The Suffering Body in Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Devotional Literature1

One of the central yet under-studied goals of Lutheran reformers was to change in dramatic fashion the way their contemporaries understood and sought to cope with the suffering that was so much part of early modern existence. According to the reformers, many of the traditional ways of approaching suffering were essentially pagan in origin, because they either relied on ‘superstitious’ means of manipulating God, or they attempted to barter with God by means of ‘good works’ for health, protection or salvation. The ‘reformation of suffering’ that the Lutheran reformers undertook is readily evident in the literature they produced: catechisms, church ordinances and, above all, works of devotion.2 This reformation also had important implications for how lay Lutherans, the intended audience for these works, were supposed to think about and experience their own bodily existence, especially as they suffered. The Protestant Reformation marks a crucial Wendepunkt in what one might call the history of suffering in the West; it also, and relatedly, marks a crucial turning point in the history of attitudes towards the body. This essay examines these related histories and discusses not only Protestant rejections of traditional attitudes toward the suffering body, which have been studied, but also Protestant affirmations about the body and its suffering in the Christian life, which have received relatively little scholarly attention. In this way, the essay seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of early modern Protestant culture as a culture shaped as much by what Protestants sought to build or create as by what they tried to dismantle and destroy.

Aesthetics · Protestantism · Sociology · Historical Legal Studies and Society · History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies