Philipp Jakob Spener
The senior Lutheran pastor of Frankfurt whose Pia Desideria of 1675 called for a renewal of the church through Bible reading, the priesthood of all believers and the practice of love. The movement that followed is called Pietism.
The title page of Pia Desideria names its author as Philipp Jacob Spener, doctor, preacher and senior at Frankfurt am Main (Spener, Pia Desideria title page), and he explains in the prefatory address how the book grew out of a preface he was asked to write for an edition of Johann Arndt’s sermons (Spener, Pia Desideria prefatory address to the pastors, unnumbered leaves). The first of its six proposals asks for meetings, beside the regular sermon, in which members of a congregation read and discuss Scripture under the preacher’s direction (Spener, Pia Desideria pp. 94–99). See Spener’s Pia Desideria and the Rise of Pietism.
In the timeline
- 1675, firm dateSpener’s Pia Desideria and the Rise of Pietism
In 1675 the Frankfurt pastor Philipp Jakob Spener publishes six proposals for mending the Lutheran church, from Bible reading in small meetings to the training of pastors. From 1695 August Hermann Francke founds a school and an orphan house at Halle.
Primary sources
Pia Desideria
- Spener, Pia Desideria title pagedeutschestextarchiv.de
- Spener, Pia Desideria prefatory address to the pastors, unnumbered leavesdeutschestextarchiv.de
- Spener, Pia Desideria pp. 94–99deutschestextarchiv.de