“A SOURCE OF PRAISE”: THE WANDERINGS OF A DEVOTIONAL BOOK
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Abstract
In 1761, right before she died in childbirth, Charlotte Nebel, née Rambach, wife of a Lutheran pastor in Worms, Germany, completed a collection of meditations on the Passion of Christ. After her death, her husband, Henrich Nebel memorialized her by publishing her poetry, essays, and meditations. Her works show the influence of her famous father, Johann Jakob Rambach, a leading figure in Pietism and that of Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, and his emphasis on the Passion of Christ. Especially the meditations, entitled Der große Versöhnungstag (The Great Day of Atonement), had a wider appeal in Germany, in other places across the globe, in other languages, in other centuries. As will be shown, its long journey to other continents exemplified a combination of reader satisfaction, religious migration, and personal initiative. Every step in its long publication and republication process further exemplified the political and religious circumstances of the time. This article analyzes the trajectory across time and place and religious persuasions, until its most recent publication in 2009.