Creation, Fall and Political Order — Prussian Conservatism and the Old Testament

Abstract

Abstract This article examines differences within the theological basis of early nineteenth-century Prussian conservatism. By exploring the usage of the Old Testament in the writings of conservative thought leaders Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, and Friedrich Julius Stahl, this article contributes to scholarship of both traditions of biblical interpretation and that of the relation of theology and political theory. The focus of this article centers on three concepts of the Old Testament and their implementation in conservative political doctrine. I will discuss Hengstenberg’s concept of biblical historicity and unity of Scripture, Gerlach’s use of the Old Testament as the source of a role model for just religious wars and a theocratic concept of law, as well as Stahl’s bible-based political philosophy of history and the resulting model of political order. Thus, the basis for different, resulting concepts of church, state, and nation that were merged into an overall religion-based political conservative doctrine in pre-1848 Prussia are analyzed.