Swedberg, Jesper

Swedberg, Jesper bishop of Skara, in Sweden. His father's name was Jacobson, but, according to a frequent Swedish custom, the son, on taking his degree at the university, assumed the name of Swedberg. He was born Aug.

28,1653, in the province of Dalecarlia. Having received a university education, he was ordained in 1685, and became successively court chaplain, professor of theology in the University of Upsalas (1692), and provost of the cathedral there. He was a pious, eloquent, and active man, a somewhat voluminous writer, chiefly on devotional subjects. He stood high in his native country, and many of his hymns are still among the favorite ones in the Swedish Lutheran service. He was the father of Emanuel Swedenborg. He was made bishop of Skara in 1702, about the time that he visited England. The Swedish Church in London and the Swedish congregations settled on the banks of the Delaware, in America, were placed by the king under his episcopal supervision; and his letters to the latter colony, still preserved in the records of the Church at Wilmington, show a warm interest in their affairs. From the information which he had obtained from this correspondence he published a work concerning America, a copy of which is in the library of Harvard College. He also published a Psalm-Book (1694), which was suppressed as pietistic; and the first Swedish Grammar (1722). Bishop Swedberg died July 26,1735. (W.B.H.)