203 other hand, God’s justice remains in the background, Christ’s reconciliation is of interest in all matters and the thought of improvement or reform became a consideration of conversion where execution becomes a hinder instead of a help towards any religious revival. Most earnestly the question was: which God do we meet in the Christian community, the God of the Lawor the God of the Gospel? A difference in opinion regarding humanity is also to be observed. The more the punishment is considered as something absolute, the less interesting its effects, above all the prisoner as well as his surroundings are considered objectively. From the 1890’s the prominence of the Gospel and Jesus’ example became the more usual guiding way for criminal law, and even the consideration that the State had not any greater rights than any individual when it came to taking anybody’s life. The biblical arguments, nowused preponderantly against capital punishment regained an increased importance mainly presented by revivalists and others having their roots in the Free Churches. An important part of the general debate on capital punishment during the 1800’s later years was the opposition between Sweden’s leading critics of capital punishment and Supreme Court Judge, Knut Olivecrona and the philosophic school around Professor Christopher Jacob Boströmi Uppsala. Olivecrona attacked capital punishment with every weapon in his arsenal; for instance, he tried by using statistics to prove it unnecessary, but there were also important theological thoughts in his argument. Olivecrona put Jesus’ charitable Gospel against the Pentateuch’s law motivating capital punishment. For Boström capital punishment was rather the way to ‘correct’ such evil wills which no earthly power could. Execution is in itself correct, and also beneficial for the State as well as the executed who gets a greater opportunity for happiness in the next life. Theories of development came to use both for and against capital punishment. When was the right time for its abolishment? When was Sweden prepared to take this step which so many considered as an unavoidable link in development? The discussion concerned the moment in time. Part two concerns different aspects of and the problem of clerical action on the part of the condemned at the actual execution. The starting point is the debate on the directions in the Church Manual for the preparation of condemned prisoners. Work on a Church Manual commenced in 1799 and led to a new Manual’s being taken in use in 1811. Clergy participating in the debate showed strong objections to the fact that a clergyman was to be present at an execution. Many individuals had tried for years to avoid this unpleasant procedure. Now this objection became obvious as the majority of the clergy showed their opposition. Also, seen from another point of view, the presence of a priest at the scaffold and the liturgical aspects caused problems in Sweden, Denmark and Ger-
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