Claus Bernet. "Gebaute Apokalypse": Die Utopie des Himmlischen Jerusalem in der Frühen Neuzeit. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz: Abteilung für Abendländische Religiongeschichte. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2007. xiv + 518 pp. EUR 51.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-8053-3706-9.

Reviewed by Denise D. Kettering Lane (Department of Religious Studies, University of Iowa)
Published on H-German (July, 2009)
Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher

Heaven on Earth?

"[The Heavenly Jerusalem] had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates.... There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west" (Revelation 21:12-13 [NIV]). To some early modern people, this New Testament passage not only sounded like a description of God's future kingdom, it also sounded like an ideal building plan. The idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem is deeply rooted in the Christian scriptural tradition. In the Middle Ages, the Heavenly Jerusalem held a symbolic and allegorical significance, but in the early modern period several religious communities tried to create a utopia by building this heavenly city on earth. In his fascinating book, Claus Bernet describes and compares different adaptations of the Heavenly Jerusalem ideal found in early modern religious communities. While these utopian experiments were all relatively short-lived, they left an enduring mark. From the Münster Anabaptists in the sixteenth century to several radical pietist settlements in the eighteenth, Claus Bernet reveals how each community's vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem affected the production of material culture. Contributing to art, architectural, and religious history, his work details the challenges each community faced while they attempted to create utopian settlements. Bernet's broad exploration examines similarities between these movements that have not previously been evident in more individualized studies; he demonstrates how the idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem is the most significant utopian ideal of the early modern period.

Bernet examines the Münster Anabaptists, the relationship between Freudenstadt and Johann Valentin Andreae's influential utopian book Christianopolis (1619), radical pietist notions of architecture, the Zionist community under the direction of Elias Eller, the Moravian communities of Herrnhut and Herrnhaag, and the Quaker community of Friedensthal. His extensive primary-source research and the rich illustrations he provides demonstrate how the religious piety of these communities found expression in the concrete construction of their settlements.

The communities relied predominantly on the description in Revelation 21-22 of the Heavenly Jerusalem for their construction plans. Bernet's analysis illuminates how attempts to emulate this passage presented several problems. First, in the biblical account of the Heavenly Jerusalem, there is no temple because God is present. Yet, the religious convictions of these communities required a central place of worship. Frequently, the communities dealt with this problem by constructing buildings that became the site of their religious activities, but were clearly not churches. For example, the Zionist community in Ronsdorf constructed its Stiftshütte, which served as the spiritual and architectural center of the city. They held love feasts and baptisms in the Stiftshütte rather than in the church, and all the streets in the settlement led to and from the house. Second, in the biblical account, God governs the Heavenly Jerusalem. Leaders of the settlements had to develop theocratic governments that blended religion and politics. A clear expression of this theocratic model occurred in Münster, where Jan van Leiden identified himself as the "King of Sion," modeling his rule on King David's religious and political leadership.

Certain structural elements emerged over and over again in these communities. The cities were frequently built around a centralized square, often with a fountain in the middle of the city. The square layout, drawn from the account in Revelation, appears in Johann Andreae's Christianopolis as well as in the city he modeled his book after, Freudenstadt. Several communities also constructed walls and gates to resemble those found in Revelation. At Münster, an important element for the Anabaptist leaders was the presence of twelve gates into the city equaling the number of gates in the Heavenly Jerusalem; they even renamed the gates to correspond to their titles in Revelation.  

Other similarities related less to structural and more to social elements of these communities. Nuclear families and human sexuality took on different constructions. In Münster these changes translated into polygamous marriage, whereas in the Moravian communities of Herrnhaag and Herrnhut, a well-organized choir system placed people into groups based on age, gender, and marital status. The settlements also assumed specifically religious names: Freudenstadt, Christianopolis, Friedensthal, and Herrnhaag. Not only were the city names representative of religious ideals, but also many of the members of these communities changed their names in their new society. In the Zionist community, leaders Elias Eller and Anna von Büchel were called Father and Mother Zion, while residents received new biblical names, usually called "honorary names." Another common trait was a general priesthood, in which a simple man or woman served as the leader as opposed to an educated clergyman, as in the case of Elias Eller. Usually the Eucharist was not central to these communities' religious practices; rather alternatives emerged, such as the love feast in radical pietist communities.

The utopian undertaking is an earthly affair. Münster marks the apparent break from an allegorical Heavenly Jerusalem concept in the Middle Ages to a new utopian building project in the early modern period. Freudenstadt and Christianopolis demonstrate continued interest in this project during the seventeenth century, while the advent of pietism made utopian constructions of the Heavenly Jerusalem more widespread in the eighteenth. The historical events of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries were judged to be eschatological events, as people pined for the reign of God. Their hopes found concrete forms in the building of settlements and the development of collective identities as religious communities moved from their theoretical utopian vision to a constructed settlement modeled on the Heavenly Jerusalem.

This book provides a new interpretation of these utopian communities within a much broader context than has previously been offered, as Bernet illuminates how the concept of building the Heavenly Jerusalem runs throughout the early modern period. Each individual settlement is treated with care, but the main contribution of this book lies in the strength of his comparative argument. The continuity in construction practices that Bernet brings to light shows the reliance of all these groups on the image of the Heavenly Jerusalem and aptly demonstrates the similarities between these groups. The layout of the book is accessible and the illustrations effective. I only wish that the illustrations had been more fully integrated into the text, so that the images and his commentary appeared side by side. Given his extended (and quite helpful) captioning, this material nevertheless could have been more effectively integrated into the text. Overall, however, this book presents an interesting and exciting new analysis of utopian thought and action in the early modern period.

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Citation: Denise D. Kettering Lane. Review of Bernet, Claus, "Gebaute Apokalypse": Die Utopie des Himmlischen Jerusalem in der Frühen Neuzeit. H-German, H-Net Reviews. July, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24521

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