschmann, models what was possible in Herrnhut. The texts of both women exist only as unpublished manuscripts. Indeed, one of the primary purposes of this article is to introduce the sermons of Anna Nitschmann -- a previously unknown source that Martin uncovered in a church archive and which she is preparing for publication. The article concludes that the remote rural setting of Herrnhut, combined with Count Zinzendorf's protection, allowed women much greater opportunities for religious speech in a community setting than was possible in the city of Halle.

"In der Studie werden zuerst die Forschungsergebnisse von Bálint Keserű über eine verschollene ungarische Version des Wahren Christentums aus der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts zusammengefasst. Dann werden die gedruckt oder handschriftlich erhaltenen, aber unvollständigen Arndt-Übersetzungen geschildert, die Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts in Ungarn zustande gekommen sind. Schließlich wird die verwickelte Editionsgeschichte der 1741 erschienenen ungarischen „Vier Bücher vom Wahren Christentum“ ins Straflicht gestellt. Dabei werden Schlüsse anhand der unlängst durchgeführten philologischen Analyse von Zsuzsa Font gezogen. In dieser Epoche vertreten die pietistische Erbauungsliteratur in Ungarn vor allem die Ausgaben mit dem falschen Druckort “Jena“. Hierher gehört auch das vollständige Wahre Christentum in ungarischer Übertragung, das mit finanzieller Unterstützung der Wiener Lutheraner heimlich in Ödenburg in Westungarn entstand.
Kurz nachdem 1612 Arndts Paradiesgärtlein erschien, wurde das Gebetbüchlein als Anhang zum Wahren Christentum hinzugefügt. Eine ungarische Übersetzung dieses Büchleins wurde – aufgrund des geringeren Umfangs – früher fertig gestellt als die Übersetzung des Wahren Christentums. 1698 erschien in Klausenburg die Übertragung des reformierten Medizinstudenten, István Huszti Szabó.
Am Ende werden einige Gedanken über die Wirkungsgeschichte dieser Übersetzungen formuliert. Der Erstauflage des ungarischen Wahren Christentums folgte nie ein Nachdruck. Die erhaltenen auffallend zahlreichen und sauberen ungarischen Exemplare bezeugen nicht solche Abnutzung, die bei Erbauungsbüchern gewohnt ist, während sich die bibeltschechischen Gegenstücke sogar in Pressburg mehrerer Neuauflagen erfreuen konnten. Daraus kann man zwingend schließen: die ungarischen Versionen haben sich verspätet, um eine nachhaltige Wirkung ausüben zu können.
"

The article highlights the problem of anonymity in historical research on Pietism. As the reform movement was illegal in many regions, Pietist authors often published their writings anonymously or pseudonymously. Similarly, those who donated money to support Pietist projects usually did so quietly. The tendency to act anonymously was even greater in the case of female participants, who faced the accusation that they were meddling in public affairs -- a scandal for a woman. Martin demonstrates how researchers can identify some aristocratic donors: personal secretaries and court preachers carried out their bidding and it is often through the correspondence of these seemingly "unimportant" actors that the the deeds of their employers come to light. By focussing on the letters of a court preacher to the Halle Pietist leader, August Hermann Francke, Martin reveals that the preacher's employer, two elderly, widowed princesses, donated huge sums anonymously to build the institutions of Halle Pietism. The article points out that women's participation, however theologically conservative it might have been, remained socially "radical," so that Pietists like Francke carefully hid the identity and even the gender of donors from the public. Based on these findings, Martin calls for more intensive archival research into women's (often anonymous but generous) contributions to the funding of Pietism.

Building on the suggestion by the editors of the Routledge Companion to World Literature (2011) to re-frame the fi eld of literary studies from a global and transnational perspective, this article suggests a new approach to the concept of ‘contact literature’. Reading American literature as ‘contact literature’ assumes that even if an American literary text is written in English, the other languages of the ‘contact zone’ in which the text originated and/or to which it alludes also impacted the writing process and therefore need to be included in the analysis. This new approach to the analysis of American literature is applied here to Sojourner Truth’s famous slave narrative, published in 1850. Since Truth spent the first 30 years of her life as a slave in a
predominantly Dutch-speaking environment in the Hudson Valley, analyzing her narrative as ‘contact literature’ implies a focus on Dutch cultural traces. This is done in two chapters — one dealing with Dutch language and literature, the other with Dutch Pietism and the slave narrative of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw — that present new perspectives on the impact of Dutch culture on Truth’s Narrative.

Beschreibungen des Lebens in der Zeit. Zur Kommunikation biographischer Texte in den pietistischen Gemeinschaften der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine und der Dresdner Diakonissenschwesternschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Germanistik 31). Münster: LIT 2005.

The article demonstrates that outsiders wishing to break into the German religious scene in the late seventeenth century concentrated their energies mainly on Pietist women, revealing that contemporaries recognized these women as leaders of the reform movement. After tracing the attempts of English Quakers to spread their religion to Germany through contacts with women such as Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, the article turns to the correspondence of Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) and Pietist activist Johanna Eleonora Merlau (1644-1724). A close reading of a newly discovered letter from Merlau to Penn provides new insights into her role in early Pietism and also reveals a significant Quaker influence on her thinking. The article concludes that, through female reformers like Merlau, the English dissidents had a significant impact on German Pietism.

Eine Untersuchung der im Halleschen Pietismus vermehrt auftretenden Mesalliancen zwischen adligen Damen und pietistischen Theologen am Beispiel der Gräfin von Kirchberg und ihres pietistischen Hofpredigers Georg Christian Haine. Neben den sozialen Implikationen einer solchen ungleichen Ehe werden die spezifischen Folgen für die Halleschen Pietisten um Francke sowie die theologischen Rechtfertigungen in den Blick genommen.

The study identifies three main phases in German Pietism and demonstrates how women's participation was crucial for each phase: an early, prophetic phase, in which women were the most important prophets; a consolidation phase in which wealthy female patrons donated the money for the building of Pietist institutions; and a churchly phase, in which women worked alongside men in established structures. The study relies upon hundreds of pages of previously unstudied manuscript sources, especially relating to Johanna Eleonora Petersen, Princess Elisabeth of the Pfalz and Anna Nitschmann, figures that Martin takes as illustrative case studies. The study won the University of Texas Dissertation Award and was named by the Council of Graduate Schools as one of the five best dissertations in the United States in 2003.