Frömmigkeit als »die Empfindung unserer gänzlichen Abhängigkeit von Gott«. Die Fixierung einer religionstheologischen Leitformel in Spaldings Gedächtnispredigt auf Friedrich II. von Preußen

It was F.D.E. Schleiermacher who introduced the main concept of defining piety as the feeling of our total dependence on God in the theology of religion. In this study, the author provides precise evidence that Schleiermacher was not the first person to define this idea, but that this can be traced back to J.J. Spalding. Spalding was acting on a suggestion received from a book written by B. Hoadly, and he worked on this concept continuously and developed it into a definition of the essence of religion and piety from 1760 on. In his memorial sermon for Frederick the Great (1786), this process of the creation of a concept reached its completion.