"Gar nicht biblisch!" [Not biblical at all!]: Ephesians, marriage, and radical pietism in eighteenth-century Germany

This article explores the use of Ephesians 5 and the church as the bride of Christ within a set of 18th-century speeches to the married couples in a radical pietist community known as the Moravian Brethren. I will show how the text is used to undergird a novel ideology of marriage and community structure, both of which are connected with socio-economic change.