PIETISM (from piety, OF. piste, Fr. pijtic.. from Lat. pietas, piety, from pins, pious). A name given in the latter part of the seventeenth century to a religions movement in Germany, distinguished by certain peculiarities of religious opinion and the manner in whieh these were manifested. The name is also applied to similar tendencies of opinion, feeling, and conduct ex hibited elsewhere. Pietism may be regarded as an exaltation of the importanee of religions feeling and of the practical part of religion, with a corresponding depreciation of doctrinal differ ences, :and a contempt for outward ecclesiastical arrangements.
German Pietism was the natural outcome of conditions existing in the seventeenth century. The Reformers had emphasized the efficacy of faith in Christ as the means of securing deliver ance from sin. 11ut the controversies which arose among them and increased among their succes sors gradually gave a too exclusively doctrinal and polemical character to the sermons and writings of both Lutheran and Calvinistic divines. When the inevitable reaction came it took form in favor of a religion of feeling and good works, or of the heart and life. -Johann Arndt (1555-1621), -Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), both Lutherans, and Johannes Coe cejus (1603-69), a Calvinist, may be regarded as forerunners of Pietism. But its full develop ment. is to be ascribed to Philipp Jakob Spener (q.v.) and his friends and disciples, particularly the Leipzig Docents, Paul Anton, J. K. Schade,
and August Hermann Franeke. Driven from Leipzig by the opposition of the older school of theologians, Franeke and Anton found a refuge, through Speller's influence, in the newly founded University of Italie, and under their lead and that of their associates, Joaehim Justus Breit haupt and Hermann Lange, Italie became the centre of the movement and a source of new religious life in Germany. Pietism also became dominant in the universities of K?ligsberg, Giessen. and Marburg. and from North Germany spread to the south, where its head was Johann Albrecht Bengel, and even to other lands. Ulti mately it went to excess, fantastic doctrines and fanatical practices came to prevail. and the rationalism of the eighteenth century was the inevitable and healthful reaction. For further details, see the article THEOLOGY, sec tion The Period or Pietism ; see also the bio graphical notices of Spener, Francke, Bengel, and the other leaders. histories of Pietism have been written by Schmidt (Ni;rdlingen, 1863) Tholuck (Berlin, 1865) Heppe. treating particularly of the movement in the ,Netherlands (Leipzig, 1870) : and Ritschl (Bonn, 1880-86). Consult, also, "Zenner, Lebensbilder aus der Pietistenzeit (Bremen, 1886) : Ilubener, Pietismus geschicht lick and dogmatise!' pesehildert (Zwickau, 1901).