Christian Life and Witness. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
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1706 Swedish armies under Charles XII overran Saxony. A military unit appeared on the estate to commandeer supplies. Entering the castle intent upon ransacking it they burst into a room in which the then six-year-old Zinzendorf was carrying on his usual private devotions. The Swedish soldiers were, like the little count, Lutherans. They paused in their assignment to listen to him speak about Jesus Christ, and to pray with him!
As an adult he said he had never known a time when he did not love the Savior above all things. He experienced no conversion, no hard won repentance, no turning from a dissolute life or from casual indifference to the cross. From his earliest consciousness he lived by faith in the Savior who loved him and gave himself up for him. Always, the Lamb of God, slaughtered on the cross, was central to his cognitive, affective, volitional, and practical life.
In addition to training him in the Christian life, his grandmother also impressed upon him continually that he was born a Reichsgraf, a member of the upper nobility along with princes, electors, and the emperor himself. She taught him that God had given him such a high and noble birth and he must use it to rule. Thus, his education was directed to preparing him to govern. He learned languages (he was polylinguistic all his life), history, geography, mathematics and a host of social skills so that he might be able to carry himself properly. She also believed that rulers must conduct themselves with great discipline. So he was also trained to have great self-discipline, great self-control. By all accounts this self-discipline came with difficulty for him. He had a passionate nature. And despite all this training for government, Zinzendorf wrote many years later that his grandmother’s education had shaped him in such a way that he could relish nothing except the doctrine of Jesus Christ and his death and merit.
When it was time for him to prepare to attend a university, it should come as no surprise that his grandmother sent him as a boarder to the prep school operated by her friend, the Pietist leader and educator August Hermann Francke. Thus, he travelled to Halle in August of 1710 to study. His teachers and fellow students made his life a trial. They conspired to make him miserable. The reason behind his harsh treatment lay in a letter Zinzendorf’s mother had sent to Francke. Since her son was clearly a boy of great ability, she urged Francke to break his spirit and keep him down in order that pride not take root in his heart. He also had to endure simultaneously a tutor who clearly disliked Zinzendorf and tried both directly and deviously to destroy his reputation and to get him removed from the school. But the circumstances revealed that the boy had great inner resources and relied on his Savior. He not only survived the ordeal, but when he left at the age of sixteen to matriculate at university he turned over to Francke a list of seven groups of boys, all of which he had started, and with all of which he met. Each of these groups would meet at its appointed time, apart from adults in some secluded place, and Zinzendorf would lead them in prayer, in sharing the true state of their hearts, and in learning to refer all things in their lives to the Savior who loved them.
While taking his leave from Halle, Count Zinzendorf prayed with one of his close friends, a Swiss noble named de Watteville. The two sixteen-year-olds pledged that they each would do all in their power to carry the message concerning Jesus Christ to all people, but especially to those to whom no one else would go, or about whom no one else cared. This pledge would later be carried out in astounding fashion.
It was decided that he would attend the University of Wittenberg. It was the place where Luther had been professor of Bible two hundred years earlier, and it was, in Zinzendorf’s day, one of the leading institutions of Lutheran Orthodoxy. It was also decided that he would study law. At that time, such decisions were not made by the student. The family, most particularly his parents and his grandmother, made these decisions for him.
In Wittenberg he continued with a tutor who did not understand, and who was totally unsympathetic to his religious life. The tutor had been hired by his father’s brother, who was deeply opposed to Pietism. Nevertheless, the sixteen-year-old set himself a rigorous devotional program. He also took to handing out Pietist tracts on the streets of this city whose university was the very bastion of Orthodoxy. Although he was supposed to be study law, he snuck into lectures in theology. He was befriended by a professor of theology who took him under his wing and guided his theological reading. Many years later the count remarked that what he really learned at Wittenberg was not law, but theology. And the theology he learned was that of Lutheran Orthodoxy.
While still a teen he undertook to bring the leaders of Orthodoxy and Pietism together for formal discussions. His intention was to bring about rapprochement. He had personal contacts with both sides and viewed this as a call from God to make peace between them. He had gone as far as arranging a meeting when his family intervened and derailed the project. In their view he was only a student, and not even a theology student, therefore he was meddling in matters that were not his affair. His family ordered him to withdraw. As a result, the meeting never happened, and Orthodoxy and Pietism continued in their sharp opposition to each other.
Upon completing his degree in law, Zinzendorf was sent on a trip around Europe. This was considered a necessary part of a young noble’s education. On this trip he was to build an international network of friends and acquaintances, looking forward to the day when he would wield power, and to become more finely cultured by seeing the great art, architecture, and historical sites of the continent. Zinzendorf spent much of his time seeking friends who shared his love for Jesus and engaging in deep conversations with those who did not. He wanted to talk about the Scriptures rather than governing.
He met Christians who represented theological perspectives other than his own Lutheran one. And even if he disagreed with them about some points of doctrine, he found that they were united in their devotion to the Savior and his grace. This seemed important to him, especially in view of the rise of theoretical atheism, which he increasingly encountered. So, contrary to what was thought properly Christian by all sides, he began to cultivate close relationships with Christians who were not Lutheran. Among these were a Catholic Cardinal in Paris and the future British governor of the colony of Georgia.
Although he was forthright about his desire to preach the Gospel, his grandmother reminded him that he was an imperial count. Imperial counts did not preach; they exercised their office and ruled. So, through her connections at court, she got him a position as special counsel to Friedrich August the Strong—the same position his father had held with the same prince. In 1722 he rented an apartment in Dresden and took up his new post. With great energy he promptly set himself to the task of avoiding actual government work as much as possible. He was surrounded by ambitious men who were eager to take on the cases that were originally given to him.
Feeling himself compelled by the words and way of Jesus to reject war, weapons, and all forms of violence, he nevertheless worked for the state. Thus, Zinzendorf walked the hallways engaging in conversation about Jesus with both colleagues and visitors. It must have been strange for many who came into the halls of power for state purposes to encounter this young count asking them questions like, “So then, how do you understand the Savior’s word to love our enemies?” But such questions he incessantly asked.
He also held illegal religious meetings in his apartments. He would lead the gathered company in devotions and engage in theological argument with non-Lutherans.
During this period he also acquired a printing press. There were strict laws governing publishing. In particular, all printed matter had to pass a government censor who represented the interests of both the state church and the government. The censor was one of Zinzendorf’s colleagues, occupying an office not far from Zinzendorf’s own. The Count used his press to write, publish, and distribute a weekly underground paper, which he called The Dresden Socrates. He did it all anonymously, of course. In this paper he was critical of the church and of the religious life of the people, and he raised probing questions about both. Meanwhile, the government embarked on a furious search for the author and distributor of this illegal publication, never discovering that he was one of them.
It was also during this period, in September of 1722, that he married Erdmuth Dorothea, Countess Reuss. The Countess was known for her piety and devotion. He judged that she would make a good partner for him. At the beginning of their marriage he turned all financial affairs over to her. It was highly unusual in the eighteenth century for a woman to be in charge of finances. But it