III. Historical Background from Prague to Philadelphia
If the image of Jesus leading forth sheep from various folds to form one flock applies to our churches, our respective histories show that while we are institutionally separate, we share the same fold geographically and historically. At crucial times and in diverse places Lutherans and Moravians have contributed to each other's continuance and renewal. Likewise, for historical and geographical reasons rather than for theological causes, we have diverged from each other. The time has come for us to review key elements in our backgrounds in order to resume our journey toward full communion.
Chronologically and logically the journey begins with the origins of the Unitas Fratrum. Moravian dialoguers commented that their theology was expressed most often and most clearly not in formal propositions or confessional documents, and certainly not in polemics or dialectics. The Unity is best understood through its story (history), praise of God (worship), and commitment to discipleship (community). The Ancient Moravian Church underwent a number of transitions in doctrinal perspective as it developed and articulated its expressions of the Christian faith and mission.
Jan Hus (1371-1415) of the University of Prague serves as a seminal figure for all Protestants and pre-eminently for Moravians. His reliance on the primacy of Scripture, insights into the nature of the Church, zeal for reform, and courageous martyrdom provide motifs both theological and communal for his spiritual descendants. Movements in Bohemia and Moravia which developed after his death and subsequent conflicts led to the formation of the Unitas Fratrum at Kunvald, Bohemia in 1457. The ensuing decades were marked by persecution, privation, and spiritual searching. The desire was not to champion a theological principle as such but to seek to live as fully as possible in the love of Christ, in concord with fellow believers, and in harmony with the Sermon on the Mount. Their concern for the welfare of other Christians was manifested in their offering refuge to persecuted Waldensians around 1460. By 1467 the Brethren realized that they needed a more explicit organization. They gathered in Lhotka near Rychnov where they selected three persons as priests. A member having Roman ordination was sent to the Waldensians to seek their ordination, for it was believed they had a valid apostolic ministry. Returning he ordained the three selected and then resigned his Waldensian and Roman priesthood. Thus a connection was established with two lines of succession. Mathias of Kunwald was appointed to first place among the three colleagues, thus beginning a position which had episcopal authority and evolved into episcopal office though, it was also understood that there was no fundamental difference between a priest and bishop.1 The episcopal office among Moravians is, therefore, of long standing and is intended for the preservation of the apostolic mission of the Church and the administration of its faith, life, and mission. This also indicates that from its origins the Unity understood itself as participating in the wider Church catholic, and was willing to gain from as well as to share with other Christians.
Events and personalities in sixteenth century Germany soon brought the Bohemian Brethren (as they were then called) into contact with Martin Luther (1483-1546). Widespread distortions by enemies and fears about heresies and rebellion in Bohemia were attached to the Brethren. Perhaps the slander lingered in the minds of Evangelical Germans for decades. When Eck and others attacked Luther as a Hussite and a "Bohemian," the charge was not simply limited to one person and a kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. In the aftermath of the Leipzig Disputation (1519) and Diet of Worms (1521), the Bohemians provided the "Saxon Hus" with some of the writings of the martyr. Luther and his colleagues began to communicate and share ideas with the Brethren through Lukçs of Prague, Jan Roh and Jan Augusta. Generally, the Wittenbergers' theological influence was so pronounced that the years 1520 to 1546 are termed the Unity's "Period of Lutheran Orientation."
The intersections of personalities and exchanges of ideas were not uniformly smooth or without disagreement. The movement associated with Luther centered on theological and hermeneutical issues, although cultural and political matters were highly influential. The Lutheran focus on its understanding of justification by faith without works of the Law as the teaching on which the Church stood or fell served to animate and inform the developing theology and practice of the evangelical movement. As Lutherans debated among themselves, against other Reformation movements, and with Rome, doctrinal clarity became a priority. And those debates often were belligerent, even hostile, in tone. Among the disputed topics were the centrality of justification, the place of good works, and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Lutheran confessors at the Diet of Augsburg stated that the "Church is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For it is sufficient for the true unity of the Christian Church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word. It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church that ceremonies, instituted by men, should be observed uniformly in all places." The statement lost its irenical openness in subsequent debates.2
The leaders of the Unity who were in contact with Luther presented him with drafts of their Apologia and Confessio. They received and considered Lutheran suggestions and criticisms. Lutherans and Brethren agreed on justification and the nature of the Gospel. The final texts of the Brethren's documents clearly were influenced by the doctrinal portions of the Augsburg Confession (Articles I - XXI) and the Smalcald Articles (especially 2 and 3). The Lutheran insistence on further exposition about Christ's presence in the sacrament of the altar moved the Unity's leaders to greater clarity, but Lutherans still pushed for more detail. The final text of the Confessio Bohemica, 1535, was presented to the Lutheran margrave, George of Brandenburg. Luther provided a commendatory preface in which he wrote,
We, too, ought to give the greatest possible thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to the riches of his glory, commanded this light of His word to shine out of darkness, in order thereby to abolish death among us again and to bring life to light. We ought also to congratulate both them [the Brethren] and ourselves that we who have been far apart from each other have been brought together, now that the well of suspicion, by which we seemed to each other to be heretics, has been removed, and that we have been led into one fold under one Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, who is blessed forever. Amen.3
Luther and his associates acknowledged the criticisms of the Brethren concerning the lack of discipline and morality within Evangelical congregations. Melanchthon and Luther continued to struggle with these issues through the catechisms, worship, and a stronger emphasis on prayer. On their part, the Brethren grew increasingly wary and weary of the seemingly interminable and divisive doctrinal wrangling among the proponents of the Reformation. Some within the Unitas advised merging with the Lutherans, but the decision was made to preserve the Brethren's identity with its sense of personal commitment to Jesus and close fellowship among its members. Clearly the contact between the Bohemians and Lutherans during Luther's lifetime was mutually helpful: the Brethren undertook to clarify their theological concerns and positions, the Lutherans were given vibrant examples of Christian unity and discipleship, and both were prepared for future ventures in following the Shepherd.
Protestant defeats in the Smalcaldic Wars (1546-48) pushed Lutherans and the Brethren to look to their own political and spiritual survival. Driven from Bohemia and Moravia into eastern Prussia, Hungary and Poland, the Brethren lived under precarious conditions and were often the victims of dreadful persecution. Usually when German Lutheran rulers and city officials achieved measures of political stability and recognition, they held to the general assumption that there should be religious conformity in a state, in so far as that was possible. Consequently, they insisted that Christians in those territories should be Lutherans. For that reason the exiles from England during Queen Mary's reign who sought refuge in German Lutheran territories were given the choice of conforming to the Wittenberg theology or leaving. Many departed for the more hospitable climes of Calvin's Geneva. The Brethren who fled to Lutheran areas in Prussia often faced similar pressures. Again, the issues between the two communions were political, not theological.
Experiences of persecution and marginalization strengthened the Unity's dedication to be a servant community and underscored their perception that doctrinal polemics were inimical to God's will. They also developed a wide network of contacts with Reformed congregations and leaders in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and Germany.
The century between the ends of the Smalcaldic War and the Thirty Years Year (1548-1648) was turbulent both politically and religiously. In the latter sphere rifts among Luther's associates escalated into personal animosities and theological factionalism. Philipists and Gnesio-Lutherans, two major camps which vied for dominance within the German Lutheran context, exchanged accusations of crypto-Calvinism and crypto-Romanism while demanding of themselves and others clearer and more detailed expositions of what was felt to be "orthodox teachings."
Nor were Lutherans alone in the quest for doctrinal "truth." The Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-63), Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563), Second Helvetic Consensus Formula (1566) and Synod of Dort (1618) for the Reformed, Formula of Concord and Book of Concord among Lutherans (1577 and 1580), and Westminster Confession (1646) for English Presbyterianism all indicate the breadth and intensity of attempts to formulate Christian truth often over and against other Christians. Those who attempted to act as intermediaries were few in number and were usually vilified by one or both sides.
Such activity evidences both the anxieties and stabilization of the Reformed and Lutheran communions. Beneath these developments is the assumption that a society's security was at least partially dependent on the highest possible degree of religious conformity within its borders. Whether the times required such conformity is debatable, but in such a polemical atmosphere, many lay persons and clergy felt their hearts strangely chilled. A reaction was probably inevitable.
The Unity, too, attempted to formulate its positions. In 1616 the Brethren drew up the Ratio Disciplinae Ordinisque Ecclesiastici in Unitate Fratrum Bohemorum. Seven chapters spelled out the Essential, Ministerial and Incidental things of the Christian faith. The Essentials are those things which are necessary for human salvation. These are given by God and not of human derivation, and consist of the grace of the Father, the merit of Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. On the part of humans, the Essentials are responded to through faith, love and hope. "The Ministerials" are the necessary means by which divine grace, Christ's merit and the operation of the Spirit are conferred on humans, that is, by which faith, love and hope are enkindled, cherished and strengthened. The Ministerials are the Word of God, the keys, and the sacraments. The Word reveals the Essentials, the keys assign them, and the sacraments seal them. The ordained ministry of the Church is necessary to advance the purity of faith, the ardor of love, and the firmness of hope. The Incidentals are ceremonies and rites of human derivation and origin.4 The Ratio or Church Order, given a final revision by Amos Comenius (1592-1670), has provided the language and categories which the Unity has used throughout its subsequent history to relate to its own internal situations and to reach out to other Christians.
The Protestant defeat at the battle of White Mountain (1620) was catastrophic for the Brethren. To force Protestants to return to the Roman Catholic Church and to dismantle their conventicles, the Hapsburg victors criminalized religious dissent while denying dissenters permission to depart legally from Moravia and Bohemia. The "Period of the Hidden Seed" (1620-1732) was marked by danger and anxiety as small groups meet clandestinely for fellowship, worship and study. Many fled their Czech homelands to become refugees in Poland and Germany, often seeking support from Brethren who had preceded them as well as with Reformed and Lutheran sympathizers. "Hidden" as they may have been, they were, nevertheless, the seed for a new growth of discipleship. The Reformed in Poland, also subject to religious repression, recognized the devotion and religious integrity of the members of the Unity.
Their courageous witness, devotion to Scripture, cultivation of communal fellowship, and spiritual warmth inspired many to associate with and then join the Unity. One such person, the shepherd-carpenter-soldier, Christian David, (1690-1756), was sustained physically and spiritually by Lutherans, and became a member of the Lutheran church in Berlin. His several Lutheran connections and his conviction that a shelter for his sisters and brothers could be found in Germany led him eventually to Count von Zinzendorf's estate in 1722. The section on which the Brethren settled was called Herrnhut ("Watching for the Lord" and "The Lord Watches"). Gradually a community took physical and spiritual shape under Zinzendorf's patronage. The Ancient Church was poised for renewal.
The traumas of the Thirty Years War together with the Enlightenment had profound effects on continental Protestantism. Simultaneously, a complex cross-fertilization took place through which the writings of Lutheran and Reformed leaders influenced English Anglicans and Puritans. Their writings, in turn, circulated in Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia, gaining attention and promoting further developments. The religious winds were to cross the Channel again and the Atlantic during the mid-eighteenth century. Where once the desiderata of churches had been doctrinal precision and subscription, now there was a Pia Desideria, a "heart-felt desire for a God-pleasing reform of the true Evangelical Church."5
Pietism, a complex and variegated movement, still defies definitions. F. Ernst Stoeffler noted that Pietism insisted on:
the need for, and the possibility of an authentic and vitally significant experience of God on the part of individual Christians; the religious life as a life of love for God and man, which is marked by social sensitivity and ethical concern; utter confidence, with respect to the issues of both life and death, in the experientially verifiable authenticity of God's revelation in Christ, as found in the biblical witness; the church as a community of God's people, which must be ever renewed through the transformation of individuals, and which necessarily transcends all organizationally required boundaries; the need for the implementation of the Reformation understanding of the Priesthood of all believers through responsible lay participation in the varied concerns of the Christian enterprise; a ministry which is sensitized, trained, and oriented to respond to the needs and problems of a given age; and, finally, the continual adaptation of ecclesiastical structures, practices, and verbal definitions to the mission of the church.6
Zinzendorf , like Luther, was a larger than life character: highly influential within and beyond his circle of associates, a creative thinker, and not above criticism. Again, like Luther among those who regard him as a spiritual forebear, Zinzendorf serves as an inspirational guide, while his ecclesial descendants have gone on to adapt to new challenges and circumstances. Indeed, Lutherans and Moravians have literally moved into a new world and on territory unchartered by Zinzendorf and Luther.
The Count's journey with the Savior included an austere upbringing steeped in Lutheran pietism which also made him acutely aware of his noble lineage. His guardians expected him to enter government service, and planned for him to focus on jurisprudence in his education. His baptismal sponsor was Spener, and a significant portion of his early education was undertaken at the pietist center, the Paedagogium at Halle, under the strict tutelage of August Hermann Francke (d. 1727). His departure to study law at Halle's rival, Wittenberg, generated a lasting animosity toward him that influenced Halle's later representative in Philadelphia, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.7 The leaders of Halle regarded the theology at Wittenberg to be stultified, while others considered Luther's academic base to be the true custodian of Reformation truth. While at Wittenberg, Zinzendorf expressed his devotion to God through engaging in a regimen which emphasized Bible study and prayer.
Later, Zinzendorf reflected that while at Wittenberg he was immersed in orthodox Lutheranism and took Luther as his theological guide. His engagement with Luther led him out of the intra-pietistic arguments about struggles for salvation and sanctification and to a reliance on God's justifying grace in Jesus Christ. Using the Augustinian-Lutheran theme of simul justus et peccator, Zinzendorf turned away from the predilections in pietism toward legalism and a rigid construction of the steps involved in conversion. While at Wittenberg, he developed an intense loyalty to the Augsburg Confession, the Small Catechism, and Luther's hymns and devotional writings.
He also organized several fellow students into small groups which pledged themselves to mission work. One of these, the Order of the Mustard Seed, grew to become an ecumenical fellowship. The young man was convinced that God called him to the ministry of Word and Sacraments through the Lutheran Church, and he studied theology more assiduously than law. His family resisted his desires on the grounds that the pastorate was beneath his social station. Following his marriage and eventual refusal to pursue a career in state offices, Zinzendorf determined to return to the family estates where Christian David and his associates had already settled. And so his life intersected with Christian David and the fugitive Brethren on a regular basis.
The youthful Zinzendorf gradually was drawn toward the Brethren, and increasingly became one of their leaders. Deeply impressed with their courage, devout prayer life and reliance on the mercy of God in Christ, he undertook to be responsible for their public worship. He was delighted to discover the Ratio and its provisions for ordered church life, and was especially interested in the Essentials. Because he understood that God could only be known in Christ, and because of the nature of his own religious experience, he expressed that which was essential as a saving relationship with Christ. In other words, he gave the Essentials a Christocentric focus. To provide for a regular ministry of Word and Sacraments among the Brethren at Herrnhut, Zinzendorf arranged for Lutheran pastors to conduct services, preach, and celebrate communion among the Brethren. His activities appeared to some Lutheran political and ecclesiastical authorities as a promotion of schism and sectarianism. That suspicion and subsequent opposition focus on grace and the simul justus of justification which were the key issues at dispute between the Halle and Wittenberg versions of Lutheran theology and piety. At every turn, however, the Count was able to show that he personally and the Brethren were well within the Lutheran fold.8 Concerned about having an official validation of his theology and still convinced that he was called to the ordained ministry, he satisfied church and royal officials in Denmark, Sweden and Germany about his theological training. In 1734 the Pastoral College of Stralsund certified his orthodoxy and the Theological Faculty of Tbingen University issued an affidavit that Zinzendorf was a man in good standing, had all the knowledge of Christian faith in a manner which was fully acceptable for Lutheran orthodoxy, and indicated that they could see no objection as to why a man of high nobility should not also preach the Gospel. With this certification he publicly entered ministry in the Stiftskirche in Tubingen.9
The Unity was renewed spiritually and physically at the portion of Zinzendorf's estate called Herrnhut. This was a process of spiritually bringing together divergent groups in the Herrnhut settlement including Reformed, Lutherans, and the migrants from Moravia longing for renewal of their church. Zinzendorf provided pastoral care. Rules governing life on the Manor were signed by inhabitants. and in 1727, in the Lutheran parish church of Berthelsdorf, there was an experience of unity and renewal Moravians have since called their Pentecost. By 1732 missionaries were sent to the Caribbean following the testimony of an ex-slave to the Herrnhut community and the great age of Moravian experimentation in mission was begun. The missionaries' purpose was not to establish a new church body but to bring the gospel to the poor and the enslaved on the islands. In addition, Herrnhut served as the matrix from which the Unity developed marks which endure to the present, e.g., poetry, hymnody, musicianship, love feasts and communal decision making. By 1741, when having difficulty replacing the Chief Elder of their church, they were inspired to claim that Jesus was the Chief Elder and Lord of the Church and that in the Moravian church they would submit to his governance rather than electing someone to this central governmental position.
With the growing needs of the Unity and its developing mission, it became important to establish an ordained ministry. Because of the concerns of the significant segment of persons who had come from Moravia to reestablish their church, the Unity turned to the last remaining bishops of the Ancient Moravian Church. In 1699 Daniel Ernst Jablonsky, one of Comenius' grandsons, had been consecrated a bishop for the Brethren. Subsequently he became a Reformed pastor and then served as the court preacher in Berlin. To retain the historic episcopacy and to provide for the Unity's continuity, he with the concurrence of the other surviving Brethren bishop, Christian Sitkovius, ordained David Nitschmann as a bishop (1735). King Frederick William I of Prussia encouraged an initially reluctant and now ordained Zinzendorf to be consecrated as a bishop for the Brethren as well. In 1737 at the urging of Herrnhuters and other supporters, Jablonsky consecrated Zinzendorf as a bishop for the Brethren.
Whereas bishops in the Ancient Moravian church had been diocesan, in the Renewed church they were intended to provide a ministry for the Unity's mission and not to be related to dioceses and thus competitive to the established church and their offices. This continues to be a feature of the Moravian episcopacy where bishops are bishops of the international Unity and do not only belong to and care for a particular jurisdiction. Frederick William specifically stated that the creation of bishops with the authority to ordain others to the ministry did not constitute the formation of a church separate from the legally recognized Lutheran, Reformed and Roman Catholic communions. Nevertheless Zinzendorf's detractors became suspicious of the Unity and its new bishop. The Hallesians could not but see Zinzendorf and those associated with him as rivals at best, and as potential schismatics.
The Count was moved by these events and his own study to give careful consideration to the nature of the Church and the meaning of unity in Christ. His Christocentric theological vision was a bold one. He began to understand the one, holy, catholic Church in terms which presaged the modern ecumenical movement, but gave cold comfort to his critics. By 1744 he envisioned the Church as a unity created by God, animated through the Spirit, and headed by Jesus Christ. His Christocentric focus on the Essentials led him to envision the unity of the Church as involving differing tropes or "methods of training" such as the Lutheran, Moravian, Reformed and, as it developed, Anglican and Methodist tropes.10 Each had its own God-given mission and method for leading persons to a relationship with Christ. An obvious corollary was that no one church had a corner on the truth and that theological wrangling was inimical to the true unity of the Church which God willed.
Waves of immigrants to British North America and the Caribbean challenged Protestants at the same time that their missionary impulses were leading them to consider bringing the gospel to Asia and Africa. Renewed political and religious tensions in Austria together with the accession of the Hanoverians to the throne of the United Kingdom gave the new world the appearance of being both a haven and a home for many German-speaking Protestants. An atmosphere of communal experimentation, particularly in Georgia and Pennsylvania, attracted different groups and individuals as did the more usual reasons for departing from one's homeland: economic opportunities, avoidance of military conscription, and venturesomeness. Where Germans and Scandinavians went, so did the Lutheran and Reformed understandings of Christianity. And so did the members of the Unity. Although the mutual relationships and influences among the Episcopalians, nascent Methodist movement, Lutherans and Brethren are beyond the scope of this report, it is worth noting that the Unity provided crucial links which mediated Lutheran understandings of justification and devotional life to English-speaking evangelicals in Great Britain and the Americas. In turn and from their origins, the small Moravian communities first in Georgia and then in Pennsylvania engaged in mission work among Native Americans, established schools, and ministered to the orphaned and poor.
The spiritual needs of the German immigrants became painfully clear. The Psalmist's question of how can the Lord's song be sung in a foreign land was compounded by ecclesiastical fragmentation and rivalry between Reformed and Lutheran leaders, and the immigrants' inexperience with not being part of a state church which provided fiscal support, certified clergy and authority to resolve disputes. For all the resemblances the colonies bore to the old world, the settlers soon realized that they were in a new world geographically, intellectually and spiritually. Naturally, there were those who sought to bring order and coherence into their situations, and there were others who sought to exploit the unsettled conditions for their own ends.
The provision of Word and Sacrament ministry and the development of German-speaking congregations in and around Philadelphia involved Reformed, Lutheran, Schwenkfelder and Mennonite Christians. Sometimes each went its separate way and occasionally they cooperated. Joint efforts tended to be less on the basis of theology than their shared ethnicity. The Moravian emphasis on heartfelt religion and following the Savior led them neither into doctrinal debates nor the establishment of specifically Moravian congregations. They became part of the founders and leaders of German-speaking congregations, advocating the provision of ministry to German individuals and communities, joint efforts with English-speaking Christians, and mission work among the unchurched of all races in the colony. In order to move that work forward and to inform himself of the opportunities in America, Zinzendorf traveled to the colonies.
At the same time relations between pietists and orthodoxists in Germany deteriorated. The latter considered the former as near-schismatics largely because of the pietist emphases on the laity and conventicles, both of which seemed prone to undermine the stability of the official church, its clergy, and doctrinal interpretations. More specifically, the Hallesian pietists were becoming increasingly critical of the Herrnhuters and particularly Zinzendorf. Several congregations in the Philadelphia area requested that the Halle authorities send to them at least one certified pastor. These congregations were embroiled in disputes with men who either were pastors but aroused controversy or men who had dubious credentials. Concerned that the congregations would not be willing or able to support a pastor, the leaders at Halle delayed - until they learned that Zinzendorf planned to go to Pennsylvania. Halle responded by ordaining and dispatching Henry Melchior Muhlenberg as the called pastor to those congregations which had requested Halle's assistance.11
The sole meeting between the two men (1742) can be understood on the levels of personal encounter, ecclesiastical polity, and different perspectives on the establishment of the Church in Pennsylvania. Muhlenberg felt responsible for planting a church which retained the European traditions and institutions. Zinzendorf wanted to explore a new ecumenical Protestantism called "The Congregation of God in the Spirit," a concern which gave birth to the Pennsylvania Synods at which many different traditions were represented. Muhlenberg felt that unless order could be introduced into the congregations, the members of those communities could be bereft of sound teaching, discipline and worship. Each claimed the right to represent the Lutheran Church. That Muhlenberg was sent by Halle, now estranged from Zinzendorf, did not help. Personality characteristics undoubtedly played a role. Cast into a power struggle in which each perceived the other as denying the validity of his authority and jurisdiction, the men parted with reciprocal hostility."
In one sense the journey from Prague to Philadelphia might be said to have ended the creative and supportive relationships between Lutherans and Moravians in the United States. While there have been joint endeavors and warm relationships between many congregations in the respective churches, Lutherans have recalled the Muhlenberg-Zinzendorf encounter as defining church-dividing differences, but Lutherans have not themselves articulated what was at stake ecclesially or theologically. Another sense in which the journey ended at Philadelphia, at least symbolically, is that the Unity and the Lutherans went on to separate ecclesiastical lives. American denominationalism, not theology, was the chief factor that led them to form two different organizations.
But the journey with the Savior did not end in 1742. Chronologically long overdue, yet in a kairotic time, Lutherans and Moravians are able to see that we have come far together internationally. We are now ready to recognize that the Savior is calling his Moravian and Lutheran flocks to full communion and mission in the 21st century.
1Rudolf Oiean, The History of the Unity of the Brethren: A Protestant Hussite Church in Bohemia and Moravia, translated by C. Daniel Crews, Bethlehem, PA: The Moravian Church in America, 1992, pgs. 39-41.
2 Augsburg Confession, Article VII.
3 See Jaroslav Pelikan. Luther And The Confessio Bohemica of 1535, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1946. Translation is Pelikan's.
4 B. Seifferth. Church Constitution Of The Bohemian And Moravian Brethren. London: W. Mallalieu, Co., 1866.
5 The full title of Philip Jacob Spener's 1675 seminal work is Pia Desideria or Heartfelt Desire for a God-pleasing Reform of the true Evangelical Church, together with Several Simple Christian Proposals looking toward this End. See the edition by Theodore Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964, reprinted 1982.
6 Peter C. Erb, Pietists. Selected Writings, New York: Paulist Press, 1983, pg. 7. The Stoeffler quotation is from his German Pietism during the Eighteenth Century, Leiden: n.p., 1973 pg. ix.
7 Zinzendorf's major disagreement with the Hallesian form of pietism concerned the stages a person was thought to experience on the way to conversion. Zinzendorf considered Halle's insistence on a particular universal pattern to be rigid and open to question.
8 In 1732 a commission from Dresden investigated the Herrnhuters' orthodoxy and found them theologically sound. Friedrich Christoph Oettinger, of the University of Tbingen's theological faculty spent 1733-34 at Herrnhut, leading the community and the Count in biblical and theological studies. The animosities between the Hallesians and Zinzendorf were enlarged when August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704-1792), dismissed as superintendent of Halle's orphan house because of his sympathies for Zinzendorf, joined the Brethren at Herrnhut. One of Spangenberg's successors at Halle was Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. It is important to recognize that the developing differences between Halle and the Moravians revolved around Zinzendorf's assertion of "grace alone," not only in terms of justification but also regarding the holiness which was also a gift of God. Thus Moravian pietism was not Halle pietism.
9 Erich Beyreuther, Die grosse Zinzendorf-Trilogie, Marburg an der Lahn: Franck- Buchhandlung GmbH;1988, Band III, Zinzendorf und die Christenheit, pp 73-87. Zinzendorf's progress toward certification of theological orthodoxy was complicated largely by political-religious rivalries in several German states and Swedish domination of other German states. The Count always considered himself a loyal and theologically sound Lutheran, and was considered so even by his ecclesiastical detractors. See John R. Weinlick, Count Zinzendorf. The Story of His Life And Leadership In the Renewed Moravian Church, Nashville: Abingdon, 1956, especially pgs. 114-127.
10 The development of the idea of tropes was also partially influenced by the persistence of the refugees from Moravia in continuing the existence of their ancient church while Zinzendorf wanted his community to remain a society within the Lutheran Church. Thus it became important to recognize the different approaches and religious traditions not only outside but within the Moravian Church.
11 Before his departure from Germany, Muhlenberg was accused of being a schismatic because he held prayer meetings in his rooms. Zinzendorf's aunt, one of the Count's severest critics, gave Muhlenberg her version of her nephew's character. That description seems to have framed the new pastor's perspective on the man he met in Philadelphia. Curiously, while Muhlenberg left a detailed account of his interview with Zinzendorf - an account which he also shared with the Halle authorities - there is no parallel account in Zinzendorf's diary or from Moravian sources. For Muhlenberg's account see The Journals Of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, edited by Theodore Tappert and John Doberstein, Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1942, reprinted by Whipporwill Publications, Evansville, 1982 volume 1, pgs. 75-81. The encounter took place on December 29, 1742.