a mostly german debate on conversion and salvation adopted a very enlightened and anti-pietistic position, which therefore was all to the good.789 The debate was not only German as positions in the mostly German debate influenced the debate in other countries. For example, in Sweden it is not unlikely that the debate was influenced by writers from the Swedish provinces in Germany, such as Quistorp and Schlegel. Knowledge of the debate could also be spread in other ways. For example, a biography in Swedish of Sturm mentioned his first pamphlet.790 Matthias Calonius was a renowned lawyer first in undivided Sweden and then in Finland during the decades around 1800. He owned books by Steinbart and Gmelin and was aware of the Prussian ordinance of 1769, and the English practice, in the application of the statute of 1752, of not letting priests accompany murderers to their execution. Influenced by the German debate and seeing the intention of public punishments as spreading fear, he in his lectures at the university of Åbo, questioned the utility of priests at executions. The special clothes, the songs, and the speeches all enhanced the similarity between the death of the executed and the death of a martyr or even to the suffering of Christ. The risk then grew that some would through the death and salvation of the delinquent be inspired to committing crimes, particularly the murder of children in order to die in a similar fashion. Therefore, the priest should absolutely not speak about the salvation of the condemned. A suitable text for the speech would instead be Rom 13:4 on the sword carried by the authority to serve God. Calonius also suggested that the Swedish Royal letter of 1754 indicated that the presence of priests at the executions in these cases were forbidden.791 No such prohibition can however be found in the Royal letter.792 Possibly, however, this idea of Calonius was taken heed of as 789 Kittsteiner 1992 p 347 sqq. The book of Kittsteiner is scientifically eccentric due to his very clear sympathy for the Enlightenment and critique of its opponents, especially Pietism. 790 Quistorp 1782, Schlegel 1811, Feddersen 1787 p 75. 791 P 203 sq coll 432.77HNB, p 959 sq coll 432.80HNB. Steinbart 1769 and Gmelin 1785 were in the collection of books of Calonius nr 616, 727 Ba 1.1.5 Nationalbibliotekets ämbetsarkivHNB. The bishop and later archbishop in Åbo, Jacob Tengström, owned Miller 1774, Förteckning 1833 p 27 nr 970. 792 Registratur 24 April 1754NJrARAS, printed e g in Jusléen 1787 p 379 sq. 214
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=