A change of emphasis

Music is a different space of experience which reveals new horizons of expectation to the attentive listener. The oratorio The Creation by Josef Haydn (1732–1809), composed 1797–1798 with texts from the Bible and Milton’s Paradise Lost, may serve as an example. Here, what I have described as ‘the Now in Church History’ in another context is concentrated in one single point. In Haydn’s depiction of the creation, the horizon of expectation is being rolled up for new worlds. It is no longer the Creator or his Word of creation that is placed in the centre, but the effect of the Word, that is the Light. This shows how Enlightenment was by no means atheistic or even merely deistic; instead, it shifted the emphasis from revelation and eternity into creation and its mysteries. God’s creative Word is being whispered by the choir, while the created Light is presented almost as a horizon of expectation for the not yet launched ‘Big Bang’. My example is from immediately after the introduction’s depiction of chaos:

The British historian Mark Berry describes this as ‘Haydn’s greatest coup de théâtre’.¹ It is clear that God is still the Creator of the world, who creates by his Word only, and separates the light from the darkness; but the emphasis, and thus the interest of this Christian oratorio and its audiences, has moved from God to the created light.

A long-term influence exercised by a kind of pious Enlightenment practice was the strange Swedish custom of a Good Friday performance of Haydn’s Creation in some churches. This custom persisted for most of the nineteenth century until finally the Baroque Renaissance of late Romanticism in the 1890s paved the way for the passion music of Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), which thus entailed a return to a religious context that emphasized and entered into the liturgical and homiletical context of the day, instead of trying to escape from it.

Enlightenment changed the emphasis from revelation to creation and its mysteries. This should not be taken to mean that early modern or Lutheran orthodox theology had not included creation and nature. On the contrary, early modern theology spoke of the two books, the Book of Nature and the Book of Grace. This concept was further developed by enlightened scientists like Linnaeus and others in the physico-theological tradition. Nature was studied as a book, written by God. This Book of Nature could be read just like the Bible.² Thus, Linnaeus interpreted creation by modern means within the old framework. However, an emphasis could change without destroying the system; but even a small change of emphasis could change the world view, though without excluding God or traditional orthodoxy.

The vital importance of empiricism

In his most influential thesis on the Enlightenment, Försök til en afhandling om uplysningen (1793), the Swedish philosopher and highly engaged official Nils von Rosenstein stressed the importance of empiricism. In his definition of Enlightenment, he took his starting point in material experience, including its hidden properties.³ Enlightenment is further defined as true, sufficient and applicable knowledge.⁴ Rosenstein declares that mathematical methods cannot be used in philosophy, but also that human passions may lead the scientist astray. He especially mentions curiosity, pride, fear, impatience, feebleness and delusion.⁵ Furthermore, Rosenstein distinguishes between knowledge, learning and Enlightenment – as well as between the characteristics knowledgeable, learned and enlightened.⁶ His entire thesis is supported by the empiricism of John Locke (1632–1704) as well as by the state doctrine of Montesquieu, in service of the social bliss of mankind.⁷ Rosenstein’s thesis was published only a few years after Immanuel Kant’s essay pondering the question ‘What is Enlightenment?’, where Kant tried to synthesize early modern rationalism and empiricism.⁸

Some Enlightenment ideas were also of great importance to Christian revival movements. For example, Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians emphasized the value of philosophy, religious liberty, the importance of the human side of the Bible and its optimistic views on human bliss.⁹ In Pietism, spiritual experience became a main interest. Emphasis shifted from theory to empiricism, the Bible being understood as a book of spiritual experience rather than as a book of doctrinal teaching and proof.

Separation as a key concept of Enlightenment

As early as 1689, King Charles XI of Sweden had allowed philosophical freedom at Swedish universities, though it was not to interfere with Christian faith or doctrine, or with the contents of the Bible. The King tried to strike a compromise leading to a separation between the philosophical and theological areas, each with its own particular responsibilities.¹⁰ During the eighteenth century, ‘the separation of religion from law gradually increased’.¹¹ Philosophy was separated from theology, and reason from experience. This observation is also applicable in many other areas, including religious ones.

Johan Peter Boström (1764–1814) of Berghem in western Sweden, an ordinary country rector, had defended a thesis in Greifswald in 1788 in which he energetically rejected a poetic reading of the book of Joshua, asserting that the sun and moon actually stood still in the sky. Whether he was in fact the author of the thesis is of no importance here. But when, in 1805, he left his post as a teacher in Uddevalla on the west coast of Sweden, this town was described as a place ‘where people have never forgotten his dignified and moving presentation of the sacred truths of Religion’,¹² a mode of expression highly germane to enlightened ways of speaking about the Christian faith. An orthodox position could hence be defended in an uncompromising way at the same time as this position no longer seemed to have any function for the practical description of religion. This example reveals that a separation could sometimes be made between the formal demands of orthodoxy and practical needs involved in describing the religious map, even when experienced by the very same theologian.

Enlightenment as language

During the ‘enlightened’ era, the language and style of the Enlightenment were also employed by persons who would not and cannot be labelled ‘enlightened’, or at least not exclusively described as such. A couple of examples illustrate this.

In Sven Johansson Hjerton’s (1741–1809) sermon when the local clergy swore allegiance to new Swedish king Gustaf IV Adolf in 1792, fervid sentiments coexisted with a serious wonder at the passivity of Providence at the murder of King Gustav III. References to ‘our mildest king’ and similar expressions are mixed with an orthodox, biblical rhetoric of mourning, including a traditional reference to Lamentations 5:16 (‘The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us, that we have sinned!’). This verse had, for example, been quoted in the funeral sermons for Queen Dowager Hedvig Eleonora (1717) and King Charles XII (1719), but it still occurred in the Jewish lamentation for all synagogues on the lamentation day after the death of Gustav III (1792).¹³

A perhaps even better example is to be found in a funeral sermon of 1747 by Petrus Eneroth (d. 1761) on the rather enlightened theme ‘About the Highest Wisdom: 1. The teachers of the Highest Wisdom, 2. The doctrine of the Highest Wisdom’. However, the exposition could by no means be described as ‘enlightened’ in any significant sense: it is a Christocentric sermon with a strong flavour of Moravianism.¹⁴ One may wonder if this phenomenon is merely a ‘neutral’ matter of terminology, or if it might have something to do with theological censorship. An ‘enlightened’ addition in a Moravian sermon would of course more easily slip through the hands of the censor than a sermon that favoured Moravianism in an obvious manner.

A third example is a sermon by Clas Henrik Cramer (1762–1835), preached in Gothenburg Cathedral in 1797. Here the language is of a mixed character. The theme is ‘Some advantages, which a man who has become spiritually wise, gains through his good company in meekness and wisdom’. Among expressions such as ‘the Eternal Wisdom’ and ‘blissful’ are some fierce attacks on ‘the false light which, in our so-called enlightened time, is so fiercely and eagerly scattered’, and the total impression is Christocentric with an emphasis on Christ both as redeemer and as a model. Whether the target of this sermon was radical philosophy or the rational mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) is hard to tell, but it emphasizes the dual face of the Enlightenment. Cramer also has direct references to conservative Pietism and most notably to Stockholm minister Anders Nohrborg’s (1725–1767) much-used collection of sermons.¹⁵

A rational mysticism

The new emphasis on the Light also paved the way for a rational mysticism. As Linnaeus’ systematization of nature had by no means diminished his astonishment before the Creator and the creation, the technicalities of the eighteenth century were quite compatible with sometimes rather strange mysteries in both thought and cult. Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic and Christian anti-Trinitarian, was also a scientist and inventor who was a member of several scientific academies, national and foreign. His transition from science to mysticism has fascinated his biographers, who have not always understood that this combination, rather than being incomprehensible, is actually quite significant for his time, and still more for the following decades. Swedenborg regarded his dreams as empirical material, and he labelled himself a mystikos – that is, an initiated person.¹⁶ To be initiated is to be enlightened in a special way.

Rational mysticism became highly modern towards the end of the century, especially in the rituals and ceremonies of the Masonic and other orders. Spreading Enlightenment through initiation and secret wisdom, these orders were in their turn caricatured by poets such as Johan Henric Kellgren (1751–1795) and Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795). Simultaneously, the esoterism of Swedenborg was attacked by both the Lutheran orthodox and the Moravians, who defended the Christian teaching on the Holy Trinity and redemption against all attempts to supplement or ‘correct’ the biblical word with subjective revelations.

Several enlightenments

The picture of the Enlightenment era as spiritually arid, with an exclusive cult of reason and a prudent proclamation of utility, became commonly accepted, even though this identification ultimately stems from its contemporary counter-currents.¹⁷

From the sixteenth century onwards, ‘enlightened’ had primarily been applied in connection with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, as Martin Luther describes it in his explanation of the third article of the Creed. The Enlightenment, however, entailed an emphasis on rationality, whereas the esoteric movements of the late eighteenth century used ‘enlightened’ with reference to the special knowledge transmitted by secret rituals.¹⁸ It is important to observe that these different meanings of ‘enlightenment’ did not succeed one another in time or space, but coexisted. Historians must note that ‘enlightenment’ in its old theological sense was actual and relevant long after 1775, and may thus have coloured the ideological understanding of this term as well.¹⁹ The three meanings of the term ‘enlightenment’ described above would then coexist side by side, though not without contact or conflict. The situation is made complex by the combination of theological and profane dimensions when speaking of ‘the enlightenment of the understanding’.²⁰

The great Swedish poet Bishop Esaias Tegnér (1782–1846) used his light metaphors without any clear distinction between Christian enlightenment in the old, Lutheran sense and the later, philosophical use of the term. His understanding of ‘enlightenment’ was not secularized but spiritualized in a manner that surprised both contemporary readers of the catechism and the philosophers. In this, emphasis shifted from the Holy Spirit to a somewhat indeterminate, dual spiritual enlightenment. But the most self-evident understanding of ‘enlightened’ in a liturgical context was still the blessing: ‘The LORD make his face shine upon thee’, as it was read in the old Swedish translation: ‘Herren upplyse sitt ansigte öfver eder’ – that is, ‘The LORD enlighten his face upon you’. Consequently, enlightenment is not limited to the enlightenment in the human being, from God or from man, but includes in ritual repetition what we may call the self-enlightenment of God: God reveals himself and lets his face be enlightened and known to humanity.²¹

Bible criticism and Romanticism could be combined in one person, such as the lector and pastor Johan Gothenius (1721–1809), who was the first in Sweden to apply the methods of comparative exegesis. Simultaneously, Gothenius was the first person in Swedish literary history who noticed and was captivated by the Poems of Ossian.²²

Moderate Enlightenment ideas influenced representatives of Romanticism such as the bishop and hymn writer Frans Michael Franzén (1772–1847). The natural religion of the Enlightenment went willingly hand in hand with revealed religion, and its optimistic world view saw in each natural phenomenon and in every event a sign of the goodness of God and the expediency of creation.²³

‘Enlightened’ reforms

From 1993 onwards, Swedish historian of ideas Tore Frängsmyr declared that Sweden had no Enlightenment worth mentioning.²⁴ However, like other expressions describing patterns and flows of thought and ideas, ‘Enlightenment’ has sometimes been shortened and simplified in such a way that the important differences between the radical French Enlightenment and the more moderate German one have been equalized. Emphasis has often been put on philosophical and political Enlightenment more than on the ecclesiastical or pious variants of it. A reason for this obvious fact, as Tine van Osselaer has stated, is that Christian Enlightenment was expressed in new practices rather than in theoretical reflections, and that this activism resulted in numerous reforms in various countries. The Belgian example saw pious Enlightenment confronting French rationalist Enlightenment, the latter having influenced the irreligion and moral decay of a whole region since the French Revolution.²⁵ Thus, ‘enlightened’ influences laid the foundations of modern alterations in piety; but these changes worked in very different directions. As I have shown in my introduction to the volume Piety and Modernity, ‘enlightened’ reforms might concern Bible translation, devotion, education, or pastoral and social care. An extreme example of an ‘enlightened’ Bible translation project is the ‘long’ Bible committee in Sweden at work from 1773 until the final royal confirmation of the new translation in 1917.

The general sensitivity of rationalism has often been neglected. Rationalism was not only about draining swamps or growing potatoes. Paradoxically, it was not only based on reason, but open towards knowledge beyond representations produced by our senses – even though, like Christian orthodoxy, rationalism would not and could not rely on emotions as its foundation.

The success of enlightened reforms in devotion, public and private, was dependent on different historical and political circumstances in different countries. It is hence not surprising that the distinction between Pietism and pious Enlightenment could sometimes be subtle, since many aspects of education and pastoral care were common to the Pietists and the ‘enlightened’. In a country like Sweden, Pietism almost always found itself confronting state regulations of religion, ecclesiastical authorities and local opinion; but pietistic and enlightened churchmen nevertheless shared an individualist approach, as has long been observed in ecclesiastical historical research.²⁶

Around 1810–1815 some of the reformers, influenced by Romanticism, embarked on a new course, satisfying some of the orthodox demands (a new emphasis on the incarnation, atonement and resurrection of Christ, as well as on eternity and eternal salvation), though still maintaining the enlightened accent on education and the individual. Compared to Catholic Enlightenment, the differences are undeniable; but a common striving for purity in devotional life is obvious. The historical dimension inherent in Romanticism encouraged emphases on other ideals: religious originality, pious heroism and a new mysticism. Romanticism often tried to cast a shadow across pious Enlightenment as being a faith apprehended by the mind but not by the heart.²⁷ However, this should not overshadow their similarities.

The dual face of the Enlightenment may be observed in Voltaire and Christian von Wolff, or in Sweden in Queen Lovisa Ulrika (1720–1782) and also in the influential parish theologian Henric Schartau (1757–1825), in whom orthodoxy, Pietism and rationalism came together.²⁸ The understanding of the pious Enlightenment as a faith apprehended by the mind but not by the heart obscures the fact that Romanticism actually draws on pious Enlightenment. This was, of course, rooted in philosophical Wolffianism and its logical rationalism, rather than in Voltairianism.

Communication and dialogue as a personal complement

Written communication and printed media were used in new ways, and the emphasis on preaching and catechetical instruction was extended to conversation or dialogue. Literary historian Ann Öhrberg has shown that the ‘new’ rhetoric of Moravianism is not a great innovation, but a creative reusage and re-functionalization of established rhetorical techniques. Sensibility and authenticity became central values, and the texts’ means of collective identification.

Towards the end of the century, classical rhetoric was dethroned. In eighteenth-century Sweden, classical rhetoric can be seen as ‘directly connected with the creation of formal power, the contemporary political system and the production of gender’. A characteristic feature is the promotion of equality (social and gender-orientated): ‘the ideal communication should be shaped as a dialogue between equals’.²⁹

The conversation was instrumentalized by pietist movements, such as Moravianism and Württemberg Pietism. The dialogue books by Magnus Friedrich Roos (1727–1803), translated from German, were accepted in the conservative movement that originated with Schartau, and they were used as a complement and alternative to traditional methods of instruction. To their readers, the dialogue books could also serve as a substitute for novels and worldly travel stories. They contain dialogues for certain professional groups, such as soldiers, seamen or rural people; dialogues pertaining to a certain stage of life, such as old age; but also dialogues on a biblical book such as the Revelation of St John. The Roos books combine traditional Lutheran teaching on the three estates and their responsibilities with an emphasis on the new life of the faithful according to pietistic principles.³⁰

Eschatology and the Theodicy problem

During the eighteenth century, the previously strong consciousness of the impending end of the world was transformed into a more personal interest in eschatological matters. In the revival movements, the question was more a matter of personal motivation and destiny and less an interpretation of the signs and times on the collective. Simultaneously, the orthodox interpretation of fires, wars and natural disasters as part of God’s plan and harbingers of the Last Judgement was called in question. Such interpretations could also be altered by tragic events, such as the great earthquake in Lisbon on All Saints’ Day 1755 in which around fifteen thousand people were killed and thirty-five out of forty churches destroyed. Prevailing views of Providence were shaken.

Voltaire used the earthquake in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (1756), and in Candide (1759) he attacked Gottfried Leibniz’s (1646–1716) concept from 1710 of ‘the best of all possible worlds’, a world closely supervised by a rational and benevolent deity. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument for a more naturalistic way of life. The traumatic event was commented on in the whole Western world and also interpreted in sermons. The Jesuits were eventually dispelled from Portugal by royal edict, largely as a result of their preaching on the earthquake as a consequence of the sins of Lisbon. The earthquake has been labelled a ‘catalyst for reform’.³¹ Portugal was secularized, and the power of the Church was circumscribed.

In the Nordic countries the earthquake was reported, with some delay, as the first modern media disaster. The first printed report in Sweden dates from 8 December 1755.³² But the clergy, and not the press, were still the most important conveyors of news.³³ The religious interpretation was still associated with collective sin, punishment and repentance. The royal Intercession Day proclamation (böndagsplakat) of 1756, publicly read on New Year’s Day in all churches, spoke about ‘God’s terrible judgments of wrath’, and that ‘the Highest’ employed two ways of inducing human beings to repentance and conversion: kindness and punishment, with explicit mention of the earthquake. The Swedish realm had been graciously spared. The prescribed texts for the sermon on the general days of prayer were Nahum 3 on the Lord as an avenger, with the prophecy on the destruction of Nineveh, and Hosea 4 on the punishment of Israel, with accusations against priests and people.³⁴ However, in practice, this was interpreted within a new framework of individualism in respect of both divine wrath and grace. In Denmark, Hans Adolph Brorson (1694–1764) wrote a poem on Lissabons ynkelige Undergang ved Jordskælv (1756) with parallels to Babylon, Nineveh and contemporary times. Even a description of the natural causes of earthquakes, such as the Danish-Norwegian pietist bishop Erik Pontoppidan’s Afhandling om Werldenes Nyhet (1755), suggests a coming judgement in smoke and fire. Linnaeus commented on the earthquake as an act of retribution in the traditional manner in his manuscript ‘Nemesis divina’.³⁵

A frequent and self-evident parallel was the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, or rather the story of Jerusalem’s destruction after Josephus, which was commonly read or quoted in the churches on the tenth Sunday after Trinity. After the earthquake, references to Jerusalem’s destruction were made even in the secular press.³⁶ A significant change in the interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem was made by the Swedish poet Bengt Lidner (1757/1759–1807) in the oratorio Jerusalems förstöring (1787). God’s wrath is limited, while the disasters themselves are simultaneously depicted as universal in such a way that the spectator is moved by the destiny of the prisoners and may identify with them. The collective expression ‘the Jews of Jerusalem’ is to a great extent replaced by named persons, which is new compared to traditional uses. The Jews are treated as individuals, the curse being limited to the High Priest and his contemporaries. Since the story is presented in a theatrical manner, all generalization is weakened. This is conveyed through a personal love story. The loving couple is pardoned by Titus, and their love embodies a future even for Jews.³⁷ Personalization thus changes both the balance between punishment and mercy and the final outcome of the story.

Pious Enlightenment and anti-Catholicism

At the end of the seventeenth century, polemical theology in the form of anti-Catholicism was still strong in the Nordic countries. Simultaneously, statues and images of the Holy Virgin, side altars, pilgrimages, holy wells and other popular pre-reformatory customs were kept almost without problems. Such practices could coexist with a Lutheran orthodox outlook in matters of faith, both on a collective and on an individual level. Not until the mid-eighteenth century did bishops strongly criticize such ‘medieval’ traces and customs. Images of the Holy Virgin were condemned and were to be removed from churches because they were considered to encourage ‘superstition’ among ordinary people.³⁸ Consequently, it would seem as if it was not Lutheran orthodoxy but the Enlightenment that tried to get rid of ancient and popular religiosity.

It may appear peculiar that these vigorous efforts were simultaneous with a weakening of dogmatic anti-Catholicism, and even a renewed interest in Roman Catholic splendour and ceremonies; but in practice, the transition was often smooth. The holy well became a health well, and the altar of the Virgin was used as a women’s altar for offerings at churchings. The distance between sacrificing to the sacred and sacrificing time and money for one’s health was not, after all, a very great one: there was but a small step from mysticism to rationalism, from sacred to healthy.

Conclusion

The Enlightenment entailed a change of emphasis: from the Creator and his Word of creation to the creation as such. The latter was often read as a Book of Nature, an equivalent of the Bible. Empiricism competed with rationalism. To the Pietists and the Moravians, spiritual experience was essential, and the Bible became a book of experience rather than a book of doctrinal teaching. Pious dialogue books supplemented traditional edifying literature.

Distinctness was a key concept in the Enlightenment. Each had his or her own responsibility and was not to mix this with the responsibilities of others. The Enlightenment may also be studied in terms of language, with reference to linguistic practices among Pietists and Moravians.

Rationalism could be converted to rational mysticism in dreams or in rituals. To be initiated was to be ‘enlightened’ in a special way. An important result is that there were several Enlightenments that cannot be assigned to a single formula. In the Nordic countries, ‘enlightened’ was used in at least three senses: the enlightenment conveyed by the Holy Spirit in the Lutheran understanding; the Enlightenment of rational philosophy; and the special knowledge transmitted by secret rituals. In the liturgical blessing, the Lord even ‘enlightened’ his face upon the congregation.

Enlightened reforms could be practical and sensitive. Simultaneously, ‘enlightened’ bishops abolished popular medieval customs that had been left unassailed by the former, orthodox, ones.

Finally, the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755 questioned Providence and the enlightened belief in the best of worlds. That also brought a change in the interpretation of texts instrumental to the understanding of tragedies, such as the destruction of Jerusalem. Here, personalization might modify both the balance between punishment and mercy in God and the final outcome of the story. While deism without a mystery was easily punctured by radical Enlightenment, pious Enlightenment paved the way for Romanticism’s restoration of mystery in individualized form. Consequently, the piety of the Enlightenment amounted to much more than mere rationalism.