Karl G. von Polenz, who later became a follower-turned-critic of Martin, was one of the historians of the Saxon Emigration. He states that Martin had a complete concept of theology before he ever went to the University, implying that his mind was closed to new learning. However, much of his theological training grew out of meetings of “the Germans,” as members of the German Society for the Promotion of Pure Christianity were called. They met at the “House of the Three Carps,” an off-campus coffee house in Breslau where students discussed the issues of the day. Martin’s association with his mentor Scheibel helped shape his sense of practical Christianity. He welcomed this everyday-related kind of theology that he learned from the pietists of Breslau and Halle.8
Martin’s favorite subject was church history, in which he excelled partly because he could remember historical events well. It is not surprising that he focused on the era of pietism that gave birth to the awakening and accentuated a life of prayer, scriptural study, and moral discipline. These aspects had been emphasized in his rearing and in his association with the “Erwecht.” Those “disciplines” he found compatible with his faith he mastered well, and his knowledge was exact and incisive. Some Saxon Emigration chroniclers such as Forster and Vehse suggest without supporting evidence that Martin Stephan had not completed his formal training in theology at the University of Leipzig. However, the Hanewinkel notes and Carl Mundinger, in Government in the Missouri Synod, state that Martin did complete his studies. Naturally, he was one of the many students whose education was interrupted by the closing of the University of Halle when Napoleon attacked Germany in October 1806.9
The German Commonwealth suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of Napoleon. According to some historians, Prussia had sadly degenerated under the weak leadership of Fredrick Wilhelm II (1786–1797). The Prussian army was poorly organized and commanded by inefficient officers. The state finances were in chaos and it was in debt by US$48 million. Some say that royal court life was openly immoral and the courtiers were libertine and profligate.10
An improvement in Prussia took place when Fredrick Wilhelm III ascended the throne. He entered a marriage with the daughter of Louis of Mecklenburg-Stelitz that helped restore the court to a more simple life and upright morality. However, he lacked self-reliance and willpower. Changes in the army and government planning did little to help Prussia because of a pugnacious style of foreign diplomacy. At the Battle of the Three Emperors at Auschwitz (1805), the powers of Russia, Austria, and Sweden were broken by Napoleon while Prussia sat back and watched the slaughter. The following year, in 1806, when Prussia was overthrown at Jena, Martin Stephan had already spent two years at the University of Halle. When the universities opened again, Martin entered the University of Leipzig and continued his studies in theology and ministry.
While attending the University of Halle, Martin already opposed rationalism and its influence upon theological studies. Although the University of Halle was no longer a center of pietism, it remained alive among some students even though rationalism was dominant. René Descartes (1596–1650), the father of rationalism along with Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, had a profound influence on intellectual pursuits and theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries throughout France and Germany.
Rationalists stated that one could attain true knowledge by use of an analytical method like mathematics. One could arrive at the fundamental truths that are the basis of all thinking. These truths do not come from direct experience but are native to the mind and prior to the senses. The task of logical reasoning is to deduce these basic truths and other principles of knowledge that follow from them. When the rationalists applied this method to theology, they said that the knowledge of God and of God’s existence were native to reason.
This way of gaining knowledge of God was one of the primary issues in theology, especially at the universities. According to the rationalists, people were born with the ability to use their reason. It was an analytic gift, prior to experience, that enabled them to deduce or prove the existence of God.
The rationalistic approach to proving the existence of God would contrast with the empiricist movement, a later development in the Enlightenment that held that it was impossible to prove God’s existence by reason. This position was eventually popularized by Immanuel Kant, who demonstrated that the reasoning of the mind was far too subjective; one could only know God from direct experience or hard evidence. Although Kant wrote during the late 1700s, his ideas had not penetrated the universities until after Stephan had graduated.
To Martin, rationalism seemed to militate against a personal and subjective relationship with God mediated through Jesus Christ. He was among those who had little time for such a logical approach to the Christian faith, because it appeared to him to eliminate faith in God and the personal experience of God that leads to a Christ-like life through prayer, meditation, and devotional study of the Holy Scriptures. That was the way of faith that Martin had known and practiced most of his life. He and others who preserved a more pietistic faith and lifestyle within Lutheranism put up strong resistance to this reasoned religion.
Under pressure of the rationalist movement, traditional orthodoxy was now in recession. The established creeds and statements of faith, particularly of the reformed and evangelical groups, were now suspect, considered too emotional and nonrational. In addition to this attack on orthodoxy, a strong movement attempted to consolidate all Reformed and Lutheran Churches. King Fredrick III declared in 1817 that he desired all Reformed and Lutherans in Germany to form one denomination.
This doctrinal climate of the early to mid-nineteenth century formed the backdrop for Martin’s ongoing opposition to the theological climate during his student days and beyond. Stephan’s theological training prior to attending the University was shaped by Waldensians, Hussites, and Moravian Brethren. He had become a follower of Luther after his parents’ own teaching. The Brethren practices enabled him to feel at home in Lutheran pietism. Martin was a natural for championing a rather lively confessional orthodoxy and people responded to that as they had to pietism right after the Thirty Years’ War when looking for meaning and hope. Though he was out of step with many of his colleagues, he did not let that bother him. In later years these controversies would be reflected in his ministry.
NOTES
1 P. F. Hanewinkel, transcriber, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” file F-6 Saxon Collection (St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute, 1921), 1. These notes were handwritten from a number of sources in Dresden and were given to Professor W. H. T. Dau who taught at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, about 1930. He was assisting Rev. William Koepchen in the preparation of a centennial biography of Martin Stephan in 1939.
2 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 1018–19.
3 Mary Todd, Authority Vested (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 19. Todd makes some clear delineation about the various movements in Christianity. The period of orthodoxy lasted about 150 years from 1600 until 1750, which included the incredible killing battles of the Thirty Years’ War. In response to those wars the ages of pietism and rationalism arose.
4 Hanewinkel, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” 1.
5 William Koepchen, “Brief Conference Notes,” trans. Axel Reitzig (unpublished ms., New York: Stephan Family Archives, 1934), 9.
6 Hanewinkel, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” 2. P. F. Hanewinkel quotes Pastor Kummer (no first initial) who was Martin Stephan’s successor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Dresden. Pastor Kummer’s comments are also found in Herzog’s Real Encyclopedia, issue 1, book 14, 671 ff. these references were taken from the handwritten notes of Walter O. Forster he had summarized for his Zion on the Mississippi. These notes were typed by Philip Stephan.
7 Hanewinkel, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” 2.
8 Carl S. Mundinger, Government in the Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1947), 45. Mundinger q
uotes Vehse, L. Fischer, Hennig, and G. von Polenz, 9–11.
9 Hanewinkel, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” 3.
10 Hanewinkel, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” 3.
II
SUNSHINE AND GROWTH
6
Martin Stephan’s Family and Early Ministry
After completing his education at the University of Leipzig, Martin Stephan was scheduled for the normal exams to qualify for certification as a pastor. Hanewinkel suggests, in Forster’s translation of his notes, that these exams were conducted mostly in the German language rather than the usual Latin. Martin’s “Christian spiritual character and his practical talent” were strengths in his passing his exam. His personal convictions of faith that he applied to life showed his pastoral abilities.
Several commentators on Stephan’s Leipzig career and pastoral ability give his oratory mixed reviews. Some say that he was no great orator in his sermon delivery. However, he was said to possess oratorical skill, animation, and fluency. He spoke German with a Bohemian (Czech) accent. Hanewinkel said that Martin’s articulation in speech was defective, that he spoke out of the hollow of his mouth, and he had a monotone sound to his voice.1 Hanewinkel goes on to describe Martin’s diction as flawed.2 Some people who heard him preach thought his sermons dry. Most comments and responses to Stephan’s preaching suggest, however, that he was an engaging speaker. Carl Mundinger wondered how this man could be so persuasive and have so much power and influence over people. He answered his own question when he described Stephan’s personality: “A distinguishing mark of his personality was his great sensitivity ... to their hopes and fears ... He studied men and the art of handling men. He was a master in the art of counseling.”
Eduard Vehse, an attorney and member of St. John’s, described Stephan in his 1840 book on the emigration and was quoted by Mundinger:
Also, his extended and intimate acquaintance with all manner of persons from highest rank down to the humblest had given him a body of interesting information about persons and events, so that he had an exceptional and sure understanding of human nature, and he had cultivated such perceptive tact in dealing with various character that the dominance he gained over others was at first hardly noticed.3
Vehse also wrote that in devotional meetings held in his church on weekday afternoons and evenings, Stephan’s review of his sermons preached the previous Sunday were the most glorious he had ever heard. Koepchen quotes Vehse about what a friend of Stephan said about his speaking style. Vehse wrote, “His lucidity of speech and presentation, the correct grasp and understanding of the age in which they lived, his superlative wisdom, the glory of the Word ... these all permeated his sermons and gave them power to rise up, to comfort, and to encourage faith.”4
After completing his certification for ministry exam in 1809, he was ordained as a pastor on April 3 of that year. Pastor Stephan was immediately assigned to a Lutheran congregation in Haber, Bohemia, a small village near the German border. Some members of the Emigration Society of 1838 who would critique Stephan’s ministry before the emigration hinted that he did not graduate from the university and was never certified as a pastor. However, the Saxon superintendent of pastoral ministry had assigned Martin to the Haber congregation, and only those who have passed the exams and are certified are assigned. No university or consistory record suggests that the Haber congregation was a special assignment, or that Stephan’s pastoral qualifications were waived, as Walter O. Forster claimed. However, William Koepchen tells a different story about Stephan’s completion of his studies than Forster:
In 1804, he was able to matriculate at the University of Halle. After two years at Halle (Halle was closed by Napoleon after the Battle at Jena, Oct. 14,1806), he entered the University at Leipzig, attending philosophical and theological lectures. He finished his university studies in the summer of 1806, and then passed his examinations for the Holy Ministry in Dresden before the Court Preacher Dr. Reinhard and the Superintendent Dr. Carl Christian Tittmann, in the fall of 1806.5
Disputes about Stephan’s credentials aside, his professionalism was respected by no less a person than his contemporary Franz Delitzsch, teacher and scholar of Old Testament theological studies at the University of Leipzig, author of Wissenschaft, Kunst, and Judenthum and Lutherthum and Luegenthum. He was a follower of Stephan and attended church where he was impressed by the simple truths preached at St. John’s Lutheran.
Delitzsch described Stephan to G. H. Loeber: “Martin Stephan, a name of ill fame and disrepute among all unbelieving and heterodox groups of our day, is cursed by all enemies and blessed by all friends of the Church. He is a clever and ingenious fellow. The spirit of Martin Luther and the religious zeal of the blessed martyrs are in him.”6
In a letter to Ludwig Fisher, a lay member of the Saxon Emigration community who sailed to America, Delitzsch elaborated, “Martin Stephan is a beautiful, a significant name; the spirit of Martin Luther, the believing enthusiasm of the first blood-witnesses of the Church graces him who bears it.”7 Delitzsch continued his association with the Saxon Lutherans in America. Even though he did not emigrate with them, he continued his correspondence with the group until 1839. His support of Pastor Stephan never appeared to waver.
The young pastor, newly graduated from the University of Leipzig, served his first congregational call as pastor of Haber Lutheran Church for only a year. He refused a call as court preacher to Rochsburg, Saxony. However, he accepted a call to St. John’s Lutheran Church in Dresden and was installed as pastor on April 13, 1810. Perhaps he accepted this call instead of the one to Rochsburg because of the cultural and political ambiance in the capitol city of Saxony. Perhaps even more inviting was the fact that this St. John’s congregation had developed from a group of Bohemian Brethren who had fled Moravia under the Bohemian edict to leave the land in 1624. In fact, while still pastoring in Haber, Stephan sought to secure the rights for midweek services at St. John’s because he was very interested in coming to this congregation. The style of ministry, the people, their background, and pietistic life style had invitation written all over it. St. John’s congregation would come to be a great influence in Stephan’s faith journey.
Shortly after moving to Dresden, he met Julia Adelheid Knoebel. Born January 27, 1788, she was the oldest child and first daughter of Julius Friedrich Knoebel and named after her mother, Julia Haberfeld.
Her father was the chamberlain, treasurer, and house marshal for the elector of Saxony. Julius had been born October 19, 1753, just a year before Stephan’s father was born in Stramberg. Julia had a sister named Luise Albertine, born July 31, 1792, and a brother Carl Julius. Carl learned horsemanship during his service days in the Saxon army cavalry and would eventually teach Julia’s son Martin to ride horses early in the boy’s life. Her father was originally an architect like his father, Johann Friedrich Knoebel, but later entered the civil service. Julius Knoebel’s biography appears in a General Lexicon of Creative Artists:8
Julius Friedrich Knoebel, architect, born 19 October 1753 in Dresden, died there on 9 February 1818, son of Johann Fredrich Knoebel. He spent his youth in Warsaw and Dresden.... In 1777, he became a court steward and as such presented the design for a “magnificent building featuring many halls in perspective” in the architectural exhibition of the Dresden Art Academy in 1785 ... Mostly he supplied designs for interior decoration, working in this field as well for the electoral mirror works in Dresden.
The elder Knoebel, Johann Friedrich (1724–1792), was director of construction and regional architect for the Polish royalty and electoral Saxony. In Poland, Johann assisted J. D. von Jauch as a regional architect. He constructed many buildings modeled after those of his mentor J. C. Knoeffel. He completed the royal castle at Grodno, in which the chapel is wholly his work. He is noted for designing the structures and the garden of the knight Reinhard Grimma in Dippoldswalde in Saxony. Johann also took part in building the Church of the Cross (Kreuzkirche) in Dresden, which survived
the saturation bombing of Dresden in 1944 and stands to this day.
When he married Julia on November 13, 1810, Martin joined this well-educated, accomplished, and sophisticated family of artists. There is nothing written about where the wedding was held, but it was probably at St. John’s Church since Julia and her parents were members of that congregation at the time. Their courtship must have lasted only seven months, from the time Martin moved from Haber to Dresden.
Little is known about how Julia and Martin met. Since she was a member of his congregation, such a meeting seems natural. No records suggest that he had met her on earlier trips to Dresden, certainly an unlikely event since she was eleven years his junior. When they married, Martin was thirty-three years old and Julia twenty-two and a half.
Julia’s family was considered upper class, while Martin came from the working class. She herself was a refined lady. Her parents and grandparents had associations with both Saxon and German royalty. Von Polenz, an admirer of Stephan turned critic, commented, “Julia’s refinement of manners tended to accentuate his coarse ways.” Some writers assume that the differences in their ages and social rank explain the marital discord that occurred later in their marriage.9 However, it appears that her taste for the fine things of life rubbed off on Martin; he chose to attend the chalet winery restaurants and he enjoyed the finer things in life. His knowledge and skill of the history and architecture of the city grew over time, a probable result of his relationship with the Knoebel family.
Twelve children were born to this marriage. Their first child, a daughter, was born November 8,1811, and named for her mother Julia and Martin’s mother Zuzana Klor. The next child was Celestine Sophie, born September 10, 1813. She was the first of three daughters who were born hearing and speech impaired. According to family records, all three of these girls were eventually placed in what the Germans at the time called a Taubstumm Institut, that is, a “deaf and dumb” care facility, in Dresden. In their young childhood, however, their mother cared for them.
In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey Page 5
