A Time of Sifting: Mystical Marriage and the Crisis of Moravian Piety in the Eighteenth Century by Paul Peucker (review)

Distortions of truth and reality are all too common in the history of Christian spirituality. It only takes one writer who fails to properly grasp a particular situation that can create a spiral of half-truths. The “sifting time” of the 1740s is one startling example from Moravian history that demonstrates this. Paul Peucker’s landmark work ably examines and convincingly refutes the fallacies associated with this significant period in evangelical piety. Peucker is the archivist at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and previously held the same position at Herrnhut, Germany. He introduces this study with a brief overview of the Sifting Time. This language is derived from Jesus’ warning to Peter: “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31). This crisis developed when a specific teaching of Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravians, was taken to its logical conclusion. Union with Christ was essential to Zinzendorf’s theology and he taught that this union could be experienced through sexual intercourse in marriage. Central to Zinzendorf’s thinking was the removal of lust from sexual relations. Once that was accomplished, sex was perceived as a sacramental act. However, over time his son, Christian Renatus, extended this belief to include extramarital sex as well. The result was the Sifting Time that created havoc within the Moravians and skepticism and distance from others outside the Church. Peucker narrates the development and response to this crisis in ten chapters.

The first chapter establishes a historical and theological foundation for this study. Count Zinzendorf’s early life is sketched including an appreciation for his strong ecumenical desires that sought unity within the church and his growing resistance to the German pietism of Halle that had shaped him. This form of Lutheran piety believed that conversion was the result of a lengthy personal combat to experience saving grace. Zinzendorf rebelled against this prolonged period of penitential struggle known as Busskampf. Instead he affirmed a more instant experience of grace that would later provide one significant component of the theological context for the Sifting Time. This chapter also introduces readers unfamiliar with the history and practices of Moravianism to the two central German communities of Herrnhut and Herrnhaag. Herrnhut began when Zinzendorf welcomed some Bohemian refuges to his estate; this served as a catalyst for the renewal of the ancient Unity of Brethren extending back to the descendants of John Hus (approximately 1372– 1415). This became known as the spiritual birthday of the Moravian Church. Herrnhaag was a later Moravian community, also in Germany, that was more progressive in advancing Zinzendorf’s theology and piety. Peucker sketches this more fully by emphasizing the centrality of Bernard of Clairvaux and his teaching on bridal mysticism and its dependence upon the Song of Songs. One aspect of Zinzendorf’s thinking that took on greater significance than previously was the devotion to the blood and wounds of Christ. Many readers will know of Caroline Walker Bynum’s extensive study of the blood of Christ (Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), but Zinzendorf narrowed the focus more specifically to the side hole in which Jesus had been pierced during the crucifixion. Peucker asserts, “the wounds were a symbol of salvation and the object of contemplation, places to go into and to unite with the divine. By entering the wounds of Jesus, the believer was able to become one with Christ as the object of devotion” (28). Central to the book’s thesis is that the Sifting Time was a period of unrestrained fascination with the side hole and not the larger focus on the blood and wounds of Jesus.

The second chapter provides a historiographical review of how the ensuing centuries read...