This article discusses the relationship of history, theology and mythmaking with reference to the myths of Glastonbury. These related to the legends associated with Joseph of Arimathea’ purported visit to England, the burial place of King Arthur, as well as the quest for the Holy Grail. It draws on the work of Joseph Armitage Robinson, one of the most important Biblical and patristic scholars of his generation who, after becoming Dean of Westminster and later Dean of Wells Cathedral in Somerset, (...) and close to Glastonbury, became a distinguished medievalist. After assessing the development of the Glastonbury legends and the use of early British history made in the earlier Anglican tradition, particularly in the work of Archbishop Matthew Parker, it goes on to discuss their revival in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries especially under the local parish priest Lionel Smithett Lewis. It concludes by showing that while there might be no historical substance in the myths, that there is nevertheless an important history to devotion and piety which is as equally open to theological and historical investigation as the events of history. (shrink)

Der Beitrag diskutiert die Rezeption des Werks von Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in den philosophischen und theologischen Debatten der sogenannten ‚Sattelzeit der Moderne‘. Vor dem Hintergrund von Jacobis Kritik am Gottesbegriff der rationalen Philosophie werden Johann Gottlieb Fichtes und Friedrich Schleiermachers Neubestimmungen von Religion und Gott thematisiert. Dabei zeigt sich, dass es in den Kontroversen über die göttlichen Dingen um die Sinngrundlagen einer sich modernisierenden Gesellschaft und Kultur geht.

Falk Wagner was the leading Hegelian in late 20th century German Protestant theology. Wagner who had studied philosophy with Theodor W. Adorno and Wolfgang Cramer in Frankfurt am Main and Systematic Theology with Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Mainz taught Systematic Theology at the Universities of Munich and, since 1988, Vienna. He published several influential books. In his lectures and seminars he frequently handed out short theory papers to his students which should serve as the basis for debate. The (...) five texts presented here for the first time deal with the problems of individual in society and of the modern history of theology, with the doctrine of God, with the significance of the Bible for the systematic theology and finally with the concept of „Subjektivität“ in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. These texts are an essential source for the development of Wagner’s thought when teaching at the university of Munich until 1988. (shrink)

Schon als Schüler erlernte Ignaz von Döllinger so hervorragend die englische Sprache, dass ihn später viele seiner britischen Korrespondenzpartner und Freunde für einen native speaker hielten. Seine ausgezeichneten Englisch-Kenntnisse ermöglichten dem Münchner Kirchenhistoriker und Präsidenten der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften nicht nur eine intensive Wahrnehmung und Lektüre englischsprachiger Publikationen, darunter auch politischer Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, sondern auch eine sehr genaue Beobachtungen der kirchenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen in der Church of England, die er als die faszinierendste aller nachreformatorischen Kirchenbildungen hoch schätzte. Der Beitrag (...) macht zunächst an Döllingers The Church and the Churches aus dem Jahre 1861, sodann an den kurz nach der deutschen Reichsgründung, 1872 gehaltenen Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches, weiterhin an den von Döllinger initiierten Bonner Unionskonferenzen 1874/75 und kurz auch an The History of Religious Freedom die wachsende Sympathie Döllingers für den anglikanischen Kirchentypus deutlich. Zwar litter stark unter Edward B. Puseys Ablehnung der Bonner Konsensgespräche. Aber langfristig bereitete Döllinger mit seinen zahlreichen ökumenischen Initiativen den Weg für die 1931 vereinbarte Abendmahlsgemeinschaft zwischen Anglikanern und Altkatholiken. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Entstehung und die Wirkung von Luther an unsere Zeit, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneiders vielgelesenes Buch der Auszüge, als Fallstudie darüber, wie moderne wissenschaftliche Theologen und Herausgeber Luther gelesen, kommentiert und anderen Lesern vorgestellt haben: in diesem Beispiel als Rationalist. Das Buch war umstritten. Der Beitrag befasst sich auch mit zwei konkurrierenden Auswahlen von Luthers Schriften, die von den konservativeren Protestanten Friedrich Perthes und Hans Lorenz Andreas Vent sowie den ultramontanen Katholiken Nikolaus Weis und Andreas Räß als Antwort (...) verfasst wurden. Es deutet darauf hin, dass eine stärkere Berücksichtigung solcher Zusammenstellungen und der Arbeitsmethoden der Compiler selbst – als Teil der kritischen Geschichte der Wissenschaft – sowohl unser Verständnis des tatsächlichen Einsatzes der Reformer und ihrer breiten Rezeption durch verschiedene Leser bereichern als auch neues Licht werfen wird über die Polemik des frühen neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. This article examines the creation and impact of Luther for Our Time, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider’s much-read book of excerpts, as a case study of how modern scientific theologians and editors read, annotated, and introduced Luther to other readers: in this instance as a rationalist. The book was controversial. The article also looks at two competing selections of Luther’s texts prepared in response by the more conservative Protestants Friedrich Perthes and Hans Lorenz Andreas Vent and the ultramontane Catholics Nikolaus Weis and Andreas Räß. It suggests that greater consideration of such compilations and the working methods of the compilers themselves – part of the critical history of scholarship – will both enrich our understanding of the actual use of reformers and their broad reception by various readers, as well as shed new light on the polemics of the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

The article analyzes the influence of German thought on Baron Friedrich von Hügel’s philosophy of religion. The activities of the British scholar in the networks of Catholic modernism are placed within the broader framework of the international discussion on religion around 1900. His religious universalism was shaped to a great extent by the encounter of German intellectuals from a liberal Protestant background, most notably by Rudolf Eucken, Ernst Troeltsch and Friedrich Naumann. This encounter, started during the 1890s, focussed on the (...) concepts of historical individuality and historical development. It took a new direction with the public role adopted by German intellectuals in the propaganda of the World War. Von Hügel’s often ignored treatise The German Soul reacted to the fusion of liberal religious thought with German nationalism as observed in Troeltsch and Naumann. His criticism of a lack of „international morality“ of German thought and his approach to identify the reason for this deficit in the Lutheran and idealistic tradition shed light on the ongoing discussions of a „Sonderweg“ of German thought. Von Hügel’s late attempts to promote Christianity as an anti-nationalist force remind of other more theological rejections of nationalism after the war. However, these attempts are not based on a strict theological or confessional rationale but try to continue the interconfessional and interdisciplinary discussion of the beginning of the century. This is revealed best by von Hügel’s close but not uncritical relationship to Troeltsch in the early 1920s. (shrink)

In the article, a little-studied question of the critical interpretation of the theological position of the representative of German protestant tradition Otto Pfleiderer in the eastern orthodox theology, especially in the work of Kharkiv Professor Timofej Butkevič, is presented. At first, the main periods of a clerical and creative career of Butkevič, including his studying at the Kharkiv Clerical Seminary and the Moscow Clerical Academy, are considered. Then the features of the theological publications and the teaching of Butkevič at Kharkiv (...) University are pointed out. His important works were two monographs: The evil, its essence and origin and Religion, its essence and origin in two books. The positions of well-known German theologians such as Karl August von Hase, David Friedrich Strauß, Karl Theodor Keim, Karl Philipp Bernhard Weiss, and others were here analyzed. But Butkevič’s critical interpretation of the theological viewpoint of Otto Pfleiderer in his two volumes work Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte and in his Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart occupies a central place in this analysis. In turn, Butkevič’s important achievement was the popularization of the ideas of Otto Pfleiderer in Russia and Ukraine, in particular, because of his translation of extracts from Pfleiderer’s works. (shrink)

On September 12, 1949, the liberal politician Theodor Heuss, party leader of the „Freie Demokratische Partei“, was elected by the Bundesversammlung as the first Bundespräsident, i. e. head of state, of the newly founded Bundesrepublik Deutschland. As a young man Heuss had been a close friend and political ally of Friedrich Naumann, the protestant pastor and left wing liberal politician, supported by Ernst Troeltsch. Heuss then working as a political journalist for liberal newspapers and Naumann’s weekly journal Die Hilfe, was (...) an admirer of Troeltsch, and since 1910 they often met in Heidelberg, at Villa Fallenstein, Ziegelhäuser Landstraße 17, where Max and Marianne Weber as well als the Troeltschs lived; Heuss frequently visited Max Weber’s Sunday jour fixe. When in 1915 Troeltsch became a professor at the Philosophical Faculty of Berlin University Heuss regularly kept in contact with him especially through Hans Delbrück’s „Mittwochabend“, a weekly gathering of liberal intellectuals, professors, politicians and journalists discussing political reforms and the ongoing war. Both Troeltsch and Heuss, 19 years younger, demanded the democratization of the Deutsches Reich, and after the end of the war and the revolution of 1918/19 they became members of the newly founded left wing liberal party „Deutsche Demokratische Partei“. After Troeltsch’s sudden death on February 1st, 1923, Heuss wrote an obituary, and, together with his wife Elly Heuss-Knapp, attended the funeral service conducted by Adolf von Harnack. Heuss was a member of the „Demokratischer Klub Berlin“, founded in 1919 by liberal politicians, bankers and academics to regularly discuss the political situation of the new democratic state, the Weimar Republic. Unknown until now, seven weeks after Troeltsch’s death the „Demokratische Klub“ invited its members to a memorial act for Troeltsch. On this occasion Heuss delivered a speech „Zu Ernst Troeltschs Gedächtnis“ which is published here for the first time. (shrink)

Was Schleiermacher the first who has given lectures on the life of Jesus? – The article discusses this question and provides a list of this type of lectures between 1778 and 1834 at German universities.

The article deals with the so-called „System Althoff“, that is the network of advisers Friedrich Althoff, ministerial director of the Prussian ministry of cultural affairs, created and employed in order to administer the faculties of theology at Prussian universities. In addition to leading the process of decision making in the ministry itself, he recruited a number of theology professors from the two dominant Church parties to advise him on appointing new professors. Famously, he consulted the opponents Hermann Cremer, a “positive” (...) biblicistic Systematic professor in Greifswald, and Adolf Harnack, a Ritschlian Church Historian in Berlin, but he also counted theologians like Friedrich Loofs and Martin Kähler among his advisers. The article’s main body focusses on Althoff’s correspondence with Cremer and Harnack in order to analyse the minister’s practice of administration in depth. In a second step the paper will relate the minister’s relationship with his two most prominent theological advisers to the wider „System Althoff“ in theology. Both parts serve to show that Althoff rationalized and professionalized the process of decision making in the ministry of cultural affairs by carefully considering different professorial advises in light of the current political climate. (shrink)

Jüdische Gelehrte reagierten auf Bruno Bauers antisemitisches Pamphlet Die Judenfrage auf ganz verschiedene Weise. Gemeinsam war allen Antworten jedoch die Annahme, dass die Mission des Judentums an Kultur und Humanität noch nicht erfüllt ist und auch nicht vom Christentum allein erfüllt werden kann. Nur der mosaische Monotheismus war dazu bestimmt, „den zivilisierten Nationen eine moralische Grundlage zu geben“, wie Gotthold Salomon, einer der in diesem Aufsatz behandelten Denker, gegen Bauer schrieb. Andere Disputanten, wie Hermann Jellinek, behaupteten sogar eine absolute theologische (...) Überlegenheit des Judentums gegenüber der halb-paganen christlichen Religion, wieder andere, wie der Luxemburger Oberrabbiner Samuel Hirsch, sahen im Judentum zumindest das bessere, das essentiellere Christentum. Keiner der jüdischen Gegner Bauers jedoch war mit dessen These einverstanden, dass es sich beim Judentum um ein überholtes Religionsmodell handelte, das nur noch künstlich von einigen halsstarrigen Traditionalisten am Leben gehalten wird. Ob die jüdischen Theologen Bauer als moralisch gefährlichen Atheisten oder eher als Hegelianischen Wiederbeleber der alten christlichen Substitutionslehre sahen, die hier besprochene öffentliche Debatte mit Bauer gab ihnen eine willkommene Gelegenheit – möglicherweise sogar zum allerersten Mal – den genauen Ort des Judentums innerhalb der Entwicklung der kulturellen Idee der Religion in der Weltgeschichte zu bestimmen. (shrink)