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Heinrich Heppe's "Reformed Dogmatics" in Historical Perspective*

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Heinrich Heppe's Reformed Orthodoxy Redivivus: Heinrich Heppe's "Reformed Dogmatics" in Historical Perspective* EA RL WM. KENN EDY "Heppe," the fat, venerable, Reformed dogma ti cs textbook upo n which, since 1861 , generations of Europea n and America n students have cut their theological teeth, has at last made it s Ameri can publishing debut, for the first time in paperback a nd presumably fo r the benefit of eva ngeli cals, judging from the publisher. T his classic contains a grand harvest of quotatio ns o n a ll the topics a nd subto pics of theology (the twenty-eight cha pter headings sta rt with " Natural and Revealed Theology" a nd end with "Glorification") col­ lected fr o m the writings of over fifty Reformed theologia ns of the late sixteenth, the seventeenth, a nd, to a lesser degree, the eighteenth century. Several quotati ons, some of them lengthy, a re adduced to illustrate every numbered subpo int within each cha pter. The o ri ginal edito r, Heinrich Heppe, provided a n o rthodox Reformed theological narrati ve to bind the quotati o ns together. Heinrich Ludwig Julius Heppe ( 1820- 1879), the ce nte na ry of whose death this review is intended to ma rk, taught church history, theology, a nd related subjects at the University of Ma rburg (the West Germa n institution later made fa mous fo r Americans by Rudolf Bultma nn) for nearly three decades. In the nature of the case, the book, whether in the origina l Germa n a nd Latin or in Engli sh, does not ma ke optimum bed-time reading (unless o ne is a n insomniac), but it is worthy of ca reful study by a ll Refo rmed theologues, a nd its literary histo ry, enmeshed, as it was, in at least two Germa n church struggles (with it s quota ti o ns recalling other, more dista nt ecclesiastical battles), is not without a certa in modest dra ma. When the devout, evangeli cal Heppe came fr o m hi s fi rs t a nd o nly pastorate to teach at Ma rburg in electoral Hesse in 1849, o ne of the loca l chu rch leaders was a certain August Vilma r ( 1800- 1868). Initia lly the two supernaturalist Christia ns joined forces against rati ona lism a nd revolution (including radical dem ocracy) a nd preached the princi­ pl es of the Reforma ti on (cf. Groen van Prinsterer a nd Kuyper in the Netherlands) in o rd er to renew the Hessia n church which had been spiritua ll y ma ln o urished by a longtime diet of Enlightenment theology. But Heppe, a n Evangelical Allia nce suppo rter, was strongly opposed not only to this "heathen huma ni sm" but also to the "secta ria n ortho­ doxism a nd a nti-evange li cal Roma ni sm" which he thought threatened the Protestant *A review a rticle of Reformed Dogmatics Set Out and !l/u.1·trated/i'om the Sources, by Heinrich Heppe (fo rword by Karl Ba rth; revised a nd edited by Ernst Bi zer; translated by G. T. T ho mson), G ra nd Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978 [1 95 0]. xiv, 72 lp., $9.95 (pa per). 150 church. So when Vilmar soon began openly crusading for the confessional Lutheranism of the Formula of Concord ( 1577) and for what Heppe saw as a kind of teutonic "Pusey­ ism" (a catholicizing high church trend common then in England; cf. the American Ger­ man Reformed Mercersburg theology of Philip Schaff and 'John W. Nevin), Heppe was a larmed. He poured his talent for hard work and literary production into a pamphlet war with Vilmar and, more importantly, into a nu.mber of major historical works aimed at demonstrating that the Reformation and the church in his beloved Hesse were at heart "Reformed." When Hesse was swallowed up by Prussia in 1866, Heppe interpreted it as the just judgment of God upon Hessian high church Lutheranism! His impolitic, undip­ lomatic, and sometimes bitter anti-Vilmar campaign resulted in the unwarranted Clelay of Heppe's salary increases and promotion at Marburg (partly based on police reports of his public drunkenness or at least frequenting of "pubs" and overfondness for spirits, espe­ cially when fatigued or excited) and emotional suffering for the rest of his life, which was cut short by throat cancer. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Heppe had pastoral concerns; he was co-founder of a deaconess house in Hesse and published a prayer book, revised several times, for use in fami ly devotions. Reflecting the romantic nationalism of the time, Heppe early (by 1850) set forth a controversial reading of the Reformation which has ever since been associated with his name: in addition to the German Lutheran and Genevan Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) Reformations, there was a unique, home-grown "German Reformed" Reformation. This flowed from "old Protestantism" through Philip Melanchthon (Luther's theological right arm and successor, the author of the Augsburg Confession of 1530; the strict sixteenth­ century Lutherans saw "Philippism" as "Crypto-Calvinism") and, to a lesser degree, Mar­ tin Bucer (the Strasbourg reformer who influenced Calvin, too). According to Heppe, this indigenous German Reformed theology, less harsh than that of Calvin, taught the Bible's complete authority over all human institutions, a mild form of (single) predestination, and Melanchthon's and Calvin's common view of the Lord's Supper. Heppe viewed the Hei­ delberg Catechism ( 1563) of the Palatinate and the dynamic covenant theology of the theological school at Herborn in Nassau (whose most famous representative was Johannes Cocceius [ 1603- 1669), of "Heilsgeschichte" fame) as the best early examples of German Reformed thinking, which highlighted the personal in religion and which reached its con­ summation in the great Friedrich Schleiermacher ( 1768- 1834), the father of protestant liberalism. Incidentally, the nineteenth-century German-American Mercersburg theologi­ ans took over Heppe's thesis, at least in their anti-Calvin, pro-Melanchthon orientation. In spite of all the strife in which he was involved, Heppe maintained his personal piety to the end. His last major works were on the history of pietism, i.e., Roman Catholic quietistic mysticism (e.g., Madame Guyon) and seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Pietism (e.g., Jean de Labadie). But he seems to have become ever more openly critical of the Reformed orthodoxy embodied in his now famous textbook, which he published in mid-career ( 1861) as part of his larger program to vindicate the (German) Reformed faith over against the confessional, high church Lutheranism of the Formula of Concord. In later years he objected to being regarded as a confessional Reformed theologian and affirmed, instead, that he was a disciple of Schleiermacher (he also seems to have been 15 1 influenced by Hegel, e.g., in his idea of development). Heppe was P.articularly negative about what he deemed the scholastic, speculative doctrine of double predestination of Calvin and especially of the Canons of Dort. But, for some reason, his reservations about "Calvinism" are rarely, if ever, clearly manifested in his 1861 textbook, a lthough he does not refrain from indulging in theological judgments there. Perhaps he comes closest to overt criticism of the sc holastics when he expresses hi s preference for the early rather than the late Reformed doctrine of scriptural inspiration. He does not, however, utter any disapproval at all of the doctrines of the decrees, election, and reprobation; he seems, rather, to be actively assenting to them in hi s textbook. This is puzzling.' T he scene now shifts to 1924, sixty-three years after the first publication of Heppe's dogmatics, which had become a recognized reference work. Karl Barth ( 1886- 1968), a novice theological professor at the University of Gottingen, West Germany, was anxiously seeking a source book that would provide a positive, vertebrate theology; prior to his professorate, Barth had concentrated mostly on destroying the liberal position, not on theological construction. He came upon "Heppe," which, unlike the more recent, liberal theology of Schleiermacher and Ritschl, provided him with a window on the rich thought world of the church reformed and catholic- and on theologians very seriously trying to wrestle with the biblical data, a lbeit in a "scholastic" manner.2 Barth came to regard as a God-send the theological meat served by Heppe, and Barth's later, multi­ volume Church Dogmatics is full of long, fine-print excurses of exhilarating conversa­ tion with the Reformed fathers he met in Heppe's textbook. Barth's critical respect for the Protestant "scholastics" more or less set the pace for the "neo-Reformation" theolo­ gians in general who, as their name suggests, id entified more closely with Luther a nd Calvin than with their orthodox epigohes. Barth taught in the early 1930's at the University of Bonn where he led in drawing up the Barmen Declaration (1934) of the German "Confessing Church"; this ma nifesto affirmed obedience to the one Word o( God, Jesus C hrist, as opposed to the supposed revelations in "blood, race, and soil" which the "German Christians," Hitler's church sup­ porters, were proclaiming. The next February ( 1935), just before the Nazis expelled Barth from Germany and banned his writings, he contributed an enthusiastic foreword to a fresh edition of "Heppe," to be published that year in Germany, thoroughly revised and corrected by a young pastor of the Wiirttemberg Lutheran church, Ernst Bizer. These words of Barth evidently escaped the censor's notice and were for a decade hi s only "work" lega lly available in the T hird Reich.
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