The formation of a pious soul: theology and personhood in Christian Scriver's (1629-1693) Gottholds zufälliger andachten (1667)
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Date
2013-03-28
Authors
Beinert, Richard A.
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Abstract
Roger Smith has noted that theology has been overlooked within studies looking at early modern contructions of personhood. This thesis looks at the Lutheran pastor Christian Scriver’s (1629-1693) Gottholds zufälliger Andachten (1667), a popular seventeenth-century devotional, in order to investigate the way in which the author utilized his understanding of theology in order to help the people under his spiritual care refashion a sense of both self and identity within the turbulent decades following the Thirty Years’ War. This study challenges current historiographies which either marginalize the place of theology within early modern discussions of personhood and identity, or which treat theology’s contribution as being nothing more than a fostering of a radical affective-interiority. It also complicates the received historiographical caricature of Scriver as an uncritical proponent of Arndtian spirituality. Scriver’s zufälliger Andachten illustrate a rich social and interpersonal conception of what it means to be human, built upon the foundations of a Lutheran theological anthropology. Combined with Scriver’s adaptation of medieval exemplarism, and set within Luther’s reformation of the medieval practice of devotional reading, Scriver’s Andachten offer a useful glimpse into the way in which early modern devotional writings contributed to the creation of confessional identities through a process of what Lance Lazar has called “devotional modeling.” At the same time, I argue for a more thorough engagement with theology among historians as a formative part of early modern cultural discourse.
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Theology, Personhood, Lutheran, Sixteenth Century