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60 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW XII Viewing the Prussian influence as a constant threat, the Swedish authorities cultivated an intensively orthodox Lutheran Church establishment to erect a cultural and religious barrier against the neighbouring Prussian territories. 9 It is doubtful that Sweden was very effective in shutting out the influences filtering in from Prussia. For Berlin, which was only 90 miles away, tended historically to exert a considerable influence on Germans in Pomerania and contacts with Eastern Pomerania (later called East Prussia) were likely also not lacking. In Berlin, Spener had become the pastor of St Nicholas Church by mid- 1691. There his emphasis on a changed life in Christ rather than strict confessional Lutheran orthodoxy appealed to Elector Frederick III (King Frederick I in Prussia, 1688-1713), a Calvinist ruler in a land where the people were overwhelmingly Lutheran. As a Calvinist, the king was understandably concerned about the anti-Reformed, polemical approach to theology which characterized most orthodox Lutheran preaching of that day. In fact, he was so impressed with the emphasis of Spener’s sermons that he forbad all anti-Pietistic preaching in his domain. At the same time that Spener was making his presence felt in Berlin, his brother-in-law, Guenther H. Heiler, who shared Spener’s Pietistic orientation, was serving as general superintendent in Eastern Pomerania where he used his influence to promote Pietism in the area over which he had responsibility. 10 Thus, already as he was growing up, Ziegenhagen was likely influenced by Pietism which was becoming popular in Brandenburg-Prussia. That Ziegenhagen later went to Halle University rather than the strictly orthodox Lutheran universities in Wittenberg or Leipzig supports this conjecture. The identity of Ziegenhagen’s parents is not known. His father must have died early, for by the time Ziegenhagen was 31 his mother had married again. Her second husband was a government official by the name of Kiesling in the city of Stettin (Polish: Szczecin). 11 Ziegenhagen had at least one brother, Christoff S. Ziegenhagen, who resided in Berlin when Ziegenhagen made out his will. He also had at least two sisters. One of them was married to a government official. They had at least one son: Samuel Frederic Mueller, who became a counsellor of the Court of Justice at Stettin. Another sister had at least one son, Gunnor Matheson. All of these family 9 Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth Century Prussia (Cambridge University Press, 1993) 217. 10 “Heiler, Guenther H., Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Berlin: Duncker & Humbolt, 1969) 11:315; Hugo Gotthard Bloth, Die Kirche in Pommern (Wien: Boehlau Verlag Koeln, 1979) 30; Martin Lachner, Die Kirchenpolitik des Grossen Kurfuersten (Witten: Luther- Verlag, 1973) 274. 11 Letter of Ziegenhagen to Francke, London, 5 February 1725.
THREINEN: FRIEDRICH MICHAEL ZIEGENHAGEN 61 members predeceased Ziegenhagen 12 so that, at the time of his death in 1776, he had no living heirs who were family members. It is not known where Ziegenhagen received his early education or what he did during the first twenty years of his life. The first concrete information one has is that he enrolled in the faculty of theology at the University in Halle on 24 April 1714. Other students from Pomerania also enrolled at the University around that time, evidence of how ineffective the Swedish strategy was of using orthodox Lutheranism to advance their political agenda, and of the extent of Brandenburg-Prussia’s influence on the German population in Pomerania. For, since the founding of the University of Halle in 1694, “the educated world of the Brandenburg-Prussian state gathered more and more around this new centre of intellectual life”. Halle became the university to attend, particularly by future pastors; in 1717, the Prussian king went so far as to require Lutheran clergy in his land to study for two years in Halle. 13 The Germans in Pomerania evidently followed the same trend even prior to 1720, when Pomerania again became part of Brandenburg-Prussia. There is no information about Ziegenhagen’s experiences in Halle except that he suffered from boils brought on by the “bad air”. 14 These physical ailments notwithstanding, he remained in Halle for three years. During this time, he became fully acquainted with August Hermann Francke who had the practice of meeting regularly with small groups of theological students for edification. Among his fellow theologicals was Gotthilf Francke, son of August Hermann who also began studying theology in the University of Halle in 1714. In the summer of 1717, as Gotthilf Francke accompanied his father and two other men from the Francke Foundations on an extended trip to southern Germany, Ziegenhagen transferred to the University of Jena in the nearby Duchy of Saxony-Eisenach. He officially entered that university on 22 July 1717. 15 In contrast to the University of Halle, Jena University at the time still viewed its role theologically as a seedbed for producing pastors who would adhere to orthodox Lutheran doctrine. 16 Yet, it was a more moderate 12 The will of the Rev. Frederic Michael Ziegenhagen. 13 Rudolf von Thadden, Die Brandenburgisch-Preussischen Hofprediger im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1959) 91. 14 Freylinghausen, ix. As Richard Gawthrop, 169, observes, “Francke’s interest in medicine stemmed in part from the problem posed to the Anstalten [institutions] by the unhealthy environment of Halle and its surroundings. Glaucha, in particular, was an unsanitary place; its populace, ignorant of elementary hygiene principles, lived amid the filth and stench of pigpens and distillery wastes.” 15 Reinhold Jauernig, editor, Die Matrikel der University Jena, 1652-1723 (Weimar: Hermann Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1967) 2:922. 16 Geschichte der Univeresitaet Jena, 1548-1958 (Jena: Veb Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1958) 173.
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