A Harmony of the Spirits: Translation and the Language of Community in Early Pennsylvania by Patrick M. Erben (review)

In this intriguing book, Patrick Erben makes a case for the profound role that translation played in the shaping of early Pennsylvania, and his study suggests new questions and approaches for understanding the role of language diversity in early America. He portrays translation not only as a tool for imparting information but also, more importantly, as an expression of a desire for community and, ultimately, for union with the divine. Nevertheless, a desire for unity, he claims, did not result primarily in hostility toward Pennsylvania's linguistic diversity as a "curse"; instead, "readers, writers, and translators" saw it "as an opportunity for overcoming spiritual divisions" (15).

Shared ideas and similarities in religious perspectives among radical Pietist groups and Quakers are emphasized in this study. Erben identifies "a spiritual and linguistic sensibility" rooted in Neoplatonist thought, especially in mystic Jacob Boehme's notion of a Natursprache ("language of nature") accessible to humankind at creation but later lost with the Tower of Babel (56, 18-19). Jan Amos Comenius, seventeenth-century bishop of the Unitas Fratrum, shared this belief that "human language had lost its original connection to the divine," a belief that underlay his idea of constructing a "universal language" (panglottia) to harmonize relations and express the "divine essence" (28-29). Similarly, followers of the Philadelphian movement in England and Germany sought an end to religious disputation as they linked spoken language and music to uncover "hidden, divine mysteries of the universe" (46-48, 49). Amid the swirl of Neoplatonist ideas, seventeenth-century Quakers also focused their attention on language to "strip away the dead letters of orthodox Christianity and speak with the knowledge of the divine essences of the world" (36).

Erben contends that this sensibility spanned generations and crossed continents. He states that "the culmination of the Philadelphian and Neoplatonist visions of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries can be found in the thought and work of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf" with the renewal of the Moravian Church in 1727 (50). Translation and multilingualism, especially in hymn singing, were hallmarks of the Moravians' project to "build a 'spiritual language'" (55). Attempting to unify around sacred essentials while viewing multilingualism as an avenue toward unity, the Moravians especially exemplify Erben's claim that early Pennsylvanians placed hopes in the idea of language diversity leading to community.

This book is remarkably successful in helping readers understand the broader context for many of the religious groups of early Pennsylvania, including the Moravians, Quakers, Johannes Kelpius's "Chapter of Perfection," Schwenkfelders, the Ephrata community, and Mennonites. Time and again, Erben depicts a colony where spiritual influences passed from one group to another through sharing manuscripts and other texts. Erben devotes much careful attention to the early Pennsylvania immigrant Francis Daniel Pastorius, who connected radical German Pietism and English Quakerism as he shared books and poetry, collected items for his commonplace book (the "Bee-Hive"), and translated Pennsylvania's laws for German speakers (see especially chapters 2, 3, and 4 on Pastorius). Hymns in manuscript form circulated freely, such as from Kelpius's Pietists to Quakers and Schwenkfelders. "In spite of doctrinal differences," Erben writes, "Kelpius cultivated an intensive exchange in spiritual matters with Friends in Pennsylvania and other American colonies" (215).

Erben also argues that conflicts in the colony's history, including the Keithian controversy among Quakers and the warfare of the eighteenth century, did not result in an abandonment of hope that translation and language diversity could lead to unity. Especially fascinating is the book's discussion of the links created among pacifist groups in response to war. As Erben writes, "for Quakers, Mennonites, and other German peace churches such as the Schwenkfelders, the demise of a peaceful Pennsylvania returned them to the historical roots of their denominations—the religious...