ABSTRACT
If a single figure can justifiably be credited with the crystallization of Pietism as an establishment, that is, as a deliberate, coherent institutional program and not merely as an intellectual or academic critique of early Lutheran formalist dogmatism, it is surely August Hermann Francke (1663-1727). One cannot discount the influence exercised upon Francke’s thought by Johann Arndt, in many ways the clearest precursor of what we now call Pietism and whose works Francke had known from childhood, and Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), who provided much of the theological substance for Francke’s program, but neither should one minimize the singular administrative and pastoral genius of the individual who made Halle (Salle) the educational and ministerial center of Pietism in the eighteenth century. Francke’s encounter with Spener in 1687 was nevertheless absolutely decisive. Before that point in his life, Francke had distinguished himself as a philologist and exegete, less interested in theological studies and pastoral work than in the kind of scholarly discussions that took place in the weekly Collegium Philobiblicum that he cofounded with his friend Paul Anton in Leipzig. After meeting Spener and beginning to read the literature of Quietist mystics (especially the Guida Spirituale of Miguel Molinos), his contributions to these discussions took the form of more “existential,” edifying interpretations.1 Later that year, having been sent by his uncle, who was concerned by his nephew’s lack of enthusiasm for pastoral responsibilities, to Lüneberg to study with the prominent exegete Caspar Hermann Sandhagen, Francke had a conversion experience that determined the path he would follow thereafter.
