Fifteen-year-olds had to know 759 questions and answers by heart to be able to dream of a legal sexual life.
Today, the phrase «welcome to the adult ranks» is a cliché that your uncle rattles off at your confirmation ceremony to fill his speaking time. But once upon a time, this was deadly serious for the country's fifteen-year-olds.
- "For more than 200 years, confirmation was a threshold to adulthood," says literature professor Jon Haarberg at the University of Oslo.
In order to be confirmed, you had to know Martin Luther's Small Catechism by heart. This was the only way to obtain full rights as a subject of the king. Then you also had to find yourself a spouse.
- It was therefore the case that if you were to have any hope of a legal sex life, you had to know the catechism by heart," says Haarberg.
In an article in the recent book Literary citizens of the world renders Haarberg and his co-author Marit Sjelmo a story about a girl from Stord who was made to memorize Pontoppidan's explanation of Luther's catechism.
«The girl behaved badly in front of the priest and said she couldn't learn boki in 10 years. When she heard that she was going to get married, she memorized boki in eight weeks,» reads the chapter, which is based on a story in Torstein Høverstad's book Uppseding og uppsedarar from 1920.
Celebrated and hated
Around the middle of the 18th century, Denmark-Norway had its most pietistic king ever. Christian VI believed that the Christianization of the kingdom was slow, and in 1736 he introduced compulsory confirmation for his subjects.
The king commissioned his court priest, Erik Pontoppidan, to write an explanation of Protestant Lutheran doctrine that could be used in confirmation classes. Pontoppidan, former bishop of Bergen, signed off with the work Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed in 1737. The book contains 759 questions and answers that the confirmands had to memorize, for example:
Question: What is the first cause?
Answer: The righteous wrath and jealousy of God, who threatens to punish all reluctant transgressors.
As a further step in Christian education, three years later the king established the common school, later called the public school. For more than 150 years, it was compulsory to memorize Pontoppidan's «Truth» both in school and during confirmation preparations.
- The book is as celebrated as it is hated. It has had an enormous impact on Norwegian society," says literature professor Haarberg.
There was no room for personal judgment in the encounter with God's message.
- "There was a uniform version that had to be learned, both as questions, answers and explanations," he says.
According to Luther, this was the best and safest way to internalize the doctrines. He wanted to guard against «swarming» personal interpretations.
- Luther had no ambition to teach people to read. Instead, he wanted to ensure that they learned basic Christian knowledge. The best recipe for this was verbatim reproduction.
The relationship between memorization, literacy and reading comprehension is central to Haarberg and Sjelmo's article.
- We know that many understood little. It took well over 100 years from people learning to read until they learned to write. The catechism was probably «lirum larum» for many confirmands and school pupils.
In most cases, written Danish was far removed from the spoken language of Norwegian youth.
- Theological dogma also appears abstract and difficult. Admittedly, it was assumed that the school would ensure understanding. The pupils first had to reproduce the content in their own words. Memorization was the crowning glory.
Parallel to Islam today
The Constitution of 1814 stated that «The people exercise legislative power through the Parliament». At the same time, the most important book used in school and confirmation classes stated that plague and pestilence come from God.
- In the 1800s, many people were still convinced that it was God who ruled the country, not people.
The people were caught in the crossfire of mutually exclusive state principles; the modern Constitution on the one hand, and a catechism in conservative Danish on the other.
Haarberg and Sjelmo's article states: «(...) Danish was indeed closer to Norwegian vernacular than to classical Arabic, but the distance was nevertheless considerable».
- We allowed ourselves a historical parallel to today. Here in the West, we fought a protracted battle about God's role in the world around 200 years ago. It is this battle that Islam is in the midst of today. Religion is bound to change with history. As a society, we must be patient," says Haarberg.
Kielland's settlement
The impact on society is undoubtedly great. But what impact did Pontoppidan's text have on the country's text culture?
- This is really demonstrated by the writers of the modern breakthrough at the end of the 19th century," he says.
For those of us who don't have literary history at the forefront of our minds, the modern breakthrough was a shift away from national romanticism, towards realism and Georg Brandes’ doctrine that literature should «put problems under debate».
This is particularly evident in Stavanger's great son, the writer who was later canonized as one of the four great writers of the national language, Alexander Kielland.
- Kielland's novel Gift from 1883 is a violent kick against classical education, Latin and memorization in schools.
In the book, we meet little Marius, who is destroyed by the Latin school's pugge pedagogy.
- The writers of the Modern Breakthrough do what they can to overthrow the old regime, Haarberg argues, not just the Latin, but also the catechism and the «explanation».
Pontoppidan is still alive
But the old regime has endured. We can see the traces right up to the present day. The Catechism was on the curriculum as «recommended reading» until 1997.
- "Gudmund Hernes (Minister of Church Affairs, Education and Research 1990-95) had a sense of tradition that made it natural. But after that it was over," says Haarberg.
Or was it?
- The end only came in public schools. Things are different in private schools and especially in the free church communities. There is a free church school in Egersund that still has Pontoppidan - with associated memorization - on the curriculum.
