Humanism and Lutheran Confessional Culture

The seventeenth century saw the culmination of what has traditionally been called “Lutheran Orthodoxy”. Earlier a rather underestimated period, the time of “Lutheran Orthodoxy” has started to attract a fairer share of attention within the concept of Confessional Culture (recently coined by Professor Dr. Thomas Kaufmann). An enormously important but sometimes slightly overlooked part of this culture was the classical heritage. In Denmark, the parishioners of rural villages may have associated their pastor principally with Luther’s Catechism, but the pastor himself (whose first name was, by the way, often (E)rasmus) was quite as familiar with Erasmus’ Adagia and the works of Cicero, Pliny and Seneca. The Danish clergy of the seventeenth century was often remarkably well educated, and probably took it for granted that a pastor should be able to express himself in a beautiful and elaborate Latin. A collection of Latin letters written by clergymen in the Danish (later Swedish) province of Scania in the late seventeenth century gives a fascinating insight, but also food for thoughts. Was the Latin culture as thriving as the letters seem to indicate, or was it in fact in decline? And was the interplay between humanist and Lutheran elements always without friction?