Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722–1732 by Paul Peucker (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722–1732 by Paul Peucker Douglas H. Shantz Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722–1732. By Paul Peucker. [Pietist, Moravian and Anabaptist Studies.] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2022. Pp. xvii, 320. $54.95. ISBN: 978-0-271-09239-3.) The premise of this book is that in order to understand the eighteenth-century Moravian movement scholars need to understand the formative years, from 1722 to 1732. Yet scholarship on Herrnhut's early years is "not as exhaustive as one might expect," notes Peucker. "No monographs on the origins of Herrnhut have been published during the last five decades" (p. 17). Peucker's study is based on an abundance of archival records from Herrnhut's early years, and on recent scholarship in fields "relevant for the understanding of early Herrnhut": radical Pietism, the history of upper Lusatia, and the history of crypto-Protestantism in the Habsburg Empire. He orients his study to the broader field of radical German Pietism and the contributions of the late Hans Schneider. This marks a significant re-orientation for Moravian historiography, which has often existed in isolation from the broader field of Pietism scholarship. There are two main genres of archival records: the congregational diary, beginning in April, 1727, that recounted special divine action with many miracle stories; and memoirs (Lebensläufe) of individual members (p. 19). Peucker, director and archivist at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, makes impressive use of these sources, especially writings by Christian David, Martin Dober, David Nitschmann, David Schneider, Friedrich von Watteville, Melchior Scheffer, and Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Peucker's book offers some insightful and provocative arguments. Foremost is his conviction that Herrnhut is rightly characterized as a radical Pietist, separatist movement informed by the Philadelphian thought of Jane Leade and by Gottfried Arnold's writings on the early church, especially die Erste Liebe. Philadelphians promoted impartial, brotherly love and opposed denominational divisions. Peucker joins Hans Schneider in finding "Philadelphian principles at play in the Moravian church of the eighteenth century" (p. 17). The ecclesiology of Zinzendorf represents a radical departure from the ecclesiola in ecclesia of Philipp Jakob Spener and from Martin Luther's clerical church marked by sacraments and preaching. Peucker rejects the view found in later histories of the Moravian Church, such as Spangenberg's biography of Zinzendorf, that Zinzendorf was a Lutheran who wanted to keep Herrnhut within the Lutheran Church. Herrnhut was not a community within the Lutheran church, but one outside the church (p. 198). A second conclusion is that Zinzendorf was not only a brilliant organizer and leader; he was also an astute and deceitful manipulator in achieving his ends. A key question for this early period is how the new religious community in Herrnhut was able to survive at a time when religious and secular authorities did not permit religious activity outside the recognized churches. The answer is that Zinzendorf misled the royal commission when they investigated the community in January, 1732. Herrnhut survived as long as it did because it developed a narrative that [End Page 412] masked its true identity in order to make it more acceptable to the authorities. "Herrnhut masked its separatism behind a pretense of affiliation with the Lutheran Church and behind a chosen historical identity, that of the renewed Unity of Brethren" (p. 3). Moravians claimed to be a distinct church dating back to the fifteenth century and one ostensibly adhering to the Augsburg Confession; in reality they were radical Pietists living by Philadelphian ideals (p. 210). Zinzendorf also misled his own community. He incorporated Comenius's 1702 Latin Brevis Historiola of the Unitas Fratrum into his own "The Newest History of Herrnhut," adapting Comenius to align with the theology and practice in Herrnhut. He made Comenius's summary of the teachings of Jan Hus into a summary of Philadelphian teachings, making Hus into a Philadelphian. Peucker follows the unpublished manuscript of Joseph Theodor Müller (1937), who showed that Zinzendorf "deliberately misconstrued the regulations of the ancient [Bohemian] Brethren to match the Herrnhut statutes" (p. 127). Zinzendorf "forged" the statutes of the early Brethren, something scholars previously have not noticed...