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Preachers or Teachers? Parish Priests and their Sermons in the Late Enlightenment Habsburg Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2019

Alena A. Fidlerová
Alena A. Fidlerová*
Affiliation:
Charles University, Prague
*
*Pod Pekařkou 31, 14700 Praha 4, Czech Republic. E-mail: alena.fidlerova@ff.cuni.cz.
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Abstract

This article explores the role parish priests were expected to play in educating the populace of the Habsburg empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and especially how this was manifested in the form and content of their sermons. Emperor Joseph II took a keen interest in the education of future priests and expected them to be good shepherds (pastores boni) and educators to their parishioners. To this end, together with his mother, he carried out several reforms in their education (such as changing theology faculty curricula, introducing pastoral theology as a new subject and establishing general seminaries) and even issued a special decree on 4 February 1783, providing detailed instructions for preachers. The article outlines how future priests were taught to educate their parishioners through their sermons, concentrating on how they followed these instructions in their homiletic practice, which changed the form and content of sermons radically. It is based on archival material concerning the education of future priests (such as court decrees, governmental orders and university curricula), pastoral theology textbooks used at the Prague faculty of theology, and selected printed sermons.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 55: CHURCHES AND EDUCATION , June 2019, pp. 205 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019 

Throughout the history of the Christian Church, the spiritual education of parishioners through preaching and catechesis has been one of the priest's principal duties. However, the conception of what pertains to such education, how it should be achieved, the relative importance of the sermon within it and the sermon's desired form and content varied greatly. The three traditional canonical goals of persuasion were those of docere, movere and delectare (teaching, moving and delighting).Footnote 1 The Enlightenment period brought about an important change: the Baroque style of preaching, with its predilection for movere with the help of delectare, still survived,Footnote 2 but it made way for a new style, focusing on docere (and by means of it, movere); the emphasis on salvation and eternal life (or eternal punishment) was replaced by a focus on the earthly life of a Christian as a loyal subject aware of his or her duties.Footnote 3 Combined with the changing concept of a parish priest and the character of eighteenth-century culture, portrayed by Karl Barth as a culture of pedagogy prone to perceiving the church as an educational institution (Erziehungsanstalt),Footnote 4 this made the preacher virtually a teacher of adults.

This article explores the new role parish priests were expected to play in educating the masses in the Cisleithanian part of the Habsburg empireFootnote 5 at the end of the eighteenth century, concentrating on how change manifested itself in the required and actual form and content of clerical sermons, as compared with previous Baroque practiceFootnote 6 and especially the concetto or ‘metaphysical’ preaching style.Footnote 7 It is based on an analysis of state legislation concerning the tasks and education of priests, and explores the changes in content of this education, as manifested in the legislation and in selected printed sermons. The article focuses specifically on Bohemia and Moravia, and in particular on curriculum changes at the University of Prague, the textbooks used there and the Czech sermons given by clerical alumni. The results can be taken as typical for the whole Cisleithanian part of the empire because individual provinces were expected to follow closely the legal and educational guidelines imposed by Vienna. Developments in the empire, however, differed significantly from those in other European countries, due to the specific character of the Austro-Habsburg Enlightenment; this was introduced from above, took root relatively late and only reached its most characteristic form (known as Josephinism) in the last decades of the eighteenth century.Footnote 8 The homiletical principles within these developments are still largely terra incognita. Not only is this topic under-researched in general,Footnote 9 but there is even less consideration of how peasants and townspeople rather than educated elites were addressed. Moreover, the socio-cultural situation of the Czech-speaking population in this period means that Czech sermons represent precisely this least researched branch of homiletics.

The goal of the article is twofold. First, it aims to introduce the late Enlightenment sermon as a valuable subject of study for the history of both homiletics and education. Due to the common misconception that the Enlightenment was essentially secular,Footnote 10 and that its late, full-fledged phase tended to be derivative and thus uninteresting,Footnote 11 the sermons of this period have rarely been studied.Footnote 12 However, Czech Catholic Enlightenment sermons not only played an important role in popular education but were also the heralds of a cultural reorientation of the Czech Lands from a southern to a western European model which represented an early instance of the convergence of Catholic and Protestant religious cultures after the period of confessionalization.Footnote 13 Second, the article goes beyond existing methodological approaches to the question of homiletics as education. So far, published homiletic texts have mostly formed the primary subject of such research, together with major theoretical works of famous preachers. I shall argue that in addition to, and to some extent even preceding, analysis of these texts, legal regulations and the education of future priests must be taken into account. These shaped the sermons profoundly; what looks like a spontaneous change in preaching style may in fact represent their influence. This article therefore addresses the theme of church and education in two ways: in addition to describing the role of priests in the education of their parishioners through their sermons, it also discusses the role of university homiletical education in enabling future priests to fulfil this task. Undoubtedly, other archival sources such as visitation records or priests’ diaries could contribute further to the picture, but there is not space for this here. The contemporaneous development of Czech Protestant homiletics must also be set aside. During the Baroque period, only the Catholic church was officially permitted to function in the Habsburg empire. Although (some) non-Catholic denominations were finally legalized by the Toleration Patent of 1781, their communities were scattered and weak, and their clergy were not educated at Czech universities; consequently, they had little opportunity to influence their Catholic contemporaries.

State Regulations concerning Preaching and Preacher Education

According to Barth, eighteenth-century Christianity sought to trans-form theology in four respects: to make it state-controlled, bourgeois or moralistic, scientific or philosophical, and individual or interiorized.Footnote 14 Although Barth made this observation about German Protestantism, it also holds true generally for the reform Catholicism championed by the enlightened Habsburg monarchs Maria Theresa and (especially) Joseph II. Among other changes, these developments brought about a shift in the concept of the priest. In accordance with the Josephinian concept of the state church,Footnote 15 the priest was now understood as a civil servant. Even though he was still answerable to his bishop or the superior of his religious order, these were answerable to the monarch rather to Rome in all issues except questions of faith.Footnote 16 The dissolution of numerous monasteries, the reform of parish organization and a series of educational reforms strengthened the position of the secular priest at the expense of the monastic clergy. His main duties now included the promotion of ‘modern’ religious views (tolerance, morality, ethics), of agricultural, hygienic or medical improvements,Footnote 17 of civic virtues and of obedience to the state. The parish priest was to educate his parishioners and to influence not only their religious beliefs but also the practical aspects of their lives.Footnote 18

However, not everybody in the empire subscribed to the new approach. The dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 facilitated these changes because it was no longer necessary to negotiate educational reforms with the Societas Jesu,Footnote 19 but less progressive clergy and laity still had to be educated to adopt the reforms. This could not be achieved by means of school reforms alone, because it was not only children and young people who were to be educated in this way; the edification of adults was also necessary. Since adults no longer attended school (if they ever had) and most of them did not read edifying periodicals or books regularly (if at all), the only people to whom this task could be entrusted were parish priests. Their main vehicle was the sermon. Consequently, directives regarding their education as preachers and their subsequent preaching activities were some of the most prominent aspects of legislation and school reform.

It is well known that Joseph II took a keen personal interest in the work and education of parish priests.Footnote 20 Using diverse types of state regulations such as court decrees (Hofdekret), governmental orders (Gubernialverordnung) and patents (Patent), the education of future priests and their pastoral work were defined by precise rules. Some of these decrees explicitly referred to the preachers as ‘teachers of the people’ (Lehrer des Volks, Volkslehrer),Footnote 21 thus indicating the general context for their activities. In a court decree of 4 February 1783, the emperor provided detailed instructions for preachers. These were mostly concerned with the specific topics to be treated in sermons (‘unnecessary doctrinal controversies’ were banned, as was speaking out against state laws and regulations), but some were more general. Preachers were advised to stick to the truth of the gospel, to avoid any ambiguous expressions or inappropriate allusions and not to include unnecessary, incidental themes. The practical teaching of Christianity, together with its application in daily life, was to be covered every year, in an appropriate order. The sermon should not only enlighten the minds of its hearers, but should also (and primarily) improve their hearts, sowing and promoting virtue. To achieve this goal, preachers should ‘in their sermons, especially in rural areas, adopt the tone of a friendly discussion rather than that of an orator’.Footnote 22

A number of court decrees related to the curricula of theological faculties and general seminaries.Footnote 23 These stipulated that candidates for the priesthood were to be trained in homiletics, not only theoretically but also through practical exercises in their classesFootnote 24 and occasional preaching in the seminary church under the guidance of its rector.Footnote 25 Although theoretical education was deemed important ‒ only those who had successfully completed their courses in biblical studies, dogmatic theology, morals and homiletics were to be allowed to preachFootnote 26 ‒ practical exercises and the emulation of appropriate models were not to be neglected, either during or after the young men's studies. This can be seen from a court decree of 28 December 1788,Footnote 27 which listed the works to be read and followed by young priests in the ‘priests’ houses’ (Priesterhäuser) where they were expected to live between completion of their seminary studies and appointment to their first position. Besides the Church Fathers, these included French neo-classical Catholic homileticians (Louis Bourdaloue, Jean-Baptiste Massillon and Guillaume de Segaud), contemporary German Protestants (Johann Lorenz von Mosheim) and English Anglicans (John Tillotson), together with late eighteenth-century German Protestant Enlightenment preachers known as the neologians (Neologen; Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem, Johann Joachim Spalding and Georg Joachim Zollikofer). The high proportion of contemporary non-Catholic preachers offered as models differed significantly from previous practice, but this was not illogical, because these preachers and theologians counted Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bourdaloue and Massillon among their models,Footnote 28 and in their preaching they put emphasis on themes deemed accessible to their audiences and morally and practically edifying.Footnote 29 The reliance of Joseph II on Protestant models in his fight against Baroque piety was clear to his contemporaries,Footnote 30 and his sympathies with the neologians may have been strengthened by their support for religious tolerance and the existing social order.Footnote 31 However, whilst both the imperial decree and the neologians refer to preachers as teachers of religion, sometimes in quite similar terms,Footnote 32 their approaches are not identical. Habsburg legislation saw the preacher's position as closer to that of the school teacher, inasmuch as both were understood predominantly as civil servants answerable to the state. For the neologians, in contrast, the idea of the educator was closer to that of the preacher and acquired part of the preacher's dignity: ‘The term “teacher” has never achieved such high standing as in this period’.Footnote 33

The Habsburg court decrees show that, unlike in other periods, the education and activities of Enlightenment preachers in the empire were regulated directly by state legislation which was based on and recommended not only Catholic but also Protestant models. These directives shaped the education of future priests, to which we now turn.

Pastoral Theology at the University of Prague and Instruction in Homiletics

Both during the co-regency of Joseph II with his mother Maria Theresa and during Joseph's own reign, several reforms of priestly education were carried out. The most important was launched in 1774, after the dissolution of the Jesuit order which until then had controlled faculties of theology and philosophy.Footnote 34 The proposal for the reform of theological studies, entitled Entwurf einer besseren Einrichtung theologischer Schulen in den k. k. Erblanden (Draft of an improved Establishment of Theological Schools in the Monarchical Imperial Dominions), was drafted by Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch (1734–85), Benedictine abbot at Břevnov and Broumov and director of the faculty of theology in Prague and later in Vienna.Footnote 35 From our point of view, its most important innovation was the establishment of a new subject of study: pastoral theology, comprising instruction in pedagogy (catechesis, homiletics and private instruction), the administration of the sacraments and the exemplary life of a priest.Footnote 36 This is not to suggest that homiletics had not been taught before, but it had been treated as a branch of rhetoric, as the art of speaking ornately and convincingly, rooted in a gift of God rather than human instruction.Footnote 37 Now, homiletics was set apart from general rhetoric as a teachable and learnable set of rules belonging to pastoral care, and more specifically to its pedagogical aspect.

In Prague, the language both of instruction and of textbooks of pastoral theology varied during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth. From 1775/6, Franz Christian Pitroff had been teaching homiletics in Latin, but between 1778/9 and 1804/5, parallel German and Czech lectures were held, the latter given by the Premonstratensian Jiljí (Aegidius) Chládek.Footnote 38 During this period, Czech and German textbooks by Pitroff, Chládek and Giftschütz were used,Footnote 39 but as they all had to conform to the framework set by Rautenstrauch's Entwurf, they were very similar in content. Rautenstrauch defined homiletics as ‘the skill and rules for writing and preaching sermons appropriate for the education of the people’, which sought to teach ‘the skill of preaching in a popular manner’.Footnote 40 The term populär here meant preaching in such a way that the sermon achieved its main goal of instructing even the simplest members of the preacher's congregation in matters of faith and life.Footnote 41 To this end, both the content and the form of the sermon had to be adapted, imposing considerable restrictions on their complexity; however, this did not mean that such a sermon was easy to prepare.

To characterize the preaching style taught in the context of pastoral theology, I will briefly summarize selected recommendations of the textbooks. At the beginning of the relevant section, Chládek devoted a long passage to outlining the history of Christian eloquence, the nadir of which he saw in the concetto preaching style. He described this as a type of eloquence which had originated in Italy and Spain; in his view, it had destroyed all remnants of correct homiletics, for it preferred to quote pagan authors and secular historians and poets rather than Scripture and the Church Fathers, and sought embellishment from fables, gossip, worthless rhetorical questions and witty formulations based on verbal play.Footnote 42 As the forefathers of the rebirth of homiletics, Chládek named a number of French neo-classical Catholic preachers: Bossuet, Esprit Fléschier, Bourdaloue and Massillon. He concluded by remarking that it was superfluous to mention excellent contemporary preachers by name, because students should already know them.

Pitroff and Giftschütz seem to have been less fierce opponents of the concetto preaching style (they do not mention it), but more in favour of contemporary Protestant developments than Chládek. They too acknowledged the French neo-classicists, and as contemporary models they recommended selected French Jesuits and Protestant adherents of the Enlightenment, most often the neologians.Footnote 43 Of these, Giftschütz in particular listed names such as Johann Andreas Cramer, August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack, Wilhelm Abraham Teller, Georg Friedrich Seiler and Friedrich Gabriel Resewitz, besides those already mentioned. The appearance of these names both in the textbooks and in the court decree of 28 December 1788 offers good evidence that the convergence of Catholic and Protestant approaches to homiletics in the Enlightenment Habsburg empire occurred at least partly as a result of an intentional educational strategy, supported by the monarch, state officials and enlightened clergy.

The heritage of classical rhetoric was not rejected in the textbooks but was adapted to their pedagogical goals. Chládek's directions as to how to prepare a sermon are divided according to the classical rhetorical scheme into inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and pronunciatio.Footnote 44 Under inventio, he treats the theme or the main truth of a sermon: it should be connected to the Gospel reading of the day, suitable for the spiritual education of the congregation and easy to understand.Footnote 45 Another requirement, often not met by Baroque sermons, is that the theme be ‘true’, meaning provable and free of any exaggeration: for instance, instead of the theme ‘St Augustine is the most learned of all saints and the greatest of all scholars’, the theme ‘St Augustine is a great saint and great teacher’ should be chosen.Footnote 46 The final requirement is that the theme be simple, consisting of one subject and one predicate only: for instance, ‘repentance is necessary for salvation’, rather than ‘repentance and prayer are necessary for salvation’.Footnote 47 After this, the divisio should follow, if necessary, but it should be logical and never into more than two or three parts.Footnote 48 A fitting quotation from Scripture, illustrating the theme well, should then be chosen.Footnote 49 Finally, suitable arguments should be found which speak to both reason and will (or only to the will, if the subject is well known); these should be supported by examples. If quotations from Scripture appear here, they should normally be interpreted literally; spiritual interpretation is appropriate only if already intended by the text itself.Footnote 50 If the preacher wants to affect the will of his listeners, he should choose the strongest arguments, which concern the present rather than the future and this world rather than the next.Footnote 51 There must always be sufficient such arguments, not merely one or two, so that they may speak to the widest range of listeners.Footnote 52 The preacher should not forget to arouse passions or emotions (affects),Footnote 53 but only at suitable points of the sermon, for a short time, and when he himself is able to feel them.Footnote 54

The section dealing with dispositio mentions the classical constituent parts of a sermon: exordium, propositio, divisio, narratio, confirmatio, applicatio and epilogus. Of these, applicatio should never be omitted, as it teaches listeners how to apply what they have heard to their daily lives.Footnote 55 The exordium should serve the mental preparation of the audience; at its best, it explains the Scripture text and its relation to the theme of the sermon. It should not be too long and should have a natural relation to the theme.Footnote 56 The propositio should be as short and as comprehensible as possible, leaving not a single unclear word unexplained.Footnote 57 Concerning argumentation, Chládek, following Erasmus, stresses that only a rhetorical, and not a philosophical, form of argumentation should be used; it is not necessary to include Latin quotations or to mention the precise location in the Bible of the texts quoted.Footnote 58 The epilogus, on the other hand, is where the preacher should demonstrate his strength and art, using the most powerful figures and the most unusual words. It should normally consist of repetition of what has already been said and should arouse the emotions. It should be short and adorned with appropriate figures: for repetition, interrogatio, apostrophe and prosopopoeia are recommended; for emotional impact, exclamatio, hypotyposis and interrogatio should be used.Footnote 59

Enlightenment Sermons compared to the previous Tradition

To demonstrate the effects of this preacher education, I offer a short comparison of two Czech-language sermons preached on the feast of St Wenceslaus by two famous preachers of the time. The first, representing the concetto-influenced preaching typical of Czech Baroque,Footnote 60 was preached by Chrysostomus Xaverius Ignatius Táborský (1696‒1748), a Premonstratensian who served as parish priest in the Moravian villages of Bohuňovice and Kněhnice.Footnote 61 It was published in his postil Tria tabernacula in Monte Thaboreo exstructa … seu Sermones LXI. de Sanctis (Olomouc, 1738).Footnote 62 The second was by Vojtěch Nejedlý (1772‒1844), a poet of the Czech National Awakening period who served in several Czech parishes and later as dean in his native town of Žebrák.Footnote 63 This sermon was printed in Nejedlý’s postil Swátečnj Kázanj na celý rok, vol. 2 (Prague, 1807).Footnote 64 Both Táborský and Nejedlý seem to have been above average in the level of their education and the effort they invested in their published work. The dedication and preface suggest that Táborský published his postil himself; for Nejedlý, this is confirmed by the testimony of a younger contemporary.Footnote 65 The printed versions probably were not identical with spoken versions even when (as in these cases) they were published by their authors; the spoken sermons may have been less complicated and adapted to the reactions of the listeners, and the printed texts were expanded and polished. However, the early modern version of classical rhetoric did not make ‘any real distinction between written and spoken style’Footnote 66 and in their printed postils the authors endeavoured to produce texts corresponding to their concept of an ideal sermon. Thus these sermons offer exemplary material for analysis, even if parishioners did not actually hear them.

Joris van Eijnatten has commented that the concetto sermons typically ‘exploited unusual chains of thought, antitheses, word play and novel imagery in an intricate oratorical design replete with digressions and byways’.Footnote 67 Such sermons often started with an introduction based on a question, a contrast, a comparison or a gradation; they placed the emphasis on the main proposition or narratio, featuring a free and varying sequence of argumentation replete with comparisons, gradations, contrasts or dialogues with moralistic applications; and they ended with a summary, an exhortation to the congregation and a prayer.Footnote 68 To show erudition and attract attention, preachers frequently adorned their sermons with Latin quotations and allusions to ancient and medieval emperors and kings, heroes, mythological and literary figures or sages and poets, quoting not only from the Bible or Church Fathers but also from other text genres, including poetry, legends, and manuals of geography, natural history and medicine.Footnote 69 The goal was to help listeners ‘grasp religious truths by leading them to the intended destination along unexpected paths’.Footnote 70

On the feast of St Wenceslaus, the prince and martyr murdered by his brother in 936, and the most important Czech patron saint, venerated as the eternal ruler of the Czech Lands, every preacher was supposed to celebrate the saint in as appealing a manner as possible, usually using means such as name-giving (nominatio), comparison (comparatio) and distribution (distributio).Footnote 71 Táborský constructs his sermonFootnote 72 mostly around comparisons of similar and dissimilar figures, connected by the basic theme of violently spilled (innocent) blood. He starts with a sequence of nine stories about such personages from the Bible and classical and European literature and history, repeating constantly that this is not the person he is going to talk about. This rather entertaining passage, which includes stories about sensational executions and the mutilation or killing of adulterous women, also shows his erudition; in the printed version he always provides bibliographical notes. Only thereafter does he approach his main theme, the comparison of St Wenceslaus and Abel. Most of the sermon is devoted to the narration of the stories of these two men, both of whom were murdered by their brothers, supplemented with ample references to other related stories from the Bible or ancient history and mythology. In this way, the preacher demonstrated that Wenceslaus and Abel were equal in every respect except that Abel's blood had called to God for revenge, whilst that of St Wenceslaus, who had been purified in baptism and communion by contact with the blood of Jesus, calls for mercy and clemency. Táborský then appealed to his listeners to follow Wenceslaus in his mercy and generosity to widows, orphans and the poor, his quietness, his veneration of the eucharist and his humility. He finished with passionate exclamations addressing the blood of St Wenceslaus. The text is full of rhetorical questions, exclamations, direct speeches by individual characters, vivid descriptions, Latin quotations and exhortations to the audience.

The sermon of Vojtěch Nejedlý has a Czech title referring to St Wenceslaus as martyr and ‘heir’ of the Czech Lands, and begins with a quotation from Wisdom 10: 10, which affirms that the righteous are led by wisdom in right paths and shown the kingdom of God.Footnote 73 This is one of the pericopes appointed to be read on the saint's day. An introduction and two parts, indicated by the headings ‘Part One’ and ‘Part Two’, follow. The introduction announces the theme of the sermon, which is that wisdom is necessary for everybody to amend his or her life, and illustrates this theme with examples. Only biblical figures are mentioned here and no bibliographical notes (not even references to individual biblical books) are given. Wenceslaus is finally mentioned as the paragon of wisdom, and the author contemplates the question of whether everybody should strive to advance in wisdom and the means of reaching such wisdom. As the foundation of wisdom, Nejedlý identifies the daily effort to sharpen one's mind, improve one's inclinations of heart and strengthen one's virtues, illustrating this with examples from everyday life (for instance, a gardener tending a tree) and emphasizing the necessity of working hard at self-improvement. He also narrates several stories demonstrating the harmful effects of foolishness on material and physical wellbeing, especially warning against faith in superstitions and magical practices, denying the existence of witches and urging his listeners to believe in modern medical practices such as vaccination rather than magical rituals. Further, he criticizes the superficial, ritualistic Christianity of unwise people, void of real virtue and morality. Nejedlý contrasts this to the way of life of wise and virtuous people, naming his contemporary, the farmer, reeve and village scholar František Vavák, as an example. At the very end of the sermon, St Wenceslaus and his wise and virtuous deeds are mentioned briefly, together with the deeds of another wise Czech king, Charles IV. In the brief second part, Nejedlý urges parents to educate their children and send them to school, and to attend public sermons and catechetical exercises, where they can not only receive Christian education but also acquire agricultural, housekeeping and social skills; they can learn to read Scripture aloud to the members of their household and discuss what has been read, to hold discussions with old and wise people, and above all to examine everything with their own reason. The sermon is written in plain, informative prose; direct speech and exclamations are rare, but there are direct appeals to the audience, rhetorical questions and quotations which are always biblical, directly illustrating the point and only in Czech. There is no prayer or exhortation at the end.

As we have seen, the goal of Táborský’s sermon was to praise the saint through narrating selected episodes from his life and comparing him to other personages, and thus to move the audience to imitate his virtues. Nejedlý also aimed to improve his parishioners’ souls and lives, but he chose very different means and his goal was not the same as Táborský’s. Nejedlý’s sermon renounced most of the techniques used by Táborský, following the prescriptions of Chládek's textbook quite closely and conforming well to the conception of Rautenstrauch and Joseph II. When using examples, Nejedlý always preferred to use them to edify rather to entertain or to astonish. His sermon was more practical and less rhetorical than required. It virtually lacked any epilogus, in which the author was supposed to show his skills in rhetoric. However, it provided plenty of examples from daily life, and was aimed at the education of listeners in the broadest sense (moral, religious, intellectual and practical), including not only factual information but also practical advice. All this left little space for rhetoric adornment and almost completely replaced the praise of the saint which had represented the foundation of Táborský’s sermon.

Conclusion

Werner Schütz declares the Enlightenment and the sermon ‘identical concepts’, and the pulpit ‘the teacher's desk of the Enlightenment’.Footnote 74 Pasi Ihalainen is more wary, but also stresses that sermons were ‘important contribution to the Enlightenment debate and the emergence of modernity’.Footnote 75 This article has shown, using the example of Czech-language Enlightenment sermons, that this emerging modernity manifested itself in Catholic homiletics through an altered preaching style and that it was intimately connected to the changing conception of the priest. From the Baroque reverend father entitled to perform sacred rituals and inspire the audience to the adoration of the Almighty, the priest's role became that of a person teaching wise and virtuous living, primarily through his sermons. Thus the preacher and the school teacher, both understood as civil servants, were to perform very similar tasks, with the difference that the former was responsible for the education not merely of the youth but of all his parishioners.

To achieve this goal, a new preaching style was required, modelled on the approach of the German Protestant neologians. The transition to this style was generally neither spontaneous nor gradual, but was instilled by careful theoretical and practical university instruction in homiletics. Under its influence, young priests embraced the new approach and renounced the previous tradition, despite its literary values and possibly also its popularity with the audience. The result was a substantial unification of the form and content of sermons. These changes were supported by some enlightened members of the church hierarchy, but most importantly they were enacted by state legislation. In this ‘century of education’, the monarch who expected the priests to become disseminators of edification ensured that they received the necessary guidance at the beginning of, and during, their careers. Thus, in comparison to the previous period, a major change is visible in the role of the state. Although state regulation had played an important role in the period of confessionalization, during the eighteenth century in particular religious culture was ‘created at the intersection of church reform, state policy, and popular needs and desires’,Footnote 76 and the religious orders, parish priests and the laity often took the initiative.Footnote 77 In contrast, during the Enlightenment the monarch and his advisers influenced the activities of parish preachers directly, regardless of the opinions of the church hierarchy, religious orders or the laity. The intention of Joseph II, voiced in court decrees and other legislation, was elaborated in Rautenstrauch's Entwurf, which in turn was realized in the approach implemented at the faculty of theology. Consequently, the new priests were no longer living in the same religious and spiritual world as the wider population did, unlike their predecessors.Footnote 78 Their regard for the needs and preferences of common people, great as it was intended to be, did not make them willing to accommodate popular desires manifested in practices like pilgrimages, processions, saints’ feasts or confraternities. We do not know whether the seemingly appropriate approach of their sermons was more successful than the older one, and we cannot simply assume it. Expectations of their listeners must have played a decisive role. If listeners desired moral and practical instruction and were open to new medical or agricultural developments, they were probably satisfied, but if they were looking for entertainment and deep emotional experience, they were probably disappointed.

Printed Czech Enlightenment sermons, as exemplified by that of Nejedlý, demonstrate that preaching of this period followed the requirements of textbooks and state legislation. Although still based on classical rhetoric, Nejedlý’s sermon deliberately gave up many of its aspects. This does not mean that the preachers renounced all their rhetorical and literary ambitions. Perceiving themselves as teachers of the people, they strove to affect not only the reason but also the emotions of the audience, but in a dramatically different way from the concetto preachers as exemplified by Táborský. Instead of seasoning their sermons with fables, comic or terrifying stories and anecdotes, historical and mythological allusions or witty comparisons, they sought to catch the attention of parishioners by narrating stories close to everyday life. Instead of using rhetorical means aiming at achieving a psychosomatic reaction,Footnote 79 these sermons were increasingly aimed at the cognitive faculty. Nejedlý tried to tailor his sermon to his audience, comprising mainly common people, to catch their attention and help them to learn. In this strong emphasis on the listener and his or her needs and abilities, the closeness of Enlightenment homiletics to emerging modern pedagogy is clearly visible. The sermon thus became close to popular edifying prose with persuasive elements. In fact, this stylistic convergence may be seen as one of the factors facilitating the contemporary rise of secular prose concerning practical ethics or social life (the duties of the rich to the poor and vice versa), hitherto usually treated in sermons or spiritual literature.

Despite the many similarities to, and the strong influence of, the neologians, Enlightenment preachers in the Habsburg empire cannot be seen simply as their followers or imitators, not least because especially those preaching in Czech may not have known the neologians’ work first-hand. Rather, these preachers were educated to use the style by university instruction in homiletics, which in turn followed state legislation shaped by the emperor himself. Thus they should be regarded as representatives of an original version of Christian Enlightenment, typical for the Habsburg lands and featuring a Catholic reinterpretation of Protestant impulses.

Footnotes

This article was prepared with support from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, project 17-06507S, ‘Bohemical Hagiography of Czech Saints from Tridentine to Enlightenment Reforms’, and the Charles University project Progres Q09, ‘History: Key for the Understanding of the Global World’.

1 For their classical origin, see, for example, Cicero, Brutus 185.

2 According to John W. O'Malley, the emphasis on movere is typical for the Jesuit tradition: The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 96. Delectare was emphasized, for example, by the Austrian Augustinian preacher Abraham a Santa Clara (1644‒1709): Udo Sträter et al., ‘Predigt’, in Grigor Kalivoda et al., ed., Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, 12 vols (Tübingen, 1992‒2015), 7: 45‒96, at 86‒7.

3 For the general characteristics of Baroque and Enlightenment homiletics, see Schneyer, Johann Baptist, Geschichte der katholischen Predigt (Freiburg, 1969), especially 267‒302, 305‒26; Schütz, Werner, Geschichte der christlichen Predigt (Berlin and New York, 1972), especially 140‒5, 159‒71; Eijnatten, Joris van, ‘Reaching Audiences: Sermons and Oratory in Europe’, in Brown, Stewart J. and Tackett, Timothy, eds, CHC, 7: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660‒1815 (Cambridge, 2008), 128‒46; Edwards, O. C. Jr, ‘Varieties of Sermon: A Survey of Preaching in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in van Eijnatten, Joris, ed., Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2009), 3‒53, especially 5‒11; Sträter et al., ‘Predigt’, 65‒96.

4 Barth, Karl, Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert. Ihre Vorgeschichte und ihre Geschichte (Zürich, 1947), 41, 43.

5 Cisleithania was an unofficial designation for the northern and western parts of the Habsburg empire, partly divided from the Hungarian lands (Transleithania) by the river Leitha.

6 For the characteristics of various preaching styles and types of Baroque homiletics, see Smith, Hilary Dansey, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age: A Study of some Preachers of the Reign of Philip III (Oxford, 1978); Bayley, Peter, French Pulpit Oratory 1598‒1650: A Study in Themes and Styles with a Descriptive Catalog of Printed Texts (Cambridge, 1980).

7 About concetto rhetoric, see Vuilleumier, Florence, ‘Les conceptismes’, in Fumaroli, Marc, ed., Histoire de la rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne (Paris, 1999), 517‒37; Blanco, Mercedes, Les Rhétoriques de la pointe. Baltasar Gracián et le conceptisme en Europe (Geneva, 1992).

8 About Josephinism, see Winter, Eduard, Der Josefinismus. Die Geschichte des österreichischen Reformkatholisizmus (Berlin, 1962).

9 Literature on Enlightenment homiletics does not generally mention any preachers from the Habsburg empire, irrespective of the language(s) they used. The only brief account mentioning some German-language sermons I could find was Bendel, Rainer, ‘Liturgie, Predigt und Gebet’, in Pammer, Michael, ed., Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte im deutschsprachigen Raum, 6: 1750‒1900 (Paderborn, 2007), 133‒57, at 144‒51.

10 Sträter et al., ‘Predigt’, 75; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘The Enlightenment Sermon: Towards Practical Religion and a Sacred National Community’, in van Eijnatten, ed., Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change, 219‒60.

11 Barth, Die protestantische Theologie, 146.

12 Of the specialized works, the most important is Krause, Reinhard, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung (1770 ‒1805) (Stuttgart, 1965). Besides this, there are studies of outstanding figures such as Franz Volkmar Reinhard, by Schott, Christian-Erdmann, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Aufklärungspredugt, dargestellt am Beispiel Franz Volkmar Reinhards (Göttingen, 1978); or Sailer, Johann Michael, by Schreiber, Chrisostomus, Aufklärung und Frömmigkeit. Die katholische Predigt im deutschen Aufklärungszeitalter und ihre Stellung zur Frömmigkeit und zur Liturgie. Mit Berücksichtigung von Johann Michael Sailer (Munich, 1940).

13 I use here the concept of confessionalization defined as a complicated process through which the adherents of Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic confessions developed distinct confessional cultures with a strong sense of group identity, active popular piety and strong churchly character (Kirchlichkeit): see Forster, Marc R., ‘With and without Confessionalization: Varieties of Early Modern German Catholicism’, JEMH 1 (1997), 315‒43; idem, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque: Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550‒1750 (Cambridge, 2004).

14 Barth, Die protestantische Theologie, 65.

15 Cf. Max Vögler, ‘Religion und Politik’, in Pammer, ed., Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 6: 59‒101, at 63‒5.

16 von Aretin, Karl Otmar Freiherr, ‘Einleitung’, in idem, ed., Der Aufgeklärte Absolutismus (Köln, 1974), 11‒51, at 33.

17 For example, from 1804 priests in the empire were obliged to preach several times a year about the beneficial effects of vaccination: Rainer Bendel, ‘Liturgie, Predigt und Gebet’, 146‒7.

18 See Chládek, Jiljí, Počátkowé Opatrnosti Pastýřské (Prague, 1780/1), 29‒30, Knihopis K03309, Knihopis = KPS ‒ Knihopis Database, online at: <http://www.knihopis.cz/knihopis-eng.html>.

19 Compare the objections of Jesuit provincials against the 1752 reforms of the gymnasia summarized in Wotke, Karl, Das oesterreichische Gymnasium im Zeitalter Maria Theresias, 1: Texte nebst Erläuterungen, Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica 30 (Berlin, 1905), xv–xvi.

20 Winter, Der Josefinismus, 123–4.

21 Court decree, 7 October 1784: Peter Karl Jaksch, Gesetzlexikon im Geistlichen, Religions- und Toleranzsache, wie auch in Güter-, Stiftungs-, Studien- und Zensursachen für das Königreich Böhmen von 1601 bis Ende 1800. Aus den Originalakten des k. k. Gubernialarchivs ausgezogen und geordnet, 6 vols (Prague, 1828), 4: 509; court decree, 28 December 1788: ibid. 527.

22 ‘In den Predigten, besonders auf dem Lande, mehr den Ton eines freundschaftlichen Gespräches, als eines Redners annehmen’: ibid. 507–8.

23 General seminaries were centrally established schools for the education of all future Catholic priests, which replaced a variety of monastery and episcopal schools and were managed by the emperor himself. They were established by the decree of 30 March 1783, with teaching commencing that November, and abolished shortly after the emperor's death in 1790. The students were to enter them after completing their philosophical studies, and were to complete a six-year theological course and one year of practical training: Winter, Der Josefinismus, 134–62.

24 A court decree of 1 June 1779 gives detailed instructions for class exercises: Jaksch, Gesetzlexikon, 4: 512–13.

25 Court decree, 7 October 1784: ibid. 509.

26 Governmental order, 18 July 1800: ibid. 510. Rhetoric is not mentioned here, because it was taught at secondary school (gymnasium) and in the philosophical faculty, but not in the faculty of theology or the general seminary.

27 Footnote Ibid. 527.

28 Krause, Die Predigt, 15.

29 Beutel, Albrecht, Kirchengeschichte im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Göttingen, 2009), 114.

30 Valjavec, Fritz, Der Josephinismus. Zur geistigen Entwicklung Österreichs im achzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhundert, 2nd edn (Munich, 1945), 106‒8.

31 Schütz, Werner, ‘Die Kanzel als Katheder der Aufklärung’, Wolffenbütteler Studien zur Aufklärung 1 (1974), 137‒71, at 147‒8, 153‒4.

32 For example, both Thieß, Johann Otto (Anleitung zur Amtsberedsamkeit der öffentlichen Religionslehrer des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts [Altona, 1801], 50‒3, 175) and this decree (Jaksch, Gesetzlexikon, 4: 527) emphasized that the preacher should be a teacher of the people, teaching ‘in a popular way’.

33 ‘Nie wieder hat das Wort Lehrer einen so hohen Rang bekommen wie in dieser Zeit’: Schütz, ‘Die Kanzel’, 143.

34 Petráň, Josef, Nástin dějin Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze (do roku 1948) (Prague, 1983), 83‒94; Pavlíková, Marie and Čornejová, Ivana, ‘Filozofická fakulta’, in Čornejová, Ivana, ed., Dějiny Univerzity Karlovy II, 1622–1802 (Prague, 1996), 102–5. See also Cerman, Ivo, ‘The Enlightenment Universities’, in idem, Krueger, Rita and Reynolds, Susan, eds, The Enlightenment in Bohemia: Religion, Morality and Multiculturalism (Oxford, 2011), 55–67; Klueting, Harm, ‘The Catholic Enlightenment in Austria or the Habsburg Lands’, in Lehner, Ulrich L. and Printy, Michael, eds, A Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe (Leiden, 2010), 127–64, at 138–9.

35 Vienna, 1782; 2nd revised edn 1784. A brief synopsis was published as [Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch], Theologiae pastoralis et polemicae delineatio tabellis proposita (Vienna, 1778); and [idem], Tabellarischer Grundriß der in deutscher Sprache vorzutragenden Pastoraltheologie (Vienna, 1778), repr. as [idem], ‘Tabellarischer Grundriß der Pastoraltheologie’, in Josef Dobrovský, ed., Böhmische und mährische Litteratur auf das Jahr 1780, 2/i (Prague, 1780), 12‒25. For Rautenstrauch, see Křišťan, Alois, Počátky pastorální teologie v českých zemích (Prague, 2004), 34–9; Karel Beránek, ‘Teologická fakulta’, in Čornejová, ed., Dějiny Univerzity Karlovy II, 69–98, at 94–5.

36 For the beginnings of pastoral theology in Prague, see Křišťan, Počátky. See also Müller, Josef, Der pastoraltheologisch-didaktische Ansatz in Franz Stephan Rautenstrauchs ‘Entwurf zur Einrichtung der theologischen Schulen’ (Vienna, 1969).

37 This opinion was shared by the neo-classicists and the advocates of concetto: see, for example, the textbook by the Czech Jesuit Bohuslav Balbín, Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum seu Judicium privatum de omni litterarum (quas humaniores appellant) artificio (Prague, 1666), 239.

38 Zschokke, Hermann, Die theologischen Studien und Anstalten der katholischen Kirche in Österreich. Aus Archivalien (Vienna and Leipzig, 1894), 198‒200; Beránek, ‘Teologická fakulta’, 95; Křišťan, Počátky, 73.

39 Pitroff, Franz Christian, Anleitung zur praktischen Gottes Gelahrheit nach dem Entwurfe der Wiener Studien-Verbesserung verfasset, und zum Gebrauche akademischer Vorlesungen eingerichtet (Prague, 1783 first publ. 1778/9); Chládek, Počátkowé; Giftschütz, Franz, Leitfaden für die in den k. k. Erblanden vorgeschriebenen deutschen Vorlesungen über die Pastoraltheologie (Vienna, 1785); Giftschütz, Franz and Stach, Václav, Počátkowé k Weřegnému w Cýs. Král. zemjch předepsanému wykládanj Pastýřské Theologie (Prague, 1789/90), Knihopis K02705, KPS ‒ Knihopis Database, online at: <http://www.knihopis.cz/knihopis-eng.html>.

40 ‘[D]ie Art, und Regeln …, gute, dem Volksunterrichte angemessene Predigten zu verfassen, und vorzutragen … die Kunst … populär zu predigen’: Rautenstrauch, Entwurf, 106–7.

41 Footnote Ibid. 107.

42 Chládek, Počátkowé, 73–116, at 81.

43 Pitroff, Anleitung, 353‒6; Giftschütz, Počátkowé, 144‒8.

44 Chládek, Počátkowé, 91.

45 Footnote Ibid. 91‒3.

46 Footnote Ibid. 92.

47 Footnote Ibid. 92‒3.

48 Footnote Ibid. 94‒5.

49 Footnote Ibid. 95‒6.

50 Footnote Ibid. 97.

51 Footnote Ibid. 98.

52 Footnote Ibid. 98‒9.

53 This requirement is usually interpreted as a ‘remnant of baroque rhetorical theory’ in Chládek's homiletical concept: Zdeněk Nešpor, ‘Výchova kněží a jejich působení na přelomu 18. a 19. století’, Lidé města 8/2 (2006) [online journal], at: <http://www.lidemesta.cz/archiv/cisla/8-2006-2/vychova-knezi-a-jejich-pusobeni-na-prelomu-18.-a-19.-stoleti.html>, last accessed 22 November 2018. However, it is in full agreement with Rautenstrauch's recommendations that sermons should touch listeners’ hearts and capture their imagination and that the preacher should be moved himself (selbst gerührt): Rautenstrauch, Entwurf, 110‒12.

54 Chládek, Počátkowé, 99‒102.

55 Footnote Ibid. 102.

56 Footnote Ibid. 103.

57 Footnote Ibid. 104.

58 Footnote Ibid. 104‒7.

59 Footnote Ibid. 109‒10.

60 Miloš Sládek, Slovo ze srdce jejich aneb Nedělní kázání v pobělohorských bohemikálních postilách a tradiční perikopní systém (Prague, 2017), 53. The same opinion was shared by Enlightenment critics of Czech Baroque homiletics.

61 See Václav Pumprla, Knihopisný slovník českých, slovenských a cizích autorů 16.‒18. století (Prague, 2010), 1106; Sládek. Slovo ze srdce jejich, 277‒84.

62 Knihopis K16037, KPS ‒ Knihopis Database, online at: <http://www.knihopis.cz/knihopis-eng.html>.

63 See Otruba, Mojmír, ‘Nejedlý, Vojtěch’, in Opelík, Jiří et al. , eds, Lexikon české literatury, 4 vols (Prague, 2000), 3/1: 461‒3; Václav Pumprla, Knihopisný slovník, 774.

64 Knihopis K06124, KPS ‒ Knihopis Database, online at: <http://www.knihopis.cz/knihopis-eng.html>.

65 Rybička, Antonín, ‘Vojtěch Nejedlý. Kněz a básník’, in idem, ed., Přední křísitelé národa českého, 2 vols (Prague, 1884), 2: 315‒32, at 318.

66 Jacoebee, W. Pierre, ‘The Classical Sermon and the French Literary Tradition’, Australian Journal of French Studies 19 (1982), 227‒42, at 231.

67 Van Eijnatten, ‘Reaching Audiences’, 140.

68 Schneyer, Geschichte der katholischen Predigt, 270.

69 Footnote Ibid. 270‒1.

70 Van Eijnatten, ‘Reaching Audiences’, 140.

71 For characteristics of Baroque sermons for saints’ days, see the afterword in Welzig, Werner, Lobrede. Katalog deutschsprachiger Heiligenpredigten in Einzeldrucken aus den Beständen der Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg (Vienna, 1989); for a short summary, see Edwards, ‘Varieties of Sermon’, 22‒7.

72 Táborský, Chrysostomus X. I., Tria tabernacula in Monte Thaboreo exstructa … seu Sermones LXI. de Sanctis (Olomouc, 1738), 799‒814, with a lengthy Latin title.

73 Nejedlý, Vojtěch, Swátečnj Kázanj na celý rok, 2 vols (Prague, 1807), 2: 139‒62.

74 ‘So werden Aufklärung und Predigt geradezu identische Begriffe’: Schütz, ‘Die Kanzel’, 143.

75 Ihalainen, ‘Enlightenment Sermon’, 217.

76 Forster, ‘With and without Confessionalization’, 343.

77 On the important role of popular religious practice, see Forster, Catholic Revival.

78 Forster, ‘With and without Confessionalization’, 331.

79 Sträter et al., ‘Predigt’, 86.

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