MAN, MEANING, AND MYSTERY

NUMEN BOOK SERIES

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS
EDITED BY

W.J. HANEGRAAFF

VOLUME LXXXVII

MAN, MEANING,
AND

MYSTERY
100 Years of History of Religions in Norway.
The Heritage of W. Brede Kristensen

EDITED BY

SIGURD HJELDE

BRILL
LEIDEN BOSTON KOLN
2000

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Man, meaning, and mystery : 100 years of history of religions in Norway
the heritage of W. Brede Kristensen / edited by Sigurd Hjelde.
p.
cm. (Numen book series, ISSN 0169-8834 ; v. 87)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004114971 (alk. paper)
1. ReligionsHistoriographyHistory19th centuryCongresses.
2. ReligionsStudy and teachingScandinaviaHistory19th centuryCongresses. 3. ReligionsHistoriographyHistory20th centuryCongresses. 4. ReligionsStudy and teachingScandinavia
History20th centuryCongresses. I. Hjelde, Sigurd. II. Studies in
the history of religions ; 87.
BL41 .M285 2000
200'.7'0481dc21
00-031150
GIF

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufiiahme

Man, meaning, and mystery : 100 years of history of religions in
Norway ; the heritage of W. Brede Kristensen / ed. by Sigurd Hjelde.
Leiden ; Boston ;Koln : Brill, 2000
(Studies in the history of religions; Vol. 87)
ISBN 90-04-11497-1

ISSN 0169-8834
ISBN 9004 11497 1
Copyright 2000 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. Mo part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS

Contributors

ix

SIGURD HJELDE
Introduction

xiii

PART ONE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN EUROPE TOWARDS
THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY
HANS G. KIPPENBERG
Explaining Modern Facts by Past Religions:
The Study of Religions in Europe Around the
Year 1900

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK
At the Cross-Roads:
Early Dutch Science of Religion in International
Perspective

19

BJORN SKOGAR
Neoprotestantism in Stockholm in 1897

57

PART TWO

W.B. KRISTENSEN AND THE STUDY OF THE

ANCIENT RELIGIONS
ANDERS HULTGARD
The Study of the Avesta and its Religion Around the
Year 1900 and Today

73

SAPHINAZ-AMAL NAGUIB
Lieblein, Kristensen and Schencke and the Quest for
Egyptian Monotheism

101

VI

CONTENTS

JAN N. BREMMER
W. Brede Kristensen and the Religions of Greece
and Rome

115

JENS E. BRAARVIG
W. Brede Kristensen's Concept "Life out of Death"

131

PART THREE

PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION:
PROGRAMME AND PROBLEM
JOHN B. CARMAN
Modern Understanding of Ancient Insight:
Distinctive Contributions of W.B. Kristensen's
Phenomenology of Religion
WlLLEM

157

HOFSTEE

Phenomenology of Religion versus Anthropology of Religion?

The "Groningen School" 1920-1990

173

INGVILD SaELID GILHUS

The Phenomenology of Religion: An Ideal and its
Problems

191

PART FOUR

SCANDINAVIAN PIONEERS OF HISTORY

OF RELIGIONS
SIGURD HJELDE
From Kristiansand to Leiden:
The Norwegian Career of W. Brede Kristensen

205

EINAR THOMASSEN
Wilhelm SchenckeNorway's First Professor in History
of Religions

223

CONTENTS

TOVE TYBJERG
The Introduction of History of Religions as an
Academic Discipline in Denmark

Vll

237

PART FIVE

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS TOWARDS THE END

OF THE 20TH CENTURY
JACQUES WAARDENBURG
Progress in Research on Meanings in Religions
(1898-1998)

255

William Brede Kristensen: A Bibliography

287

Index of Names

295

This page intentionally left blank

CONTRIBUTORS

JENS E. BRAARViG is Professor of History of Religions in the Department

of Culture Studies at the University of Oslo. His central fields of
research and teaching are Buddhism, Greek religion in Antiquity,
and Mythology, and his main approach is that of philology and historical methods. He obtained his doctorate on the dissertation The
Aksayamatinirdesasutra and the Tradition of Imperishability in Buddhist Thought
(Oslo 1989). Among his other publicationswhich cover the mentioned
fieldsis a Norwegian translation of the Bhagavadgita (Oslo 1982).
JAN N. BREMMER is Professor of History and Science of Religion at
the University of Groningen. He is the author of The Early Greek
Concept of the Soul (1983) and Greek Religion (1999, 2. ed.), and coauthor of Roman Myth and Mythography (1987). He is editor of Interpretations
of Greek Mythology (1987), From Sappho to de Sade: Moments in the History
of Sexuality (1989), The Apocryphal Acts of John (1995), The Apocryphal
Acts of Paul and Thecla (1996), The Apocryphal Acts of Peter (1998), The
Apocryphal Acts of Andrew (2000); he is also co-editor of A Cultural
History of Gesture (1991), Between Poverty and the Pyre. Moments in the
History of Widowhood (1995) and A Cultural History of Humour (1997).
JOHN B. CARMAN is Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of
Comparative Religion at the University of Harvard. His special interests are South Indian bhakti, the theological interpretation of
world religions, phenomenology of religion, and comparative ethics.
He is the author of The Theology of Ramanuja: an Essay in Interreligious
Understanding (1974) and Majesty and Meekness: a Comparative Study of
Contrast and Harmony in the Concept of God (1994), and co-editor of
Christian Faith in a Religiously Plural World (1978), Purity and Auspiciousness
in Indian Society (1985), The Tamil Veda: Pillan's Interpretation of the
Tiruvaymoli (1989) and A Bibliographic Guide to the Comparative Study of
Ethics (1991). He also translated W.B. Kristensen's lectures on phenomenology into English (The Meaning of Religion, 1960).
INGVILD SAELID GILHUS is Professor of History of Religions at the
University of Bergen and Guest Professor in the Department of

CONTRIBUTORS

Culture Studies at the University of Oslo. She is the author of The

Nature of the Archons. A Study in the Soteriology of a Gnostic Treatise from
Nag Hammadi (Wiesbaden 1985) and Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins.
Laughter in the History of Religion (London/New York 1997) and a number of articles on Gnosticism and on method and theory in the study
of religion.
SIGURD HJELDE is Professor of History of Religions in the Department
of Culture Studies at the University of Oslo. He teaches the study
of Christianity (and Judaism), and his main fields of research are the
history of Protestant theology and the history of the science of religions. His major publications are Das Eschaton und die Eschata (Munchen
1987) and Die Religionswissenschaft und das Christentum (Leiden 1994).
He is co-editor of a Norwegian translation of Luther's works in 6
volumes (Oslo 1979-1983).
WILLEM HOFSTEE studied History, Cultural Anthropology and Science
of Religion at the University of Groningen, where he currently holds
a teaching post in Science of Religion. He is a member of the
Groningen Research Group "Religious Symbols" and associate member of the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religion. He obtained
his doctorate on the dissertation Goden en mensen. De godsdienstwetenschap van Gerardus van der Leeuw 1890-1950 (Kampen 1997).
ANDERS HULTGARD is Professor of History of Religions at the University
of Uppsala. His main research fields are ancient Scandinavian religion, Zoroastrianism, early Judaism and the religious history of ancient
and classical Armenia. His publications include "Das Judentum in
der hellenistisch-romischen Zeit und die iranische Religionein religionsgeschichtliches Problem" (in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen
Welt II, Prinzipat, Band 19 :1, 1979), "Mythe et histoire dans 1'Iran
ancien: Etude de quelques themes dans le Bahman Yasht" (in: Widengren/Hultgard/Philonenko: apocalyptique iranienne et dualisme qoumranien,
1995), "Runeninschriften und Runendenkmaler als Quelle der Religionsgeschichte" (in: K. Duwel & S. Nowak: Runeninschriften als Quellen
interdisziplindrer Forschung, 1998) and "Persian Apocalypticism" (in: The
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. I, 1998).
HANS G. KIPPENBERG is Professor of Theory and History of Religions
at the University of Bremen and Fellow of the Max-Weber-Kolleg

CONTRIBUTORS

XI

of the University of Erfurt. His major fields of research and teaching are the great religions of ancient and modern Mediterranean
cultures; the sociology of religion of Max Weber; and the history of
comparative religions in the 19th and 20th century. He is editor of
the journals Visible Religion and Numen, author of Die vorderasiatischen
Erlosungsreligionen in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der antiken Stadtherrschaft
(Frankfurt 1991) and Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschqft
und Moderne (Munchen 1997), and co-editor of Religionswissenschqft und
Kulturkritik (Marburg 1991; with B. Luchesi) and Envisioning Magic: A
Princeton Seminar and Symposium (Leiden 1997; with P. Schafer).
ARIE L. MOLENDIJK earned degrees in philosophy and theology at
the University of Leiden. Currently, he is Professor of the History
of Christianity at the University of Groningen and research fellow
in the Leiden Faculty of Theology. His main research interest concerns the history of 19th and 20th century theology and philosophy
in Germany and the Netherlands. His publications include: Am dem
Dunklen ins Helle. Wissenschaft und Theologie im Denken von Heinrich Scholz
(Amsterdam/Adanta, GA 1991) and Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie.
Ernst Troeltschs Typen der christlichen Gemeinschaftsbildung: Kirche, Sekte,
Mystik (Gutersloh 1996). With Peter Pels he edited the volume Religion
in the Making. The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion (Leiden 1998),
and with Jan G. Platvoet the volume The Pragmatics of Defining Religion.
Concepts, Contexts and Contests (Leiden 1999).
SAPHINAZ-AMAL NAGUIB is Professor of Cultural History and Cultural
Analysis in the Department of Culture Studies at the University of
Oslo. Her fields of interest cover ancient Egyptian religion; Coptic
and Copto-Arabic hagiographies; and Islamic iconography. Among
her major publications there are: Le clerge feminin d'Amon thebain a la
21e dynastie (Louvain 1990), Miroirs du Passe (Geneve 1993), and "The
Era of Martyrs: Texts and Contexts of Religious Memory", in: Nelly
van Doom-Harder and Kari Vogt (eds.): Between Desert and City: The
Coptic Orthodox Church Today (Oslo 1997).
BJORN SKOGAR is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the university colleges of Karlstad and Sodertalje. His main field of research
is the history of modern Swedish theology. He has written a number of articles on this subject and obtained his doctorate on the dissertation Viva vox och den akademiska religionen. Ett bidrag till del tidiga

Xll

CONTRIBUTORS

1900-talets teologihistoria (Stockholm 1993). His teaching responsibilities include theories and methods of religious education in a secular and pluralistic society.
EINAR THOMASSEN has previously taught History of Religions at the
universities of Uppsala and Oslo and is now Professor at the University
of Bergen. His main area of research are the Late Hellenistic religions,
and his most important publication is Le Traite Tripartite (NH 1.5)
(text, translation, introduction, commentary). His teaching portfolio
includes a wide range of subjects, especially Islam, Christianity and
the Ancient Religions of the Near East, as well as questions of theory and method. He is current editor of Numen.
TOVE TYBJERG is Associate Professor in Sociology of Religions at the
University of Copenhagen. Her main research interests are the religion of the Northwest Coast Indians and the history of the study of
religions. She has edited Religionssociologiske perspektiver (1995) and (with
Hjordis Nielsen) Mode mellom to verdener (1992).
JACQUES WAARDENBURG studied Theology and Phenomenology with
History of Religions at the University of Amsterdam, and subsequently Arabic and Islam in Amsterdam, Leiden and Paris. In 1961
he obtained his doctorate at the University of Amsterdam with a
dissertation on some Western scholars of Islam. He has taught at
the University of California (Los Angeles) and at the universities of
Utrecht and Lausanne. His main research interests are questions of
method and theory in the study of religions (e.g.: Classical Approaches
to the Study of Religion, 2 vols. 1973-74; Reflections on the Study of Religion,
1978; Religionen und Religion, 1986; Perspektiven der Religionswissenschaft,
1993), and the study of Muslim-Christian relations in the past and
at present (e.g.: L'Islam dans le miroir de I'Occident, 1961; Islamischchristliche Beziehungen: geschichtliche Streifzuge, 1992; Islam et sciences des
religions, 1998); Islam et Occident face a face. Regard de I'histoire des religions, 1998). He is also the editor of a series of volumes within this
field of study.

INTRODUCTION
SIGURD HJELDE

How old is history of religions as an academic discipline? There is

certainly more than one answer to this question. Already at the end
of the 18th century, the first small, but noteworthy signs of a history of religions milieu were seen at the little German university
town of Gottingen. The philosophy professor Christoph Meiners lectured there from the middle of the 1770s on the religions of the
ancient world ("veterum gentium religiones") and from the middle
of the 1780s on the history of all religions ("historia omnium religionum"),1 while the young theologian Christian Wilhelm Flugge in
the 1790s took a special interest in eschatology in a comparative
perspective.2 In 1801 Flugge published what was perhaps the very
first introduction to science of religion and its methodology.3
During the 19th century there were other scholarsfirst and foremost theologians and philosophersat universities in Europe who
occasionally or more or less regularly gave lectures in history of religions. But it was not until the 1870s that the subject seriously began
to make itself felt in the universities of Europe and North America.
The German-English philologist (Friedrich) Max Muller (1823-1900)
is usually given most of the credit for this breakthrough. Although
never a professor of history of religions, he contributed through
countless lectures and publications from the 1850s onwards to an
awakening of interest in the subject, not just in the academic world,
but also amongst a larger contemporary public. His lectures at the
1
Cf. the Catalogus praelectionum of the University of Gottingen. Cf. also Meiners:
GrundriB der Geschichte aller Religionen, Lemgo 1785, 2nd ed. 1787.
2
Flugge: Geschichte des Glaubens an Unsterblichkeit, Auferstehung, Gericht und Vergeltung
I-III, Leipzig 1794-1800. On Flugge, cf. Merkel, R.F.: "Ein vergessener deutscher
Religionsforscher", in: Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft XXXVI, 1939, pp. 193-215.
3
Flugge: Einleitung in das Studium und in die Literatur der Religions- und Kirchengeschichte,
besonders der christlichen, Gottingen 1801. A preliminary study had Flugge published under the title "Versuch uber das Studium der Religionsgeschichte", in:
Staudlin, C.F. (ed.): Beitrdge zur Philosophie und Geschichte der Religion und Sittenlehre uberhaupt und der verschiedenen Glaubensarten und Kirchen insbesondere, vol. II,
Lubeck 1797, pp. 1-92.

XIV

INTRODUCTION

Royal Institution in London in 1870, entitled Introduction to the Science

of Religion, were to have an impact quite different to that of Flugge's
attempt at the same subject two to three generations earlier.
In the same year that Muller's Introduction came out in book form,
in 1873, the first chair in history of religions was set up at the theological faculty in Geneva. Even more significant, however, was the
national secularisation of the faculties of theology in the Netherlands
a few years later (1876/77). Subjects such as dogmatics and practical theology were taken off the curriculum and transferred to Church
colleges. In their place every university in the country received chairs
in history of religions and philosophy of religions. Two of these first
Dutch lecturers became well-known to most students in the early
history of the discipline. The classic teaching books of C.P. Tiele
(1830-1902) and P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye (1848-1920) remained
in print until way into the 20th century.
Other countries followed the Netherlands one by one. This story,
which has been told many times before,4 does not need to be recounted
here. Instead, as we now turn our attention to the northernmost
part of Europe, to Scandinavia, we ask the following question: how
old is history of religions as an academic discipline in Norway?
This question also has more than one answer. The final decision to
set up a chair in the subject was taken by the Norwegian parliament in 1912, and the first professor, Wilhelm Schencke (1869-1946),
was appointed in July 1914. But the subject had already had a scholarship regularly attached to it since the autumn of 1898, held until
1901 by William Brede Kristensen (1867-1953) and then by Schencke.
The holder of this position was also required to teach, and this gave
research and teaching in history of religions in Norway a traditional
connection that has continued since 1898. It seemed most appropriate to choose this year as the starting-point for a celebration of
one hundred years of history of religions in Norway.
The main event in the anniversary celebration was an international symposium in Oslo from 17 to 20 September 1998. This was
planned by a working committee, comprising professors Per Kvaerne,
Saphinaz-Amal Naguib and Sigurd Hjelde, at the Department of
4
Cf. Rudolph, Kurt: Die Religionswissenschqft an der Leipziger Universitat und die
Entwicklung der Religionswissenschqft. Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte und zum
Problem der Religionswissenschaft, Berlin 1962. Cf. also Sharpe, Eric J.: Comparative
Religion. A History, London 1975, 2nd ed. 1986.

INTRODUCTION

XV

Culture Studies at the University of Oslo, and was arranged jointly

with the university and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, which provided its elegant premises for the occasion. The symposium gathered together about 60 specialists in the field, of whom
13 were invited to give papers both from Norway and from abroad.
Most of the participants were naturally enough Norwegian, but the
other Scandinavian countries were also represented. As W.B. Kristensen, Norway's first historian of religions, had done his academic work
at the university in Leiden from 1901 onwards, the symposium was
organised with a strong Dutch element. It was a particular pleasure
that Kristensen's two surviving children, Bjarne Kristensen and Gunhild Volkenborn-Kristensen, could take part as guests of honour.
Exactiy 100 years to the day after the first lecture given in Norway
in history of religions, the symposium was opened by Professor Lucy
Smith, rector of the University of Oslo, and Professor Lars Walloe,
president of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The
symposium was rounded off with a formal dinner on the Saturday
evening and a guided tour of the city of Oslo on the final day. The
individual lectures, which were also attended by interested university students, were regularly followed by interesting exchanges. The
informal and easy atmosphere that developed contributed to good
contact between participants.
The lectures given during the symposium form the basis of this
book. As one of the organisers of the anniversary celebration and
editor of the symposium report, I would like to thank all those who
have so kindly contributed their manuscripts. Two of those invited
to give lectures, Professor Yme B. Kuiper (Groningen) and Professor
Eric J. Sharpe (Sydney), unfortunately had to decline for very understandable personal reasons. Fortunately Dr. Willem Hofstee (the
Hague), who works closely with Professor Kuiper, was willing to take
over his theme. But unfortunately an adequate replacement could
not be found for Professor Sharpe, who had intended to give a lecture on the relationship between Edvard Lehmann and Nathan
Soderblom, the two Scandinavians who were appointed (in 1910 and
1912 respectively) to the first German chairs in history of religions
(in Berlin and Leipzig). In the end, though, my own biographical
outline of Kristensen's early Norwegian academic career was included
in the programme.
But the 100th anniversary of history of religions as an academic
discipline in Norway in the autumn of 1998 had many components.

XVI

INTRODUCTION

A collection of articles was published under the title Enhet i mangfold? 100 ar med religionshistorie i Norge5 ("Unity in Diversity? 100 Years
of History of Religions in Norway"), with contributions from many
colleagues, partly on theoretical topics and partly on historical ones.
An exhibition with the same title was arranged from 15 September
to 1 December at the University Library of Oslo (since 1999 the
National Library). The theme was not just the subject's Norwegian
history, but also the diversity of history of religions internationally.
A somewhat smaller exhibition on the history of the subject was put
up at the end of October in the Department of Culture Studies on
the university campus. It is also worth mentioning that the anniversary received a fair amount of media attention, with articles in the
press and interviews on the radio.
An anniversary celebration like this could not have been arranged
without a considerable amount of practical assistance and financial
support from various quarters. On behalf of the organisers, I would
like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who contributed in
different ways to the official programme. One can always wonder if
the results have matched the efforts put into arranging the event,
but this is certainly one of those many questions that have no definitive
answer. But we hope at least that the anniversary will contribute to
the long-term growth and strengthened vitality of history of religions
in Norway.
In this book the order of the individual contributions is the same as
in the symposium itself, which was divided into five sessions:
1. History of Religions in Europe towards the End of the 19th Century
Like so many other cultural phenomena, the subject of history of
religions is no Norwegian invention. Before any attention could be
paid to the history of the subject in Norway, it was necessary to
take a look at the broader common European context, where the
beginnings of the subject in Norway both belong and have their
roots. By looking at examples of different research interests in France
(Durkheim), England (Tylor, Frazer, Marett), and Germany (Otto,
Troeltsch, Weber), Hans Kippenberg (Bremen) shows how the academic study of religion around 1900 was not just motivated by a historical interest, but was also very much a response to and a way of
5

Oslo: Tano Aschehoug, 1998; ed. by Inger Marie Ruud and Sigurd Hjelde.

INTRODUCTION

XV11

throwing light on questions and challenges in contemporary modern

society.
Both with a view to the leading role that Dutch historians of religion played in the early history of the subject and the connection
made between Norway and the Netherlands in and by W.B. Kristensen,
it was natural to follow up the more general opening lecture with
a more detailed look at the early Dutch history of the subject. In
the first main section of his essay, Arie L. Molendijk (Leiden)6 points
to some of the factors that contributed to the international renown
that many of his countrymen have enjoyed. In the following section,
he looks at the pioneers of the phenomenology of religion from
Chantepie de la Saussaye to van der Leeuw, and tries to decide the
role of each individual. A separate section on the internationalisation of the subject also discusses the question of the relationship
between European colonialism and the academic study of religion,
while the concluding "epilogue" suggests some hypotheses capable
of explaining the fruitful start of science of religion in the Netherlands.
The Nordic countries have for a long time had close links through
their extensive shared culture. The third and last introductory lecture took us from the heart of continental Europe to the local environment of Scandinavia. The choice of Sweden was made with
reference to the political situation a hundred years ago when Norway
was still (since 1814) in a union with Sweden, with a common foreign policy and king. But there are also good reasons within the history of the field to turn our attention to Norway's sister nation to
the east, as Stockholm in 1897 hosted the first international conference arranged expressly for the purposes of science of religion. Even
though this conference has later been excluded from the official tally
of congresses in history of religions, it remains in many ways an
interesting expression of the contemporary cultural situation, typical
of its time, and ought not to be forgotten. Bjorn Skogar (Karlstad)7
sees the Stockholm conference in general as an expression of contemporary neo-Protestant theology and focuses his attention on Nathan
Soderblom, the first great Swedish historian of religions, as a characteristic representative of this theological tradition.

6
7

Since the autumn of 1999: Groningen.

Since 2000: Sodertalje.

xviii

INTRODUCTION

2. W.B. Kristensen and the Study of Ancient Religions

After this introductory guide to the European landscape of history
of religions around 1900 it was time for a closer look at the early
Norwegian contribution to the development of the subject. Since the
choice fell on 1898, rather than 1914, as the starting-point for the
institutional history of the subject in Norway, it was natural to focus
attention on W. Brede Kristensen and his study of the ancient religions. Of the four lectures in this session, the first three were given
by specialists in the three geographical areas that above all constituted Kristensen's work. Anders Hultgard (Uppsala), Saphinaz-Amal Naguib
(Oslo) and Jan JV. Bremmer (Groningen) discussed Kristensen's contribution to, respectively, ancient Iranian, ancient Egyptian, and
ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as outlining the main
features of further development in these fields up to the present day.
In his paper on the study of ancient Iranian religion, Hultgard
focuses especially on three main issues: the figure of Zarathustra; the
message of the Gathas; and the emergence of classical Zoroastrianism
as witnessed by the Younger Avesta. He shows how recent research
has questioned the traditional interpretation of Zarathustra as a religious reformer and author of the Gathas, and raises the question of
whether the emergence of classical Zoroastrianism is not best explained
as the result of a continuous development within early Iranian religion. Naguib, for her part, focuses on the classic question about
Egyptian monotheism and sets in a historical context the answers
given by Jens Lieblein, the first Norwegian Egyptologist of international stature, and his two students, Kristensen and Schencke. Finally
she points out the limitations of terms such as monotheism, henotheism, polytheism and pantheism within the study of Egyptian religion,
and therefore advocates a terminological reorientation. Bremmer surveys Kristensen's contributions to Greek and Roman religions and
situates him in the development of their history in the first half of
this century. A more detailed analysis of Kristensen's interpretation
of the gods Hades and Hermes concludes in a mainly critical assessment of his contribution to the study of Greek religion.
Unlike the first three lectures in the session, the fourth and last
was not related to any specific geographical area of religion, but to
a theme which can fairly safely be described as the leitmotif in Kristensen's work: "life out of death". Jens E. Braarvig (Oslo) finds it surprising, given the strong interest in ecology today, that nature mythology
and its theories are not taken into account more seriously in reli-

INTRODUCTION

XIX

gious studies. Based on recent theory of metaphors and cognitive

science, as set forth by George Lakoff, he argues that reading myths
and developing metaphors again makes nature mythology relevant
for mythological and religious studies. Opposing the view of Jonathan
Smith and others who had dismissed Frazer's concept of the dying/
arising god as an "exceedingly dubious" category, Braarvig discusses
the case of the Greek god Dionysos and finds evidence indicating
that the idea of the dying and arising saviour god is of pre-Christian
origin and thus may even have influenced Christian theology.
3. Phenomenology of Religion: Programme and Problem
It is well-known that Kristensen had little sympathy for research
based on theoretical positions and methodological programmes. He
even declared himself opposed to every school and considered himself something of a lone wolf who mostly followed his own, self-chosen paths alongside or across the main currents of the day. Nonetheless,
his name is generally associated with the Dutch phenomenology of
religion that came to play such a central role around the middle of
the 20th century, a position which was also shared by many of his
students, such as Gerardus van der Leeuw and C. J. Bleeker. Thus
it seemed reasonable to gear the discussion of method at the symposium to phenomenology as a history of religions programme and
to the problems connected with this programme.
As the person who translated Kristensen's phenomenology lectures
to English in the years straight after Kristensen's death (The Meaning
of Religion, 1960), John B. Carman (Harvard) was the very man to contribute to this discussion. Here he focuses on some of the central
motifs and methodological considerations in Kristensen's work and
suggests "the religious sense of nature" as the most appropriate title
for his lectures on the phenomenology of religion. In a historical
perspective he emphasises on the one hand the close contact between
Kristensen and the young Schleiermacher, while on the other hand
he discusses the relationship between Kristensen and his closest students and successors in the Netherlands.
The high tide of phenomenology of religion in the 1950s was followed by fundamental criticism of both its assumptions and its outcome during the next decade. This critical reactive movement, which
orientated itself more in the direction of social or cultural anthropological theory and method, was centred on the history of religions
milieu at the University of Groningen, where van der Leeuw had

XX

INTRODUCTION

his place of work. Willem Hofstee, for many years attached to the
same university, compares the ideas of the phenomenologists Kristensen
and van der Leeuw, especially with a view to their contacts with
anthropology, and then discusses the reactions to this phenomenological programme as expressed in Groningen by Fokke Sierksma
and Theo van Baaren. After examining the further development of
this initiative, he finally concludes that the "Groningen school" seems
characterised by a consistent line of thinking.
The criticism from the Groningen school actualises to a great
extent the question of what phenomenology of religion really is. What
are its aims and fundamental assumptions? What position does it
have within the framework of an academic study of religion? These
are questions that Ingvild Salid Gilhus (Bergen) has discussed on many
occasions. In this collection of articles she makes a new contribution
to a critical discussion of phenomenology as a method in history of
religions. Evaluating phenomenology as an ethical approach, she asks
at what cost this ideal has asserted itself within the general study of
religion. She locates one of its main problems in a monolithic theory of religion that contributes to sustaining the comprehension of
religion as a sui generis phenomenon and a self-contained system.
Finally she suggests an alternative approach to the study of religion.
4. Scandinavian Pioneers of History of Religions

As a pioneer in the context of Norwegian history of religions, W.B.

Kristensen could undoubtedly and rightfully claim special attention
at this 100th anniversary. In a way it was not unreasonable that a
biographical sketch of Kristensen also found its place amongst the
lectures from the symposium. In this contribution, which was not in
the original programme, Sigurd Hjelde (Oslo) looks at the young Kristensen's development and academic career up to his appointment to
the highly respected chair at Leiden in 1901, and draws attention
to his continued contact with the Norwegian and Scandinavian academic milieus.
When Kristensen left his post in Kristiania, his scholarship went
to Schencke, who was two years his junior. It was Schencke who,
after a 13 year wait, was finally appointed as the first professor of
history of religions in Norway. He too could rightfully claim attention at this 100th anniversary, even though he can hardly be said
to have made much impact on the international scene. Einar Thomassen
(Bergen) gives a presentation and critical assessment of his work.

INTRODUCTION

XXI

Rightly enough, he regards the value of Schencke's research as limited, but nonetheless notes his clear recognition of history of religions
belonging in the faculty of arts, rather than the faculty of theology.
The fact that both the first two lectures during this session dealt
with Norwegian history of religions can perhaps invite charges of
national hubris. In their defence, the organisers can mention that
the two neighbouring Scandinavian countries, represented by Nathan
Soderblom (Sweden) and Edvard Lehmann (Denmark), would have
received ample attention in the planned lecture by Eric Sharpe. On
the other hand, Soderblom, Sweden's foremost pioneer in history of
religions, was the subject of a thorough examination by Bjorn Skogar
on the first day of the symposium, and in this fourth session Tove
Tybjerg (Copenhagen) gave an introduction to the work of two Danish
pioneers: Hans Sofus Vodskov and Vilhelm Gronbech. While Vodskov
was a definite outsider who never held a university position, Gronbech
had a much more regular academic career. In 1914 he was appointed
the first professor in history of religions in Denmark and was to exert
the greatest influence on later Danish historians of religions.
5. History of Religions towards the End of the 20th Century
The symposium began with a look at European history of religions
around the turn of the last century. The following sessions dealt with
different fields within history of religions, the question of the subject's
fundamental method problem, and the history of the subject in
Scandinavia. In the final session it was time for a more comprehensive evaluation of the work of history of religions in the 20th century, in the hundred years from 1898 to 1998. In what sense is it
reasonable to talk about a development within the field, and how can
this be more accurately defined? Another question that naturally
arises on such an occasion is to what extent it is possible in such
an overview to claim progress in the academic study of religions since
the days of W.B. Kristensen.
Jacques Waardenburg (Lausanne) discusses questions such as these in
the final contribution. He divides the history of the subject into two
main periodsbefore and after the Second World Warand gives
a general overview of the development of the subject in each of
these two periods, and then a more thorough treatment of the research
that in particular makes religious meaning into a theme. With a view
to the dramatic change that the study of religions has gone through
as a result of a stronger social science orientation after the Second

XX11

INTRODUCTION

World War, he finds it reasonable to talk about a development from

a specific historical discipline to a broad, interdisciplinary field of
research. But in research on religious meanings Waardenburg also
thinks, as the title of his article suggests, that he can discern at least
some progress, particularly after the middle of the 20th century, both
in terms of defining the subject and its methodology. Related to this,
he discusses three cases in which a change of existing conceptualisation is evident: the re-emergence of hermeneutics; viewing believers as actors; and the concept of religionconstruction or construct?
Finally, I would like to thank in particular the editors of Studies in
the History of Religions (Numen Bookseries) for including this conference
report in the series and Mattie Kuiper and her colleagues at Brill
Academic Publishers for looking faithfully after the manuscript. Thanks
are also due to Andrew Preston for conscientiously proofreading most
of the individual manuscripts, and to Arie L. Molendijk for a concise and accurate subtitle that conveys both the occasion for the
symposium and the Norwegian pioneer that this anniversary was
particularly related to. The main title itself expresses an attempt to
capture concisely some of the interests that in particular characterise
this researcher's work in the field of history of religions.

PART ONE

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN EUROPE TOWARDS

THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY

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EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS:

THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS IN EUROPE AROUND
THE YEAR 1900
HANS G. KIPPENBERG

In 1898 the French social scientist Emile Durkheim wrote a preface

to the second volume of his journal L'Annee Sociologique. He expected
his readers to be surprised regarding the priority the editors had
given to studies in the sociology of religion. Durkheim felt obliged
to explain their decision. Religions were the seed from which nearly
all other social phenomena were derived; they had given birth to
diverse manifestations of the collective life.1 The readers were certainly astonished. Not so long ago religions had been seen by educated people as definitely superseded by modern civilization. Durkheim
reversed that view, at least epistemologically. In order to understand
contemporary phenomena, a social scientist has to study religious
history.2
Max Weber, a couple of years later, changed the direction of
research in a similar manner. In 1904/5, in his famous essay, he
traced the "Spirit of Capitalism" back to "the Protestant Ethic".
Weber realized, as Durkheim had done, that his view was not selfevident. "The modern man is in general, even with the best will,
unable to give religious ideas a significance for culture and national
character which they deserve."3 Both authors were no exception to
1
E. Durkheim, Journal Sociologique. Paris 1969 p. 13: "En tete des ces analyses,
on trouvera, cette annee comme 1'an dernier, celles qui concernent la sociologie
religieuse. On s'est etonne de 1'espece de primaute que nous avons ainsi accordee
a cette sorte de phenomenes; mais c'est qu'ils sont le germe d'ou tous les autres
ou, tout au moins, presque tous les autressont derives. La religion contient en
elle, des le principe, mais a 1'etat confus, tous les elements qui. . . ont donne naissance aux diverses manifestations de la vie collective.".
2
A comprehensive and still basic study of Durkheim's sociology of religion by
W.S.F. Pickering, Durkheim's Sociology of Religion. Themes and Theories. London 1984;
cp. H.G. Kippenberg, Emile Durkheim. A. Michaels (ed.), Klassiker der Religionswissenschqft.
Munchen 1997 pp. 103-119.
3
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/5). Translated
by Talcott Parsons (1930). Introduction by A. Giddens. London/New York: Roudedge
1997 p. 183.

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

their time. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, scholars of

various disciplines had scrutinized past religions' history in order to
understand contemporary phenomena.4 The intriguing changes in
the field of humanities at that time have been the subject of a host
of fine studies exploring them from different points of view.5
I. THEORY OF RELIGION:
FROM SURVIVAL TO A PERSISTENT POWER
The words of both scholars, Durkheim and Weber, are indicative of
a new direction in the study of religions. A fundamental shift, the
second in twenty years, was occurring. In the 1880s Edward Burnett
Tylor's paradigm of a development of religions had replaced the preceding comparative mythology of Friedrich Max Muller.6 The eclipse
of Muller's solar mythology coincided with the rise of anthropological evolutionism.7 According to Tylor, it was wrong to trace the
belief in souls back to a "disease of language". "The simple anthropomorphic view, as it seems to me, is itself the fundamental principle of mythology, . . . language only needs to accompany and express
it. It is only in a further advanced stage that the celebrated definition
of mythology as a 'disease of language' need be brought into play,
when myths come to be built upon mere names."8 Animism constituted an early mode of thought, explaining natural events by the
4
Comprehensive analysis of all parts of that paradigm of historical research and
representation by H.G. Kippenberg, Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschqft
und Modeme. Munchen 1997.
5
R. vom Bruch/F.W. Graf/G. Hubinger (eds.), Kultur und Kulturwissenschaften um
1900. Vol. 1. Krise der Moderne und Glaube an die Wissenschaft. Stuttgart 1989, Vol. 2.
Idealismus und Positivismus. Stuttgart 1997; G. Hubinger (ed.), Versammlungsort moderner
Geister. Der Eugen Diederichs VerlagAufbruch ins Jahrhundert der Extreme. Munchen 1997;
M. BaBler/H. Chatellier (eds.), Mystique, Mysticisme et Modernite en Allemagne autour de
1900. Strasbourg 1998; H.G. Kippenberg/B. Luchesi (eds.), Religionswissenschaft und
Kulturkritik. Beitrage zur Konferenz "The History of Religions and Critique of Culture in the
Days of Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950)". Marburg 1991; V. Drehsen/W. Sparn
(eds.), Vom Weltbildwandel zur Weltanschauungsanalyse. Krisenwahrnehmung und Krisenbewaltigung
um 1900. Berlin 1996; V. Krech/H. Tyrell (eds.), Religionssoziologie um 1900. Wurzburg
1995.
6
K.-H. Kohl, "Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917)". A. Michaels (ed.), Klassiker
der Religionswissenschqft. Munchen 1997 pp. 41-59.
7
R.M. Dorson, "The Eclipse of Solar Mythology". Th.A. Sebeok (ed.), Myth. A
Symposium (1955). Bloomington/London 1971 pp. 2563.
8
E.B. Tylor, "The Religion of Savages". The Fortnightly Review 6 (1866) pp. 71-86
quotation on p. 81.

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

activity of spiritual beings. In the course of time this primitive concept was replaced by science, but not entirely. It survived in civilized society as the notion of an immaterial personal soula concept,
that from time to time came up vigorously in revivals. "One of these
revivals is the great modern Spiritualistic movement."9 Tylor's notion
"survival" functioned as a category indicating a continuity of primitive religion in the fully developed civilization.10
Tylor's "survival" has had an amazing career in religious studies.
For nearly two decades it remained the fundamental metaphor of
religious theory. Yet in the 1890s the tide turned. The reason for
that shift has still to be explained. The historian of religions EJ.
Sharpe in his widely read Comparative ReligionA History, pointed out
that the theory of a unilinear evolution of religion was replaced by
the new "phenomenology of religion".
The recently celebrated hypothesis of the unilinear evolution of religion was now felt, particularly following the trauma of the war years,
to be a positive hindrance to the achievement of such an understanding
[of the overall nature and essence of religion], since it involved the
imposition of so many alien value-judgements on the material. Instead,
a method was sought which would eliminate such value-judgements.

According to Sharpe this method was found in the "phenomenology of religion".11 Yet Sharpe's argument is not supported by the
facts. It does not take into account the shift in paradigm, that had
happened long before World War I. Sharpe takes for granted later
views of the phenomenological approach. But that understanding is
distorted for two reasons. The attention Tylor and the adherents of
the theory of evolution paid to religious history did not embrace a
stubborn belief in the superiority of the European civilization, as
Sharpe and others maintained.12 Evolutionary theory was closely
9

E.B. Tylor, "On the Survival of Savage Thought in Modern Civilization".

Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 5 (1866-69) pp. 522~535 on p. 524;
G.W. Stocking, Jr., "Animism in Theory and Practice. E.B. Tylor's unpublished
'Notes on Spiritualism'". Man 6 (1971) pp. 88-104.
10
M.T. Hodgen, The Doctrine of Survivals. A Chapter in the History of Scientific Method
in the Study of Man. London (1936) 1977 p. 38; H.G. Kippenberg, "Survivals:
Conceiving of Religious History in an Age of Development". A.L. Molendijk/
P. Pels (eds.), Religion in the Making. The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion. Leiden
1998 pp. 297-312.
11
EJ. Sharpe, Comparative Religion. A History. 2nd ed. London 1986 p. 220.
12
G. Widengren, "Evolutionistische Theorien auf dem Gebiet der vergleichenden Religionswissenschaft". G. Lanczkowski (ed.), Selbstverstdndnis und Wesen der
Religionswissenschafi. Darmstadt 1974 pp. 87-113.

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

connected with an attempt at tackling the lasting existence of nonrational beliefs and institutions in modern civilization.13 Second, the
shift in religious studies in the 1890s was moved forward by a different issue to that assumed by Sharpe. When the German-American
anthropologist Franz Boas critically assessed the "Limitations of the
Comparative Method of Anthropology", he raised the question of
whether it is reasonable to assume that similarities between cultures
are always the result of an independent invention? Is it only by
chance that similarities between different cultures increase with geographical distance? Scholars should consider similarity and dissimilarity of cultures not only in terms of development, but also in terms
of geographical distributions and historical processes.14 A new methodology was in the air.15
In 1899 Robert Ranulph Marett (1866-1943) mounted a deadly
attack against Tylor's animism. Marett had accepted an invitation
by the organizers of a conference of the British Anthropological
Society to enliven their meeting with a paper. He did so with a presentation on "Pre-animistic Religion" (1900).16 Tylor's definition of
primitive religion as a belief in souls and a belief in the animation
of nature (animism) was "too narrow, because too intellectualistic."
"Religion involves more than thought, namely feeling and will as
well."17 An experience of power lies at the root of all religions, in
the past as well as in the present. Marett moved the beginnings of
religion from an intellectual need of explanation towards a primordial experience of power. But that opened new possibilities for understanding present phenomena. Marett conceived of present religions
as a kind of recapitulation, comparable to a living organism passing
through the entire natural history of its species.18 The notion of "sur-

13

J-W. Burrow, Evolution and Society. A Study in Victorian Social Theory. Cambridge
1966 p. 98.
14
F. Boas, "The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology" (1896).
Idem, Race, Language and Culture. New York 1949 pp. 270-280.
15
This approach was more suitable for explaining recent historical data indicating a diffusion of religions in the Roman Empire.
16
R.R. Marett, "Pre-animistic Religion" (1900). The Threshold of Religion. 2.
A. London 1914 pp. 1-28.
17
Ibid., p. 1.
18
H.G. Kippenberg, "Rekapitulationen der Religionsgeschichte". H.-J. Klimkeit
(ed.), Vergleichen und Verstehen in der Religionswissenschqft. Vortrage der Jahrestagung der DVRG
vom 4. bis 6. Oktober 1995 in Bonn. Wiesbaden 1997 pp. 131-146; H.G. Kippenberg,
Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte pp. 179-194.

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

vival" appeared to him to be totally misleading. "The student of survivals must beware lest he embark on a wild-goose chase in search
of an original meaning that never was."19
Most scholars of religion immediately embarked on the new paradigm and dropped the concept of "survival"with one notable
exception: Sir James George Frazer.20 In 1900 Frazer published the
second edition of The Golden Bough, now with the subtitle A Study in
Magic and Religion, in place of A Study in Comparative Religion, subtitle
of the first edition in 1890. Frazer continued using the concept of
"survival", though he evaluated the continuity between primitive and
modern culture in a different way from Tylor. Civilization, in his
eyes, was a thin veneer above savagery and magic. In a lecture in
Liverpool in 1908 he pointed out that "in civilized society most educated people are not even aware of the extent to which these relics
of savage ignorance survive at their doors. The smooth surface of
cultured society is sapped and mined by superstition. . . . We appear
to be standing on a volcano which may at any moment break out
in smoke and fire."21 Frazer's pessimistic view on progress has had
a tremendous impact on a generation that experienced World War
I. While the scholarly impact of The Golden Bough in the study of
religions declined with the disappearance of "survival", the literary
impact was increasing year by year.22 T.S. Eliot, for example, in
1922, in his The Waste Land conceived of the fate of his generation
as an reenactment of the tragic and senseless cycle of death and resurrection in ancient vegetation ceremonies, as Frazer had depicted
them in The Golden Bough. All other leading scholars in religious studies deserted to Marett's pre-animism. Time was apparently ripe for
a U-turn. Not survivals of remote origins but present and pressing
issues of life in modern society became the new focus.

19

R.R. Marett, "The Interpretation of Survivals". Psychology and Folklore. London,

1920 pp. 120-142 quotation p. 127.
20
R. Ackerman, J.G. Frazer: His Life and Work. Cambridge 1987.
21
J.G. Frazer, "The Scope of Social Anthropology". Psyche's Task. A Discourse
Concerning the Influence of Superstition on the Growth of Institutions (1913). 2nd ed. London.
1968 p. 170.
22
J.B. Vickery, The Literary Impact of the Golden Bough. Princeton 1973.

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

II. A HUMAN SELF TRANSCENDING THE RATIONAL WORLD

The approach gained additional momentum in Germany, when
Rudolf Otto in 1899 had arranged for a new edition of Schleiermacher's famous speeches On Religion. Speeches to its Cultured Despisers,
one hundred years after their first appearance.23 These writings deserve
our particular attention, Otto pointed out in his preface. Schleiermacher
had opposed an understanding of religion as explaining the world
and establishing morals. Religion was an independent area of human
existence that stands next to the other two in its own right and that
"should not be stunted".24 Otto perceived in Schleiermacher's speeches
a meaning that had accrued to religion in modern age. They provided a program of "struggle against rationalist culture and the
Philistinism of rationalism in the state, church, school, and society",
and demanded a "leaning toward fantasy, melancholy, presentiment,
mysticism", and to "historical and positive 'becoming' in contrast to
the 'natural'," a turning to "the individual" in contrast to "universal reason".25 According to Otto, vision and feeling of the universe,
in other words, religion, represented, alongside understanding and
acting, a third independent capacity of the human spirit that was
threatened by modern rationalism.26
In his own major contribution to the study of religion, The Idea
of the Holy, Otto provided an additional argument for the independence of religion from knowledge and morals. Concepts cannot grasp
religion adequately. Religion can only be discussed by calling upon
feelings"feelings which our discussion can help to make clear to
us, in so far as it arouses them actually in our hearts."27 Otto rejected
any attempt to trace religion to social functions. Only by means of
its elucidation as a primary given of life can it be made accessible
to consciousness.28
23
New critical edition: F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Uber die Religion. Reden an die
Gebildeten unter ihren Verdchtem (1799). Edited by G. Meckenstock. Berlin/New York
1999.
24
F. Schleiermacher, On Religion. Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. New York 1958,
pp. vii and xviii.
25
Ibid., p. xi.
26
Ibid., p. xviii.
27
R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy. An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of
the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. New York 1958 p. 13.
28
G. Pfleiderer addresses the role of "elucidation" (Erorterung) as an access to religion in his outstanding study Theologie als Wirklwhkeitswissenschqft. Studim zum Religionsbegriff

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

Otto's approach to religious history was intended as a kind of rescue action. Man living in the developed society was threatened with
the loss of his genuine identity. That threat has likewise been the
concern of philosophers and intellectuals belonging to the school of
"vitalism" ("Lebensphilosophie", "philosophy of life"). In 1913 Max
Scheler traced the special resonance of the word "life" back to
Nietzsche, who had protested against modern biology conceiving of
life as an accommodation of inner relationships to outer processes:29
Life is not something that "accommodates" itself or that is "accommodated". Life is much more a tendency towards shaping, towards forming, yes towards the masterful overpowering and incorporation of a
material. "Life"this becomes for Nietzsche in the smallest and the
greatest being something like a daring undertaking, a metaphysical
"adventure", a bold plunge into the possibilities of being, which only
form themselves into a being through the success of this endeavor
to that which then all possible "science" observes. Lifethat is the
place before existence, at which point existence and nonexistence first
of all becomes decided.

From that point of view the natural sciences unjustly transpose

mechanical categories upon human life and thereby degrade the soul
to a machine of external perception and knowledge. Genuine life
becomes eclipsed by a mechanical model fostered by the natural sciences. In doing so they create a culture of their own that has lost
any sight of the inner autonomous laws of psychological processes.
Otto shared that concern.
According to German scholars, that threat required a new methodology when dealing with human beings. One of the protagonists was
Wilhelm Dilthey. Whereas natural sciences study man as an object
of nature, a psychological fact should lie at the base of the human
sciences: the experience of life, the expression a person direcdy affected
gives to its experience, and the understanding of that expression by
others. These three elements form a coherent whole, which for Dilthey
was the subject matter of the human sciences (Geisteswissenschqften).30
bei Georg Wobbermin, Rudolf Otto, Heinrich Scholz und Max Scheler. Tubingen 1992 pp.
119-122.
29
Max Scheler, "Versuche einer Philosophie des Lebens. Nietzsche - Dilthey Bergson". Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 3. Vom Umsturz der Werte. 5th ed., Berne 1972 pp.
313-339 quotation p. 315; selected excerpts are reprinted in F. Rodi and H.-U.
Lessing (eds.), Materialien zur Philosophie Wilhelm Diltheys. Frankfurt 1984 pp. 88-94.
30
W. Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (1910)
published in 1927 by B. Groethuysen. Frankfurt 1981 pp. 89-100. For a critical

10

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

For Dilthey, religion expressed, as for Schleiermacher, the experience of the "mystical" unity of humanity with the Infinite. Religion
is accessible for a scholar in two realms: in historical data as expressions of experiences and in his own religious experience as a precondition for an adequate understanding. "Religion is a psychic
interrelation t h a t . . . is given doubly in religious experience and in
the objectifications of the same. Experience always remains subjective: only the understanding of religious creations that is established
in an experience enables an objective knowledge of religion."31
Understanding history of religions produces in one and the same
process an experienced true life and a recognition of ignored options
for conducting one's own life.
German intellectuals had turned culture into an emotional watchword by which they expressed their concern "about the glaciation
threatening the soul".32 They conceived of culture as something purely
interior in contrast to the outer civilization.33 Protestant theologians
that had distanced themselves from the older liberal Protestant theology were leading participants in a new discourse on culture, attributing religion a specific task in the fabric of culture.34 Troeltsch firmly

discussion of Dilthey: H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzuge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tubingen 1960 pp. 20528 (Eng. trans, of 2nd rev. ed., J. Weinsheimer
and D.G. Marshall [New York, 1993], pp. 192-214); J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und
Interesse. Frankfurt 1973 pp. 178-203 (Eng. trans., J.J. Shapiro [Boston, 1971]);
H. Johach, "Wilhelm Dilthey: Die Struktur der geschichtlichen Erfahrung" in Philosophie der Neuzeit. IV. Grundprobleme der groflen Philosophen. Gottingen, 1986, pp. 52-90.
31
W. Dilthey, "Das Problem der Religion" (1911) in "Einleitung", Die Philosophie
des Lebens. Leipzig, 1924 pp. 288-305 on p. 304.
32
W. Perpeet, "Kulturphilosophie". Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte 20 (1976) pp. 42-99
on pp. 44-45.
33
The German middle classes, at least in part, perceived at the end of the 19th
century the "social question" as no longer the most urgent. "The socio-political discourse that had been dominant until then was increasingly superimposed with, and
then largely displaced by, a new discourse of cultural criticism" (Introduction in:
R. vom Bruch/F.W. Graf/G. Hubinger (eds.), Kultur und Kulturwissenschaften urn 1900.
Vol. 1. Krise der Moderne und Glaube an die Wissenschaft. Stuttgart 1989 p. 11 [my
translation]). Take, for example, the philosopher E. Hammacher, who pointed out
in 1914: "With an extension of the usual meaning of the word, we may correspondingly determine the social question as the relationship between objective and subjective culture, to which the contradiction between capital and labor is subordinated
as the most evident example." (Hauptfragen der modernen Kultur. Leipzig 1914 p. 5).
34
F.W. Graf, "Kulturprotestantismus. Zur Begriffsgeschichte einer theologiepolitischen Chiffre", Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte 28 (1984) pp. 214-268: "[The] representatives of the older theological generation have succumbed, for the young Baumgarten,
all too much to the danger of dissipating the eschatological identity of the Christian
consciousness into 'belief in culture', 'cultural bliss', and an accommodation with
specifically bourgeois cultural values" (p. 230).

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

11

opposed the notion that religion was nothing more than an ideal of
an existing culture. Instead, he insisted upon the distance between
Christianity and the culture of developed society. There existed an
unbridgeable tension between religion and the world. Troeltsch's
insistence on the independence of religion was significant to the intellectual situation in his time. It reveals the reason for stressing the
"autonomy" of religion. As a "deep and energetic belief", religion
stands "in a certain tension with culture". The heart of all religion,
therefore, is mysticism.35 For Troeltsch, there was no question as to
whether religions can prevail against modern culture. They can! And
certainly more than mere survivals. As religions of world rejection,
which set the soul at odds with the world, they create the preconditions for a genuine personality of the individual. In the mechanized
world religion alone can guarantee its subjectivity.36 Similar assumptions were current at that time.37 The impact of this theory of religion has been tremendous in Germany,38 though it was not restricted
to Germany.39 In these debates the notion of autonomy got a concise meaning. Religion as an autonomous system contradicts the powerful systems like economy and politics. Religion embraces a power
turning the believer into a subject independent of the outer world.
III. SOURCES OF SOCIAL MORALS IN A SPECIALIZED SOCIETY
Likewise in France scholars addressed religious history in order to
understand contemporary social life. Yet the French studies put
emphasis on a different threat than that put forward by the Germans.
The dangers of modernity were appraised differently on opposite

35
E. Troeltsch, "Die Selbstandigkeit der Religion", Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche
5 (1895) pp. 361-436; 6 (1896) pp. 167-218; on mysticism as the heart of any religion p. 195.
36
F.W. Graf, "Rettung der Personlichkeit. Protestantische Theologie als Kulturwissenschaft des Christentums". R. vom Bruch et al. o.c. Vol. 1 pp. 103-131; and "Religion
und Individualitat. Bemerkungen zu einem Grundproblem der Religionstheorie Ernst
Troeltschs". H. Renz and F.W. Graf (eds.), Troeltsch-Studien, vol. III, Protestantismus
und Neuzeit. Gutersloh 1984 pp. 207-230.
37
G. Pfleiderer o.c.
38
M. BaBler/H. Chatellier (eds.), Mystique, Mysticisme et Modernite en Allemagne autour
de 1900. Strasbourg 1998.
39
In France Henri Bergson conceived of mysticism in a similar way; referring
to a dimension of human life unaffected by all attempts of controlling it. The most
important books in the renewal of mysticism were American or British: W. James,
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and E. Underbill, Mysticism (1911).

12

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

sides of the Rhine, though we should not ignore powerful outsiders

on both sides. While the main concern in Germany, which had never
experienced a revolution, was freedom of the individual from the
iron law of tradition, the main concern in France was the loss of
social cohesion by a revolution destroying traditional order and norms.
In the preface to his study on The Division of Labor in Society (1893),
Durkheim explained his main concern. "This work had its origins
in the question of the relations of the individual to social solidarity.
Why does the individual, while becoming more autonomous, depend
more upon society? How can he be at once more individual and
more solidary?"40 The answer to these crucial questions Durkheim
found in religious history. His understanding of religion had a prehistory in France. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had pointed out in the
18th century that any society was in need of a "civil religion". Only
religion and not the government would be able to incite feelings of
moral obligation among its citizens. One of Durkheim's teachers in
Paris, the ancient historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-89),
had supplied in his The Ancient City (1864) the classical case for a
religion establishing a social bond. The cult of the dead in combination with the domestic cult has been the cradle of the rise of the
political community. Ancient city had become a striking example for
the fact that religion can be socially productive, provided it does not
consist predominantly of creeds, but of obligatory actions.
According to Durkheim, religion is not an expression of feelings
that has to be studied by hermeneutics and grasped by understanding. It is a moral obligation forcing man to act in a particular way
and can only become subject of scholarly study by observing actions.
For Durkheim the social impact of religions was independent of the
personal faith of people. The fact that even modern society is still
dependent on religion, shows its individualism. In an article published in 1898 in favor of Dreyfus, Durkheim defended the intellectuals against the charge of acting against the well-being of the nation.
Individualism, he argued, must be discerned from egoism. It derives
from Kant, Rousseau and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
considers the human person as something sacred. That implied a
limit of the power of the State. "There is no reason of State which
can excuse an outrage against the person." "The rights of the per-

40

E. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1893). New York 1984 p. 37.

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

13

son are placed above the State."41 Individualism is distinct from anarchy. On the contrary! It is the only system of beliefs that can ensure
the moral unity of the country.42 The individualist who defends the
right of the individual defends at the same time the vital interests
of society.43 Durkheim traced that element of modern society back
to religious history. Christianity had taught that the moral value of
actions must be measured in accordance with the intention of the
actor. "The very centre of the moral life was thus transferred from
outside to within and the individual was set up as the sovereign
judge of his own conduct having no other accounts to render than
those to himself and to his God."44
Though Christian faith has lost its hold on the hearts of its adherents, it has inscribed the principle of individualism into the social
interactions of the specialized society. Christian religion still provides
the social bond in today's society. Durkheim took up this theme
again in his study of suicide in 1897. In contrast to Germany, where
since the era of Romanticism suicide was idealized as a voluntary
death ("Freitod"), in France it was regarded as a dangerous symptom of the dissolution of the social order. According to Durkheim,
the increase in the rate of suicide was evidence of a growing social
isolation of individuals due to growing economic specialization. But
why was the rate different among adherents of different religions?
In his answer to this question, Durkheim focused on the social bond
of religions: because some religions build strong communities and
others do not. In this regard religious dogmas must be regarded as
secondary.45
Durkheim together with his students initiated a host of studies
relating contemporary social facts to a hidden continuity of religious
history. People perform actions completely voluntarily and nevertheless they obey compulsion. For actions that were neither determined by free will nor by causal law, Durkheim created a special
category called fails sociaux. He regarded religious history as a unique
source for recognizing them.
41

E. Durkheim, "Individualism and the Intellectuals" (1898). W.S.F. Pickering,

Durkheim on Religion. A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies and Introductory Remarks.
London 1975 pp. 59-73 on p. 62.
42
O.c. p. 66.
43
O.c. p. 69.
44
O.c. p. 68.
45
E. Durkheim, Suicide. A Study in Sociology. New York 1966 pp. 168-170.

14

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

IV. SOURCES OF MEANING IN A DISENCHANTED WORLD

A similar reversal in the study of modern society occurred in German
social sciences. In a famous essay in 1904, Max Weber traced the
"Spirit of Capitalism" back to "the Protestant Ethic". Weber enjoyed
the paradox that modern rationality owed its origin not to enlightenment but to a particular religious history. Yet Weber later extended
and revised his argument. Marianne Weber tells in her Lebensbild,
that her husband started a fresh and thorough study of the great
world religions in 1911. She relates that he had discovered not only
that the economic ethos of modern society had its origin in religious
history, but also the entire fabric of Western culture. The crucial
term became "disenchantment". It indicated a long historical process
of rationalization, preceding the modern age and deriving from a
particular religious history. The development had been pushed forward by the problem of unjust suffering, i.e., the problem of theodicy, and resulted in different solutions.46 The Protestant one devalued
the world systematically47 and codified an unexplainable lasting incongruency between the world of facts and the world of meanings.
Marianne Weber, in her report about her husband's discovery,
pointed out that Western culture was pushed forward by two antagonistic principles: "On the one side a rational control of the world
and on the other side the mystical experience."48 The process of
"disenchantment", of rationally mastering the world, could not eliminate its opposite, mysticism. Weber was convinced that Western culture had two roots and relied on two principles: the Jewish Biblical
tradition as well as the Hellenistic world view.49 Weber addressed
the link he saw between the disenchantment of the world and a new
career of mystical religiosity in the fascinating public speech "Science
as Profession" that he delivered in 1917 in Munich. The disenchantment of the world did not rest on an empirical observation,

46
The theodicies explained the same phenomenon differently. Only three of them
Weber regarded as intellectually convincing: the Indian doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, the Zoroastrian dualism and the Protestant doctrine of praedestination by a Deus absconditus (MWG I/19 o.c. p. 246. 520-22; The Sociology of
Religion. Boston 1993 pp. 138-150).
47
M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus
(1915-1920). Ed. by H. Schmidt-Glintzer. MWG I/19. Tubingen 1989 p. 515.
48
Marianne Weber, Max Weber. Ein Lebensbild. Tubingen 1926 p. 348f.
49
H.G. Kippenberg, Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte pp. 218243.

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

15

he pointed out; it rested on "the knowledge or belief that if one but

wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play,
but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer
have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the
spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed."50
Modern rationality is based on a specific belief, derived from the
Protestant theodicy.
The disenchantment of the world created a new situation. A new
demand arose in reaction to the rational mastering of the world.
"As intellectualism suppresses belief in magic, the world's processes
become disenchanted, lose their magical significance, and henceforth
simply 'are' and 'happen' but no longer signify anything. As a consequence, there is a growing demand that the world and the total
pattern of life be subject to an order that is significant and meaningful."31 Weber's words written down in 1913 in his "Sociology of
Religion" addressed the impact of the disenchantment on religions.
When the world is increasingly controlled rationally and a world of
facts is established as a realm of its own, the power of religions shifts
from the external world to the distinct world of subjective reflection
and meaning.52
V. RELIGIONS EXPLAINING THE MODERN WORLD
In 1989 a conference was held in Groningen, dedicated to Gerardus
van der Leeuw, student of Brede Kristensen. Nine years later his
teacher was honored in Oslo. The conference in Groningen focused

50
H.H. Gerth/C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New
York 1958 p. 139.
51
Max Weber, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley 1978,
Vol. 1 p. 506. "Je mehr der Intellektualismus den Glauben an die Magie zuruckdrangt und so die Vorgange der Welt 'entzaubert' werden, ihren magischen Sinngehalt
verlieren, nur noch 'sind' und 'geschehen', aber nichts mehr 'bedeuten', desto dringlicher erwachst die Forderung an die Welt und 'Lebensfuhrung' je als Ganzes, daB
sie bedeutungshaft und 'sinnvoll' geordnet seien" (Max Weber, "Religionssoziologie
(Typen religioser Vergemeinschaftung)" (1913). In:. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. GrundriB
der Sozialokonomie. Tubingen 1921/2 pp. 289-290).
52
F.H. Tenbruck, "Die Religion im Maelstrom der Reflexion". J. Bergmann/
A. Hahn/Th. Luckmann (eds.), Religion und Kultur. Opladen 1993 pp. 31-67.

16

HANS G. KIPPENBERG

on critique of culture in the work of van der Leeuw. Man living in

modern culture remains dependent on religion, according to van der
Leeuw. His teacher Kristensen held a similar view. Modern man is
convinced that the unknown must be more and more limited. But
"every value is won at the cost of another value; here it is at the
cost of the awareness of the mystical background of existence",
Kristensen added in the lectures published after his death.53
Today we can expand the argument of the 1989 conference. The
religious history scholars that wrote in the years around 1900 answered
the doubts and uncertainties that the rise of modern society had
incited in men and women. Modern society in the form of factories, political bureaucracy and dominance of science affected the life
of a growing number of individuals. Marshall Berman has described
the experience of modernity in a convincing manner. "To be modern is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find
one's world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air."54 The experience of
modernity is deeply ambivalent, as Peter Berger has also pointed out:
an increase in options for conducting one's life corresponds with a
decrease in confidence in self-evident normsfreedom with doubt.55
This experience affected studying and writing religious history. Religions
in need of an explanation not so long before were now studied by
scholars in order to find the genealogies of modern culture. Religion
moved from being an explanandum to an explanans, to use the notions
of Hempel.56
The change of the epistemological status had a tremendous impact
on the public understanding of religion and contributed to its crisis
at that time.57 Religion could be regarded as guilty of the disen-

53
W.B. Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion.
Den Haag 1960 p. 20.
54
M. Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York
1982 p. 345.
55
P.L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative. Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation.
New York 1979 p. XI.
56 "The Function of General Laws in History". P. Gardiner, Theories of History.
New York/London 1959 pp. 344-356.
57
Hans G. Kippenberg, "Die Krise der Religion und die Genese der Religionswissenschaften". V. Drehsen/W. Sparn (eds.), Vom Weltbildwandel zur Weltanschauungsanalyse.
Krisenwahmehmung und Krisenbewdltigung um 1900. Berlin pp. 89-102.

EXPLAINING MODERN FACTS BY PAST RELIGIONS

17

chantment of the kosmos; it could also be appreciated as foundation

of a metaphysical self and of individualism in modern society. The
dissent about modernity affected the historical representation of religions and imbued them with antagonistic meanings rooted in the
ambivalent experience of modernity.

This page intentionally left blank

AT THE CROSS-ROADS:
EARLY DUTCH SCIENCE OF RELIGION IN
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

I. INTRODUCTION
Discussion of the beginnings of an academic field of study is never
a completely harmless affair. National pride can be easily wounded,
for example, when a major historian of comparative religion claims
that the German-British scholar Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900)
is the father of the field, and not the Dutchman Cornelis Petrus
Tiele (1830-1902).' Luckily for Dutch supporters, the Canadian Louis
Henry Jordan, who published in 1905 a capable overview of the
state of the art, found it at the time "surprising that, in some quarters, it should still be maintained that the Oxford savant [= Muller,
ALM] was unquestionably the Founder of Comparative Religion".2
Although Jordan considered the question of who founded the field
as relatively unimportant, he added an appendix to his book to refute
the claims of Muller. Further, Jordan praised the courteous way in
which Tiele himself dealt with this delicate subject. One can entertain some doubts, however, as to whether Tiele was that courteous
to Muller. In fact, he was rather sensitive about his own prestige.
But he made an apt observation when he noted that a new branch
of study can hardly be said to be "founded". Comparative religion,
Tiele argued, "was called into being by a generally felt want in
different countries at the same time and as a matter of course".3
The rise of science of religion, as I prefer to call the field,4 was
1

Sharpe 1986: 35.

Jordan 1905: 151 (emphasis in the original).
3
Tiele 1893: 586.
4
I will not go into terminological niceties here, as important as they may be;
for the sake of convenience, I will use "science of religion" as a covering term for
the new field in all its ramifications. This does not imply that there existed (or, for
that matter, exists) a consensus about the name or the content of this scholarly
endeavour. Many other terms, like comparative religion, religious studies, science
2

20

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

perceived by all proponents at the time as an international affair.5

Certainly, if one compares this field with traditional theological disciplines, such as dogmatics (a comparison which makes sense, especially in the Dutch context), the international character of science
of religion was striking. The career of the great scholar we honour
at this occasion, William Brede Kristensen (1867-1953), nicely illustrates this international tendency. Starting his studies at the University
of Oslo, he later went to Paris and Leiden to continue his education under scholars like Gaston Maspero, Hendrik Kern, Abraham
Kuenen, and Tiele. Eventually, he would succeed Tiele in 1901. On
the short list of the Leiden theological faculty were, besides Kristensen,
the names of the Swede, Nathan Soderblom, and the Dane, Edvard
Lehmann. I doubt if this predominance of Scandinavian scholars was
sheer coincidence. Soderblom revised, at Tiele's own request,6 the
German edition of Tiele's handbook on the history of religions. This
so-called Tiele-Soderblom compendium became very popular; the
sixth and last edition appeared in 1931, the year Soderblom died.
It almost looks as if Scandinavian scholars took over Dutch science
of religion at the beginning of the twentieth century. But I am exaggerating, no doubt. Nonetheless, one should consider what happened
to the other German-language Dutch handbook, Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye's manual on the history of religions. Was it not
Lehmann who was asked by la Saussaye to prepare the fourth edition of this handbook?7 But leaving this point aside, I shall turn to
the theme of this paper: early Dutch science of religion and its international ramifications.
II. THE FAME OF EARLY DUTCH SCIENCE OF RELIGION
For our starting-point, we have to face the question of what importance is accorded to early Dutch science of religion in the historiography of the field. When discussing this issue, historians mainly
of religions, history of religion, history of religions, philosophy of religion, phenomenology of religion, psychology of religion, hierology, and hierography, were
used. Terminology was not fixed, and the relationship between the various branches
was a matter of discussion. Cf. note 8.
5
Cf. Muller 1873: 35; Albert Reville's introduction to Tiele 1882b: ix.
6
Tiele had first asked Lehmann, who refused; cf. Sharpe 1990: 235, note 113.
7
Cf. the prefaces to the various editions of the manual. The name Chantepie
de la Saussaye was usually abbreviated to la Saussaye.

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

21

refer to the following three factors: (1) the institutionalization of the

field within the Dutch university system, (2) the international prestige of scholars such as Tiele, Ghantepie de la Saussaye, Kristensen
(who became a Dutch citizen in 1917), and Gerardus van der Leeuw,
and (3) the Dutch contribution to "phenomenology of religion".
(1) I will begin with some comments on the institutionalization of
Dutch science of religion. By the Act on Higher Education of 1876,
the field was established within the four Dutch universities of the
time. In Leiden and Amsterdam, special chairs were even created
in history of religions. These positions were occupied, respectively,
by Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye.8 Together with the first professorships in Switzerland in the 1870s and the foundation of the
religious studies section at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris
in 1886, this development in the Netherlands is generally seen as a
first and important step in the establishment of an autonomous science
of religion. Thus, the history of the field is conceived of as a gradual emancipation from the patronizing power of theology. Personally,
I have some doubts about this point of view. There is a danger that
the agenda of present-day scholarship determines the way in which
the history of the discipline is written. Doing good historiography
does not mean giving grades to the pioneers of the field according
to our own standards, e.g., to the extent they distanced themselves
from theological premises. Instead, we should try to understand their
methods and objectives. What is badly needed is a more contextual
approach to the beginnings of the scientific study of religion, however difficult this may be.
The Dutch case amply illustrates why a teleological interpretation
fails to a large extent. When we take a closer look at the debates
in the Netherlands in the 1860s and 1870s, we see that they focus
not so much on the introduction of a new discipline as upon the
organization of the theological faculties as such. Various liberal members of parliament, influenced by the Leiden theological modernism,
aimed at a transformation of the theological faculties into faculties
of science of religion. In this way, science of religion was expected
8
Actually, the process was somewhat more complicated. Both "history of religions
in general" and "philosophy of religion" were introduced into the curriculum of
the theological faculties. To Tiele and many of his Dutch colleagues, these two disciplines were part of science of religion as such; they did not want to do "just" history, but to analyze and evaluate religions and religious phenomena as well. This
is the reason why I prefer to use the term "science of religion" in the Dutch context.

22

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

to fulfil (most of) the tasks of the old theology and to show the superiority of Christian religion. On the basis of an evolutionary scheme,
Tiele was even tempted to speculate about the development of liberal Protestantism into the religion of mankind.9 Admittedly, this was
a rather extreme point of view, but the idea that science of religion
should judge the value of various religions was shared by many scholars at the time. Chantepie de la Saussaye, to take another example,
who certainly was no modernist and whose expectations with respect
to the new endeavour were much more modest, saw history of religion and philosophy of religion as two intimately connected parts of
the overarching science of religion. He stated in the introduction of
his famous manual: "The unity of religion in the variety of its forms
is what is presupposed by the science of religion".10 The belief that
an interrelated study of religions would contribute to the understanding of religion as such was widespread.11
(2) What about the second factorthe prestige of early Dutch science of religion? Before answering this question, I shall make several preliminary remarks. Prestige is certainly the most important
asset of a scientist. But it is hard to objectify. We all admire the
scholar who produces a new book every year, publishes articles in
every conceivable journal, or is invited to deliver the keynote lecture on important occasions. Yet, high output, as it is called nowadays, is not enough. Prestige, ultimately, has to do with the quality
of the scholarly production and performance. Quality, however, is a
somewhat evasive property. The quality attributed to a scholar or
an article depends, at least to some extent, on the preferences of
one's peers. What is more important thenthat there are no mistakes in a book that it is well-written, or that it offers new perspectives and hypotheses?12 Both quality and prestige are socially

Tiele 1874: 262.

Chantepie de la Saussaye 1887-1889, Vol. I: 6 (English edition: 9).
On the institutionalization of early Dutch science of religion and the views of
Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye on the field, see Molendijk 1998 & 1999; cf.
Platvoet 1998.
12
Marcel Mauss who made a trip to Holland in 1897/1898 to meet, among
others, Tiele, Hendrik Kern, and Willem Caland, was rather critical about Holland
in this respect. He wrote to Henri Hubert in an undated letter, probably from
1897: "[En Hollande], on [ne] pense pas, on [n']invente pas. Nulle excitation
philosophique. IIs [mettent] en un style clair de bonnes dissertations allemandes; ils
adaptent lentement leur pays a 1'utilitarisme anglais, au progressisme europeen [...].
Si tu savais comme on est loin du bouillonnement d'idees de Paris; le grand souci
10
11

AT THE GROSS-ROADS

23

constituted properties which depend upon the recognition of one's

work by the scientific community. Honours such as honorary doctorates, prizes, fellowships, memberships on important boards and in
honorable academies, and so on, determine the value of a scholar.
I shall not try to list the honours that were bestowed on Tiele,
Chantepie de la Saussaye, Kristensen, and van der Leeuw. They
were highly respected in the Netherlands; they were all elected members of the Dutch Academy of Sciences and, with the exception of
la Saussaye, received honorary doctorates.13 Tiele was elected into
various foreign academies, was invited to give the Gifford Lectures,
and at his retirement received congratulations from all over the world.
He and Max Muller, who were both unable to attend the First International Congress for the History of Religions in Paris in 1900, were
made honorary presidents. Chantepie de la Saussaye chaired this
congress at its first convention in the Netherlands (Leiden) in 1912.14
Kristensen, however, did not play such a prominent international
role. He published most of his work in Norwegian and Dutch, and
it was only after the publication of The Meaning of Religion in English
by John Carman in 1960 that he became better known outside
Norway and the Netherlands. Kristensen's pupil, Gerardus van der
Leeuw, was surely more prominent on the international scene. His
fame is founded on his "Phenomenology of Religion" which appeared
originally in German in 1933 and in an English translation in 1938.
He was approached to succeed Friedrich Heiler in Marburg in 1931,15
and, shortly before his death in 1950, he presided over the Seventh
Congress for the History of Religions in Amsterdam.16
Although prestige is a very real thing, it is hard to determine in
a more exact way. Perhaps it is easier to look at the influence that
a particular scholar possesses. Influence is not the same as prestige,
which is not to deny that a prestigious scholar is more likely to be
influential. However, the two qualities are undoubtedly correlated.

est d'etre 'accurate', et d'etre fin, d'etre clair et d'etre complet. C'est tout. Nulle
preoccupation de 1'idee reellement neuve et originale. Intellectuellement, le voyage
n'est pas a faire [. . .]."; quoted in Fournier 1994: 127.
13
La Saussaye refused an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow at
the beginning of the twentieth century because of the anti-Dutch role of the British
in the Boer War in South Africa; cf. Aalders 1990: 105.
14
Cf. Leiden 1912.
15
Hofstee 1997: 81.
16
Cf. Bleeker, et al., 1951, including a necrology by Pettazzoni (pp. 5-6).

24

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

For example, the writing of textbooks, encyclopedia articles, let alone

popular books does not automatically earn one the acclaim of one's
fellow specialists, but it can play a significant role. For the sake of
brevity, I shall specify two markers of influence: one is being widely
read and known, and the other is being able to place one's students
in the right academic positions, where they in turn can exercise
influence.
Were the Dutch pioneers of science of religion influential in the
sense specified here? The question of whether they succeeded in creating scientific Nachwuchs is the most difficult to answer. In the beginning, at least, there was no specific Dutch science of religion school.
We know that Tiele's courses were not very well attended, and both
Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye were succeeded by scholars with
different interests and approaches.17 Whether Kristensen, although
he studied with Tiele in the early 1890s, can be said to have worked
in Tiele's spirit seems doubtful. The original Tielean programme
of science of religion was downsized to a considerable extent by
Kristensen. Kristensen's renown is based on a careful and respectful analysis of the data of ancient religions. In the course of time
all traces of an evolutionary view of religion were wiped out, and
Kristensen developed his own phenomenology of religion, which
aimed at a discussion of religions and religious phenomena in their
own right and not as stages in some presumed development of religion as such.18 The grand schemes and high hopes of his "master"
Tiele were gradually abandoned.19 One could claim that the deaths
of Muller (1900) and Tiele (1902) marked the end of an era, and
the work of Kristensen marked the beginning of a new period in
history of religions, which gradually emancipated itself from philosophy of religion.20

17
Tiele was succeeded by the Norwegian Kristensen, and la Saussaye left his
Amsterdam chair to Wilhelm Brandt (1855-1915), who was of German descent and
whose previous teaching assignment was in New Testament Studies at the same
faculty. Brandt published on Mandean religion. Brandt was succeeded in 1913 by
the German Religionsgeschichtler Heinrich Hackmann (1864-1935).
18
Kristensen 1901: 16 ("different stages of development"); Kristensen 1955: 23
(religions can only be measured by their own standards).
19
Cf. Kristensen 1901: 19.
20
I am not sure if this thesis is correct. The actual history of comparative religion seems to be a bit more complicated. The tendency of some scholars of religion to do "just" history and to get rid of philosophy and cross-cultural comparison
stems from a more recent date.

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

25

Compared to Tiele, the influence of Chantepie de la Saussaye was

smaller. He did not possess Tiele's zeal to fight for the new discipline, and in the course of his career he was drawn ever more to
ethics and traditional theology. He exchanged the chair for history
of religions at the University of Amsterdam for a Leiden professorship in theology in 1899. He was appointed against the wishes of
the faculty to succeed the only non-liberal theologian in Leiden at
the time, J.H. Gunning. Gunning originally taught philosophy of religion, but because of confessional qualms (he could not reconcile his
Christian belief with the then current presupposition of philosophy
of religion that in principle all religions are on a par), he exchanged
this field with Tiele in 1891. In this way, Tiele got hold of the two
disciplines which, in his view, were the two main constituents of
science of religion. Gunning obtained in return the field of "history
of the doctrine of God", which he could teach without disavowing
his positive Christian standpoint. As his successor, Chantepie de la
Saussaye was responsible for this field, as well as for ethics. When
one considers the continuing struggles over the identity and method
of science of religion and the accompanying conceptual and methodological shifts, on the one hand, and, to a lesser extent, the role of
contingent factors in succession procedures, especially in a small
country like Holland, on the other, the criterion of measuring influence
by Nachwuchs is perhaps less workable.
On the other criterionthat of being widely readthe four "great
men" mentioned above score rather well, with the exception of
Kristensen, who was hesitant about publishing the fruits of his work
and did not write a major textbook.21 Van der Leeuw's Phenomenology,
Chantepie de la Saussaye's Manual, and Tiele's Outlines of the History
of Religion doubtless shaped the standards in the field. La Saussaye's
Manual went from 1887-1889 to 1925 in four editions, and was partially translated into English and French.22 Tiele's Outlines, originally
published in Dutch in 1876, was translated into English (1877; the
fifth English edition appeared in 1892), Danish (1884), French (1880),
Swedish (1887), and German (1880, 1887; the following editions
1903, 1912, 1920, 1931were revised and enlarged by Soderblom).
Van der Leeuw's Phenomenology was also published in several European
21
For bibliographical information, see Waardenburg 1973-1974, II: 137-139,
and Kristensen 1960: 497 500.
22
Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891; 1904; cf. Waardenburg 1973-1974.

26

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

languages.23 The German-language handbooks were largely produced

in the Netherlands up till the 1930s.
The international reach of early Dutch science of religion, however, is probably best exemplified by the work of Tiele. He published extensively, also in foreign languages. He contributed to the
ZeitschriftfurAssyriologie, the Zeitschrift fur Religionsgeschichte, the Theologischer
Jahresbericht (he compiled the review articles on history of religions
for the years 1897-1898), and the Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, the
first specialized journal in the field. He was asked by William Robertson
Smith, the editor of the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
to supply the entry on "Religions". Tiele also contributed several
items to the Encyclopaedia Biblica. He wrote two volumes on BabylonianAssyrian history for a German handbook on ancient history, and
many of his articles and books were translated.24 The Gifford Lectures,
which he delivered in 1896 and 1898, were attended by large audiences. Tiele's voyage to Scotland attracted much attention, not only
from Dutch newspapers but also from British and Scottish dailies
and magazines. The lectures appeared in Dutch, English, German,
and Swedish. They were not translated into French, but the book
was read in France. The first volume received a rather favourable
review by Marcel Mauss in Durkheim's L'Annee Sociologique.25 And
many non-Dutch scholars at the time did read Dutch and took notice
of the Theologisch Tijdschrift., in which Tiele reviewed some 200 books
and published 26 articles from 1876 till 1892. The Tiele Collection
of the Leiden University Library contains approximately 1700 letters from scholars and interested lay people from all over Europe
and North America. There are letters by Marcel Mauss, James
Darmesteter, G. Maspero, E.B. Tylor, J.G. Frazer, Andrew Lang,
William Robertson Smith, Abraham Kuenen, P.D. Chantepie de la
Saussaye, Goblet d'Alviella, Otto Pfleiderer, Franz Delitzsch, and
Nathan Soderblom, to mention only a few of the more famous names.
(3) To come to the third factor, Dutch science of religion is
famousor, as others would say, notoriousfor its contribution to
phenomenology of religion. But although the value of a phenome-

23

Cf. also van der Leeuw 1925.

For more bibliographical information, see Waardenburg 1973 1974; de Ridder
1900b.
25
Mauss 1899.
24

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

27

nological approach has come under attack in more recent times,26

it was once an influential force in the field of the study of religion.
It all began with Chantepie de la Saussaye's manual on the history
of religions. In the first edition from 1887 a phenomenological part
was included, which was locatedfrom a disciplinary point of view
somewhere between history of religion and philosophy of religion,
all these disciplines being part of the overarching science of religion.
In the English translation by Beatrice S. Colyer-Fergusson (nee Max
Muller),27 the phenomenological section takes up about 175 pages,
in which topics like "idolatry", "sacred stones, trees, and animals",
"the worship of nature", "the worship of men", "magic and divination", "sacred places", "religious times", "sacred persons", "religious
communities", "the sacred writings", and "the relation of religion to
morality and art" are treated. According to la Saussaye, this section
is "the first more comprehensive attempt to arrange the principal
groups of religious conceptions in such a way that the most important sides and aspects should appear conspicuously from out the
material".28 Because it was supposed to be a "border discipline",29
the section was dropped in later editions of the manual. The book
on phenomenology which Chantepie de la Saussaye was preparing30
would never appear. A reason for this is probably his transfer to
Leiden where he had to meet other (teaching) obligations. In the
manual we only find scant indications about the enterprise of phenomenology of religion, and in other writings there is likewise no
information that can help us any further.
Much energy has recently been spent on the question: where did
the concept of phenomenology of religion originate?31 The term
26

Jacques Waardenburg, himself a proponent of phenomenology of religion,

recently wrote: "Ein Wissenschaftler, der von sich uberzeugt ist und der sich in der
akademischen Szene bewahren will, wurde es zur Zeit kaum wagen, als Religionsphanomenologe in Erscheinung zu treten" (Waardenburg 1997: 731).
27
In this way the name of the translator is indicated in the book itself. The
"Translator's Preface" tells us that she undertook the translation of the Lehrbuch der
Religionsgeschichte on the advice of her father, the famous Max Muller.
28
Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: vi. I do not see the point of translating "aus
dem Material von selbst" (1887-1889, Vol I: vf.) as "from out the other [?] material", as Colyer-Fergusson does.
29
Chantepie de la Saussaye 1897, Vol. II: vi.
30
Ibid.
31
Baumgartner, et al., 1989; Lanczkowski 1992; G.A.James 1995: 22-46; Hofstee
1997: 173-178.

28

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

"phenomenology" can, no doubt, be traced back to Hegel (The

Phenomenology of the Spirit, 1806) and, even further back, to J.H. Lambert.
Lambert is a not too well-known correspondent of Kant, who used
the word in the last section of his New Organon (1764) to refer to a
theory of optical appearance in relation to the (in)correctness of
human knowledge. But does this genealogy yield much insight with
respect to the origin of the concept of phenomenology of religion?
Why did Chantepie de la Saussaye choose exactly this term? Of
course, there had been scholarly overviews of religious phenomena
in a comparative perspective for a long time. C. Meiners' Critical
History of Religions from 1806 is often mentioned in this respect.32 But
these supposed predecessors do not use the term "phenomenology".
I have looked in vain for scholars who could have inspired Chantepie
de la Saussaye during his early career in this matter.33 My guess
would be that he borrowed it directly from Hegel himself, whom la
Saussaye considered to be the main figure in the emergence of science of religion.34
Another relevant issue involves which scholars should be considered within the field of phenomenology of religion. Opinions differ
considerably here. Eric J. Sharpe devotes an entire chapter to phenomenology in his book on the history of comparative religion. He
discusses a variety of authors, but in the period up to the Second
World War the main characters in his story are probably P.D.
Chantepie de la Saussaye, Nathan Soderblom, Edvard Lehmann,
William Brede Kristensen, Gerardus van der Leeuw, C.J. Bleeker,
Joachim Wach, Joseph M. Kitagawa, and Mircea Eliade. Although
Sharpe also mentions the British scholars E.O. James and A.C.
Bouquet, the predominance of the Dutch and Scandinavians is, at
least at the beginning, undeniable. Sharpe is prudent enough not to
give a precise definition of phenomenology. Instead, he introduces
the subject as follows: "a method was sought which would eliminate . . . value judgements, allow the believer to speak clearly for himself, and in this way to arrive at an objective assessment of the role
of religion in human life".35 By summarizing some of the main con32
Meiners 1806-1807; Lehmann (1913 & 1925) praises this book several times;
cf. van der Leeuw 1933: 654.
33
O. Pfleiderer, G.Chr.B. Punjer, J.I. Doedes (the supervisor of la Saussaye's thesis), D. Chantepie de la Saussaye (his father, a theologian himself, who exerted a
deep influence on his son).
34
Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 4.
35
Sharpe 1986: 220.

AT THE GROSS-ROADS

29

tributions of these scholars, Sharpe suggests retrospectively a more

or less delimited approach in the study of religion. I am not sure if
this is the best way to deal with the subject. The reason for my
reservation is given by Sharpe himself in his illuminating study on
Soderblom. In a chapter entitled "Toward a Phenomenology of
Religion", Sharpe notes that Soderblom did not use the word "phenomenology". He calls Soderblom "a phenomenologist of religion
before the label had even been invented".36 The label, of course,
had already been invented, but it had not yet gained currency.
To circumvent such problems, one may take another approach
the one that seems to be favoured by Jacques Waardenburg. In his
overview of a century of phenomenology of religion in the Netherlands,
published in 1972, he states: "By phenomenologist we mean here
those who considered themselves to be so and who have developed
an explicit phenomenology of religion or who have devoted part of
their studies to explicitly phenomenological work".37 He ends his overview by distinguishing five, to some extent rather different, strands
in the Dutch phenomenology of religion over this period. The startingpoint is Chantepie de la Saussaye's thesis from 1871, which is not,
as far as I know, explicitly phenomenological. Waardenburg also
includes Tiele in his article, whereas a recent study on the beginnings of Dutch phenomenology of religion limits itself to Chantepie
de la Saussaye, Kristensen, and van der Leeuw.38
In the older historiography we encounter still other "phenomenologists of religion". Eva Hirschmann, in her thesis on this subject,
which she defended just before the outbreak of the Second World
War at the Theological Faculty in Groningen under the supervision
of van der Leeuw, dealt with Chantepie de la Saussaye, Tiele, Soderblom, Lehmann, Friedrich Pfister, Max Scheler, Georg Wobbermin,
Robert Winkler, Joachim Wach, Rudolf Otto, Heinrich Frick, Gustav
Mensching, and van der Leeuw himself. Oddly enough, van der
Leeuw's own teacherKristensenis missing here. What could be
the reason for this? To answer this question we have to take a closer
look at the actual history of phenomenology of religion in the
Netherlands.

36
37
38

Sharpe 1990: 167.

Waardenburg 1972: 128f.
G.A. James (1995) is criticized by Strenski (1997) for not dealing with Tiele.

30

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

III. EARLY PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION REVISITED

There is a distinct difference between our retrospective view of phenomenology of religion and the way those alleged "phenomenologists" looked at themselves. To clear the ground, we have to suspend
(a typical phenomenological device) our idea of what phenomenology (really) is about. For a start, we have to conduct our historical
research in a nominalist way. It is important to look at the actual
usage of the term "phenomenology" in this context. By whom and
in which ways was it defended? Who advocated a phenomenological programme or method in the study of religion? If we do not ask
such precise questions, the danger exists that we will only reproduce
our own ideas on phenomenology in its historiography. In the following I cannot give a full-scale analysis (much research still has to
be done), but I shall dig up some pieces of information and venture
some thoughts on the subject.
As we saw above, Chantepie de la Saussaye was the first to use the
term phenomenology of religion in 1887. He did not intend to introduce some new method, but, apparently, found it important to
provide the readers of his manual with an "outline of religious phenomena", including phenomena from the Jewish and Christian tradition.39 In the oeuvre of Cornells Petms Tiele the term appears rather
late.40 Only in the second edition of his Gifford Lectures, which
appeared in Dutch in 1900, and in his last book, Main Features
[Elements] of the Science of Religion?41 did he use the word to clarify the
outline of his work. Tiele distinguished here between the "morphological" and the "ontological" investigation of religion. Morphology
treats the development of religion and gives a classification of religions.
Ontology concerns " 'being'that which is, as distinguished from that
which grows or becomes, the ousia as distinguished from the everchanging morphai".42 Ontology is subdivided into "phenomenologicalanalytical" and "psychological-synthetic" parts,43 which examine the
39

Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 8f.

Originally, he favoured other terms"hierography" and "hierology"to designate the new endeavour; cf. Tiele 1877.
41
Tiele 1901.
42
Cf. Tiele 1897-1899, II: 188 (second Dutch edition: 165); emphasis in the
original.
43
Tiele 1901: 61. The second Dutch edition of the Gifford Lectures makes things
more complicated by introducing the asymmetrical contrast between "phenomenological-analytical" and "synthetic-psychological" (Tiele 1900, II: 2).
40

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

31

"manifestations" and the "constituents" of religion, respectively. By

manifestations, Tiele primarily meant "words and deeds"; by constituents, "emotions, conceptions, and sentiments, of which words and
deeds are at once the offspring and the index".44 The phenomenological research deals with religious concepts, deeds, and institutions;
it aims at a description and analysis of their essential elements.45
Here Tiele discussed, to some extent, the same phenomena (worship
and sacrifice, for instance) as Chantepie de la Saussaye. But Tiele's
coverage was much less extensive, because he was interested in the
unchanging core of religion as such and not in "transient" developments like fetishism, which are discussed in the morphological part.
Tiele's phenomenological research was not so much a grouping of
religious phenomena as a critical evaluation of what in his view, on
the highest level of development, were the essential manifestations
of religion.
In his inaugural lecture, "The Relationship between Religion and
the Urge [Longing] for Self-Preservation" from 1901, William Brede
Kristensen addressed the theme that would be of great importance to
his scholarly and personal life: the theme of life and death in connection to religion.46 On this occasion, in the presence of Tiele,
Kristensen tried to follow in the footsteps of his honoured teacher
and to show how, in his own view, philosophy of religion and history of religion may be related to each other. This connection was
not obvious to Kristensen, and therefore he looked for a way to connect the two approaches. Since philosophy of religion's main objective is to determine the essence of religion, the two disciplines come
closest to each other, according to Kristensen, when the historian
investigates how the believers themselves perceive the essence of their
religion. Taking up Tiele's terminology, Kristensen assured his audience that such an investigation is of a "completely phenomenologicalanalytical" nature. While philosophy has to take good notice of the
results obtained by phenomenology, Kristensen allowed for the possibility that, philosophically speaking, religious persons did not always
44

Tiele 1897-1899, II: 6f.

These phenomena express the underlying "constituents", which are treated in
the psychological-synthetic part. For a more detailed analysis of Tiele's views on
this subject, see Molendijk 1999.
46
Kristensen 1901. His thesis is that religious people choose life and believe in
the ultimate victory of life over death. Cf. the contribution of Jan Bremmer to this
volume.
45

32

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

understand their own religious feelings correctly. It could hardly have

escaped the attention of his audience, however, that he considered
the faith of believers as most precious and something to be taken
very seriously. In a critique of "evaluative comparison" and evolutionism as such, which was aimed at Tiele some 15 years after the
inaugural lecture, he was still more explicit in this respect. Kristensen
wrote that we have to become "Persians in order to understand
Persian religion, Babylonians to understand Babylonian religion, and
so forth".47 Here Kristensen already voiced the hermeneutics of sympathetic love toward the object of understanding, for which he would
become famous later.48 The phenomenological principles he formulated later in his career are well-known and do not need to be summarized here.49
But was Kristensen a phenomenologist from the start? His more
programmatic statements in this regard are from a rather late date.
The main sources for his position are the Introduction to the History of
Religions, based on his Oslo lectures from 1946, and, of course, the
work that made him known in the English-speaking world, The Meaning
of Religion, which was published posthumously in 1960.50 Kristensen
lectured on phenomenology before 1940, but I have not been able
to find a single older publication in which some sort of "phenomenology" was defended. This could be due to the fact that he preferred the actual work in history of religions to the exposition of
methodological issues. Yet, it is characteristic that the only text in
which the issue received some attention was a review of the inaugural lecture of his student Gerardus van der Leeuw, who obtained
the Groningen chair in history of religions in 1918. Kristensen stressed
the importance of religious difference, and criticized van der Leeuw
47

Kristensen 1915: 77.

Cf. Kristensen 1955: 22: "If we want to learn to know them [historical religions] as the believers conceived and judged them, we must first attempt to understand their own evaluation of their own religion. . . . Let us not forget that there
exists no other religious reality than the faith of the believers. If we want to learn
to know genuine religion, we are exclusively assigned to the expressions of the
believers. What we think from our standpoint about the essence or value of foreign religions bears witness to our own faith, or to our own conception of religious
belief, but if our opinion deviates . . . from the opinion and the evaluation of the
believer himself, then we are no longer dealing with their religion. In that case we
overlook historical reality, and are exclusively concerned with ourselves" (my translation is based upon that of Plantinga 1991: 170).
49
Cf. Waardenburg 1972; 1978; Plantinga 1989; 1991; G.A.James 1995.
50
Kristensen 1955; 1960.
48

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

33

for his subjectivism and his belief that phenomenology of religion

should define the essence of religion. In this text there is no evidence that Kristensen claimed the term "phenomenology" for his
own approach. It is not necessary to dig any deeper here into the
differences between their views on phenomenology which emerged
in their later work.51 Looking at his publications, one gains the impression that Kristensen defined himself as a phenomenologist of religion in a later phase of his career.
Early historiographers did not mention Kristensen as a phenomenologist. One could try to account for this omission by pointing to
van der Leeuw's influence on this early historiography and by suggesting that van der Leeuw was not willing to accept a competitor
with a largely different view of the approach that he had made popular. But I am not sure that this suggestion is very helpful, because
in other respects he gave Kristensen the credit he deserved and also
did much to construe a respectable line of intellectual descendancy
for the phenomenological study of religion.52 If Kristensen really had
developed a full-blown phenomenology of religion of his own at the
time, I find it hard to believe that van der Leeuw would have neglected this contribution so ostentatiously. Van der Leeuw did refer
to Kristensen several times to illustrate the importance of a psychological approach in the study of religion, which, although related to
phenomenology, is yet to be distinguished from it.53
Another important witness is C.J. Bleeker, who published an
Introduction to Phenomenology of Religion in Dutch in 1934, which
aimed at a classification of religious phenomena that would show
their inner structure and deeper reality.54 In the preface, Bleeker said
51
Cf. Hofstee 1997: 170f. (who cites Kristensen's letter from 20 November 1933
in which he thanked van der Leeuw for sending him the Phanomenologie der Religion).
52
Van der Leeuw 1918: 4; 1954: 9. Speaking about phenomenology proper, van
der Leeuw only mentioned Chantepie de la Saussaye and E. Lehmann; cf. p. 10:
"I realized that in carrying on the magnificent, but essentially unphilosophical, work
of Chantepie and Lehmann, I was in the centre of the great phenomenological
stream which was at that time flowing through philosophy, psychiatry and other
sciences" (translation in Sharpe 1986: 231).
53
Van der Leeuw 1918: 7 (with reference to Kristensen 1904: 237, where the
term phenomenology is not used); 1954: 9: "L'enseignement de Kristensen etait
d'allure plutot psychologique et faisait ressortir les traits qui se retrouvent partout
et de tous temps plus que le developpement historique. Cette preference m'a influence
beaucoup . . .". The relationship between phenomenology and psychology of religion seems to me to be a very important topic for further research. As yet, this
relationship has still not been cleared up.
54
Bleeker 1934: 9-11.

34

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

that his approach owed most to his teacher Kristensen. Van der
Leeuw was cited only once and not in a methodological context.
On another occasion, Bleeker wrote that Kristensen hardly cared for
methodological questions,55 and in later historiographical overviews
he stressed the importance of van der Leeuw and hardly mentioned
Kristensen.56 This can perhaps be explained by the fact that Kristensen
did not do much, at least not in public, to develop and proclaim a
new method of inquiry.
Nonetheless, Kristensen was probably the first Dutch scholar of
religion who officially taught "phenomenology of religion". By the
Royal Act of Queen Wilhelmina of 23 September 1922, his teaching
assignment was redefined as "the history of religions in general and
the phenomenology of religion", and "philosophy of religion" was
transferred to his colleague Karel Hendrik Roessingh, the successor
of Chantepie de la Saussaye. This change suggests that Kristensen
promulgated phenomenology in his courses at a much earlier time
than is evident from his publications. One would expect that Kristensen's lecture notes, which are kept in the Leiden University Library,57
would be of great help. Several courses are in fact titled "Phenomenology" (1904, 1908-1926, 1907-1927). But when exactly did Kristensen start calling his approach "phenomenological"? There are very
good reasons to suppose that these titles were written on the outside
cover of the lectures at a later date,58 and, further, there are many
corrections in the manuscripts, which are composed upon loose-leaf,
that suggest that "phenomenology" terminology was introduced at a
later date. However, the collection contains an opening lecture from
the year 1926, in which phenomenology is defined as the comparison of separate elements of various religions. In what probably are

55

Bleeker 1941: 37f.

Bleeker 1956; 1959; 1963; cf. Widengren 1969: 5f.: "When I first met Bleeker
more than twenty years agoit was obvious that the influence of G. van der Leeuw
had outweighed the influence of his own teacher in Leyden, W. Brede Kristensen.
He was more attracted by the phenomenological study of religion in general than
by the historical investigation of some special religion". On Bleeker's views, see
Waardenburg 1972: 183 190.
57
Under the signature BPL 2587. I would like to thank Sigurd Hjelde (Oslo) for
sending me the bibliography of Margo Koene's Master's thesis, "William Brede
Kristensen. Norges forste religionshistoriker" (1995), which includes an inventory of
Kristensen's manuscripts in the Leiden University Library.
38
Phenomenology is spelled "phenomenologie" on the cover in Dutch, whereas
the text has "phaenomenologie".
56

AT THE GROSS-ROADS

35

earlier lecture notes, Kristensen referred several times to the work

of Georg Wobbermin59 and specified the phenomenological approach
as trying to do justice to the self-understanding of believers. The
"inner power" of religious phenomena, Kristensen claimed, has to
be brought to the fore. Phenomenology is focused on typical phenomena, which it tries to understand in their religious determination.
This sounds familiar to the student of the work of Kristensen, although
these early lecture notes also display a clear interest in more philosophical issues. Only a meticulous analysis of the manuscripts might
relinquish the exact time at which Kristensen introduced the term
"phenomenology" to describe his way of doing things. Without doubt,
the teachings of Kristensen form an important undercurrent in the
genesis of Dutch phenomenology of religion. We know for sure, however, that his pupil Gerardus van der Leeuw elaborated on a special method of phenomenology of religion.
Probably the best thing to do, therefore, is to start writing the
history of phenomenology of religion with Gerardus van der Leeuw,
who really put it on the map. The fact that the older historiography of comparative religion does not touch upon "phenomenology
of religion" supports this approach.60 The first more or less historiographical article on this subject which I have been able to uncover is
van der Leeuw's contribution "Phenomenology of Religion" to the
second edition of the encyclopedia Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
from 1930.61 The objective of phenomenology of religion, van der
Leeuw wrote, is to classify religious phenomena such as sacrifice,
mysticism, and prayer (non-cultic phenomena are explicitly included)
and to understand their meaning and essence. Contributions which
aim at a survey of religious phenomena as such come from Chantepie
de la Saussaye, Lehmann, and van der Leeuw himself.62 Although
59
Wobbermin 1913. Wobbermin advocated the importance of a psychological
approach for theology; an approach he parallelled with phenomenology; cf. Wobbermin
1930: 1922. Both Wobbermin and Kristensen admired Schleiermacher for his (in
their view) decisive contribution to a renewal of the study of religion; cf. Kristensen
1934.
60
Cf. Hardy 1901; Jordan 1905; Jordan 1915; Pinard de la Boullaye 1929-1931.
61
Van der Leeuw 1930. The encyclopedia was published in instalments; the
instalments of volume IV, of which this entry is part, all appeared in 1930. On
the history of the publication of RGG2, see Ozen 1996. Van der Leeuw contributed
51 articles, mainly in the field of the study of religion, to this influential reference
book.
62
Van der Leeuw (1930) referred to the following contributions: Chantepie de
la Saussaye 1887-1889; Lehmann 1910; 1925; van der Leeuw 1925.

36

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

van der Leeuw admitted that this may seem to be a somewhat meager result, he was quick to point to some of the older introductions
to the history of religion (Tiele, F.B. Jevons, Albert Reville) which,
he alleged, also cover the field. Besides, one should not forget Wilhelm
Wundt's "Volkerpsychologie" and special studies such as Soderblom's
Werden des Gottesglaubens, Friedrich Heiler's Das Gebet, and Rudolf
Otto's Das Heilige. Van der Leeuw concluded this two-column entry
by stating that a general phenomenology on a firm methodological
basis still had to be written. Now we know that he was on his way
to fill this lacuna. The "Great Phaeno" was to appear in 1933.
At the time that van der Leeuw wrote this encyclopedia article,
it was hard to detect any phenomenological method in the study of
religion. After the initial achievement by Chantepie de la Saussaye,
only Edvard Lehmann had given a classificatory overview of religious
phenomena. He contributed the substantial article "Erscheinungswelt
der Religion" to the first edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
(19091913), which ran over 84 columns and was the main systematic contribution to the field of science of religion in this handbook. The phenomena were arranged under the headings "holy
customs", "holy words", and "holy people", with further subdivisions. Interestingly enough, this article was subtitled "Phenomenology
of Religion", but the term was not explained or used in the contribution itself. We do know, however, that there was a lot of discussion about how the history of religions part of this encyclopedia was
to be shaped. The encyclopedia was, to a large extent, the product
of representatives of the German "History of Religions School",63
who were mainly concerned with the Old and New Testament and
its Umwelt. Some of them thought that they could handle the remaining fields of history of religions in passing. Finally, Hermann
Gunkel put up a list with relevant items. This solution did not convince Ernst Troeltsch, who was responsible for the articles in the
dogmatics section. He feared that in this way no justice was done
to non-Christian religions and suggested naming the encyclopedia
"Our Religion in Past and Present".64 But to return to the main line
of the story, Lehmann was on the original list of suggested contributors65 and, finally, it was he who wrote the above mentioned
63
64
65

Ludemann & Ozen 1997.

Ozen 1996: 165 (emphasis in the original).
Ozen 1996: 157.

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

37

Sammelartikel. This still leaves the occurrence of the term "phenomenology of religion" unexplained. Was the term introduced in this
context because the outline of the article was reminiscent of the work
of Chantepie de la Saussaye? Or were there other factors at work?
Further research into the relationship between Chantepie de la
Saussaye and Lehmann could shed some light on the subject. Lehmann was awarded an honorary doctorate on behalf of the Leiden
Theological Faculty in 1910, probably at the instigation of la Saussaye, who also entrusted further editions of his manual to his Danish
colleague. Already in the second and third editions of the manual,
Lehmann was mentioned as la Saussaye's closest collaborator.66 But
it is not certain whether the usage of "phenomenology of religion"
in the first edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart should be
explained by a Dutch connection. The role of various Scandinavian
scholars in the development of phenomenology of religion needs to
be examined in more detail.67
In my view, it was van der Leeuw who developed phenomenology
into a characteristic, much discussed approach within the study of
religions. But even he was a little hesitant about which name to
choose for the new approach. Van der Leeuw referred to other
names such as "allgemeine Religionsgeschichte" (H. Hackmann) and
"Formenlehre der religiosen Vorstellungen" (H. Usener) which circulated at the time,68 and he warned about the confusion that could
arise from the proliferation of phenomenological methods in areas
like philosophy (Edmund Husserl) and psychiatry (Karl Jaspers).
Friedrich Heiler, the editor of the series in which the German translation of van der Leeuw's introduction to the history of religion
appeared under the title "Introduction to the Phenomenology of
Religion" in 1925, assured the readers in his preface to this booklet that "phenomenology" was not meant in the sense of Husserl or
Max Scheler.69 Van der Leeuw, in developing his own method of

66

Chantepie de la Saussaye 1897, Vol. I: viii-ix; Chantepie de la Saussaye 1905,

Vol. I: vi-vii; Chantepie de la Saussaye 1925, Vol. I: iii.
67
As far as I know, the article in RGG1 is the first time we find the term in
Lehmann's work; cf. Sharpe 1986: 226f; Sharpe 1990: 151. It is not clear how
much the term "phenomenology" meant to Lehmann. He wrote a new, extended
version of his article for the fourth edition of Chantepie de la Saussaye's manual
without using the word; cf. Lehmann 1925b.
68
Cf. van der Leeuw 1933: 638, note 1.
69
Van der Leeuw 1925, Preface [by Heiler]: "Zum rechten Verstandnis des Titels

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

research, always maintained some distance from other sorts of phenomenology, although he often referred to them. These references
also served to gain respectability for his own enterprise.
I shall make a few remarks concerning the origin of the concept
in van der Leeuw's work. The first important text in this respect is
the inaugural lecture from September 25, 1918. On this occasion
van der Leeuw referred to Nathan Soderblom's booklet Natural Theology
and General History of Religion,10 which had made a plea for the rehabilitation of the old theologia naturalis, reshaped as general history of
religion. Van der Leeuw stated that he preferred to call this endeavour "phenomenology of religion" without specifying why. He made
clear, however, what he had in mind. Phenomenology of religion
aims to understand the phenomenon of religion as such, to penetrate "to the psychological bottom [ground]" of religion.71 Van der
Leeuw did not favour the term "history of religions". Instead, he
preferred to speak of "history of religion" because, according to him,
the religious phenomenon is a unity, originating in "the same function of our spirit".72 This point of view, of course, was also shared
by older scholars like Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye.73 Van der
Leeuw did not present a full phenomenological method in this lecture, but he gave all kinds of clues as to how one should proceed.
The approach has a psychological character, considers religion an
independent phenomenon, is not limited to foreign religions, but
does include Judaism and Christianity, and tries to understand the
phenomena in their own terms in order to arrive at the essence of
religion. Some kind of intuition is needed to reach this goal, and
scholars have to be religious themselves to be able to trace the similarities in other religions. The fact that religion has to be understood
"by itself" does not exclude comparison because of the presupposed
basic unity of religion. One of van der Leeuw's favourite quotes is
the following by the classicist scholar Hermann Usener: "Nur durch

sei beigefugt, daB der Verfasser dieses Buches das Wort Phanomenologie' nicht im
Sinne der Philosophic von Husserl und Scheler gebraucht, sondern im Sinn der
vergleichenden Religionshistoriker wie Tiele, Chantepie de la Saussaye, Edvard Lehmann, die darunter die systematische Darstellung der religiosen Einzelphanomene
wie des Gebets, des Opfers, der Zauberei, Askese usw. verstehen."
70
Soderblom 1913.
71
Van der Leeuw 1918: 7 (referring to Kristensen 1904: 237).
72
Van der Leeuw 1918: 6.
73
Tiele-Soderblom 1912: 7f; Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 9.

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39

hingebendes Versenken in diese Geistesspuren . . . vermogen wir uns

zum Nachempfinden zu erziehen; dann konnen allmahlich verwandte
Saiten in uns mit schwingen und klingen, und wir entdecken im
eigenen BewuBtsein die Faden, die Altes und Neues verbinden".74
The Romanticist strand in this hermeneutics of congenial understanding is unmistakable. Ultimately, van der Leeuw's phenomenological study of religion is subservient to theology proper, which takes
its start in the revelation in Christ.75
Van der Leeuw's most extensive statement on the principles of
phenomenology of religion is to be found in the last section of his
magnum opus, Phenomenology of Religion.76 These so-called "Epilegomena"
are a rather complex whole. Several stages in the phenomenological processfor instance, naming the phenomenon, (re-)experiencing
and understanding (the meaning of) the phenomenon, and giving
testimony of that which is shownwere distinguished by van der
Leeuw, and reference is made to a wealth of (methodological) literature.77 Obviously, he wanted to show that phenomenology was a
main trend in intellectual life at the time, but this factor makes it
difficult to discern who was really important to him. Besides the
sources of inspiration mentioned above (Chantepie de la Saussaye,
Lehmann, Soderblom), it seems clear that, from a methodological
point of view, a hermeneutical orientation was prevalent in van der
Leeuw's attempt to establish a "phenomenological" approach. His
account of phenomenon and experience ("Erlebnis") draws from the
work of Wilhelm Dilthey and Eduard Spranger. The book ends with
the observation that a hermeneutical history of religion, which van

74

Van der Leeuw 1918: 14; 1933: 639; cf. Usener 1896: vii.
Van der Leeuw 1918: 21f. Cf. Waardenburg 1978: 187-247. His friend, K.H.
Roessingh, considered van der Leeuw, because of his Christian theory of knowledge, to be the exact counterpart of Kristensen; cf. Hofstee 1997: 38f. (who quotes
from a highly interesting letter Roessingh wrote to van der Leeuw, June 17, 1919).
As far as his point of departure is concerned, van der Leeuw seems more strongly
influenced by the "ethical theology" with which he became familiar through his
teacher P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye (cf. the many references to the work of J.H.
Gunning) than by the approach of Kristensen, who stressed differences between
religions and who highly valued objective knowledge, minimalizing the role of subjectivity in the process of knowing.
76
The Phanomenologie der Religion was originally published in 1933; the English
translation appeared in 1938 under the title Religion in Essence and Manifestation. A
revised and enlarged edition appeared first in French and later, in 1956, in German.
77
Waardenburg 1978, Hubbeling 1986, and Hofstee 1997 give summaries of the
stages in the phenomenological process.
75

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

der Leeuw considers his own work part of, is gaining more and more
ground.78
IV. INTERNATIONALIZATION
The internationalization of science of religion was progressing steadily
at the end of the nineteenth century, as is clear from the large conferences which were organized. In the beginning, a strong ecumenical,
religious interest was noticeable. The meeting of people from various religious backgrounds was supposed to contribute to mutual
understanding, and sometimes even a universal religion of mankind
was envisioned. The World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago
in 1893, illustrates these hopes very well. Representatives of the great
world religions were invited to express their views on various religious topics.79 Scholars like Max Muller and C.P. Tiele, who could
not attend this event, both sent papers to the organizing Committee.
Their papers were read, but, probably due to their scholarly tone,
were not received very enthusiastically by the audience, which was
more interested in genuine religious themes. Tiele and Muller both
addressed topics from the science of religion proper.80 The scientific
character of the study of religion was very important to these early
scholars.
Even the much more scholarly Stockholm congress on religious
sciences in 1897 was criticized by some for not being scientific
enough.81 The Paris conference in 1900 is generally considered to
be the first scientific congress in the field. To mark a new start, the
French organizers took the liberty of naming their gathering the
First International Congress on the History of Religions. The regulations of the congress stressed the historical (scientific) character of
the contributions and discussions, and explicitly forbade confessional
or dogmatic polemics.82 This point was stressed on later occasions,
78
Van der Leeuw 1933: 658: "Religionsgeschichte des Verstehens". For more
extensive discussions of the later work of van der Leeuw, see Waardenburg 1972;
1978; Sharpe 1986: 229-235; Plantinga 1989; 1991; G.A. James 1995; Hofstee
1997. I hope to publish a detailed analysis of van der Leeuw's phenomenological
method in the future.
79
For the proceedings, see Barrows 1893; cf. Seager 1993; 1995; Ziolkowski 1993.
80
Tiele 1893; Muller 1893; cf. Muller 1894. On the reception of Tiele's paper,
see Hugenholtz 1893: 110.
81
Stockholm 1897; cf. Aall 1897.
82
Paris 1900: vii (article 7).

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41

too.83 The historical outlook of these early congresses was rather

strong. The Paris congress had a section on the history of "noncivilized" religions, many sections on Oriental religions, one on
German religions, and one on the history of Christianity.84 There is
no outspoken "philosophical" contribution in the proceedings.
What is rather striking from our present-day perspective is the
strong (institutional) support for this new endeavour. The first congress on history of religions in the Netherlands, held in Leiden in
1912 and presided over by Chantepie de la Saussaye, is a good
example. The congress was made possible financially by a grant from
the Dutch government and was held under the patronage of His
Royal Highness Prince Henri of the Netherlands, who, because of a
"legere indisposition", was unable to attend. In the Committee of
Honour were, among others, the Home Secretary, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Colonial Affairs, and the Mayor
of Leiden. The Home Secretary delivered a speech of welcome; the
Mayor received the members of the congress at the town hall and
placed the major municipal festival hall at their disposal; the city of
Rotterdam offered them a boat trip; the Dutch Railroad Company
arranged a special train to Rotterdam; the Dutch Tramways Company
made a free ride in Leiden and to the sea resorts of Katwijk and
Noordwijk possible, and many Leiden families hosted the guests.85
In his welcome speech, the President of the Honorary Committee,
Mr. W.H. de Beaufort, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, referred
to the great liberal Dutch tradition which made free scholarship possible; to the study of theology, philosophy, and orientalism, which
had always enjoyed such a prominent place in the University of
Leiden; and to the fact that the establishment of a Dutch colonial
empire in the Indies and economic relations to the colonies did not
fail to promote scholarly studies. In particular, de Beaufort pointed
to the cosmopolitan character of "your science"; its field consisted
not only of the whole of history, but of all countries of the universe
as well. Its most attractive aspect seemed to him to be the fact that it
related the student to the highest aspirations of mankind, especially

83

Cf. Leiden 1912: 14: "Le Congres sera exclusivement scientifique et sera consacre a des recherches purement historiques sur les religions. Toute discussion concernant des question [sic] de foi sera interdite".
84
For the list of sections, see Paris 1900: v.
85
Cf. Leiden 1912: 17.

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

to the "sentiment of the mystery of the infinite, in all times and with
all peoples".86
This speech by a layman touched upon several points which are
important for the understanding of early (Dutch) science of religion.
After having addressed the ubiquity of the object of research of this
conference, de Beaufort made special mention of the importance of
the Orient for the study of religion. The focus of many of these
early scholars was indeed on the ancient religions of the Orient. This
was surely true of the Dutch contribution to the field. With the
notable exception of Chantepie de la Saussaye, who wrote on The
Religion of the Teutons,87 Dutch scholars were mostly interested in
ancient, oriental religions, especially in those of Ancient Egypt. Leiden
University had long been a center for the study of oriental, including Semitic, languages and cultures which were relevant to the study
of religion.
The Sixth International Congress of Orientalists, which had convened in Leiden in 1883, had given ample testimony to the contribution of Dutch orientalist studies. But, admittedly, this was not the
only reason to come to Leiden. During the opening ceremony, the
fact that the Netherlands were a colonial empire was mentioned several times. In his speech, the Old Testament scholar Abraham Kuenen
showed pride at the way the Dutch had performed their colonial
mission civilatrice, and he listed many of the (religious and scientific)
societies that had contributed to it.88 A special section on Malaysia
and the Polynesian archipelago was added on this occasion. Many
of the contributions to this section were in Dutch, which was one
of the official languages of the congress.89
One question that imposes itself concerns the connection between
colonialism and the study of religion. It is difficult to give a satisfying answer to this question. In my view, the relationship between
oriental studies as such (including the study of religion) and colonialism is much clearer than that between the rise of a separate science of religion and colonialism.90 For instance, the 1883 International
86

Leiden 1912: 21-29.

Chantepie de la Saussaye 1902.
88
De Goeje 1884: 42ff.; cf. Otterspeer 1989.
89
De Goeje 1884: 23 ("Dispositions generales"): "Les langues officielles du Congres
sont le Hollandais, le Francais et le Latin. Toutefois on pourra se servir aussi pour
les communications de l'Allemand, de l'Anglais et de l'Italien."
90
The most debated book, of course, is that of Said 1995 (orig. ed. 1978); cf.
Breckenridge & van der Veer 1993; Prakash 1995.
87

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43

Congress of Orientalists was originally scheduled for the year 1884.

It was advanced a year so that it could coincide with the International
Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883. One rather small part
of the exhibition was devoted to the display of religious objects from
the colonies. The organizer, the main specialist on the Dutch East
Indies at the time, PJ. Veth, arranged the items under three headings: "Polynesian religions", "Hinduism", and "Islam".91 The Orientalist
Congress visited the exhibition, after which the members were received
by the Amsterdam municipal authorities.
It is a well-known fact that scientific congresses and major international exhibitions, which showed the "Works of Industry of All
Nations",92 were joint ventures at the time. The Chicago World's
Parliament of Religions (1893) and the Paris First International Congress on the History of Religions (1900) were both convened in the
context of World Exhibitions.93 These were great occasions, in which
the Western nations could display their influence and power. The
catalogue on the Dutch Indies for the Paris exhibition contained
more than 450 pages. In its introduction, a parallel was drawn to
the Amsterdam exhibition in 1883, and it was explained that the
current emphasis was less focused on indigenous products and more
on what the colonial empire had established in the colonies. Not
only the indigenous religions, but also the missions, education practices, and scientific collections were highlighted.94 Colonialism was a
factor that undoubtedly stimulated the study of foreign cultures and
their religions.
The intricacies of this relationship, however, are difficult to judge.
Dutch ethnographers (anthropologists) concentrated on the Dutch

91

Veth 1883; on Veth, see van der Velde 1992.

Cf. Stocking 1987: 1.
In his contribution to this volume, Bjorn Skogar points to the fact that the
Stockholm conference in 1897 took place on the occasion of a large exhibition as
well.
94
Guide Paris 1900: xi: "On a accorde plus de place aux cultures destinees au
marche europeen, mais moins aux moyens d'existence purement indigenes, comme
la chasse, la peche, les petites industries, etc. Les etablissements d'instruction pour
les indigenes comme pour les Europeens, differentes branches de service de 1'administration europeenne sont traitees plus en detail. L'attention a ete fixee sur plus
d'un sujet important de la vie materielle, et en outre sur les resultats salutaires des
missions, sur l'institution des caisses d'epargne et sur de nouveaux courants dans la
vie intellectuelle et scientifique". To get an impression of the enormous scope of
the "Universal Exposition", see also Paris Report 1901.
92

93

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

East Indies, and the anthropologist J.G. Frazer pointed to the importance of this scholarship.95 Although Dutch ethnographers did research
on religions in the colonies, this was not their main interest.96 The
Dutch study of religions in general concentrated more on the great
"universal religions".97 With the exception of the study of Chinese
religion, which was relevant to colonial practice due to the presence
of the large number of Chinese in the Dutch East Indies,98 this
knowledge was not directly instrumental to the "colonial project". I
have never encountered an argument for the establishment of science of religion within the Dutch academic system which referred
to the colonies. The scholars and politicians of those days would certainly have made this reference if it would have strengthened their
case. In a broad sense, however, the study of foreign culture and
religion was deemed important because of economic and colonial
interests.
Apart from international conferences, the making of encyclopedias
illustrates the internationalization of the study of religion. Foreign
scholars were asked to write major entries in, for example, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, and
the German Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Holland could not
compete with these prestigious undertakings, but the contribution of
Dutch scholars to the founding of the Encyclopaedia of Islam is remarkable. William Robertson Smith had called for such an undertaking
at the International Congress of Orientalists in London in 1892. It
was very difficult to get such a huge project, which would cost a lot
of money, off the ground. Yet, the organizing committee succeeded
in gaining the (financial) support of several governments, associations,
and academies of sciences. One of the reasons why this undertaking was located in the Netherlands was the fact that the Leiden pub-

95
Frazer 1981 (1890: first edition): xiii: "The works of Professor G.A. Wilken of
Leyden have been of great service in directing me to the best original authorities
on the Dutch East Indies, a very important field to the ethnologist." Frazer learned
Dutch in order to read Dutch authors. Cf. also Tylor 1892, who commemorated
the death of Wilken in his Anniversary Address for the Royal Anthropological
Institute.
96
Cf. Molendijk 1998.
97
A term made famous by Kuenen 1882.
98
The study of Chinese religion in the Netherlands goes back to an active policy on behalf of the Dutch government; cf. Blusse 1989 (esp. pp. 326ff.). The study
of Islam in the Dutch East Indies should also be mentioned in this context, but
scholarship on Islam did not limit itself to the colonies.

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45

lishing house, Brill, could print such a work. M. de Goeje asked his
pupil M. Th. Houtsma to coordinate the whole undertaking, which
would prove to be a mixed blessing to him personally. It turned out
that some of the financial support was promised on the condition
that the encyclopedia appear in the language of the donor. Therefore,
the Encyclopaedia of Islam had to be published in three languages:
English, German, and French." Instead of editing only one encyclopedia, Houtsma had to coordinate the publication of three encyclopediasa truly international affair, which surely nuances the naive
view of the first major historiographer of "comparative religion",
Louis Henry Jordan, who wrote in 1905: "A Science is never fenced
in by artificial national barriers. It is essentially international; nay,
in essence it is universal. A particle of knowledge, be it ever so small,
is like a particle of gold: it passes current everywhere".100
V. EPILOGUE: SOME DESIDERATA AND HYPOTHESES
Science of religion really was an international venture at the time.
Influence was reciprocal. Kristensen and Heinrich Hackmann, for
instance, held for a long time the chairs in history of religions at
the universities of Leiden and Amsterdam. It would be a rewarding
task to research the influence of foreign scholars on science of religion in the Netherlands.101 Books from foreign scholars, especially
from Britain, were translated into Dutch.102 The perceived international character of the study of religion heightened the sensitivity to
one's own national contribution. In his preface to the French translation of Tiele's Comparative History of Ancient Religions, Albert Reville
deplored the fact that France was, in his view, somewhat behind
Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands.103 And in his Gifford Lectures,

99

Houtsma, et al., 19131938. On the genesis of the encyclopedia, see Houtsma

& Kramers 1942: 920.
100
Jordan 1905: 168.
101
On the influence of German scholars on the Netherlands, see Gressmann
1993.
102
Cf. Miiller 1871 (probably a pirate edition; the circulation of such unauthorized
editions was the reason for Muller to publish his Introduction to the Science of Religion
in 1873; cf. Muller 1873: Preface); Muller 1879; A. Lang 1889. The reason why
English books in particular were translated is probably because most Dutch people
at the time were better acquainted with French and German than English.
103
Tiele 1882b: ix.

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

Tiele took the opportunity to point out that "little Holland" was
ahead, institutionally, of many of the greater European nations.104
While, as a Dutchman, I may be a bit prejudiced, the extent of
the influence of Dutch scholarship on religion is amazing. I have
already touched upon the German-language textbooks and the intricate relationships between Scandinavian and Dutch scholars of religion, but also unmistakable was the Dutch influence on the Fifth
Section (sciences religieuses) of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.
Even a superficial look at this Fifth Section shows us to what a large
extent French pioneers in the study of religion, such as Maurice
Vernes, and Jean and Albert Reville, were influenced by Dutch scholars.105 They translated books of Tiele, Abraham Kuenen, and Hendrik
Kern. The early volumes of the Revue de I'histoire des religions (1880)
contain many articles by Dutch scholars as well as numerous references about the state of the art in the Netherlands, which functioned
more or less as a model for these Frenchmen.106 Tiele was the only
non-Frenchman on the board of the Revue. This "French Connection"107
was by no means a one-way street, as if Dutch science distributed
its superior knowledge to underdeveloped regions, but it illustrates
the broad influence of early Dutch science of religion.
In this article I have investigated several aspects of early Dutch
science of religion which have a bearing on its international prestige and influence. The Dutch role in the spread of the new field
by way of journals, handbooks, encyclopedias, and congresseshas
been placed into perspective. I am well aware of the rough character of the picture I have presented. The international ramifications
of the field have to be researched in much more detail. For instance,

104

Tiele 1897-1899, I: 2f.

The Revilles and Tiele became acquainted in the late 1850s, as Albert Reville
was a minister in the Walloon Church and Tiele in the Remonstrant Brotherhood in
Rotterdam. The Tiele collection of the Leiden University Library contains 31 letters (1859-1900) written by A. Reville, 17 letters (1881-1900) by Jean Reville, and
5 letters (1876-1881) by Vernes.
106
There was, of course, also the "sociologist" schoolEmile Durkheim, Marcel
Mauss, Henri Hubertin the study of religion, which was in many ways opposed
to the Fifth Section; cf. Strenski 1998. But even the Durkheimians established contacts with the Dutch, and Henri Hubert contributed to the French translation of
Chantepie de la Saussaye's manual (1904), to which he added a lengthy introduction in which he expounded his own views on the study of religion and deplored
the fact that la Saussaye had skipped the phenomenological part in the second edition of his manual.
107
On the French-Dutch connection, see Cabanel 1994, especially p. 58f.
105

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47

what was the actual contribution of Dutch scholars to the various

journals, series, encyclopedias, and international conferences? What
role was played by the scholarly competitions, which internationally
respected Dutch associations such as "Teyler's Genootschap" and the
"Haagsch Genootschap" issued?108 The dissemination of ideas would
be an especially promising field of study. Hans Kippenberg has given
interesting specimens of such research and traced the spread of
influential Dutch-produced distinctions between natural and ethical,
race (national) and world religions. He has even succeeded in showing the influence of Tiele's contrast between "theantropic" and "theocratic" religion in the work of Max Weber and jurgen Habermas.109
This kind of research could be conducted even more fruitfully if we
had a more precise map of the exchanges between the early students of religion.
A careful prosopography would also show to what extent early
science of religion was a Protestant affair. The Dutch connections
with the Fifth Section, which in the beginning was dominated by
Protestant scholars like the Revilles and Vernes, and with Scandinavian
scholars such as Lehmann, Soderblom, and, last but not least,
Kristensen, point in this direction. The influence of early Dutch and
Scandinavian scholars in the field may also have something to do
with the fact that their cultures were relatively marginal. They had
to publish (or have their works translated) in the main European
languages. This meant also that they could step in when there was
some lacuna. Germany is a good example. Because science of religion had a hard time establishing itself as a distinct discipline within
the German university system, Dutch scholars could penetrate the
German book markets, and the Scandinavians Lehmann and Soderblom could occupy the first chairs in history of religions in Germany.110
The Dutch-Scandinavian connection could be partly explained by
a common theological interest in the study of religion. The scholars
in these countries were trained as theologians. Tiele, for instance,
wrote a thesis on the Gospel of John and pleaded later for the transformation of theology into science of religion. Other scholars wanted

108

Teylers Stichting 1978; Kuenen 1885; Haagsch Genootschap 1985.

Kippenberg 1993: 356-360; 1995: 138144; 1997: 79.
110
Lehmann in Berlin (1910-1913) and Soderblom in Leipzig (1912-1914); cf.
Rudolph 1962; Sharpe 1990. Their Lutheran background was probably an advantage in Germany too.
109

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

at least a close cooperation between theology and science of religion. Soderblom almost failed to notice a difference between the
two.111 The assumed connection between theology and science of
religion was to some extent canonized in phenomenology of religion,
which aimed at the understanding of the intentions of believers and
the essence of religious phenomena as such. It is difficult to generalize on this point because of the variety of standpoints all designated by the term "phenomenology of religion". But one can safely
say that many kinds of early phenomenology favoured cooperation
with theology.
Any discussion of early Dutch science of religion in an international perspective will inevitably be confronted by the question of
what explained its success. First of all, we have to refer to the general preconditions for the rise of the field, such as the reconceptualization of religion as a separate sphere of human activity; the
waning of the belief that there was no place for religion in modernity; the availability of relevant materials; the application of historical and empirical methods; the awareness of the importance of
religious diversity; and the rising conviction that it was meaningful
to compare religions (from an evolutionary point of view). But such
an enumeration does not suffice to explain the particularly fruitful
start of science of religion in the Netherlands. Is it possible to be a
little more specific about the factors which determined the rise of
science of religion in the Netherlands? I shall propose a few general
hypotheses which refer, partly, to the study of religion in a broad
sense, and, partly, to the establishment of science of religion stricto
sensu within the academy.112
(1) The fact that Holland was a colonial power and that it tried
to strengthen its hold on the colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century is a factor to be reckoned with. Oriental studies were
able to flourish because of the economic interests overseas. The Dutch
colonial government and the Dutch Trade Company in Amsterdam
financially supported the edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. A rise
in popular interest in foreign (oriental) religions is to be noticed, too.
To some extent this "religious orientalism" functioned as an alter-

111

Cf. Hjelde 1998: 111f.

Waardenburg (1991: 5254) offers some stimulating views on the question why
phenomenology of religion was so popular in the Netherlands.
112

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49

native to ecclesiastical forms of Christianity, which were considered

restrictive, fossilized, or harmful to the free religious development of
the individual. In this sense, oriental religions, especially Buddhism
(often mixed with some blend of Spinozism), could function as a religious "counter-culture" avant la lettre. The tight connection between
Religionswissenschaft and missiology in some Dutch theological faculties (up to the present day) can also be mentioned in this context.
(2) A second explanation is to be found in the alternative view of
religion which science of religion, and phenomenology of religion in
particular, offered against the dominant church praxis and theory.
The individual and psychological aspects of religion were emphasized
by many authors at the cost of the social and institutional dimensions. In this way science of religion contributed to the ideals of a
free, individual religiosity, opposed to "authoritative" or even "authoritarian" forms of church religion. The phenomenological method
itself emphasized the personal experience of the scholar. This new
way of looking at religion appealed to many at the time, although
it was a minority affair.
(3) It is perhaps possible to express the previous points in a still
more general way by suggesting that the popularity of science of
religion in the Netherlands can be explained by the fact that it presented an alternative to the dominant intellectual and religious mood
at the time. Some sort of nostalgia for past and primitive religion(s),
which appeal to direct emotions and intuitions and are not "rationalized", was certainly influential in this regard. Van der Leeuw
enjoyed citing the following words by G.K. Chesterton: "When the
professor is told by the barbarian that once there was nothing except
a great feathered serpent, unless the learned man feels a thrill and
a half temptation to wish it were true, he is no judge of such things
at all."113 Tiele, Chantepie de la Saussaye, Kristensen, and van der
Leeuw were fascinated by the arts, wrote poetry, and were not unwilling to see their "science" as an art. This fits in with the view of science of religion as deeply influenced by Romantic thinking and
critical of dominant Western rationalism.
(4) Fourthly, the intricate connection between science of religion
and theology in the Netherlands contributed much to the success of
the former. This may seem to be a paradox to many present-day

113

Van der Leeuw 1933: 639; Chesterton 1925: 116.

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ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

scientists of religion who strive for an emancipation of their discipline from theology. But as long as science of religion was viewed
as theologically important, it could obtain rather broad support.
Science/history of religion was institutionally located within the theological faculties. This may be a matter of regret, but I do not see
how science of religion could have made such a flying start from
outside the theology departments.
The connection between science of religion and theology is especially clear in the debates surrounding the Act on Higher Education
of 1876, which led to the introduction of History of Religions and
Philosophy of Religion (considered by many at the time to be the
main parts of science of religion) into the theological curriculum.
The rise of Dutch science of religion can, to some extent, be explained
by the dominant position of liberal Protestants (or Liberals in general) at the time, who thought that some sort of supra-denominational religion (their religion) could be an integrating force in the
Dutch nation.114 Accordingly, theology had to be of a non-confessional, supra-denominational kind; in short, it had to be transformed
into science of religion.
But the study of religion was not limited to "science of religion"
within the theological faculties. Depending on whether one takes science of religion in the narrow sense (the debates referred to above
were about the establishment of a distinct discipline) or in a wider
sense (also including the study of religions within the faculties of
arts), one has to stress different aspects to explain its emergence and
development. Trying to explain the rise of Dutch science of religion
is not the same as accounting for its international success, although
the first is a prerequisite for the second. Ultimately, only a more
detailed historical narrative (about the factual international relations
and exchanges) can provide the answer to such a question. But let
me finish by pointing to yet another general factor that played a
role in this respect. In many senses, early Dutch science of religion
was at a cross-roads: between nations, between various (emerging)
fields of study, and between different approaches and people. As
sociology of science has shown, scientific success does not depend

114
The liberal Protestants were influential, but not the only group favouring the
introduction of science of religion into the academic system, and they did not succeed in getting their objectives fully realized; on the debates which led to the Act
of 1876, see Molendijk 1998.

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

51

solely on academic qualities, but also on the ability to transfer ideas

and raise money. The international success of those Dutch scholars
could also be related to their capabilities as "wheeler-dealers"the
well-known Dutch spirit of commerce. But, to be honest, I am still
a little dissatisfied by all these explanations for the glorious start of
Dutch science of religion. A more detailed analysis of the international scene of science of religion at the time is probably needed
to obtain a clearer view of the development and spread of Dutch
science of religion.

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NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

BJORN SKOGAR

The 1990s are often associated with New Age movements. At least,
this is the case in Scandinavia. However, this phenomenon as such
is nothing new. In fact, around 100 years ago the 1890s were just
as romantic an era. Rationalistic criticism, previously termed naturalistic, had reached its height in the intellectual debates of the 1880s.
Moreover, the 1890s saw a reaction involving several trends, the
prime one being national romanticism. Another was that of the anticlerical liberals, many of whom turned from tirelessly attacking the
dogmatic Christianity of the State Church to joining the New Age
movement of the time, theosophy.1
Swedish author August Strindberg was a clear exponent of the
spirit of the age. In the 1880s a realist in the spirit of Emile Zola,
in the early 1890s he wrote an extraordinarily vivid novel, I havsbandet (By The Open Sea), whose scientifically-minded main character
collapses after having experienced the irrationality of life, and of love
in particular. Yet, as stated above, the dominant trend at the time
was nationalism and one of its most magnificent manifestations was
the Mondial Art and Industry Exhibition held in the summer of
1897 to celebrate the 25th Jubilee of His Majesty King Oscar's accession to the throne of the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway.
A dream city was built on Djurgarden, a stunning, verdant island
close to the centre of Stockholm. Three thousand workers were
employed to create a setting almost unparalleled even by the technological standards of the 1990s. The aim was to show the genius
of science and technology, to promote national unity and a belief
in the future, and to seize the high ground in the ongoing friendly
competition between nations. During the time of King Oscar II,
monarchy was still the dominant force in society. However, the exhibition naturally had to be funded somehow and the general atmosphere surrounding it would not have been dissimilar to a football

Sanner 1996: 296.

58

BJORN SKOGAR

World Cup or Olympic Games a hundred years later. The exhibition

was an early example of capitalism and monarchy working together
in harmony, a feature which still characterises most Scandinavian
countries today.
At the same time, there was unrest in the air. Galloping industrialism
had created a huge social crisis. In 1897 the Social Democratic Party
may have been a mere eight years old but it was a time of great
mobilisation from the Left, both politically and in terms of unionisation (the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions, LO, was founded
a year later in 1898). To encourage the workers also to take part
in the competition between nations, they were invited to visit the
vast exhibition free of charge. Despite the fact that electric light
shone day and night, promising a bright and happy future for all
classes, the common people were not quite as grateful as they might
have been. Once the exhibition was over, the premises were looted.2
In conjunction with the Art and Industry Exhibition, a number
of congresses were organised, the 21st of which focused on "religionsvetenskap", or the academic study of religion, the word "vetenskap"
being used in Swedish in the same way as "Wissenschaft" is used
in German, to refer to scientific work in all the fields of science and
the arts. The congress was held at Riddarhuset (the House of Nobility) and took place at the end of August/beginning of September in
1897 with approximately three hundred delegates, including over a
hundred women. It involved four intensive days of long lectures, culminating in an outing to the bathing resort of Saltsjobaden.
As will no doubt be familiar, in 1893 a famous gathering of world
religions had taken place in Chicago in conjunction with the World's
Fair to celebrate the anniversary of Columbus' so called discovery
of the New World. This conference had the highly universal aim of
gathering together representatives of every Church and religion imaginable from all four corners of the globe. The result was a vast manifestation of brotherly love, albeit in very general terms, presenting
a united front against the threatening godlessness of the time, a common aspect of the New Age of the 1890s. Religion was to pose an
alternative to hard and mechanical naturalism.

Ekstrom 1994:

107.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

59

The Swedish delegate to the Chicago conference was Dr. Carl

von Bergen, a liberal who had devoted his life to combating the
dogmatic beliefs of the Lutheran State Church. The conference in
Chicago was a major event for its time and aroused very mixed
reactions. Albert Bjorck (18561938), pastor of the Swedenborg New
Church in Stockholm, was one of those who supported the ideas
propounded in Chicago and was keen to organise a similar ecumenical meeting in Scandinavia. However, he was opposed by the
State Church. One of the main objectors was Bible scholar and
priest, S.A. Fries (1867-1914), who had his own very clear ideas as
to what was required. In 1895 Fries wrote a thorough commentary
on the conference in Chicago and the brief quote below provides
some insight into the atmosphere of the time:3
In any event it is heartening to see that religious enthusiasm can be
experienced in this age, where, on the one hand, rough or more sophisticated materialism and scepticism are casting their shadows over
our western civilisation, closely followed by the egoistic teachings of
Nietzsche on the "Ubermensch" and "Jenseits von Gut und Bose" and
the strange phenomena of spiritualism and neo-Buddhism, and where,
on the other hand, the theological sciencesa mixture of Pietism and
semi-Catholicismare beating a retreat behind the ancient bulwarks
of medieval scholasticism.

Fries' position is interesting because it was he who was to become

the driving force behind the Stockholm Congress in 1897, where he
held the post of first secretary (on the first day of the congress,
W. Brede Kristensen was elected one of three vice presidents, and
Nathan Soderblom was the second secretary).4 Fries' book of 1895
particularly addresses one central issue: whether it is possible or desirable to work for a universal religion for all mankind, i.e., a variation on the eighteenth century view of an intrinsic, natural religion.
Fries cannot accept such a concept, instead claiming that a universal religion must have a historical basis and the nature of a revelation.5 According to Fries, such a universal religion already exists in
Christianity. But the current form of Christianity is not good enough.
Nothing less is required than a new Reformation and this can only

Fries 1895: 8.
Fries documented all lectures and preannounced commentaries in a conference
report, published in 1898.
5
Fries 1895: 27.
4

60

BJORN SKOGAR

be realised through religious research. Thus it is research which must

contribute to ensuring that "Christianity is in a position to reject the
forms of its existence which prevent the development of its universal aspects."6 Fries concludes by recommending conferences, such as
the one in Chicago, as meetings for study, rather than meetings for
world religions and Churches.
One of Fries' contemporaries, and a close friend since their student
days in Uppsala, was Nathan Soderblom, who between 1894 and
1901 was working in Paris as a pastor for Swedish sailors and artists,
most of whom were impoverished. He wrote to Fries regularly and
it is clear from their correspondence that Fries succeeded in his aim
of preventing Bjorck's ecumenical conference. At the same time, his
own proposal for a congress with a more scientific focus received an
encouraging response. Besides Fries, the committee set up to draw
up proposals for a programme included Bjorck and the liberal chief
rabbi of Stockholm, Professor Gottlieb Klein (1852-1914).
Despite his youth and modest status, Fries succeeded in finding
support in influential circles. Both Archbishop Ekman and the King
backed the idea and, once a bishop had been found to preside over
the conference, all the practical obstacles vanished. This bishop was
K. Henning Gezelius von Scheele (18381920) of Visby who, like
Archbishop Ekman, had held the chair of Theological Encyclopaedia
and Introductory Notes at Uppsala University. The discipline was
founded in the 1870s to support Christian apologetics and this was
the post which Nathan Soderblom was to hold from 1901 to 1914
and which he was to develop into what we might term Comparative
Religion.
The committee began its work in 1896 and numerous scholars of
international repute expressed their support for the idea, among them
Max Muller, Auguste Sabatier and Adolf Harnack. However, responses
from colleagues in the Nordic countries were harder to come by, as
is clear from the letters written to Albert Bjorck. For example, the
Norwegian Bible scholar, Simon Michelet (18631942) from Kristiania
(now Oslo), was very reluctant to attend until assured that established Swedish academics were in favour of the project. Several rejections were received from Finland, including one from Professor G.G.

Ibid., 63.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

61

Rosenqvist (18551931) in Helsinki who wrote: "I must confess that

I am not pleased by the American idea of combining religious congresses and exhibitions. In my opinion, neither religion nor the study
of religion are a suitable subject for exhibitions."7
The invitation sent to the general public in spring 1897 emphasised
that this was not a meeting intended to ally different Churches and
religions but a congress that "has the character of totally free study
where no-one either is obliged to or should give up their particularity".
It was emphasised that women could also apply to take part, but
that all congress participants required "a common, religious education".8
Professor Rosenqvist's severe letter (see above) concluded with a
brief comment in which he voiced his suspicion that the real purpose of the congress was to "promote a particular theological position" (letter see above). This idea has some basis in fact. Max Muller
(who sent his apologies at the last minute but whose contribution
was read at the congress) praised the Chicago conference with unreserved enthusiasm and clearly believed that a universal religion should
be developed for all mankind. He was an exception, however, as
was Danish speaker H. Martensen Larsen who spoke in favour of
something like Church orthodoxy. Overall, the congress can be seen
as a manifestation of the modern theology of the time, which is usually called Neoprotestantism or cultural Protestantism. This is a theology of religion where concepts such as religion, the history of
religion and religious research must be understood within the bounds
of a philosophical and theological frame of reference whose most
important impulses come from Kant, Schleiermacher and Albrecht
Ritschl. Fries and Soderblom were representatives of this theology
of religion and, although their professional expertise was to a great
extent in philology, they both saw themselves as historians of religion. Using the concepts of the time, both Soderblom's research into
ancient Persian texts and Fries' studies of the Old and New Testament
were studies in history of religion, since history of religion meant the
evolutionary history of religion. As, in principle, almost every stage
in this evolution was considered to be represented within the Bible,
Bible research was looked upon as being of central and universal

7
8

Letter to Bjorck, 9.12.1896.

Fries 1898: XIV.

62

BJORN SKOGAR

importance. Since the buzzwords of the last century were evolution

and history, historical-critical Bible research played a very controversial and crucial role. At the Stockholm Congress, out of twelve
main lectures, fourthose of Professor A. Meyer from Bonn, Fries,
Michelet and Albert Bjorcktook up Biblical themes, where the
speakers were evidently familiar with the historical-critical method.
Bjorck's appeals for a symbolic interpretation of the Bible in the
spirit of Swedenborg attracted only limited enthusiasm, while Meyer
and Fries presented the current state of research, primarily at the
German universities. The lectures were heavy with facts and theories and it is not difficult to imagine that the audience gradually
became quite exhausted.
Other lectures were more general in content. The forefathers of
history of religion who spoke included Dutch Kierkegaard specialist,
P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye and French philosopher and theologian, August Sabatier. Both pleaded for a living religion rather than
a dogmatic theology and both spoke from an unproblematic presupposition of living in a civilised Christian culture where research
and seeking the truth were intrinsic values of the true religion. The
only lecture which explicitly addressed another culture was entitled
"Christian belief and Muhammedanism", in which K.L. Tallqvist,
reader in Semitic languages at Helsinki University presented Islam
in some detail, seeing Muhammed as one of the Semitic prophets.
However, he concluded by saying that "the followers of Muhammed
require enlightenment since in spiritual poverty he lived and in spiritual poverty so do they live".9
As Nathan Soderblom is usually numbered among the early theorists of the study of religion, I shall follow this initial overview with
a look at his contribution to the congress and attempt to place it in
its philosophical and theological context. Here it is necessary to present the most important inspiration behind the modern theory of
religion of 1897, the theology of Albrecht Ritschl. Without knowledge of the theories of Ritschl, it would be difficult to understand
why Nathan Soderblom wanted to lecture on the social question at
a congress on religion.
Albrecht Ritschl (182289) was a professor at Gottingen, the same
university which later hosted the movement in Bible research that

Ibid, 561.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

63

became known as "Die Religionsgeschichdiche Schule". Ritschl played

a major role in creating modern Protestant theology. Today, despite
this, he is largely unknown in Sweden, as from the 1930s onwards
the theological arena has been dominated by a tendency towards
neo-orthodoxy. Even today, calling someone a liberal theologian is
an insult in Scandinavia, to the extent that Soderblom's reputation
rests more on his work as a church leader and representative of
comparative religion than on his writings as a Protestant theologian.
Nationalencyklopedin, the Swedish National Encyclopaedia, a modern
work of reference which itself claims to be founded on scientific principles, clearly reflects this neo-orthodoxy. The entry on Soderblom
reads: "as a student Soderblom was inspired by the historical-critical view of the Bible (Julius Wellhausen) and liberal theology (Albrecht
Ritschl) but later gained a personal Christian belief in the revelation
of God in history."10
Albrecht Ritschl laid the foundations of modern theology by combining the philosophical concept of religion of Kant and Schleiermacher
with a focus on historical Bible research and some important aspects
of the work of Martin Luther. Like Kant, he distanced himself from
a metaphysical theology demanding knowledge in the field of science and, like Schleiermacher, he saw the fundamental theory of the
nature of religion as the theoretical foundation for all Christian theology. In brief, the basis of religion is the human need for freedom
in relation to the boundaries set by nature. In addition, according
to Ritschl, religion has a social and ethical dimension and should
be seen as a sociological phenomenon. Here the Swedish theologian
Gosta Hok has demonstrated that Ritschl was influenced by Adolf
Trendelenburg (180272), an Aristotelian philosopher from the beginning of the previous century, who had developed a philosophy which
was organic-teleological in nature. This is reminiscent of the way in
which the religious theories of the previous century often drew on
nature for their metaphors. Burkhard Gladigow, for example, has
pointed out how attempts were made to explain the fundamental
phenomenon of religion in terms of power and energy.11 The terminology in which Ritschl expressed his ideas drew, like that of
Schleiermacher (see Glaubenslehre 7), more on organic biology, as

10
11

Nationalencyklopedin 1995, vol. 18: 35.

Kippenberg/Luchesi 1991: 184 et passim.

64

BJORN SKOGAR

religion was thought to be a living organism of community life. In

this organism, Jesus has the function of a mutation. He is the prototype, the paradigm of religion. According to Ritschl, not only
Christianity but all religions are created by a transcendent God. For
Ritschl, the transcendency of God is a necessary postulate. As Hok
presented Ritschl's theory of religion, religions12
arise through that organic creation of community life that is called
religion. They manifest themselves in history just as suddenly as a new
plant or species of animal. . . Only Christianity can be considered perfect. But in principle all religions are relations between God and man,
as God has chosen to reveal them all. Furthermore, they are the only
way given for relationships between God and man.

This sounds like a variant of the old and overfamiliar idea that there
is no salvation outside the Church, in this case outside religion. It
is evident that Ritschl's theology includes elements of teleology, as
the kingdom of God is seen as the final destination of mankind
(Endzweck). The path of the individual is to be guided by Christian
virtues, such as patience and trust, and its aim is Christian perfection.
Ritschl's great influence can probably be explained by his combination of a biblical-Lutheran Christology with the questioning of
objective dogmatics. Early romantics of the nineteenth century, such
as Schleiermacher, had a very free attitude towards the confessional
creed but this attitude encountered great resistance from pietistbiblical and confessional-oriented groups. Ritschl, however, formulated a position which clearly set itself apart from sentimentality and
dogmatism alike. In his main work, Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung (first edition 1874), he set out the basic Christian
myth such that the legal metaphors of Paul and Anselm could be
explained in their own historical context. In Ritschl's own interpretation, the death of Christ is a consequence of his vocation (Beruf)
of living his life in complete obedience. Thus his death is "a total
expression of Christ's spiritual unity with God and his position as a
revelation is encompassed by his entire life".13 His death thereby
illustrates complete faith in God's guidance. The role of the Church
is to create this faith through the forgiveness of sins such that the
Christian is in turn free to live out his vocation through family and

12
13

Hok 1942: 14, with numerous references to the works of Ritschl.

Ritschl 1874, here 4th. ed. 1895, vol. III: 511.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM

IN 1897

65

work. Ritschl thus combines the second Isaiah's theme of the suffering
servant with Jeremiah's prophecy of a new covenant where people
carry the law in their hearts. The Church is not the kingdom of
God; it is to work for it as the final aim for all mankind.
Textbooks on the history of theology usually claim that Ritschl never
formed a school, but that he inspired a whole generation of influential
Protestant theologians, such as Harnack and Herrmann. Here we
could also include Nathan Soderblom. As young students he and
Fries had an older friend, Fredrik Fehr (184995), a philologist and
priest, who at a young age became dean of Stockholm where he
developed good relations with middle class liberals. Fehr, who remained
in close contact with Ritschl and his colleagues, was the foremost
source of the new ideas brought to Sweden. In 1891 he began to
publish a series of writings on religious and Church issues, declaring:14
The work has an apologetic aim in the sense that it will to the best
of its ability promote the truth, right and power of Christ's gospel.
But, on the other hand, it will not be a tool for traditional dogmatism whose doctrines people in our country . . . are inclined to confuse
with the truths of the gospel. For decades, Germany, the fatherland
of the reformation, has seen a vast movement in theological research
which, in line with the groundbreaking ideas of the reformation, is
freeing God's revelation given through history in Christ from the numerous foreign influences which over the centuries have become incorporated into the Christian faith to form a seemingly indivisible whole.

Note the aim of purifying Christianity from foreign influences. This

was reminiscent of Ritschl and was to be a thread running through
Swedish theology for a long time. The most famous work in this
category is Anders Nygren's Eros och Agape (Eros and Agape) of 1936.15
The first piece of writing in Fehr's series was Luther's The Freedom
of a Christian Man and the second The Christian Perfection by Albrecht
Ritschl, translated into Swedish by Fehr. Two years later came a
presentation of Ritschl's theology in Swedish, in Ernest Bertrand's
Ritschl's View of Christian Faith, translated from French with a commentary by Nathan Soderblom. In the introduction, Soderblom wrote
that Ritschl, like no other theologian of his time, addressed the issue
14
Quoted from the back cover of the second number of In religious and church
matters (I religiosa och kyrkliga fragor), 1891.
15
The relationship between theologians of the generation of Soderblom and of
the following generation is illuminated in Skogar 1993.

66

BJORN SKOGAR

of the historical Christ "bringing frankness and joy to working in the

church and in theology".16 During the 1890s Soderblom and Fries
were young and enthusiastic proponents of Ritschl's ideas. On Fehr's
premature death in 1895 Soderblom wrote to Fries that "he was our
incomparable friend and the only human support for our work in
the Church of Sweden".17 While these appear to be the words of
someone who felt himself to be an outsider, in fact hardly anyone
still remained who had not gained a personally-based Christian faith,
whatever the Swedish National Encyclopaedia would have us believe.
One could easily call Soderblom a forerunner of the theory of the
phenomenology of religion. But this does not prevent his mature
work being seen as an independent development of Ritschl's model.
Its keynote was frankness and a commitment to values that transcend the natural bonds of family and nationhood. Soderblom's lecture (called Introduction) of 1897 is an ambitious attempt to initiate
a dialogue between the Christian tradition and modern society. The
problems of that time can also be recognised throughout the world
also in 1998. How does one reconcile Christian heritage with the
rationality of an industrial society? Once one has accepted that modern economy follows a logic of its own, how is it possible to combine capitalism and elementary justice?
Soderblom's lecture should be read together with his important
work Jesu bargspredikan och var tid (Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and Our
Time), which was published in 1899. This makes it easier to interpret the lecture of 1897 in its intellectual context. The lecture is a
very concrete and structured work in which Soderblom studies the
relationship between religion and social development in nine theses.
There is little doubt that by religion he means Christianity, "just as
little as if when studying the role of art one needs to give reasons
for drawing on the most sublime example of art in our world".18
Soderblom sheds light on the relationship between religion and ethics
with a metaphor:19
The relationship with God was based on rituals before it was based
on moral conduct. But as morality grew up as the younger twin sister of religion, religion cannot be indifferent to her.

16
17
18
19

Bertrand 1893: VII.

Letter to Fries, 28.5.1895.
Fries 1898: 79.
Ibid., 90.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

67

The metaphor is clear enoughinternal consistency, but at the same

time two individuals. Why was religion born first? Soderblom's answer
is like Ritschl'sreligion is revelation. It is a gift which transcends
the limits of this existence through a supernatural trust. This trust
is founded on what Soderblom calls the eternal good, which gives
him a fixed point from which he can criticise the social system.
There is no doubt that he considers change necessary. He himself
lived among sailors and dockers and is outspoken in his demands
for more human conditions. "Patience is not the last word of religion on the social question", says Soderblom.20 This was a provocative stand to take at the time, as was expressing support for the
worker's right to strike as a last resort. The concluding thesis of the
lecture pleads for a different society which defends "the material
desires of religion: a human existence for all".21
It is evident that Soderblom is very familiar with theoretical discussions of social democracy; he takes a central position in which
he supports the Christian social movements of England and Germany,
but criticises socialism's tendency to "deify the state and institutions"22
and its far too trusting opinion of mankind. The main task of
Christianity is to be avant-garde. Here Soderblom is following in
Ritschl's footsteps. The concept of the Christian community, that is
to say a community which transcends all class distinctions, is a unique
contribution to religious history.23 However, Soderblom's position is
consistent; the twin sister appears once more. On the one hand, religion is autonomous (contra Marx). Its very essence and nature transcends this world. On the other hand, it must be anticipatory and
inspirational in creating a more human society. For example, Christian
charity is required, but the long-term aim is to make it superfluous.
Soderblom's attitude to Luther is of great interest. He questions
Luther's view that the state is merely a necessary evil. It should
rather be a protective and positive institution. What characterises the
Christian state is that it has left its theocratic way of thinking behind.
Here Soderblom consciously builds on Luther's theory of governance,
where he separated life into two different "governments" or perspectives, that of the sword and that of the Word. Work in business

20
21
22
23

Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,

78.
79.
106.
111 et passim.

68

BJORN SKOGAR

and institutions belong to the government of the sword and must be

carried out according to its own logic. As an example, Soderblom
cites usury, which leading theologians in earlier societies considered
reprehensible, but which is now one of the natural requirements of
a modern society. The influence of religion on modern society should
be by way of attuning the human conscience, leading the individual to act with personal responsibility in day-to-day life.
Soderblom's lecture lacks explicit links to Ritschl. There may be two
reasons for this. One was his day-to-day battle with acute poverty
which brought him into contact with socialist intellectuals. Here the
abstract writings of Ritschl are far distant. On the urgent battles of
the day, he turns to those such as the evangelical socialist, Friedrich
Naumann, and the philosopher and sociologist, Max Weber.
Secondly, Soderblom had gained knowledge which radically widened
the gulf between heaven and earth. Johannes Weiss (18631914),
son-in-law to Albrecht Ritschl and a representative of the "Religionsgeschichtliche Schule", had in 1892 published a study, Die Predigt Jesu
vom Reiche Gottes, which undermined and questioned Ritschl's image
of Jesus. According to Weiss, the historical Jesus should be seen as
an eschatological prophet. And herein lies one of the most important origins of the dimension of holiness in Soderblom's theory of
religion. "In Jesus the tendency to eschew the world is strong; madness to the Greeks and to many Bible scholars, who do not wish to
admit the eschatological and ascetic nature of the kingdom of God
proclaimed by Jesus."24 It is the eschatologically passionate prophet
who is the pattern for religion. Therefore, religion is the older sister. She is a spark from the fire of the Lord himself.
In this context it should be noted that the concept of history of
religion has now gained a new slant. Breaking with Ritschl and
Harnack, the "Religionsgeschichtliche Schule" came to stress a cultural distance from the world of the New Testament, which is accepted
by Soderblom in an explicit criticism of Ritschl.25 However, this does
not detract from his basic theory founded on the work of Schleiermacher and Ritschl, as is evident from reading Studiet af religionen
(The Study of Religion), published in 1907. For the mature theory of

24
25

Ibid., 9495.
Soderblom 1899: 3233.

NEOPROTESTANTISM IN STOCKHOLM IN 1897

69

Soderblom, it is crucial that Christ remains religion "par excellence",

while at the same time the revelation continues through the great
geniuses of religion; through those filled with moral pathosImmanuel
Kant is often his example; and through the great artists. The last
category was immediately forgotten by the theologians, at least in
Sweden.
In conclusion, Soderblom's contribution to thinking on the relationship between the Church and social issues still holds good today,
even though we may not be able to take it literally. In his time, for
example, it was important for mothers to be able to afford to stay
at home with their children. Nowadays, this demand would be seen
in a very different light, at least in Scandinavia. His demand that
religion must distance itself from making theocratic demands on the
surrounding world is a prophetic point of view even today and one
which should be appreciated both in his own Church and in other
religious communities.
Although the idea of evolution today is problematic, one cannot
but admire Soderblom's courage in confronting his Christian heritage with the burning issues of the day. In the twentieth century
we have encountered a great deal of religious research far more nostalgic in nature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Unpublished material
Letters between Nathan Soderblom and S.A. Fries, Uppsala University Library,
Nathan Soderblom collection.
Letters to and from Albert Bjorck, Swedenborg section, Kungl. Biblioteket, Stockholm.
Soderblom, Nathan: "Om den kyrkliga karaktaren af Albrecht Ritschls vetenskapliga arbete", manuscript 1896, Uppsala University Library, Nathan Soderblom
collection.
2. Published material
Barrows, J.H. (ed.) 1894: Varldens forsta allmanna religionsmote (Sw. transl. by L. Bergstrom
of The World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago 1893), Stockholm.
Bertrand, Ernest 1893: Ritschls askadning af kristendomen (Sw. transl. and adaption by
Nathan Soderblom of Une nouvelle conception de la redemption, Paris 1891), Stockholm.
Ekstrom, Anders 1994: Dm utstallda varlden, Nordiska museets handlingar 119, Stockholm.
Fries, S.A. 1895: Betydelsen af Religionskongressen i Chicago., Stockholm.
(ed.) 1898: Religionsvetenskapliga kongressen i Stockholm 1897, Stockholm.
Hok, Gosta 1942: Die elliptische Theologie Albrecht Ritschls nach Ursprung und innerem
Zusammenhang, Uppsala universitets arsskrift 1942: 3, Uppsala and Leipzig.

70

BJORN SKOGAR

Kippenberg, H.G. and B. Luchesi (eds.) 1991: Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik.

Beitrage zur Konferenz "The History of Religions and the Critique of Culture in the Days of
Gerardus van der Leeuw (18901950)", Marburg.
Nationalencyklopedin 1995 (the Swedish National Encyclopaedia), Hoganas.
Ritschl, Albrecht 187074: Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung
I-III, Bonn.
1891: "Den kristliga fullkomligheten" (Sw. transl. by Fredrik Fehr of Die christliche Vollkommenheit, Gottingen 1889), in: Religiosa och Kyrkliga fragor nr. 2, Stockholm.
Sanner, Inga 1995: Att dlska sin ndsta sasom sig sjalv, Stockholm.
Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 1830: Der christliche Glaube, Second ed., Berlin.
Skogar, Bjorn 1993: Viva vox och den akademiska religionen, Stockholm and Stehag.
Strindberg, August 1890: I hafsbandet, Stockholm.
Soderblom, Nathan 1892: "Kristendomen och den moderna arbetarrorelsen", Tidskrift
for kristlig tro och bildning, Stockholm.
1899: Jesu bargspredikan och var tid, Stockholm.
1907: Studiet af religionen, Stockholm.
Weiss, Johannes 1892: Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, Gottingen.

PART TWO

W.B. KRISTENSEN AND THE STUDY OF THE

ANCIENT RELIGIONS

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THE STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

AROUND THE YEAR 1900 AND TODAY
ANDERS HULTGARD

INTRODUCTION
As with modern interpreters of the Avesta and its religion, the scholars who committed themselves to this subject around the year 1900
depended on the achievements of previous workers during a time
span of almost a century. The landmarks of this earlier study of the
Avesta must be briefly mentioned before we can address the issue
of Avestan scholarship at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Anquetil du Perron's French translation in 1771 made the Avesta
known to a European public and can be taken as the starting-point
for the serious study of the Avesta; it had, though, been preceded
by a long reception history of the Zarathustra figure in Europe,
which had been in continuous elaboration from the late antiquity
period (Stausberg 1998). However, the Avesta of Anquetil was not
a scholarly work according to modern standards and it soon became
the object of an academic dispute concerning its reliability and was
even looked upon as a forgery in many quarters. Not until the French
orientalist Eugene Burnouf established the authenticity of the Avestan
text by comparing it with the language of the Veda was the quarrel over the Avesta of Anquetil settled. It became clear that only the
knowledge of Sanskrit enabled scholars to decipher the Avesta. A
closer understanding of the Avestan text itself was achieved not only
by the help of Sanskrit but also by the comparative Indo-European
philology which began to work in the first half of the 19th century.
The most influential attempt to combine the philological progress
with an interpretation of the Avesta as a religious document was
made by Martin Haug in the middle of the century (Haug 185860).
He distinguished certain passages of the Gathas from the rest of the
Avesta and emphasized that these passages were the only part of the
Avesta that disclosed the teaching of Zarathustra himself, which Haug
summarized as monotheism at the theological level, philosophical

74

ANDERS HULTGARD

dualism and "a moral philosophy" moving in the framework of

thought, word and deed (Haug 1878: 300). The main religio-historical problems were, through Haug, put on the agenda of 19th
and 20th century research on Zoroastrianism. He maintained, for
example, that "the Zoroastrian religion arose out of a vital struggle
against the form which the Brahmanical religion had assumed at a
certain early period" (Haug 1878: 287). The great religious reform
carried out by Zarathustra had been prepared for centuries by the
fire-priests of the Ahura-religion (Haug 1878: 294295). The basis
for a historical and critical study of the Avesta and its religion had
been laid and with this in mind we can approach the issues to be
discussed here.
Philological Progress in the Study of the Avesta

Scholarly work on the religion of ancient Iran in the years around

1900 was fortunate in the way that interpreters could profit from
the remarkable philological progress in the study of the Avesta that
had taken place in the preceding decade. Fundamental works which
still have not been replaced or surpassed were produced by outstanding scholars in the field of ancient Iranian languages. The
GrundriB der iranischen Philologie (18951904) summarized the results of
the 19th century research on ancient Iranian languages. In 1892
Williams Jackson published his Avesta Grammar (Jackson 1892) which
is still the best introduction to Avestan grammar. As to the text of
the Avesta, the German philologist Karl Geldner collected and investigated in detail all Avestan manuscripts that were known to him.
Every single manuscript was evaluated and grouped according to
genetic relationship and the results were presented in stemmata that
can be said to be definite. This was an enormous effort which could
barely be repeated today by one scholar working alone. The text of
the Avesta which he established and published between the years 1886
and 1889 is the one that every scholar working on the Avesta has
to rely upon (Geldner 1886, 1889). A similar monumental work was
the lexicon of Christhian Bartholomae, entitled Altiranisches Worterbuch
(Bartholomae 1904), which has not so far been replaced and which
has been considered by experts the best lexicon ever published.1
1

So, for instance, Gershewitch 1995: 6: "in my opinion the best dictionary ever
compiled for any language".

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

75

James Darmesteter published his French translation of the entire

Avesta, which constituted a notable progress in Avestan studies. For
the first time a complete scholarly translation was produced, which,
by modern standards is surprisingly reliable, with the exception of
the Gathas. The principal merit of this translation is that Darmesteter
presents the texts with their ritual context as he could observe it
among the Parsees of India. Historians of religions now had at their
disposal instruments that paved the way for a better understanding
of the Avesta. By the turn of the century, the distinction between
the Old Avestan texts, the Gathas and the Yasna Haptarjhaiti, "the
Yasna of the seven chapters", and what is called the Younger Avesta,
the bulk of the sacred collection, was well established and is, as we
will see, crucial to the interpretations of the history of Zoroastrianism
or Mazdaism.2
It may be reasonably argued that recent decades have witnessed
an almost similar progress in the philological study of the Avesta,
especially as concerns the Old Avestan texts, that is, the Gathas and
the Yasna Haptanhaiti. The transmission history of the Avesta, including the origin of the Avestan script, has been further elucidated by
Karl Hoffmann and Johanna Narten. Their results may be summarized as follows (Hoffmann and Narten 1989). The Avestan alphabet, most of which was derived from the Pahlavi script, as it was
written in the early Sassanian period, was invented as a "phonetical transcription alphabet" with the purpose of ascertaining the correct recitation of the sacred texts. The invention of this alphabet
also implied that the orally transmitted texts were written down in
what is called the "Sassanian archetype", which forms the basis of
the entire manuscript tradition that has survived. It was also shown
that dialectal influences have marked the language of the Avesta during the centuries it was handed down orally. The present text represents the recitation tradition of the Sassanian period used by the
Zoroastrian priests in the ancient province of Persis (modern Fars).
The Avestan language has been the subject of a more intense
study by scholars working in the Iranistic field and in Indo-European
linguistics. The comparison with the Rigveda has considerably deepened the knowledge of the Old Avestan texts. The verbal system has
2

Zoroastrianism and Mazdaism are here used synonymously, although the terms
may imply different view-points of what is considered typical of the religion, the
figure of Zarathustra or the supreme god Ahura Mazda.

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ANDERS HULTGARD

been thoroughly studied by Jean Kellens (Kellens 1984). Modern

editions, translations and commentaries of the Gatha hymns and the
Yasna Haptanhaiti (Insler 1975, Narten 1986, Kellens & Pirart 1988,
Humbach 1991 and 1994, Olsson 1994) have put the interpretation
of these crucial texts on a more solid basis, although much of the
Gathas still remains obscure. In the first place, the impressive work
in three volumes by Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart should be mentioned. Kellens holds the chair of Indo-Iranian languages and religions at College de France. Pirart is an Indo-European linguist. Here,
a critical text is established, followed by a translation which clearly
reflects the ritual interpretation of the Gathas put forward by the
two authors. The first volume gives the text and translation, preceded
by an introduction which also summarizes the views of Kellens and
Pirart on Zarathustra and the message of the two texts. The second
volume contains grammatical analyses and a complete lexicon of the
Old Avestan texts. The third volume is devoted to a thorough commentary on each stanza and verse of the Gathas and the Yasna
Haptanhaiti respectively. The texts of the Younger Avesta have also
received new interest. Kellens has devoted a thorough investigation
of the first chapters of the Yasna (Kellens 1996). The study of the
yasts has progressed considerably through the edition with translation and commentary of particular yasts and the investigation of
Avestan hymns in general. Yast 8, dedicated to the divinity Tistrya,
has been studied by Panaino (1990) and the important yast 19, concerned with the concept of xvaranah, approximately "Fortune" or
"Glory", by Hinze (1994). The consideration of Avestan hymnic composition by Skjaerv (1994) has yielded valuable new insights.
I

It is not, however, the philological progress in the study of the Avesta

that will concern us in the first place. What is interesting in the
comparison between now and then is the religious dimensions of the
Avesta and its significance for history of religions in general. There
are three main issues that will be the focus of my presentation:
the figure of Zarathustra and his role in shaping the religion that
bears his name;
the message of the Gathas and the concept of Iranian paganism;

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

77

the emergence of classical Zoroastrianism as witnessed by the

Younger Avesta.
Research on Avesta and its Religion around the Tear 1900

As already mentioned, the achievements of Iranian philology in the

years around 1900 provided historians of religions with excellent tools
for interpreting the religion of the Avesta. But there was no corresponding progress in the study of Zoroastrianism during the first
decade of the 20th century and, according to Duchesne-Guillemin
(1973: 260), it can at best be characterized as a "period of consolidation". Although no novel interpretations were set forth, this
judgement is perhaps too harsh. It would be fairer to speak about
a deepening of traditional view-points and an emphasis on certain
results gained by 19th century research. The scholars of the late
19th and early 20th centuries,3 on whom I base my presentation,
represent, on the one hand, philologists like Christian Bartholomae,
Williams Jackson and James Hope Moulton, and, on the other hand,
historians of religions, in the first place Edvard Lehmann, Nathan
Soderblom, Edgar Reuterskiold, and Brede Kristensen. Mention
should also be made of Cornelis Petrus Tiele who, from his competence in the religions of the ancient Near East, embarked upon
the study of Avesta religion. Jackson and Moulton, who were both
prominent Indo-European linguists, displayed at the same time a
genuine interest in Zoroastrianism as a religion. Moulton thus stated
that "the Avesta and its religion form a subject of extraordinary
interest alike for the philologist and for the student of theology"
(Moulton 1913: 1). It is noteworthy that it was an essay by Moulton
published in the Thinker in 1892, which inspired Nathan Soderblom
to choose ancient Iranian religion as his primary field of research
(Hartman 1984: 36). We may perceive differences in the approach
taken by these two groups of scholars. The philologists writing on
the religion of Avesta, besides being less concerned with comparative material, intended to produce good text-oriented monographs.
The historians of religions whom I mentioned certainly did not lack
3
Some of the works of these scholars were published at a later date than the
chronological framework above indicates (e.g. Soderblom 1933 and Kristensen 1960).
In such cases the person has precedence over the time (for Kristensen, see below
p. 81).

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ANDERS HULTGARD

philological training,4 but they were conscious of placing their interpretations in the wider framework of comparative religion. They displayed a firm conviction that the Avesta religion and the figure of
Zarathustra are of prime interest to history of religions in general.
The problems posed by the philological study of the Avesta which
today are essential to the interpretation of Avestan religion were not,
however, given much attention.
The Figure of Zarathustra

Taking up the first of the three main issues that will be addressed
here, we may note a marked interest in the person of Zarathustra.
The debate over the historicity of Zarathustra that had raged in the
latter half of the 19th century had calmed down and it was no longer
opportune to regard him as a mythical figure (Jackson 1899: 34,
Lehmann 1899: 1113, Bartholomae 1904: 1675). With his status as
a historical person no longer being doubted among serious scholars,
the question nevertheless remained as to which category of religious
types he belonged, what his influence was, and to what extent the
Gathas were his own creation.
Let us start with Williams Jackson, one of the pioneering philologists in Avestan studies, as pointed out before. His view is already
outlined in the introduction to his grammar of 1892, but is fully
developed in his book on Zarathustra published in 1899. As the title
Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran shows, Jackson emphazises the role
of Zarathustra as a prophet and founder of a new religion who is
clearly modelled after Jesus and the biblical prophets. Jackson intends
to write a Life of Zarathustra as he states in the preface: "It is a
biographical study based on tradition" (p. vii). The purpose is to
reconstruct "the story of the life and ministry of Zoroaster" beginning with his genealogy, birth and childhood, then coming to his
revelation and public appearance and ending with his last years and
death. All is clearly inspired by the Life of Jesus genre which characterized 19th century New Testament research culminating in the
impressive works of David Friedrich Strauss (Das Leben Jesu 1839)
and Ernest Renan (La vie de Jesus 1863). The terminology used by
4
Soderblom began his Avestan studies for Zettersten, professor in Semitic philology at the University of Uppsala and continued for Meillet in Paris. Reuterskiold
had as his teacher in Avestan Jarl Charpentier who later became professor in IndoEuropean linguistics also at Uppsala. For Lehmann, see below p. 80f.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

79

Jackson is illuminating in this respect. Zoroastrian notions and figures

are frequently equated with biblical concepts. The Gathas are called
the Zoroastrian Psalms; the Amesha Spentas, the divine entities, are
denoted the Archangels; and the persons surrounding Zarathustra in
the Gathas are called his apostles. The headings of the twelve chapters in which Jackson describes the life of Zarathustra also reveal
the influence of the Life of Jesus genre; for example, chapter III,
dealing with the life of Zarathustra until the age of thirty, is entitled "Early Life and Religious Preparation", while the first period of
Zarathustra's preaching is entitled "Promulgation of the Gospel"
(chapter VII). His esteem of Zarathustra is best presented by citing
a few illuminating statements: "He is the teacher of a higher and
nobler civilization" (Jackson 1892: xxviii) and "(t)he sage who was
born to leave his mark on the world" (Jackson 1899: 140).
Jackson stresses the importance of the Gathas as a document which
brings us close to the person of Zarathustra, his feelings and his
thoughts. The Gathas enable us to follow Zarathustra in his prophetic
mission and Jackson eloquently depicts the wide-ranging spectrum
of what he calls "the tone of the Gathas" which includes hope and
despair, exultation and discouragement, exhortation and philosophical speculation, to mention only some of the expressions that make
up the psychological picture of the prophet as painted by Jackson.
He concludes his summary of the Gathas with the words: "then
comes the final fiery outbreak of the prophetic soul in a clarion note
of triumph and the transport of joyous victory" (Jackson 1899: 75).
Despite the important role assigned to the Gathas in Jackson's biography of Zarathustra, the contrast with later sources is not elaborated and the reading of Jackson's presentation leaves the impression
of a rather uncritical approach to the sources which are not carefully sifted as to historical reliability. Jackson has succeeded in painting a vivid image of a prophet and a founder by describing the
vicissitudes of Zarathustra's religion during his life-time in accordance with later Zoroastrian tradition. The scheme of a prophet's life
as propagated in Jewish, Christian and Muslim writings provides the
interpretation model used by Jackson when explaining the Gathas.
Zarathustra receives a revelation and preaches a new message, he
is met with opposition and hostility, he flees to another country
where he converts its ruler, King Vishtaspa, who then becomes his
protector. More converts are made and the creedto use Jackson's
wordspreads; the prophet dies, but his religion lives on. This was

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ANDERS HULTGARD

destined to become the prevailing picture of Zarathustra and his mission for the coming century.
Bartholomae deals briefly with the figure of Zarathustra in his
Altiranisches Worterbuch (1904: 167576) and more extensively in a lecture held at Heidelberg University in 1918 (Bartholomae 1924). One
may discover an enhanced appreciation of Zarathustra's role in this
later writing. In 1904 Zarathustra is described as a reformer of the
traditional religion ("Der Reformator"), but in the 1918 lecture he
appears as the great founder of religion for the Iranian people.5
Bartholomae is of the opinion that Zarathustra was originally a native
of northwestern Iran but that the Avesta was produced in eastern
Iran. Zarathustra had to leave his homeland either because he found
no response or because he was forced into exile and this was the
reason why his reform was carried out among the eastern Iranians
(Bartholomae 1904).
Moulton has a less optimistic view than Jackson of the possibility
of reconstructing a "Life of Zarathustra", but agrees with Jackson in
the characterization of Zarathustra as a prophet who completely
reformed the ancient Iranian religion. Moulton emphasizes with
Geldner and Bartholomae that the Gathas are the only historically
reliable source on Zarathustra and that they must be contrasted with
the picture of Zarathustra in the Younger Avesta which "rarely suggests the possibility of anything but myth" (Moulton 1913: 16). In
the chapter entitled "Zarathushtra and Israel", Moulton parallels
Moses and Zarathustra as founders of Jewish and Iranian monotheism: "To each people when polytheism still reigned there came a
great Prophet, the centre of whose message was to bid them fix their
thought and faith on One alone" (Moulton 1913: 300).
Coming to the historians of religions, the first to be mentioned is
Edvard Lehmann who started his career at the University of Copenhagen, where he also wrote his widely appreciated book on Zarathustra
and the ancient faith of the Persians (Lehmann 1899, 1902).6 He
5
"Ein Mann von solcher GroBe und Bedeutung aus grauem Altertum ist der
Religionsstifter des iranischen Volkes" (Bartholomae 1924: 2).
6
Lehmann held the chair in history of religions in Berlin between 19101913
and became subsequently the first professor in history of religions at the theological faculty of Lund, where he stayed until his retirement in 1927. This chairlike
that at the theological faculty of Uppsala held by Nathan Soderblom from 1901 to
1914was specified as "teologisk encyklopedi och teologiska prenotioner", a confessional label for history of religions which at the same time purports to assign to
that discipline the task of a preparatory study for the theological curriculum.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

81

had prepared himself by studying Avestan and Iranian philology with

Karl Geldner and Ferdinand Justi. The second part of Lehmann's
monograph is devoted to Zarathustra and the teaching of the Gathas
followed by a chapter on the theology of the Younger Avesta and
the Pahlavi books. Lehmann cannot avoid the temptation of writing
a "Life of Zarathustra", although his presentation is more stringent
and critical of later Zoroastrian tradition than that of Jackson.
The study of Zoroastrianism in the academic careers of Soderblom
and Kristensen can be paralleled in more than one respect. Soderblom
and Kristensen studied Avestan together in Paris where they also
became friends (Kraemer in Kristensen 1960: xiv). Kristensen displayed a particular interest in the Avesta religion, which became a
favourite subject for his teaching at the University of Oslo from 1898
to 1901 (Kraemer in Kristensen 1960: xv). Soderblom chose, as we
have seen, the religion of the Avesta as his special field of research.
Common to Soderblom and Kristensen was their use of Zoroastrianism
in the service of the phenomenology of religion. Soderblom's monograph on the fravashis (frauuasi- "female guardian spirit") may appear
as an exception since it constitutes a specialized Avesta study, but it
purports basically to address a religio-historical issue of more general interest, albeit with an evolutionary bias (Soderblom 1899). The
predominance of phenomenological interests with Kristensen and
Soderblom explains the lack of comprehensive treatments of particular issues relating to the Avesta (Soderblom's Les Fravashis is an
exception). Yet the religion of the Avesta played a significant part
in their comparative studies.
As for Kristensen, a reading of the posthumously published book
The Meaning of Religion, based on his lectures in phenomenology,
reveals the importance he attributed to the Avesta and its religion
for elucidating fundamental phenomena in the world of religions.
His observations on Avesta passages and his interpretations of Zoroastrian beliefs are still worth reading because they spring from a close
contact with the text in its original language. The religio-historical
problems raised by the Avesta seem to have been of less interest to
him. There are, however, clear indications that he shared the traditional view of Zarathustra as a prophet who drastically transformed
the ancient religion of Iran.7 The study of Nathan Soderblom's works

This appears from formulations in The Meaning of Religion, such as "the prophet

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ANDERS HULTGARD

yields more for the prophetical aspect of Zarathustra because of his

Avesta specialization and his greater interest in revealed religion.
To Soderblom the role of Zarathustra as a prophet is essential
and one wonders what would have come out of the chapter on
Zarathustra in his last book The Living God if the key words revelation, prophet, and monotheism had been denied as true concepts of
the Gathas, as in much Avesta research of today. The reason for
including an extensive chapter on Zarathustra in this book, which
was based on the Gifford Lectures 1931, is stated in the following
terms (Soderblom 1933: 167):
I am afraid that the object of this lecture, the prophet of ancient Iran,
is more prosaic and less interesting from a general point of view, but
he has great significance for the history of religion as being the nearest or even the only real counterpart of the Old Testament prophets
and their less original successor Mohammed.
All through this chapter Soderblom emphasizes the revelatory and
visionary aspects of the figure of Zarathustra and the intimate relationship between the prophet and his god. Reuterskiold agrees with
the general interpretation of Zarathustra as a prophet, but he makes
an interesting distinction as to the question of for whom Zarathustra
was a prophet. To the nomadizing tribes among which he went to
preach, Zarathustra certainly appeared as a prophet bringing a new
religion. However, to his own people, he was not a prophet but a
missionary sent out to other Iranian tribes to spread the religion of
a sessile tribe of agriculturalists. The religion preached by Zarathustra
was no innovation among his own tribe, for it had gradually emerged
as the product of a historical development.8
The Message of the Gathas and Iranian "Paganism"
In contrast to later scholarship which, with a few notable exceptions,
plainly stated that Zarathustra was the author and speaker of the

of Mazda" and "the prophet Zarathustra" (p. 121) and "the same religion can
change sharply ... for example the Avesta religion before and after Zarathustra"
(p. 268).
8
Reuterskiold may here be cited from the Swedish original: "Men den sarstallning Zarathustra intager blir af en annan art, darigenom att det icke ar direkt med
den egna traditionen han brutit, utan med de stammars, till vilka han kom. Det
utmarkande for Zarathustra var icke det, att han var sitt folks profet, utan han var
sitt folks missionar till stambeslaktade folk." (Reuterskiold 1913: 93).

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

83

Gathas, the late 19th and early 20th century students of Iranian religion presented a more nuanced opinion. Even for the scholars who
enthusiastically stressed the role of Zarathustra as a great prophet,
the question of authorship remained more or less open. Though not
discarding the possibility of multiple authorship, Jackson and Soderblom
emphasized Zarathustra as the most probable author.9 Moulton also
took an optimistic view in stating that "a large proportion of the
Gathic verses distinctly profess to come from Zarathushtra himself"
(Moulton 1913: 17).10 The Gathas were looked upon as versified sermons or "Lehrgedichte" by Zarathustra which gave immediate expression to his emotions and to his religious teaching. Others, such as
Lehmann and Reuterskiold, were more sceptical, maintaining that it
would be audacious to search for the ipsissima verba of the prophet
in the Gathas, although in some passages his own words might have
been preserved in the form he coined them.11
Irrespective of the different positions taken regarding Zarathustra's
authorship of the Gathas, they were unanimously considered as a
document bearing witness to the prophet's preaching of a new or
reformed religion. The dependence on biblical models in interpreting the Gathas and the figure of Zarathustra which was so prominent in late 19th and early 20th century studies inevitably implied
an adaptation of the Gathas' message to Judaeo-Christian monotheism, and, as a consequence, the positing of an Iranian "paganism"
which the prophet Zarathustra had thoroughly transformed.
The message proclaimed by the Gathas was consequently interpreted as a call for monotheism and as a teaching of a cosmic and
9
Jackson's formulation is illuminating in this respect (Jackson 1899: 74-75):
"Here (in the Gathas) we have the very words of the great Reformer or of his disciples" (my italics). A similar open formulation as to authorship is found in Soderblom:
"Zarathushtra emerges from the gloom ... by the witness which he himself or his
closest followers have given in the old hymns still extant" (Soderblom 1933:174).
In his earlier writings Soderblom was less explicit as to the authorship of the Gathas,
speaking about "les auteurs des Gathas" or "les pretres-chantres des Gathas" (e.g.,
Soderblom 1901: 245 and 247).
10
Compare also the following statement: "The Zarathushtra of the Gathas is historical, and in my judgement he himself is speaking there, wholly or nearly so"
(Moulton 1913: 17).
11
Lehmann (1899: 28) stated: "That we should haveas argued by Haugthe
very words of the prophet in these hymns, we would not dare to maintain. Yet it
is not improbable that this may be the case here and there" (my translation of the
Danish original). Reuterskiold (1913: 16) concluded that in the Gathas "we have
to do with the remnants of sermons which Zarathustra's disciples or at best he himself or his school composed" (my translation of the Swedish original).

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ANDERS HULTGARD

ethical dualism. Bartholomae states that the basic innovation introduced by Zarathustra was the suppression of polytheism and the
introduction of monotheism.12 Jackson feels confident that the Gathas
represent the preaching of a new faith, the most striking feature of
which "is the doctrine of dualism" (Jackson 1892: xxiv). By this he
means the idea of two primeval principles"the good and the evil,
which pervade the world". In describing Zarathustra's idea of God,
the term monotheism is not explicitly used by Jackson either in the
introduction to his Avesta Grammar or in his monograph Zoroaster.
Instead, Jackson speaks of Ahura Mazda as the "god of the good"
having the aid of "ministering angels" or a "heavenly hierarchy"
(Jackson 1892: xxvxxvi). According to Lehmann, the Gathas represent the emergence of a new theological reflection within one of
the traditional "cultic groupings" (Danish: kultiske kredse) among the
ancient Iranians, one where Mazda was already the supreme god
surrounded by minor divinities. The role of Zarathustra lay in his
elaboration of a coherent theological system where, before, unreflected,
loosely associated beliefs had reigned. This view was also shared by
Reuterskiold.13 For Lehmann, the theology created by Zarathustra is
in its essence monotheistic because it is pervaded by one divine will
regardless of whether this will manifests itself directly or indirectly
through angels or subdeities.14 The essential message of the Gathas
is the proclamation of the "kingdom of Ahura Mazda", which was
founded at the beginning of time and which will be completed at
the end of time (Lehmann 1902: 63). Moulton agrees with Lehmann
in emphasizing the pre-Zoroastrian origin of Ahura Mazda who was
the "clan god" of the "Aryans". These were, according to Moulton,
the highest social caste including perhaps all who were descended
from the Indo-European groups who entered Iran. They worshipped
Ahura Mazda as "the greatest of gods" (ma ista baganam of the Achaemenian inscriptions). Theirs was a form of higher polytheism which
Zarathustra transformed to monotheism by elevating Ahura Mazda

12

Bartholomae 1924: 11: "Die grundlegende Neuerung im Werk Zarathustras ist

die Ersetzung der bisherigen Gottervielheit durch einen Gott, den weisen Gott: mazdah
('weise') ahura ('Gott')".
13
Reuterskiold 1914: 123.
14
"Er guddommen en, altomspaendende og algyldig vilje da er religionen efter
sit vaesen monoteistisk, og det er temmelig ligegyldigt, om denne vilje da ytrer sig
umiddelbart eller gennem engle, helgene eller underguder, naar disse blot udelukkende
virker paa Guds vegne og for Guds skyld" (Lehmann 1902: 30).

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

85

"from a god who was greatest of gods to a god who stood alone"
(Moulton 1913: 93124). The fact was, however, that Ahura Mazda
did not stand alone; he was surrounded by a group of lesser divinities or entities, the Amesha Spentas, whose names indicate that they
were personifications or abstractions of virtues or divine qualities.
This was generally considered to be an innovation of the Zoroastrian
reform, but it did not appear as a problem to the interpreters of
the Gathas who were urging the case of monotheism. The tendency
was to deprive the Amesha Spentas of their divine independent status (Bartholomae 1924: 12).
The idea of a prophet preaching a new or reformed faith necessitated a counter-image with other deities and cult practices and, on
a personal level, adversaries of the prophet. This image was provided by the daeva-worshippers and their false religion against which
Zarathustra preached.15 In reading the Gathas scholars found enough
evidence to make the daeva-worshippers adherents of a polytheistic
religion with extensive blood-sacrifices and a violent intoxicating cult
centered around the haoma (Vedic soma). Admittedly the term daeuuacarries a negative sense in the Gathas and the hymns undoubtedly
allude to some sort of conflict, but one cannot avoid the impression
that the interpretation of the late 19th and early 20th century scholars was governed by a Vorverstandnis of the text along the lines of
biblical models.
Who were the daevas rejected by Zarathustra but worshipped by
his adversaries? Scholars had long noted the etymological connection with the Sanskrit term deva, which in the Vedas and classical
Hinduism is the usual term for "god". Previous interpretations assumed
that the depreciatory sense of daeuua- in the Avesta reflected a sharp
conflict between Iranians and Indians at an early period in which
the Vedic devas were demonized by Zarathustra and his followers.
The daevas in the Avesta referred consequently to the gods of Brahmanism and not to Iranian deities (Haug 1878: 287-288).16 By the
end of the 19th century this view had been discarded and there was
agreement that the inverse developments in Iran and India of the
15
Jackson 1892: xxvii, Lehmann 1899: 138-140 and 1902: 6368, Moulton 1913:
141 150, Bartholomae 1924: 13.
16
Correspondingly, the Iranian deities called ahuras were depreciated by the Brahmanical tradition which is seen in the negative sense of asura in the post-Vedic tradition, and as a result of the struggle "the originally good meaning of Asura was
changed to a bad one" (Haug 1878: 287).

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ANDERS HULTGARD

notions ahura/asura and daeuua/deva had to be explained separately.17

However, the problem still remained and other solutions were proposed though always in the perspective of a conflict. The predominant explanation was to interpret the daevas as the Iranian gods
rejected by Zarathustra, in particular Mithra and Haoma, and their
demonization was the result of the monotheistic reform carried out
by the prophet (Bartholomae 1904: 667670 and 1924: 13, Geldner
Enc. Brit., Moulton 1913: 137142).18 Lehmann, followed by Reuterskiold., assumed that in ancient Iran the worship of ahuras and that
of daevas were not mixed but distributed among different tribes
(Lehmann 1899: 146147). The two forms of religion were in addition characterized by different cult practices; the daeva-worshippers
performed bloody sacrifices with a "brutal slaughtering of the sacrificial
animals", in which the shedding of the blood was important, whereas
the Ahura-religion practiced a "more humane treatment of the victim". Lehmann further suggested that animal sacrifices as such might
have been rejected in the Gathas (Lehmann 1899: 154-156), an
opinion which was plainly stated by Reuterskiold.19 The daevas were
thus the gods of the neighbouring tribes and Zarathustra's mission
was to dethrone them in favour of the one supreme god. The Gathic
conflict is one between the religion of the prophet's Ahura-tribe and
that of the daeva-worshipping tribes (Lehmann 1902: 6567, Reuterskiold 1913: 78). To this religious dimension Reuterskiold added the
cultural one consisting in the contrast between nomadizing daeva-

17

Cf. Lehmann 1899: 140.

Moulton (1913: 137142) saw in the daevas the Iranian gods, particularly
Mithra and Haoma, who were dethroned by Zarathustra in a great conflict, signs
of which the Gathas are full (Moulton 1913: 141). Geldner (Enc. Brit., 11. ed.)
plainly maintained that "the authentic doctrine of the Gathas had no room either
for the cult of Mithra or for that of Haoma". In his Altiran. Worterbuch (667-670)
Bartholomae explains daeva- in the following way: "Bezeichnung fur die Gottheiten
der vor Zarathustra in Iran geltenden Religion" (667) and stresses the fierce opposition that the new faith met with: "Die Priester und Anhanger des alten Glaubens,
der den Gottesbegriff mit daeva- bezeichnete, setzten begreiflicherweise der Einfuhrung
der zarathustrischen Religion heftigen Widerstand entgegen" (670). Similarly in the
1918 lecture they are explained as the false gods whereas ahura denotes the true
deities. Bartholomae's distinction between the meaning of daeva in the Gathas and
the Younger Avesta should be kept in mind since it is still influential. Once the
Zoroastrian religion had established itself, the sense "false god" developed into the
general term for "demon", "devil" (1924: 13).
19
Reuterskiold 1913: 137: "Gathasangerna vande sig emellertid mot alla offer.
Den enda kult de med gillande omtala var underhallandet af den heliga elden
(Y. 43,9)."
18

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

87

worshipping tribes and settled agriculturalists with their Ahura-religion (Reuterskiold 1913: 7779). Zarathustra's mission had not only
religious motifs but a cultural purpose to spread the "blessings of
agriculture and to preach its gods" to his still nomadizing Iranian
neighbours (Reuterskiold 1913: 95). The idea that Ahura-worship
and daeva-worship distinguished some Iranian tribes from others was
also upheld by Soderblom,20 although he emphasized that the prophet
Zarathustra was the one who equated this contrast with that of good
and evil. Soderblom summarizes his view in the following terms:
"Ahura-worshipping tribes or clans and Daeva-worshipping classes
lived near each other and were intermingled. It was owing to Zarathushtra alone that it became a crime to worship Daevas" (Soderblom
1933: 184). The socio-ethical side of Zarathustra's reform is essential to Soderblom. The daeva-worshippers practise bloody sacrifices
for "the sacred intoxicant Haoma in whose honour and worship the
cattle were slain" (Soderblom 1933: 182). The interpretation of the
conflict pervading the Gathas as the opposition between nomadizing and settled farmers was not accepted by Soderblom. The conflict
underlying the Gathas is that of a social opposition between peaceful farmers and cattle-tenders and the ruling warrior elite who like
"predatory knights" exploited the defenceless agriculturaliststhe
comparison with medieval Europe is explicitly made by Soderblom
(1933: 186). In this context mention should be made of Hermann
Oldenberg's more cautious statements on the origin of the negative
meaning of daeva which he sees as a particular Iranian development
which only very tentatively may be associated with the work of Zarathustra (Oldenberg 1913: 96).
The view of Zarathustra as prophet or founder of a new monotheistic faith, which more or less clearly marks all works on Zoroastrianism
around the year 1900, led scholars to raise the question of what type
of religion the prophet had reformed or rejected. With the contrast
between monotheism and polytheism, between a higher form of worship and bloody sacrifices, the notion of paganism presented itself
easily. With Lehmann the distinction between Zoroastrianism and
Iranian paganism ("iranisk hedenskab") is fully developed and Lehmann

20
"Nor can we escape the conclusion that even before the time of Zarathushtra
a relative distinction must have existed between tribes and classes and clans who
worshipped the Daeva gods and others who worshipped Ahura or several Ahuras"
(Soderblom 1933: 184).

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ANDERS HULTGARD

devoted an extensive chapter to a description of this pre- or nonZoroastrian paganism (Lehmann 1899: 75-169), which was characterized as a sort of popular religion ("folketro"). He was aware of
the fact that the so-called Iranian paganism is known to us only
from the Younger Avesta and the Pahlavi books (the Bundahisn is
mentioned). Theoretically, part of this "paganism" could be considered as later accretions, but Lehmann maintained that the comparison with the Vedas and the general knowledge acquired by the
science of religions on the age of various forms of religion offered
sufficient instruments for determining the pre-Zoroastrian origin of
the "Iranian paganism" (Lehmann 1899: 7779).
The description of this ancient Iranian paganism, which seems to
have been introduced by Lehmann, was to become a most favourite
exercise in textbooks and monographs on Zoroastrianism and Iranian
religion. Thus Moulton (1913) presents us with a chapter entitled
"Before Zarathustra" and he was followed by many more.21 The tendency can be said to culminate with Mary Boyce who devotes half
of the first volume of her History of Zoroastrianism to an expose of
what she calls "the pagan background".
The Emergence of Classical Zoroastrianism

By the term classical Zoroastrianism I mean the religion represented

by the entire Avesta, the Pahlavi books and the mentions of Greek
and Roman authors. Historically we may situate classical Zoroastrianism
in the period from the Achaemenian kingdom down to fall of the
Sassanian empire. The term itself implies the existence of an earlier
form (or forms) from which classical Zoroastrianism evolved and in
this sense the use of the term is justified irrespective of the different
views taken on the character of that religion.
The scholars working on the religion of the Avesta a hundred
years ago or so all clung to the idea of a new or reformed Iranian
religion shaped by Zarathustra and laid down in the Gathas. This
original Zoroastrianism was subsequently transformed to a varying
degree by an accommodation process in which elements once rejected
by the prophet made their way back into his religion. For many
scholars this process was seen as the emergence of a syncretistic reli-

21

For example, Nyberg 1938, Widengren 1965.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

89

gion where the notion of syncretism also implied negative connotations.

According to Jackson, the Gathas represent the Zoroastrian faith
in its purity, as it was taught by Zarathustra himself. However, later
changes crept in through the tendency to restore many of the elements of the ancient religion of Iran, "which Zoroaster had thrown
into the background" (Jackson 1892: xxiv). In the Gathas we can
follow the birth of a new religious movement (Geldner in Moulton
pp. 80-81). The subsequent development as witnessed by the Younger
Avesta was seen as a decline of the religion.
Moulton, who elaborated on this process of a merging of nonZoroastrian elements with the original teaching of Zarathustra, considered the later syncretistic religion as the result of "a double
counter-reformation".22 The process was characterized by Moulton
as "two successive movements . . . which created the later Avesta and
transformed Zarathustra's religion till it would hardly have been
recognised by him" (Moulton 1913: 120). It is a drastic formulation
but one which is to the point when viewed from the stand-point of
the traditional interpretation of the history of Zorastrianism. Lehmann
described the transformation of the pure teaching of Zarathustra as
a result of the influence exerted by the ruling warrior elite. The
priestly class is opposed by Lehmann to the warrior caste, the Gathas
to the Yasts: true religion emanates from the priests which is then
changed by the princes and warriors.23 The creation of the Yasts
and their pantheon was dictated by the interests of the worldly rulers
and the religion thus deteriorated through the return of polytheism and mythology. Lehmann is clearly prejudiced against myths
which he regards as weed on the field of true religion.24

22

First there was a return of the old Iranian polytheism and second the work
of the Magi who adapted Zoroastrianism to "the form in which we know it today"
(Moulton 1913: x).
23
Lehmann 1902: 130 "En religion begynder i reglen i praesternes viede kredse;
den forste torn, den maa tage med verden, er den med de hoje herrer".
24
Typical is the following statement: "And this (the introduction of mythology)
is a decline: myths are after all weed, however pleasant they may appearcorncockle and cornflower are indeed beautifuland the myths are in fact always treated
as weed, as soon as the soil of religion is cultivated" (Lehmann 1902: 141; my
translation of the Danish original).

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ANDERS HULTGARD
II

The traditional image of Zarathustra and his role in shaping Mazdaism,

which had received its formative contents in the years around 1900,
was never seriously questioned during most of the 20th century.
There was disagreement among scholars on the type of religious personality represented by Zarathustra, as well as on the time and place
of his appearance. However, the conviction of his significance as the
founder of a new Iranian religion or at least the reformer of the old
one remained unshakable. A notable exception was the attempt of
Marijan Mole put forward in 1963 to deny the conventional scheme
of development within Zoroastrianism from the pure religion of the
Gathas to the syncretism of the Younger Avesta and the Pahlavi
books (Mole 1963).
The Traditional Interpretation Questioned

The publication between 1988 and 1991 of Les textes vieil-avestiques

by Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart challenged the traditional view in a
dramatic way. Not only was the importance of Zarathustra as a
founder or reformer minimized, but the fundamental ideas which
previous research had found in the Gathas were rejected. We may
sum up the principal conclusions of Kellens and Pirart as follows:
1. The one who is thought to recite the Gathas, the "I" of the
text, cannot be Zarathustra; he takes the word only once in a kind
of citation in a well delimited passage. Moreover, in all probability
he is not the one who has created and formulated the Gathas,
although he appears by far the most important person.
2. There is no cosmic-ethical dualism between Good and Evil.
The famous Gathic stanza in Yasna 30.3, repeatedly referred to as
a support for the idea of two opposing Spirits on the cosmic level,
is interpreted by Kellens and Pirart as two states of mind with respect
to the sacrificial ritual and those who make a choice are divided
into two groups according to their willingness to present gifts to the
deity (Kellens & Pirart 1988: 110, with minor corrections in Kellens
& Pirart 1997):
(Je vais dire aussi) les deux etats d'esprit fondamentaux qui sont connus
pour etre des songes jumeaux lors de la pensee et de la parole. Lors
de l'acte (rituel), ce sont le meilleur (acte) et le mauvais (acte). Entre
ces deux (etats d'esprit), les genereux distinguent bien, non les avares.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

91

With this we may contrast the traditional translation here represented by that of Moulton, which with minor variants is the one
given by the late 19th and early 20th century scholars25 and which
in substance is the same as that repeated by subsequent interpreters
(Moulton 1913: 132):26
Now the two primal Spirits, who revealed themselves in a vision (?)27
as Twins, are what is Better and what is Bad in thought and word
and action. And between these two the wise once chose aright, the
foolish not so.

Kellens & Pirart distinguish this type of a more philosophical dualism from the cosmic opposition in the Gathas between asa- and drujwhich has been inherited from Indo-Iranian time and perhaps more
articulated in Iran than in India. It would, however, be justified to
denote this opposition too as a sort of dualism, albeit with a different
background.
3. The extent of the conflict underlying much of the Gathas is considerably reduced. It is not, as previous scholars explained, a sharp
socio-cultural conflict between poor and rich, between noblemen and
farmers, or between warriors and peaceful agriculturalists. The conflict
takes place within one and the same society and concerns mainly
the ritual procedure. The Gathic group, moreover, accuses the rulers
of their nation (daxiiu-} of taking excessive tribute.28
4. The problem of what constitutes the essential message of the
Gathas is addressed in a critical and cautious way by Kellens and
Pirart. The categories of monotheism and polytheism cannot be
applied to the Gathas, since they testify to a different structuring of
the divine world. There is clearly a supreme god Mazda Ahura who
claims sacrificial priority. However, he is surrounded by a number

25
Reuterskiold 1914: 181, Soderblom 1933: 211-212, Bartholomae 1905, Geldner
1926: 2.
26
Lommel 1930: 22, Nyberg 1938, Widengren 1967, Gnoli 1987: 582, Boyce
1975: 192-193.
27
The Old Avestan word xvafma- is rendered as "vision" by Moulton, apparently
with some hesitation. The other scholars of his time (cited in note 25) seemed to
be more sure about the meaning of this word, which they generally rendered as
"dream", "vision" or "dreamvision" without question mark.
28
Kellens & Pirart 1988: 25-26: "En nous fondant sur les reproches que les
Gatha adressent aux daguuant-, nous postulons un affrontement entre un groupe
restreint (au plus, quelques tribus) et les autorites de la nation, qui lui imposent un
prelevement tributaire juge excessif".

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ANDERS HULTGARD

of divine entities who are not independent deities, but form nonetheless a subordinated pantheon.29 It is emphasized that the idea of
the divine in the Gathas represents only a short moment (one generation) in the religious history of ancient Iran (Kellens & Pirart
1988: 31).
5. With this theology there is no deliberate and principal rejection of the Old Iranian gods and their worship, and nor is the traditional haoma-cult explicitly condemned.
The position of Kellens and Pirart is maintained but also refined
and adjusted in a number of later publications (Kellens 199la, 1991b,
1994, Kellens & Pirart 1997).
Aspects of the Present Discussion

This attack on the scholarly consensus with respect to Zarathustra

and the message of the Gathas has given rise to several ripostes
(implicit or explicit) in which the traditional view is defended. The
role of Zarathustra as prophet and founder of a new form of Iranian
religion as well as his authorship of the Gathas is repeated with, in
my opinion, few convincing arguments.30 Reading the Introduction to
Helmut Humbach's English translation of the Gathas (Humbach
1991) one is struck by the categorical way in which the significance
of Zarathustra is stated31 and the curious absence of any references
to the first volume of Kellens and Pirart published in 1988. For
Mary Boyce, the authorship and significance of Zarathustra remain
unquestioned and she also ascribes the Yasna Haptanhaiti to Zarathustra, albeit in a later period of his activity (Boyce 1992: 63). Of
principal interest is her reproach of the philologists for having too
narrow perspectives in translating and interpreting the Old Avestan
texts32 and in being prejudiced against the value of classical Zoroastrian
29

Kellens & Pirart 1988: 31: "L'univers divin gathique est riche et bien articule.
La preeminence d'Ahura Mazda ne peut etre niee, mais elle ne doit pas non plus
masquer le fait qu'il y a, en dessous de lui, un veritable pantheon".
30
A useful survey of recent research on Old Avestan scholarship is given in
Skjaervo 1997.
31
Some examples may be cited. The first section of the introduction has the
heading "Zarathustra and his Religion"; and below on the same page: "Zarathustra
was the founder and prophet of the pre-Islamic religion of an Iran which ..."
(p. 1); and "Zarathustra's concept of God in his power and his moral qualities was
a new concept in its own right" (p. 21).
32
The three translations aimed at are those of Insler 1975, Humbach 1991 and
Kellens & Pirart 1988-1991.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

93

tradition in elucidating obscure passages in the Gathas (Boyce 1992:

62-63). As to issue of the idea of God professed by Zarathustra,
Boyce attributes this both to polytheism and monotheism (Boyce
1992: 70):
Belief in the universal of Mainyus made early Zoroastrianism as polytheistic as Hinduism; but it is part of the richness and strength of the
religion that Zoroaster combined this worship of many spirits, and
hence a reverence for all "good" forms of life, with an exalted monotheism, in the sense of acknowledging one eternal self-existent Being,
namely Mazda.

The criticism levelled by Ilya Gershewitch is embedded in an ironic

polemical tone often amusing to read, but it fails to convince when
it comes to the essential issues. In explaining the "gist" of the Gathas,
Gershewitch adheres to the opinion of his teacher Henning that
Zarathustra built his doctrine on a pre-existing monotheism, which
was, as we have seen, already the view of Lehmann. The discovery
that "sparked off Zarathustrianism"33 was according to Gershewitch
the insight gained by Zarathustra into the meaning of the name
Mazda, namely that thought was both created by God and given to
man. In order to perceive the good and the only God there must
be something that is the opposite and here Yasna 30,3 becomes a
key passage in the Gathas.34 Only dualism can, according to Gershewitch's interpretation, "avail to render monotheism truly impregnable
to maligners; there can be no Spanta Mainyu, except against the foil
of Anra Mainyu" (Gershewitch 1995: 6).
The approach taken by Martin Schwarz and Lennart Olsson to
analyze the composition of the Gathas has contributed some new
insights and it seems indeed that we have to do with a skilful and
deliberate poetic composition (Schwartz 1986, Olsson 1994). This
33
The term Zarathustrianism is applied by Gershewitch to the religion of the
Gathas whereas Zoroastrianism stands for the mixed religion of the Younger Avesta:
"The Avesta is a collection of sacred writings belonging to two religions, which are
conveniently referred to as Zarathustrianism and Zoroastrianism" (Gershewitch
1967: 9). The use of the notion religion to denote these two forms reveals the
importance attributed by Gershewitch to the discontinuity in the religious history
of ancient Iran.
34
He expresses himself as follows: ". . . Yasna 30.3, where for the first time, as
far as I know, in the history of mankind, the perfect definition of 'thought' is to
be found. Thought, mainyu in Gathic, is twinship, a single fertilised egg dividing,
seeing that good or right for example, are unthinkable, except against the foil of
evil and wrong" (Gershewitch 1995: 6).

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ANDERS HULTGARD

does not prove, however, that Zarathustra was the author,35 and it
should in addition be noted that the poet-composer may have used
traditional stanzas which he included in his composition (Olsson
1994: 110). Schwartz takes the authorship of Zarathustra more or
less for granted, but Olsson adduces a number of arguments in favour
of Zarathustra as both the composer (not necessarily the author of
every stanza!) and the one who recites the text (Olsson 1994: 202-207).
The debate would in my opinion profit from making a clear distinction between the issue of the authorship of the Gathas and the
more important question of the role of Zarathustra in shaping Mazdaism. What are the real innovations of the Gathas and to what extent
can we ascribe them to the activity of Zarathustra himself? These
questions are difficult to answer in a definite way since we have no
other contemporary texts that can tell us about the general character of Iranian religion at the time when the Gathas and the Yasna
Haptanhaiti came into being. Taking Vedic religion (especially that
of the Rigveda) as a comparative model for what early Iranian religion looked like does not account sufficiently for independent Iranian
developments within a different cultural setting. To reconstruct a
pre-Zoroastrian "paganism" entirely from the Younger Avesta and
later texts is only justifiable if the message of the Gathas and the
activity of Zarathustra can be unambigously shown to constitute a
clear rupture with inherited tradition. Since they cannot, the reconstruction approach rests on a circular reasoning; what should be
proven is presupposed.
As for the scholars working around the year 1900, the different
development in Iran and India of the concepts daeva/deva and
ahura/asura which resulted in an inverse symmetry is a key problem
for the emergence of Zoroastrianism also in modern Avesta studies.
It is intimately bound up with the question as to what extent other
deities were rejected or accepted by the groups that produced the
Gathas and the Yasna Haptanhaiti. The Indo-European etymology
of the word leads to the conclusion that the positive sense inherent
in Vedic deva (and in other Indo-European cognates) once also prevailed in the Iranian equivalent.36 Most interpretations are based on
the hypothesis that there were two groups of deities with different

35
36

Compare the remarks by Skjaervo 1997 n. 5.

E.g. Narten 1996: 65.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

95

cult practices among the ancient pre-Zoroastrian Iranians, the ahuras

and the daeuuas. This seemed to be confirmed by the existence in
early India of two groups of supernatural beings, the devas ("gods")
and the asuras ("demon gods, demons") that etymologically correspond to the Iranian terms. In contrast to the Iranian daeuua-concept the transformation of asura- from an originally positive notion
to a designation of evil beings can clearly be followed in India. It
is only in late Vedic texts (Book X of the Rigveda and the Brahmanas)
that asura- acquires a derogatory sense (Hale 1986, Humbach 1991,
Narten 1996). As with asura- in the Rigveda, the evidence of the
Avesta shows that ahura- can be applied to human persons as well
as to divine beings, and, as Narten points out, there is no ground
for assuming that the ahuras ever formed a particular class of gods
in Iran (Narten 1996: 75, 8183). The negative connotation of daeuuain the Gathas, as in the rest of the Avesta, is commonly explained in
the traditional way, as it is by Humbach (1991), Boyce (1992) and
Narten (1996) who attribute the demonization of the daeuuas to Zarathustra. The corollary of this explanation is that the Zoroastrian
reform was so successful in eradicating the positive or neutral connotation of the term daeuua that no trace of it can be found over
the entire Iranian cultural and linguistic area. This appears less probable, as pointed out by Kellens (and others). Another solution of the
problem would be that the negative connotation of Old Iranian
daeuua- had become well established before Zarathustra and consequently it is not an innovation of the Gathas. However, most scholars have so far interpreted the Gathas such that the process of the
demonization of the daeuua?, is not yet completed, the word still having the meaning of "deity", but a bad one. Kellens now appears to
adhere to the view that the depreciatory sense of daeuua may after
all be a pre-Gathic development and that the Gathas have to be reexamined in order to test this alternative presupposition (Kellens
1994: 14, 34 and 87). The sense "demon, evil being" might just give
a reasonable meaning as the one "rejected god". Since the general
term for god in the Iranian cultural area is baga-, we arrive at the
symmetry of daeuua- "demon" as opposed to baga- "god", which
would testify to an inner Iranian development accomplished before
the time of Zarathustra.
The evidence deduced from the Gathas of a "monotheistic" reform
carried out by Zarathustra is not convincing. Ahura Mazda and the
various entities (including divinities such as Gaus tasan "creator of

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ANDERS HULTGARD

the cow" and Atar "Fire") are admittedly the only divine beings
mentioned by name. However, other deities are implicitly present in
the Gathas and are not condemned but marginalized (Kellens 1994:
117-118).37 Though stating the meaning of daeuuas to be "bad gods",
Olsson comes to the conclusion that the composer of the Gathas did
not reject all other gods but found no reason for mentioning explicitly those whom he accepted. Olsson further points to the fact that
the notions miora-, vaiiu-, vdraOrzm.jan in the Gathas occur as names
of deities in the Rigveda and the Younger Avesta where in the latter text Mithra, Vayu and Varathragna are also each honoured with
a yast (Olsson 1994: 170-174). The three Gathic notions mentioned
have a positive connotation and this circumstance may indicate that
the corresponding deities were also accepted by the community of
the Gathas. It is interesting to see that Boyce admits the existence
of Mithra and Apam Napat (whom she calls Varuna) as lesser divinities in the Gathic community. They were included in the cultic formula "Mazda-and-(the other)-Ahuras".38
What is, then, the innovation (if there is any) of the Gathas and
the Yasna Haptarjhaiti? Kellens finds the answer in the ritual. The
purpose of these texts is to advocate the ritual subordination of the
other divinities to Ahura Mazda and the innovative element thus
lies in the introduction of a ritual hierarchy which is strictly defined
(Kellens 1994: 117119).39 In my opinion the Gathas may be explained
as the expression of a ritual henotheism in a particular sacrificial
context. This does not exclude other forms of worship within the
same community, in which complementary rituals were performed
and other deities were invoked.
There is a paradox inherent in the traditional view. A profoundly
reformed religion, with Zarathustra as its founder, develops into a
syncretistic religion in which practically all the main points of his
teaching are turned into the opposite: haoma cult, polytheism, animal sacrifices. This scheme, denoted thesisantithesissynthesis by

37
This is shown by a thorough analysis of the particular formulas of address
used in the Gathas and the Yasna Haptarjhaiti involving the terms isant "(gods) who
wish to come" and hant "(gods) who are" (Kellens 1994: 97-117).
38
Boyce 1992: 56 and 71 where she also refers to the formula "those who were
and are" indicating "all the gods".
39
Kellens finds in addition a difference of attitude between the Gathas and the
Yasna Haptarjhaiti. The former permits the bagas to be mentioned by name in other
rituals; the latter is stricter.

STUDY OF THE AVESTA AND ITS RELIGION

97

Kellens, is striking and seems improbable. Could tradition have misinterpreted so fundamentally the message of the Gathas and still be
clinging to these texts and the Zarathustra-figure? Haoma is at the
center of the yasna ceremony and the attempts to make the haomacult a target of Zarathustra's preaching seems to me unconvincing.
If there is a polemic against the haoma-cult in the Gathas (haoma
is never mentioned explicitly!) it should rather be conceived of as a
criticism of an improper haoma-worship, as Humbach and Olsson
suggest.40
Against this background the question must be raised as to whether
the emergence of classical Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism is not best
explained as a continuous development within early Iranian religion.
Rituals and beliefs always change to a varying extent in the course
of history and certainly did so in ancient Iran. The problem is that
the process cannot be verified from extant sources covering the period
from ca. 1000 BC to the middle of the 6th century. The religious
evidence that has come down to us from the earliest period consists
of two small texts in Old Avestan; these cannot represent but a very
limited segment of the full religious tradition that once was perpetuated by Iranian tribes a thousands years before the beginning of
our era.

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40

Humbach 1991: 70-71, Olsson 1994: 195-199. Similarly also Kellens & Pirart
1988.

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Hinze, Almut 1994: Der Zamyad Yast. Edition, Ubersetzung, Kommentar. Wiesbaden.
Hoffmann, Karl and Johanna Narten 1989: Der Sasanidische Archetypus, Wiesbaden.
Humbach, Helmut 1991: The Gathas of Zarathustra and the Other Old Avestan Texts (in
collaboration with J. Elfenbein and P.O. Skjaervo), Heidelberg.
Insler, Stanley 1975: The Gathas of Zarathustra, Leiden.
Jackson, A.V. Williams 1892: An Avesta Grammar in Comparison with Sanskrit. Part I.
Phonology, Inflection, Word-formation with an Introduction on the Avesta. Stuttgart.
1899: Zoroaster. The Prophet of Ancient Iran, New York and London.
Kellens, Jean 1986: Le verbe avestique, Wiesbaden.
199la: Zoroastre et I'Avesta ancien. Quatre lecons au College de France, Paris.
1991b: "Questions prealables", in: J. Kellens (ed.): La religion iranienne a I'epoque
achemenide, Gent: 8186.
1994: Le pantheon de I'Avesta ancien., Wiesbaden.
1996: "Commentaire sur les premiers chapitres du yasna", in: Journal asiatique
284: 37-108.
Kellens, Jean et Eric Pirart 1988, 1990, 1991: Les textes vieil-avestiques. I. Introduction,
texte et traduction, II. Repertoires grammaticaux et lexique, III. Commentaire, Wiesbaden.
1997: "La strophe des jumeaux: stagnation, extravagance et methodes d'approches", in: Journal Asiatique 285: 31-72.
Kristensen, Brede W. 1960: The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of
Religion. With an introduction by Hendrik Kraemer. Translated by John B. Carman,
The Hague.
Lehmann, Edvard 1899, 1902: Zarathustra. En bog om Persemes gamle tro. III, Kobenhavn.
Mole, Marijan 1963: Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans I'Iran ancien. Le probleme zoroastrien
et la tradition mazdeenne, Paris.
Moulton, James Hope 1913: Early Zoroastrianism, London.
Narten, Johanna 1986: Der Yasna Haptanhaiti, Wiesbaden.
1996: "Zarathustra und die Gottheiten des Alten Iran: Uberlegungen zur
Ahura-Theorie", in: Munchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschqft 56: 61-89.
Nyberg, Henrik Samuel 1938: Die Religionen des Alten Iran, Leipzig.
Oldenberg, Hermann, 1913: "Die iranische Religion", in: Paul Hinneberg (ed.): Die
Religionen des Orients und die altgermanische Religion. 2. Aufl., Leipzig & Berlin: 9099
(Die Kultur der Gegenwart, I,3,1).
Olsson, Lennart 1994: De avestiska gatha'erna. Inledande studie, Lund.
Panaino, Antonio 1990: Tistrya, Roma.
Reuterskiold, Edgar 1914: Zarathustras religionshistoriska stallning, Uppsala.
Skjaervo, Prods Octor 1994: "Hymnic Composition in the Avesta", in: Die Sprache
36: 199-243.
1997: "The State of Old Avestan Scholarship", in: Journal of the American Oriental
Society 117: 103-115.

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Schwartz, Martin 1986: "Codes, Sound Patterns, Acrostics and Anagrams in Zoroaster's
Oral Poetry", in: Studia. Grammatica Iranica. Festschrift fur Helmut Humbach,
Munchen: 327-392.
Stausberg, Michael 1998: Faszination Zarathushtra. Zoroaster und die europaische Religionsgeschichte der fruhen Neuzeit III, Berlin & New York (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche
und Vorarbeiten, 42).
Soderblom, Nathan 1899: Les Fravashis. Etude sur les traces dans le mazdeisme d'une ancienne conception sur la survivance des morts, Paris.
1901: La Vie Future d'apres le mazdeisme a la lumiere des croyances paralleles dans les
autres religions, Paris.
1933: The Living God. Basal Forms of Personal Religion, London.
Widengren, Geo 1965: Die Religionen Irans, Stuttgart.

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LIEBLEIN, KRISTENSEN AND SCHENCKE AND

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
SAPHINAZ-AMAL NAGUIB

I. INTRODUCTION
Academic disciplines tend to develop questions of their own, some
of which become recurrent themes. The study of ancient Egyptian
religion has the quest for monotheism as one of its most debated topics. It seems appropriate, therefore, that on the occasion of the centennial of history of religions in Norway, I should present the views
on this matter of three Norwegian scholars, namely, Jens Lieblein,
W. Brede Kristensen and Wilhelm Schencke. My choice is not fortuitous. Each of these scholars was representative of his generation
of intellectuals, both nationally and internationally. They were respected
by their peers and were elected members of the Norwegian Academy
of Science and Letters.1 In addition, the three were linked to each
other by that peculiar bond which, for better or for worse, ties teachers, students and colleagues together. The purpose of this essay is
not to provide an exhaustive review of Lieblein's, Kristensen's and
Schencke's scientific works. Rather, it is a reflection about academic
endeavour and how it is inscribed in time; how scientific research is
rooted in the cultural and intellectual traditions of a discipline and,
at the same time, mirrors contemporary trends as well as ideological
and social changes; how academic writings both influence the transmission of knowledge and generate new knowledge. Implicitly, my
presentation is also concerned with the limits of academic freedom.
In the following, I shall first give a brief historical account of the
discourse of ancient Egyptian monotheism in western Europe from
the second half of the 19th century to the beginnings of this century (from around the 1850s to the 1920s). Thereafter, I shall present the positions of Lieblein, Kristensen and Schencke on the question.
To conclude, I posit that the idea of Egyptian monotheism stands
1
Lieblein was elected a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and
Letters in 1864, Kristensen in 1898 and Schencke in 1910.

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in a long chain of academic cultural memory and argue that it may

be time to review our terminologies.
II. A SENSITIVE TOPIC
On the 27th of September 1822 Jean-Francois Champollion (17901832) sent his famous Lettre a M. Dacier relative a I'alphabet des hieroglyphes
phonetiques to the French Academie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres. In
the letter he announced to the whole world that he had found the
key to hieroglyphs. 1822 is regarded as the founding date of Egyptology as a scientific discipline. From that time on, scholars engaged
in the translation of different types of textual sources (religious texts,
(auto)biographies, didactic texts, letters) noted that the ancient Egyptian
word for godntrwas frequently used in the singular form, and
that it was often accompanied by epithets stating the divinity's greatness and uniqueness. This led to the question of whether or not the
ancient Egyptians were monotheists. In 1869, the French Egyptologist
Emmanuel de Rouge (1811-1872) published an article entitled Conference
sur la religion des Egyptiens, in which he postulated that the ancient
Egyptians believed in a unique transcendent god. The academic
debate on ancient Egyptian monotheism was thus launched with its
defenders on one side and its detractors on the other. The most
involved scholars on the subject were French and German.2 They
postulated that in its beginnings ancient Egyptian religion was a kind
of primal-monotheism imprinted with a distinctive henotheistic character. However, in the later periods of Egyptian pharaonic history, this
sublime religion degenerated into common polytheism and the worship of animals. This was the prevalent theory until the 1880s when
the French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero (1846-1916), turned away
from these ideas. He maintained that ancient Egyptian religion was
polytheistic with no logical structure and no philosophical dimension. To go into the details of this debate would greatly exceed the
scope of this essay. I therefore refer to the overview given by Erik
Hornung in the introduction of his seminal book Conceptions of God
in Ancient Egypt. The One and the Many.3 It should be remembered that

Among the most eminent were Emmanuel de Rouge, Sir Peter le Page Renouf
(1822-1897), Paul Pierret (1837-1916), and Heinrich Brugsch (1827-1894).
3
The German version Der Eine und die Vielen was published in 1971. I have used
the English version from 1983.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

103

during the period I am focussing upon, most specialists were mainly

interested in the theological aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. Only
theology which had been elaborated in the temples by a specialized
priesthood and for a literate elite was considered worthy of the attention of modern academics. Further, both the defenders and the opponents of ancient Egyptian monotheism considered monotheism to be
a more elevated expression of religious faith. Monotheism was (and
for many still is) considered as the proof of a higher degree of civilization. Henotheism and pantheism were also regarded with some
respect by students of religions because they indicated the search for
superior intellectual and spiritual goals. All scholars, however, agreed
that polytheism was the sign of a primitive culture.
Before going over to presenting the theories of Lieblein, Kristensen
and Schencke on the question of ancient Egyptian monotheism, I
would like to stress the fact that they, like others in the international
academic arena, were men of their time. As such, they were not
only rooted in a Western Christian-Protestant tradition, but they
were also involved (more or less actively) in current debates. They
were influenced by the theories of Charles Darwin (On the Origin of
Species, 1859), Edward Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871) and Sir James
Frazer (The Golden Bough, 1890). As specialists of ancient Egyptian
religion, they were fascinated by the "re-discovery" of Tell el-'Amarna
in the middle of the 19th century and by the enigmatic personality
of King Akhnaton. However, they were also restricted by religious
censorship in the aftermath of the Babel-Bibel controversy, and by
other more local academic and political issues.
III. JENS DANIEL CAROLUS LIEBLEIN
Jens Daniel Carolus Lieblein (b. Christiania 1827d. Eidsvoll 1911)
was the son of Johan Martin L. and Anna Karina Hofgaard. Lieblein
was left an orphan at the age of 11 and had to work as a labourer
in a sawmill until the age of 20. Later he became a clerk. Lieblein
was attracted by academic studies, and he spent his leisure time
reading history and learning foreign languages (French, German,
Latin and Greek). In 1855 he enrolled as a student at the University
of Kristiania (which was the name of Oslo until 1925), and his dissertation was about the history of forestry and sawmills. However,
Lieblein did not continue in that line of research. In fact, he was
more interested in the recent theories related to the evolution of

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Mankind, and it was his contention that ancient Egypt was the cradle of civilizations. This conviction led him to Egyptology. Thanks
to various grants from the state (18611867), he visited different
Egyptological institutions in Europe, in particular Berlin, Paris, Leiden,
London and Turin, where he was in contact with most of the great
men of Egyptology of his day, in particular Heinrich Brugsch and
Gaston Maspero. Lieblein worked at the University Library for some
years, and in 1867 he became a fellow researcher at the University
of Kristiania. In 1876 he was appointed extraordinary professor of
Egyptology at the same university. Lieblein visited Egypt several
times.4 His first visit to Egypt was in 1869 when together with the
famous Norwegian writer and dramatist, Henrik Ibsen, he was sent
as one of the two official Norwegian representatives at the opening
of the Suez Canal.
Lieblein's main contributions to Egyptology were in the fields of
ancient Egyptian chronology and history. At a later stage in his
career, his interests also included ancient Egyptian religion and Coptic
texts. It is clear from his writings that Lieblein believed in genetic
evolutionism and cultural diffusion.5 In his opinion, all civilizations
conformed to the same process of genesis: growth until reaching a
climax, breakdown and final disappearance. In his book GammeLagyptisk
religion (Ancient Egyptian Religion), Lieblein argued that ancient
Egyptian religion had passed through different interconnected phases
of development beginning with a primeval stage of nature worship.
This was followed by a henotheistic/pantheistic period which eventually disintegrated into polytheism. He maintained that during the
New Kingdom the ancient Egyptians elaborated monotheistic tendencies
which crystallized under the reign of Akhnaton. However, in later
periods these monotheistic tendencies tainted with hues of pantheism, degenerated into fetishism and the cult of animals. Religion
gave way to magical thought. In Lieblein's opinion, fetishism always
spread during a civilization's last stages of existence. Further, in addition to underlining the place of nature in ancient Egyptian religious

In 1869, 1887-88, 1899-1900, 1903. He purchased a few antiquities, mostly

small monuments (papyrus, ostraca and small statuettes), some of which he donated
to the Ethnographical Museum and to the University Library.
5
The latter is clear for example in his analysis of the myth of Io (1897) where
he argued that ancient Egyptian cultural elements had travelled to Greece and then
reached the rest of Europe. He is referred to by Martin Bernal in Black Athena.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

105

thought, Lieblein also pointed out the juxtaposition of monism and

duality.6
IV. WILLIAM BREDE KRISTENSEN
William Brede Kristensen (b. Kristiansand 1867d. Leiden 1953),
was the son of Kristen Kristensen and Karoline Emilie Bjornson. At
first, he entered the theological faculty at the University of Kristiania
(1885), but soon abandoned theology for history of religions, and
more specifically ancient religions. He read Egyptology with Lieblein
and in other European centers such as Paris, Leiden and London,
where he established contact with renowned scholars like Gaston
Maspero, Willem Pleyte (1836-1903) and Cornelis Tiele (1830-1902).
In 1896, he defended his doctoral thesis AEgypternes Forestillinger om
Livet efter Doden i Forbindelse med Guderne Ra og Osiris (The Egyptians'
Conceptions of Life after Death in Relation to the Gods Ra and
Osiris) at the University of Kristiania. In 1898 he joined that same
university as a research fellow in history of religions. In 1901 Kristensen
was appointed professor of history of religions at the University of
Leiden and he held the chair until 1937.
Kristensen, like the majority of students of ancient religions of his
age, was philologically oriented, and more concerned with the theological and philosophical aspects of religions than with other modes
of religious expression. In AEgypternes Forestillinger om Livet efter Doden,7
he adopted what he described as an analytical method detached
from chronological details.8 Already then, Kristensen showed his interest in the correlation between the realm of life and light expressed
by Ra, and that of death and renewal of nature signified by Osiris.
Further, he underlined the centrality of the goddess Ma'at in the
ancient Egyptian worldview. Ma'at was, in Kristensen's view, an all
encompassing concept which included cosmic and social order, truth,
justice and ethics.9

Lieblein, 1883: 54.

The dissertation of 172 pages with no indices. Only the preface and the Table
of Contents are typed.
8
Kristensen, 1896: 9f.
9
Kristensen, 1896: 75f. The first exhaustive study on the concept of Ma'at was
undertaken by Kristensen's student, C.J. Bleeker, in his dissertation, De betekenis van
de egyptische Godin Ma-a-t, Leiden 1929.
7

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Kristensen rejected the theories of genetic evolutionism in the early

stages of his professorship in Leiden. But he continued to believe in
cultural diffusion, contacts and borrowings, and in the fact that the
sources of Western cultures lay in the ancient Middle East. In his
view, Pharaonic Egypt held a key position in the region and its
influence should not be underestimated. In his studies on ancient
Egyptian religion, Kristensen did not treat the question of monotheism directly. Instead, he explicated that the ancient Egyptians, like
other people of the ancient Mediterranean world, had a deep "religious sense of nature". This was expressed in their perception of the
duality Cosmos-Nature and the interdependence between the two.
The awareness of nature in ancient Egyptian religion was exemplified
by life and death. Life and death were conceived as the two sides
of existence which at the end unite in the oneness of the totality.
In his book Life out of Death, Kristensen developed these ideas further and argued that the confluence of monism and duality formed
the basis of the ancient Egyptian worldview. The divine totality was
represented by Atum:10
In Atum the monist concept of god is expressely formulated. The name
itself shows it. Atum means "summation, exclusiveness, totality" . . . He
was venerated as the creator of the world and existed before all gods,
who were considered to be emanations of his being; their diversity was
comprehended in him, as the divine totality.

Drawing upon the Memphite theology, Kristensen went on to explicate the significance of the three attributes of the demiurge in ancient
Egypt. These were percipience, Sia; the creative energy of the word,
Hu; and the magical power that brought forth the created world,
Heka.11 Monotheism, according to Kristensen, did not antedate revealed
religions. He therefore rejected both the theories on Egyptian monotheism and the idea that Akhnaton could have had any prophetical call
whatsoever.
V. JOHANN FRIEDRICH WILHELM SCHENCKE
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Schencke (b. Kristiania 1869d. Grakammen in Aker 1946) was the son of Friedrich Wilhelm Schencke, a
10
11

Kristensen, 1992: 24f.

Kristensen, 1992: 33f.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

107

constructor, and Marie Edvardine Bohm. He first read theology at

the University of Kristiania and graduated in 1894. Schencke was,
however, more attracted by history of religions than by theology. He
studied Semitic languages, Egyptology (under Lieblein) and history
of religions. He visited several Egyptological institutions in Europe
and was in contact with renowned scholars of his age, among them
Gaston Maspero and Heinrich Brugsch. In 1901 Schencke joined
the University of Kristiania as a research fellow in history of religions. In 1904 he defended his doctoral thesis Amon-Re. En Studie over
Forholdet mellem Enhed og Mangfoldighed under Udviklingen of det agyptiske
Gudsbegreb, (Amon-Re. A Study of the Relation between Unity and
Multiplicity during the Development of the Egyptian Notion of God),
at the same university.12 The following year, in recognition of the
high quality of his thesis, Schencke was the first person to receive
the Fridtjof Nansen award.13 Ten years later, in 1914, he was the
first professor of history of religions to be appointed at the Faculty
of Arts, University of Kristiania. He held the chair until 1939. In
the following, I shall limit myself to Schencke's thesis which was also
his main scientific work.
The Babel-Bibel controversy and the discourse on the origins of
monotheism that took place at the turn of the century had strong
repercussions in different parts of Europe. Judging from newspaper
clippings of the time, the debate had intensified and become quite
acrid also in Norway. Schencke, who supported the new radical views
in Christianity, had been actively engaged in it. His contemporaries
describe him as an outspoken man who professed that basic research
in history of religions should be freed from various forms of political and religious interferences, constraints and prejudices. In his opinion, history of religions had, more than any other science, the power
to provoke unrest and anxiety. However, to qualify as a science, it
had to pursue one goal: that of uncovering the truth. Thus, the student of religions should be given: "... liberty, absolute and unconditional liberty, but not liberty to be inconsidered".14
12
The dissertation consists of 250 pages written in very neat handwriting. The
book was never translated and therefore has been unknown to international Egyptology.
Schencke is not mentioned in Dawson's & Uphill's Who was Who in Egyptology.
13
Amundsen, 1957-1960, I: 403, II: 16.
14
"Men dertil ma religionshistorien ogsa nyde frihed, absolut og hensynslos frihed. Ikke frihed til at vaere hensynslos. Den b0r vaere sig bevidst at den mere end
andre videnskaber har evne til at vaekke uro og aengstelse. Men sa langt som den

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In Amon-Re, Schencke set out, quite explicitly, to examine the question of monotheism, or more exactly monotheistic tendencies, and the
notion of god in ancient Egyptian religion. Schencke had a stringent methodology. Using a combined historical-philological and philosophical approach, he applied a genetic evolutionistic perspective to
his analysis. Like Lieblein and Kristensen before him, Schencke
stressed the co-existence of monism and duality in ancient Egyptian
religion. He too considered that ancient Egyptian religion was based
on a cosmological system where the cult of nature was central.
Further, he maintained that one of the fundaments of ancient Egyptian
religion was the idea that the Many were manifestations, or as he
formulated it, revelations (abenbaringer) of the One. Schencke's investigation on the relation between the Many and the One led him to
conclude that there existed two religious dimensions in ancient Egypt.
The first one, which was also the more elevated one, expressed unity;
it was the realm of thought and ideology. The second one, which
was the lower level, was represented by a multitude of godheads,
and signified reality and daily life. There is a clear hierarchy in
Schencke's web of interrelationships between the One and the Many.15
As shown by the figure in Schencke's dissertation, the multitude of
small local godheads and demons were situated at the bottom of the
scale. These deities united into a lesser number of personal gods. In
turn, the personal gods fused to form an even more restricted number
of high gods who finally merged into the One, the absolute Unity.
Schencke argued that the movement between the different stages
and elements went two ways. In one direction, the Many fused into
the One, and in the other, the One spread out as the Many.
Schencke believed that the ancient Egyptians practised a pragmatic monotheism. He maintained that, although there were monotheistic tendensies in ancient Egyptian religion, especially during the Amarna
period,16 these did not, however, reach the same degree of coherence and sophistication as the revealed monotheism of Judaism and
later Christianity. In Schencke's view, the monotheistic features of
ancient Egypt remained on a theological and theoretical level, while

er videnskab har den kun en aergjerrighed: den, at efterspore sandheden." Schencke,

1904b: 31f.
15
Schencke, 1904a: 47f., fig. pp. 49, 69.
16
There were monotheistic tendencies also in other parts of the ancient Middle
East.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

109

in Israel these ideas were developed further and refined so as to constitute a monotheistic religion, and become an integral part of religious
life. According to Schencke, there was no basis for a living monotheism in ancient Egypt. This is shown by the Egyptians' reaction to
the Amarna period which was a complete volte-face and a return
to polytheism.17 In addition to his theories about the One and the
Many, Schencke noted, without however investigating the question
further, the fundamentality of the interaction between the male and
the female principles, and the significance of androgyny in ancient
Egyptian religious thought.18 He also remarked that the role of creator god or demiurge was not an exclusively male privilege and that
also female divinities like Neith and Hathor were bestowed with that
function.19
VI. KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL MEMORY
The quest for ancient Egyptian monotheism did not begin or stop
at the turn of the century. On the contrary, it reappears regularly,
every decade or so, as a recurrent academic leitmotiv. In his recent
17
"At hvad der for var blot og bar tanke, har Israel evnet at omsette til liv;
asgypterne evnet det ikke; babylonierne heller ikke. At hva der tidligere bl.a. var
aegyptisk og babylonisk monoteistisk spekulasjon, hos Israel er blit til monoteistisk religion", Schencke, 1904: IV, see also Conclusion, p. 348f.
18
Schencke, 1904a: 62f.
19
Ancient texts described both goddesses as "generators of life and birth giving",
Schencke, 1904a: 57, n. 59.

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book, Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism,

Jan Assmann reminds us that the European quest for ancient Egyptian
monotheism stands in a much longer line of intellectual tradition
than usually accounted for. The first phase started with the Egyptophilic
wave of the Renaissance; the recovery of Antiquity; the translations
of Horappollo's Hieroglyphica and of the Corpus Hermeticum; and the
writings of such personalities as Marsilio Ficino (14331499) and
Francesco Colonna (1433-1527). The Renaissance's representation
of ancient Egyptian civilization was greatly inspired by what we today
call the interpretatio graeca, and had very little to do with actual historical fact. Nevertheless, that image of Egypt has cast a lasting spell
over academic cultural memory. The revival of ancient Egypt during the Renaissance opened, according to Assmann, the way to three
dominant discourses. These were: 1) the Hermetic discourse which
perceived Egypt as the source of all wisdom; 2) the hieroglyphic discourse that considered the Egyptian script to be a conceptual symbolic writing; and 3) the historical discourse which was tied to the
conviction that Egypt's documented history reached far beyond Biblical
chronology.20
The second phase in Assmann's mnemohistory of Egypt started
in the second half of the 17th century, at the time of historical criticism, rationalism and the growing supremacy of science.21 This
renewed interest in Egypt was kindled by the religious and political
conflicts of the time, and by the controversies about atheism, pantheism, deism and free-thinking. The works of Father Athanasius
Kircher (16021680) on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and religious
thought also played an important part in the construction of an
"imagined Egyptian tradition". Ancient Egyptian religion was claimed
to be the fons et origo of all religions. As such it was set as a paragon
of perfect harmony between reason and revelation, or, in other words,
between Nature and Scripture. Ancient Egyptian religion conveyed
the idea that the balance between spirit and nature was essential to
the order of creation. Thus, despite its obvious polytheistic character, Egyptian religion was perceived as the source of esoteric reflection
and primeval monotheism. This ancient Egyptian esoteric monotheism was interpreted as "Nature", that is the deity of an original,

20
21

Assmann, 1998: 18.

Assmann, 1998: 91f.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

1 11

non-revealed monotheism where the Hermetic, the hieroglyphic, and

the Biblical discourses on Egypt converged.
The third stage of the Egyptian revival came in the aftermath of
the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1798. It led to the first systematic survey of its monuments. Egyptology as a university subject
was born in western Europe as a result of the decipherment of the
hieroglyphic script.
VII. CONCLUSION: TIME TO REVIEW OUR TERMINOLOGIES
Religion in ancient Egypt was the synthesis of many faiths. That is
why terms like monotheism, henotheism, pantheism and polytheism
have proved to be inadequate conceptual frameworks. Drawing upon
Henri Frankfort's multiplicity of approaches, Jan Zandee's ideas of complementary thought, and Heinrich Schafer's theories on aspective art, Erik
Hornung introduced the notion of a many-valued logic to interpret the
ancient Egyptian worldview.22 He explicated that the One and the
Many were not exclusive of each other but complementary to each
other. Some years later, Jan Assman coined the term cosmotheism to
express a form of cosmological monotheism, which is grounded in
the idea of the unity of the universe.23 Cosmotheism, he argued, is
a system of non-political monotheism where different divinities are
incorporated in the unity. In addition, it emphasizes the place of
nature in ancient Egyptian religious thought. In my view, the concept of cosmotheism opens up for what Assmann called "intercultural
trans lability". Not only does it explain how and why foreign gods were
easily integrated in the Egyptian pantheon, but it also clarifies the
articulation of the Egyptian worldview. The notion of god in ancient
Egypt ought to be viewed in terms of the ancient Egyptian concept
of hprw, in the sense of a process of constant transformations where
cyclical and linear time meet. Egyptian gods were always in the
process of becoming, their nature was never bound and final. Further,
the concept of cosmotheism liberates the modern researcher from
tedious ideological and political constraints, and the too many associations a heavily laden term such as monotheism has with Judaism,
Christianity and Islam.
22
23

Hornung, [1971] 1983: 239.

Assmann, 1993: llf.

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Much of our own research is built on the insights and theories of

those who have preceded us in the field. It is easy and meaningless
to belittle their efforts and to criticize them for having disregarded
issues that are of interest to us today. They belonged to other times
and other contexts. Academic writings constitute a mosaic of texts
that are periodically re-evaluated, integrated into new frameworks
and transformed in order to produce new scholarship. Seen in the
perspective of intertextuality and of academic "longue duree", we
realize that Lieblein, Kristensen and Schencke stood in a long line
of scholars and intellectuals. They were part of an international chain
of transmitters and generators of knowledge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amundsen, Leiv 1957-1960: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo 1857-1957, 2 vols.,
Oslo: Aschehoug & Co.
Assmann, Jan 1983: Re und Amun: Die Krise des polytheistischen Weltbilds im Agypten der
18.20. Dynastie, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 51, Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitatsverlag.
1993: Monotheismus und Kosmotheismus. Agyptische Formen eines "Denkens des Einen"
und ihre europaische Rezeptionsgeschichte, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie
der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahrg. 1993Bericht 2, Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag.
1997: Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Birkeland, Harris 1948: Minnetale over Professor Wilhelm Schencke, Det Norske VidenskapsAkademi, Oslo, Arbok 1947: 257-262.
Bleeker, C.J. 1954: "In Memoriam Professor Dr. W. Brede Kristensen", in: Numen
1: 235-236.
Dawson, Warren R. and Eric P. Uphill 1995: Who was Who in Egyptology, 3rd. rev.
ed. by Morris L. Bierbrier, London: The Egypt Exploration Society.
Hornung, Erik 1982 [1971]: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. The One and the Many,
transl, by John Baines, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
1992: "The Rediscovery of Akhenaten and his Place in Religion", in: Journal
of the American Research Center in Egypt 29: 43-49.
Iversen, Erik, 1993 [1961]: The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition,
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kristensen, W. Brede 1896: AEgypternes forestillinger om livet efter doden i forbindelse med
guderne Ra og Osiris, Kristiania.
1925: Livet fra doden. Studier over aegyptisk og gammel graesk religion, Oslo: Gyldendalske
bokhandel; English version: Life out of Death, Louvain: Peeters Press 1992.
1960: The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the phenomenology of religion, The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff.
Lichtheim, Miriam 1976: Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 2: The New Kingdom,
Berkeley: University of California Press.

THE QUEST FOR EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

113

Lieblein, J. 1883-1885: Gammelaegyptisk religion, I-III, Kristiania: Aschehoug & Co.

Naguib, Saphinaz-Amal 1990: Le clerge feminin d'Amon thebain a la 21e dynastie, Orientalia
Lovaniensia Analecta 38, Louvain: Peeters Press.
1992: '"Fille du dieu', 'Epouse du dieu', 'Mere du dieu' ou la metaphore
feminine"; in: The Intellectual Heritage of Egypt. Studies presented to Laszlo Kabosy by
friends and colleagues on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Studia Aegyptiaca XIV: 437-447.

1998: "Det gammelegyptiske verdensbilde. Den Ene og de Mange", in: Inger

Marie Ruud and Sigurd Hjelde (eds.): Enhet i mangfold? 100 ar med religionshistorie
i Norge, Oslo: Tano-Aschehoug: 46-61.
Plantinga, Richard J. 1989: "W.B. Kristensen and the Study of Religion", in: Numen
36: 173-188.
Schencke, Wilhelm 1904a: Amun-Re. En studie over forholdet mellem enhed og mangfoldighed
under udviklingen of det (aegyptiske gudsbegreb, Kristiania.
1904b: AEgyptenIsraelBabylonien. En forelaesning over den israelitisk-jodiske religion
i dens sammenhaeng og beroring med naboreligionerne, Kristiania.
1912: Minnetale over professor Jens Daniel Carolus Lieblein, Det Norske Videnskaps-

Akademi, Kristiania, Arbok 1911: 325-334.

This page intentionally left blank

W. BREDE KRISTENSEN AND THE RELIGIONS

OF GREECE AND ROME
JAN N. BREMMER

The copy of my Dutch version of Kristensen's Livet fra doden carries

the date of 18 December 1963, my nineteenth birthday.1 It dates
from shortly after the English translation of Kristensen's lectures and
after a reprint of the collection of his more general essays and articles, which had been published immediately after his death in 1953.2
It also was not that long before the reprint of his collected studies
in 1966 and of his lectures in 1968;3 in short, it was at a time when
Kristensen's work enjoyed great popularity in the Netherlands and,
albeit to a much lesser extent, abroad.
Nowadays, the Norwegian-Dutch scholar has fallen in relative
obscurity. He is still mentioned in surveys of Dutch Egyptology,4 of
Dutch phenomenology of religion,5 or even as an exemplary representative of that school,6 but his studies of specific problems of ancient
religions no longer play a role in contemporary discussions. How
has this decline in scholarly reputation come to pass and is his present neglect deserved? In my contribution I will (1) offer a brief
sketch of his career, (2) survey Kristensen's contributions to Greek
and Roman religions, (3) situate him in the development of their
1
Kristensen, Livet fra doden (Oslo, 1925) ~ Het leven uit de dood. Studien over Egyptische
en oud-Griekse godsdienst (Haarlem, 1926, 19492) ~ Life out of Death. Studies in the Religions
of Egypt and of Ancient Greece (Leuven, 1992: to be read with the review by M. Heerma
van Voss, Bibliotheca Orientails 53, 1996, 415-16).
2
Kristensen, Symbool en werkelijkheid (Arnhem, 1954 = Zeist and Arnhem, 1961).
I quote from this reprint.
3
Kristensen, Verzamelde bijdragen tot kennis der antieke godsdiensten (Amsterdam, 1947,
reprinted as Godsdiensten in de oude wereld (Utrecht and Antwerp, 1966) and The Meaning
of Religion, tr. J.B. Carman (The Hague, 1960, reprinted 1968).
4
D.J. Hoens, "A short survey of the history of the study of Egyptian religion in
the Netherlands", in M. Heerma van Voss et al. (eds.), Studies in Egyptian Religion
Dedicated to Professor Jan Zandee (Leiden, 1982) 11-27 at 12-13.
5
J. Waardenburg, "The Problem of Representing Religions and Religion. Phenomenology of Religion in the Netherlands 1918-1939", in H. Kippenberg and B. Luchesi
(eds.), Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik (Marburg, 1991) 3156, passim.
6
E.J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion. A History (London, 19862) 2279; S. Tambiah,
Magic, science, religion, and the scope of rationality (Cambridge, 1990) 3.

1 16

JAN N. BREMMER

history in the first half of this century, (4) analyse two examples of
his way of discussing specific problems of Greek religion and (5)
draw some conclusions.
I. KRISTENSEN'S CAREER7
William Brede Kristensen (1867-1953) had started his study in 1886
with theology, but after a year he changed to Classics, as he considered Norwegian theology and theologians too narrow-minded.
However, he always kept an interest in theology and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, it was Kristensen who wrote an excellent necrology
of Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), who with Abraham Kuyper (18371920) was the most prominent Calvinist at the turn of the century.8
His continuing interest in religion brought Kristensen in 1890 to
Leiden, where C.P. Tiele (1830-1902) occupied the first Dutch chair
in the History of Religion.9 Tiele was not particularly interested in
Egypt, and Kristensen therefore had to specialise in Mesopotamian
religion and the Avesta, a specialty of Tiele which also continued to
keep Kristensen's interest; although in 1887 Kristensen had also
started with Sanskrit, Indian civilisation never interested him to the
same degree as Avestan.
After an interlude at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris with
the famous Egyptologist G. Maspero (1846-1916) and a stay in
London,10 he returned to Oslo in 1896 where he earned his doctorate with a dissertation on Egyptian ideas about the hereafter in
connection with the gods Re and Osiris.11 In February of the next
year, less than four months after their wedding, his wife, Anna Lunde

7
For a good bio-bibliographical survey see H.J. Ponsteen, "Kristensen", in Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Protestantisme 4 (1998) 266-69.
8
W.B. Kristensen, "Over den wetenschappelijken arbeid van Herman Bavinck",
Jaarboek Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. 1921-1922 (1923) 1-12, cf. R.H. Bremmer, Herman Bavinck
als dogmaticus (Diss. Amsterdam, 1961) 2, 5, 328.
9
For Tiele see most recently L. Leertouwer, "C.P. Tiele's Strategy of Conquest",
in W. Otterspeer (ed.), Leiden Oriental Connections, 1850-1940 (Leiden, 1989) 153-67;
E. Cossee, "'Zoo wij iets sloopen, het is niet de godsdienst': Cornelis Petrus Tiele
(18301902) als apologeet van het Modernisme", Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van het
Nederlands Protestantisme na 1800 1 (1995) 17-33; A. de Lange, "Tiele", in Biografisch
lexicon, 421-24; A.L. Molendijk, "Tiele on Religion", Numen 46 (1999) 237-68.
10
On Maspero see E. Naville, J. Egyptian Arch. 3 (1916) 227-34.
11
Kristensen, AEgypternes forestillinger om livet efter doden i forbindelse med guderne Ra og
Osiris (Kristiania, 1896).

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

117

(1870-1897), suddenly died in Paris, an experience to which we will

come back later ( 4). In 1901 he returned as Tiele's successor to
Leiden, where in 1916 he married Jacoba Heldring (1892-1984), a
daughter of a distinguished Dutch family. He retired in 1937, but
continued to publish until the year of his death.
II. KRISTENSEN ON GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGION
Although Kristensen frequently made short references to Greek and
Roman religion, he only infrequently dedicated studies to specific
subjects of classical antiquity. His oldest and still fresh attempt was
an analysis of various Greek and Roman games and contests, especially the crane dance of Theseus and the enigmatic lusus Troiae,
which he interpreted as victories by life over death (1910).12 The
connection of the Trojan Game with the labyrinth was probably the
reason that only shortly afterwards Kristensen discussed the symbolism of the ancient Cretan horns which he also associated with
the labyrinth (1913).13
In 1925 Kristensen published one of his few real books. It carried
the programmatic tide Life out of Death (Livet fra doden: see note 1)
and discussed Egyptian and Greek attitudes towards death. From
Greek religion, Kristensen focused on Hades, the goddess Athena,
the Eleusinian mysteries and funeral rites. In his discussion of Athena,
Kristensen mentioned the Delphic oracle, which in the same year
he treated more in detail in a study of the Delphic tripod (1925).14
His last major contribution on Greek religion appeared in 1928 when
he discussed the divine trickster in Babylon and Greece ( 3).15
In 1932 Kristensen took on Roman religion with a treatise on the
Roman fasces, which he audaciously compared with the Avestan baresman and a comparable cult object of the Eleusinian mysteries.16 Rome

12
Kristensen, "Over de godsdienstige betekenis van enkele oude wedstrijden en
spelen", Theologisch Tijdschrift 44 (1910) 1-16 = Symbool, 204-14.
13
Kristensen, "De heilige horens in den oud-Kretensischen godsdienst", Med. Kon.
Ned. Ak. Wet. (Amsterdam, 1913) = Symbool, 139-59.
14
Kristensen, "De Delphische drievoet", in Med. Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. (Amsterdam,
1928) = Verzamelde bijdragen, 85-104.
15
Kristensen, "De goddelijke bedrieger", Med. Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. (Amsterdam,
1928) = Verzamelde bijdragen, 105-25.
16
Kristensen, "De Romeinse fasces", in Med. Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. (Amsterdam,
1932) = Verzamelde bijdragen, 149-56.

1 18

JAN N. BREMMER

was also the main focus of his study of ancient servitude of 1938, a
still interesting analysis of the place of slaves in ancient religion and
one of his very few more detailed discussions of an ancient festival,
the Nonae Capratinae.17 Finally, Roman slaves recur in his study of
the Earth's riches in myth and cult of 1942, a study in which he
also pays attention to the Vestal virgins.18
In addition, Greek and Roman religions often figure in his posthumously published lectures, translated as The Meaning of Religion. Unfortunately, the translation does not indicate the precise period in
Kristensen's career from which the lectures date. On the whole, one
gets the impression that they received their final shape more or less
in the 1910s and 1920s. The intellectual agenda is still very much
set by the great scholars of the late nineteenth century: Edward B.
Tylor (1832-1917),19 William Robertson Smith (1846-1894),20 and
James G. Frazer (1854-1941).21 Among later scholars, Rudolf Otto's
(1869-1917) Das Heilige (1917) also receives the necessary attention,22
which shows that he still worked on them in the 1920s. However,
Gerardus van der Leeuw's (1890-1950) Phanomenologie of 1933 is not
mentioned,23 a terminus ante quem which is confirmed by the fact that
the modest notes do not quote any book after 1932.
17
Kristensen, "De antieke opvatting van dienstbaarheid",, in Med. Kon. Ned. Ak.
Wet. (Amsterdam, 1934) = Verzamelde bijdragen, 20128; for the slaves see also his
Meaning of Religion, 34551.
18
Kristensen, "De rijkdom der aarde in mythe en cultus", in Med. Kon. Ned. Ak.
Wet. (Amsterdam, 1942) = Verzamelde bijdragen, 291-314.
19
On Tylor see G.W. Stocking, Jr., After Frazer (Madison, 1995) 3-14; A. Ciattini,
L'animismo di Edward Burnett Tylor (Turin, 1995); K.-H. Kohl, "Edward Burnett Tylor
(1832-1917)", in A. Michaels (ed.), Klassiker der Religionswissenschaft (Munich, 1997)
41-59.
20
On Smith see most recently W. Johnstone (ed.), William Robertson Smith. Essays
in Reassessment (Sheffield, 1995); H. Kippenberg, "William Robertson Smith
(1846-1894)", in Michaels, Klassiker, 61-76; G.M. Bediaho, Primal Religion and the
Bible: William Robertson Smith and his Heritage (Sheffield, 1997).
21
On Frazer see R. Ackerman, J.G. Frazer: His Life and Work (Cambridge, 1987);
H. Wissmann, "James George Frazer (1854-1941)", in Michaels, Klassiker, 77-89;
Ackerman, "Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists", in A.L. Molendijk and P. Pels
(eds.), Religion in the Making. The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion (Leiden, 1998)
129-58.
22
On Otto see E. Benz (ed.), Rudolf Otto's Bedeutung fur die Religionswissenschaft und
die Theologie heute (Leiden, 1971); Ph. Almond, "Rudolf Otto; the context of his
thought", Scottish J. of Theology 36 (1983) 347-62; G.D. Alles, "Rudolf Otto
(1869-1937)", in Michaels, Klassiker, 198-210.
23
G. van der Leeuw, Phanomenologie der Religion (Tubingen, 1933). On van der
Leeuw see now W. Hofstee, Goden en mensen. De godsdienstwetenschap van Gerardus van
der Leeuw (Diss. Groningen, 1997); J. Waardenburg, "Gerardus van der Leeuw
(1890-1950)", in Michaels, Klassiker, 264-76.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

119

The book itself is a typical phenomenology, which categorises the

various religious phenomena, with the focus on the ancient religions
of the Mediterranean and the Near East. As is the case with the
phenomenologies of Gerardus van der Leeuw (above) and Geo Widengren (1907-1996),24 the book lacks any argumentation as to why it
follows a certain orderan omission of many histories of religion.
In the case of Kristensen, a reader coming from the contemporary
study of Greek and Roman religion will be greatly surprised by the
construction of the book. It starts with cosmology, which is perhaps
a logical beginning for the Ancient Near East, but totally out of
place in a discussion of Greek and Roman religions. These religions
were not terribly interested in the origin of the world but let history begin with the foundation of the polis; the myths about the creation of the first mortals and the Flood have been demonstrably
derived from Near Eastern mythology.25 After cosmology comes
anthropology, and Kristensen closes his book with the cultic acts,
saving sacrifice for the end of his book. Walter Burkert, on the other
hand, considers sacrifice so important that it opens his discussion of
classical Greek religion, by far the best modern history of a "dead"
religion, with this ritualincidentally, a term Kristensen never uses.26
This choice, too, is debatable, but it shows that the "construction"
of religion tout court or a specific religion is not without its problems.27
Kristensen's preference for the symbolic meaning of ancient religion makes for a somewhat skewed attention to Greek religion. As
elsewhere in his smaller treatises, there is hardly any interest in the
most important Greek gods as Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Artemis and
Dionysos, let alone in Roman Jupiter, but we find more than normal space for minor figures, such as the Eumenides, Faunus, Helios,
Hephaestus, Hestia, Horae, Moirai, Muses, Prometheus, Themis and
Vesta. This interest in minor deities and personifications goes far
24

G. Widengren, Religionsphanomenologie (Berlin, 1969).

See now Bremmer, "Near Eastern and Native Traditions in Apollodorus'
Account of the Flood", in F. Garcia Martinez and G.P. Luttikhuizen (eds.), Interpretations
of the Flood (Leiden, 1998) 39-55.
26
This is one more illustration of the fact that the term "ritual" is a relative
latecomer in the history of religion, cf. Bremmer, "'Religion', 'Ritual' and the
Opposition 'Sacred vs. Profane': Notes towards a Terminological 'Genealogy'," in
F. Graf (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Fur Walter Burkert (Stuttgart and Leipzig,
1998) 9-32.
27
W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Oxford, 1985). For a different order see my own
Greek Religion (Oxford, 1994, 19992) ~ Gotter, Mythen und Heiligtumer im antiken Griechenland
(Darmstadt, 1996).
23

120

JAN N. BREMMER

beyond what was, is and perhaps should be normal in studies of

Greek and Roman religion.28 At the same time, there is little detailed
analysis of larger rituals. Even sacrifice, the only ritual to which he
frequently pays attention, is hardly analysed in sufficient detail.29
III. GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGION IN THE TIME OF KRISTENSEN
The above enumeration shows that Kristensen's interest extended
more to Greek than to Roman religion, which is understandable,
since we are much less informed about ancient Roman religion than
about Greek religion, and, moreover, the study of Roman religion
stagnated in the first decades of this century to a much larger extent
than that of Greek religion.30 The most important student of Roman
religion, Georg Wissowa (18591931) had collected the available evidence in a masterful manner,31 and the absence of new scholarly
approaches, such as would come to the fore in the 1930s with Franz
Altheim (1898-1976) and Carl Koch (1906-1956),32 did not leave
much scope for generalists like Kristensen.
The situation in Greek religion was more complicated. Around
1900 the mood was still evolutionistic, the consequence of the enormous advances of nineteenth-century science as represented by Charles
Lyell (1797-1875) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882). That does not
mean that new developments were absent. Around 1890 the European
study of religion saw a general turn away from mythology towards
ritual, a term which in that period also gained a new content, the

28
For personifications see most recently H.A. Shapiro, Personifications in Greek Art
(Kilchberg and Zurich, 1993). B. Schlerath, "Religion der Indogermanen", in W. Meid
(ed.), Sprache und Kultur der Indogermanen (Innsbruck, 1998) 87-99 notes the IndoEuropean background of the phenomenon.
29
On Greek sacrifice see most recently: F.T. van Straten, Hiera kald: Images of
Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Leiden, 1996); Bremmer, "Modi di communicazione con il divino: la preghiera, la divinizazione e il sacrificio nella civilta
greca", in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci I (Turin, 1996) 239-83; C. Auffarth, "Braucht Gott
ein Opfer? Opferpraxis und Opferkritik in der griechischen Religionsgeschichte", in
D. Neuhaus (ed.), Das Opfer (Frankfurt, 1998) 11-32. Roman sacrifice: A.V. Siebert,
Instrumenta sacra (Berlin and New York, 1999).
30
Unfortunately, the most recent history of Roman religion by M. Beard, J. North
and S. Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1998) dispenses with a historiography. For Greek religion see the brief observations by Burkert, Greek Religion, 1-4.
31
On Wissowa see O. Kern, Georg Wissowa (Halle, 1931).
32
On Koch see most recently, F. Graf, in idem (ed.), Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1993) 36f.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

121

most prominent representatives of this development being Robertson

Smith and Frazer.33 At the same time there arose a need for new
hermeneutical keys in order to interpret the so long neglected rituals.
From the classical archaeologist Otto Jahn (1813-1869), the notion
of "apotropaeic" was taken,34 a notion which still prominently figures
in the work of the greatest expert on Greek religion of the first half
of the 20th century, Martin Nilsson (1874-1967).35 Wilhelm Mannhardt
(1831-1880) had inspired the interest in fertility,36 an interest which
would take on massive proportions in Frazer's Golden Bough and which
was also perpetuated by Nilsson, a farmer's son, as he stressed himself in a letter to Wilamowitz.37
The most prominent representatives of the history of Greek religion
during Kristensen's formative period were Erwin Rohde (18451898),
Hermann Usener (18341905) and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848-1931). Rohde had uncovered the darker sides of Greek
religion and as such he was a forerunner of E.R. Dodds' (1893-1979)
famous The Greeks and the Irrational (1951).38 Usener was still standing
in the tradition of the Romantics, seeing nature everywhere, but in
his later work we notice the influence of Mannhardt and a growing
interest in ritual.39 Wilamowitz was a master of Greek mythology,
but underestimated Greek cult, which did not appeal to him, and
considered religion mainly a matter of feeling and belief ("Gefuhl
33
See Bremmer (note 26); B. Boudewijnse, "British Roots of the Concept of
Ritual", in Molendijk and Pels, Religion in the Making, 277-95.
34
E. Schlesier, "Apotropaisch", in H. Cancik et al. (eds.), Handbuch religionswissenschqftlicher Grundbegriffe II (Stuttgart, 1990) 41-45. For Jahn see eadem, Kulte, Mythen
und Gelehrte. Anthropologie der Antike seit 1800 (Frankfurt, 1994) 33-64.
35
M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion I (Munich, 19673) 110-5. On
Nilsson see J. Mejer, "Martin P. Nilsson", in W.W. Briggs and W.M. Calder III
(eds.), Classical Scholarship. A Biographical Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1990)
335-40; W.M. Calder III (ed.), Further Letters of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
(Hildesheim, 1994) 151-78 (the correspondence between Wilamowitz and Nilsson).
36
On Mannhardt see T. Tybjerg, "Wilhelm MannhardtA Pioneer in the Study
of Rituals", in T. Ahlback (ed.), The Problem of Ritual (Stockholm, 1993) 27-37.
37
Calder, Further Letters of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 168.
38
Rohde: H. Cancik, "Erwin Rohde", in Briggs and Calder, Classical Scholarship,
395404. Dodds: G. Mangani, "Sul metodo di Eric Dodds e sulla nozione di 'irrazionale'," Quaderni di Storia 11 (1980) 173-205; H. Lloyd-Jones, Blood for the Ghosts
(London, 1982) 287-94; R.B. Todd, "E.R. Dodds: a bibliography of his publications", Quaderni di Storia 48 (1998) 175-94.
39
Cf. Bremmer, "Hermann Usener", in Briggs and Calder, Classical Scholarship,
462-78; D. Ehlers (ed.), Hermann Diets, Hermann Usener, Eduard Zeller: Briefwechsel, 2
vols (Berlin, 1992) and Usener und Wilamowitz. Ein Briejwechsel 1870-1905. Mit einem
Nachwort und Indices von William M. Calder III (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 19942).

122

JAN N. BREMMER

und Glaube"), the latter category hardly being suitable for Greek
religion.40
Kristensen in a way kept aloof from all these different approaches.
He rejected the evolutionistic views of Tylor, and in an observation
on the debate about the origin of the Greek heroes he lapidarily
noted: "all origins are problematic",41 but he also was immune to
the psychological ideas of Rudolf Otto.42 From Usener he took a
number of his views about the gods, but Wilamowitz's positivistic
and highly historical approach cannot have been to his liking, and
in a discussion of the horse he dryly notes of Wilamowitz's explanation of the expressions Totenpferd and Seelenross, viz. "the steed is
for the Greeks the noblest and most soul-filled animal", that "with
this sort of reasoning we can explain many riddles".43 It was only
Mannhardt and Frazer with their interest in tree gods and plant
gods who found favour with Kristensen. This was undoubtedly because
Kristensen himself was interested in the role of vegetation and saw
trees worshipped in religion as the bearers of "abolute life and absolute
wisdomboth connected in the mystery of the earth's life".44
This scepticism towards the ruling paradigms of his time could
have made Kristensen into a scholar with a lasting influence. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The last work by a classical
scholar in which Kristensen still figures relatively frequently is my
compatriot Versnel's Triumphus of 1970, hardly by chance a Leiden
dissertation.45 This learned and authoritative study of a major Roman
ritual was written on the eve of the turn towards structuralism, functionalism and, albeit somewhat later, symbolism a la Victor Turner.
Compared with this flood of new approaches, Kristensen's hermeneutical toolbox looks somewhat empty, since it contains only two tools.
Whichever god he approached, whichever ritual he analysed, he
always found "absolute life" and/or "absolute wisdom", without ever
supplying a detailed argument for this leading principle. Even in the
40

For Wilamowitz see A. Henrichs, '"Der Glaube der Hellenen': Religionsgeschichte

als Glaubensbekenntnis und Kulturkritik", in W.M. Calder III et al. (eds.), Wilamowitz
nach 50Jahren (Darmstadt, 1985) 263-305; Calder, Further Letters of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 151-78 (the correspondence between Wilamowitz and Nilsson).
41
Kristensen, Symbool en werkelijkheid, 51 (quote); Meaning of Religion, 17, 485 (Tylor).
42
Kristensen, Meaning of Religion, 361.
43
Kristensen, Meaning of Religion, 163.
44
Kristensen, Meaning of Religion, 118.
45
H.S. Versnel, Triumphus (Diss. Leiden, 1970) 161n2, 208n5, 212, 268f, 292nl,
298nl, 299n4, 354.

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123

first, introductory chapter of his Life out of Death the curious reader
is left in the cold as to what "absolute life", which appears in the
subtitle of that chapter, really means. As Waardenburg has well
noted: Kristensen "could not express himself well abstractly and what
he wrote about his method appears rather opaque".46
A second reason for Kristensen's decline is the ahistorical nature
of his work. Although ancient religions are known to have changed
over long periods of time, Kristensen always describes them in a
synchronic wayas if change did not exist. Moreover, he thought
that it was possible to enter his ancient subject and become Persian
with the Persians and Babylonian with the Babyloniansa typical
legacy of the Romantic movement whose belated son he was; within
this understanding, Kristensen was especially interested in the faith
of the believer. This "If-I-were-a-horse" approach, as the English
anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) called it,47 attests to
a reverence, if not nostalgia, for the ancient religions, but at the
same time it seems to misjudge the possibilities that we have to imagine the life of bygone eras. Moreover, the category of "belief" is a
modern one, which postdates the Middle Ages and is hardly appropriate to describe ancient religions, which were totally embedded in
their societies and whose content far surpassed our modern notion
of belief.48
These are not the only problems with Kristensen's work. Although
Waardenburg has written that Kristensen carried out his research "on
the basis of exhaustive literary evidence",49 one only needs to compare
the works of Nilsson or Burkert in order to see that Kristensen did
not at all collect the whole of the available evidence. In a way, he
did not need to do so, since the solution of the problem was already
46
Waardenburg, "The problem", 49, limits his observation to Kristensen's Meaning
of Religion, but it seems to me valid for his whole oeuvre.
47
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford, 1965) 24. On EvansPritchard see Y. Kuiper, "Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard", in G. Banck et al. (eds.),
Beroep: antropoloog (Amsterdam and Brussels, 1982) 4362; E. Gellner, "Introduction",
in E.E. Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Thought, ed. A. Singer (New York,
1981) XIII-XXXVI; C. Geertz, Works and Lives. The Anthropologist as Author (Stanford,
1988) 49-72; B. Schepel, "Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973)", in Michaels,
Klassiker, 303-23.
48
J. Wirth, "La naissance du concept de croyance (XIIe-XVIIe siecles)", Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 44.1 (1983) 7-58; S.G. Hall et al., "Glaube IV-VI",
in G. Muller (ed.), Theologische Realenzyklopadie 13 (Berlin and New York, 1984)
305-65; S. Berti, "At the roots of unbelief", J. Hist. Ideas 56 (1995) 555-75.
49
Waardenburg, "The Problem", 48.

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JAN N. BREMMER

available. There is another aspect as well to his scholarly activities

that strikes us today perhaps more than it might have done a previous generation. Kristensen never visited international conferences
and, moreover, he published his main scholarly work only in Dutch
and virtually only in the proceedings of the Royal Dutch Academy,
an institution which until very recently never refereed the manuscripts subjected for publication. In other words, Kristensen never
was properly contradicted and never had to defend his views against
his fellow scholars. We are therefore not surprised to read in the
reprint of his academic treatises that he made no changes, since he
found no reason to adapt his views "in any essential respect".50
IV. KRISTENSEN ON HADES AND HERMES
Let us now take a closer look at the manner in which Kristensen
analysed two specific problems of ancient religions. Considering its
great importance in his work, we will first discuss the ways he
approached death in his Life out of Death.51 Kristensen starts with the
observation that thoughts about the mystery of death occupied a
central place in Greek religion. This is already a peculiar statement.
In fact, Greek religion was singularly diesseitig. It is characteristic of
this quality that the god Hades is the only major god to whom
Walter Burkert does not dedicate an individual chapter; in fact, as
he notes, our literary evidence on the whole is not very explicit on
matters connected with death and he finds silence about it "most
fitting".52
More convincing is Kristensen's second observation. He notes that
death is the archenemy of man and nature, but at the same time also
the origin of life and the "realisation of perfection" ("de verwezenlijking der volmaking"), whatever that actually may mean. According
to Kristensen, these two points of view were united into one mood,
which excelled in contradictory feelings. This attention to oppositions

50

51

Kristensen, Verzamelde bijdragen, 6.

Kristensen, Leven uit de dood, 154-75.

52
Burkert, Greek Religion., 195. For Hades see now A. Henrichs, "Hades", in
S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford, 19963)
661-2; Bremmer, "Hades", in H. Cancik and H. Schneider (eds.), Der neue Pauly V
(Tubingen, 1998) 51-3.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

125

within one god is rather surprising and typically modern. Versnel,

especially, has repeatedly stressed that ancient religion abounded with
ambiguities and inconsistencies which we should not try to eliminate.53
If the approach is persuasive, then, the elaboration is not. Kristensen
rightly notes that in the Iliad Hades is characterised in a very negative manner. He is "hateful" (VIII.368) and "implacable and adamant"
(IX. 158). Fortunately, though, he is the "invisible" god, "unseen" by
mortals, whose name only later came to indicate the Underworld as
a place.54 For the positive side of Hades, Kristensen refers to a number of epithets of the god, such as Lysander, ("Dissolving men"),
Agesilaos ("Leader of the People"), Polyxenos ("Receiver of many")
and Pandokos ("Receiver of all comers"), which he ascribes to Greek
popular religion ("volksgodsdienst").55 The notion itself of popular
religion is probably derived from Erwin Rohde's Psyche, but the idea
of the names is lifted straight from Usener's Gotternamen.56 Now it is
undoubtedly true that the god carried these epithets, but it is rather
unlikely that the Greeks thought of Hades when they gave their children these names. In fact, no Greek ever gave his children names
connected with the divinities of the Underworld: Hades, Persephone/
Kore and Pluto are all conspicuously absent from Greek onomastics.
There is therefore every reason to interpret these names as reflecting
aristocratic qualities, such as martiality, leadership and hospitality,
not as theophorous names of Hades.
It is also somewhat strange that Kristensen overlooked the fact
that we have much more compelling evidence for the positive side
of Hades. In his Phaedo Plato calls him a "good and prudent god"
(80d7) and in his Cratylus he explains the name Pluto for Hades as
deriving from the fact that wealth comes up from the earth below
(403a3-5). It is typical for Kristensen's ahistorical approach that he
equates Hades with Pluto without mentioning that this assimilation
is the product of the fifth century and not attested before a phiale
53

See in particular H.S. Versnel, Ter unus = Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman religion I (Leiden, 1990) 1-38.
54
For the etymology see now C.J. Ruijgh, Scripta minora I (Amsterdam, 1991)
575-6; R.S.P. Beekes, "Hades and Elysion", in J. Jasanoff et al. (eds.), Mir curad. Studies
in Honor of Calvert Watkins (Innsbruck, 1998) 17-28.
55
A. Henrichs, "Namenlosigkeit und Euphemismus: Zur Ambivalenz der chthonischen Machte im attischen Drama", in H. Hofmann and A. Harder (eds.), Fragmenta
dramatica (Gottingen, 1991) 161-201 at 195n74.
55
H. Usener, Gotternamen (Frankfurt, 19483) 361.

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JAN N. BREMMER

of Douris of ca. 490 B.C.57 The equation may have been promoted
by the belief, attested only in Attic comedy, that the ancestors sent
up "the good things" from below.58
It is equally curious that Kristensen connects Pandora with Hades
as giver of wealth on the basis of only one vase painting where she
emerges from the earth.59 He thus overlooks the fact that Hades' sister Demeter and her daughter Persephone are also connected with
the gifts of the earth. Anesidora ("She who sends up gifts") is an
epithet of Demeter; the dead were called Demetreioi and corn sown
on their graves, surely in expectance of better returns.60
If Kristensen, then, rightly analysed Hades as an ambiguous divinity but overrated his influence, we are still stuck with the problem
as to why he attached so much weight to the world of the dead for
the living. Two factors may have played a role. Firstly, his fascination with Egypt, where the dead indeed dominated the living in
many ways. Secondly, this fascination was probably reinforced by
the early death of his first wife. For the influence of personal experience of death on scholarly ideas we have an interesting parallel
in the figure of Max Muller (1823-1900).61 When in December 1876
his eldest daughter Ada tragically died of meningitis at the age of
sixteen, Muller lapsed in a profound mental and religious crisis. In
reaction to his loss, he developed a completely different image of
God from the more orthodox idea he had inherited from home.62
In general, it would of course be wrong to reduce the ideas of a
scholar to his personal fate, but in the case of such a dominating

57

LIMC, "Hades", no. 28; Sophocles, Antigone 1200; Plato, Gorgias, 523a4; Isocrates

9.15.
58

Phrynichus F 16 K.-A.; Cratinus F 172 K.-A.; Aristophanes, Frogs 1462, F 504

K.-A., cf. Henrichs, "Namenlosigkeit und Euphemismus", 197-200.
59
See also his Verzamelde bijdragen, 121-3. Vase painting: M. Oppermann, "Pandora", in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (Zurich and Munich, 1994) 16366,
no. 4. For Pandora see now: J.N. Bremmer, "Pandora or the Creation of a Greek
Eve", in G.P. Luttikhuizen (ed.), The Creation of Man and Woman in Jewish and Christian
Interpretations (Leiden, 2000).
60
Anesidora: Sophocles F 826 Radt. Demetreioi: Demetrius of Phaleron, fr. 135
-Wehrli2; Plutarch, De fac. 934b.
61
On Max Muller see N.C. Chauduhri, Scholar Extraordinary (London, 1974).
62
Compare The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller edited by
his wife, 2 vols (London, 1902) II, 27-43, 138, 141 with F. Max Muller, Lectures on
the Origin and Growth of Religion (London, 1878) 2-4, 375, 379. Lourens van den
Bosch, to whom I owe these references, points out to me that more interesting letters by Muller still lie unpublished in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

127

Leitmotiv as life from death in Kristensen's work, it would be equally

wrong to completely close one's eyes to such a possibility.
What was the echo of Kristensen's work among his colleagues?
Can it be that they recognised the idiosyncratic character of his work
and kept aloof from it? Is it significant that his friend and neighbour Johan Huizinga (1872-1945) nowhere in his work quotes him,
not even in his Homo ludens?63 Questions like these are hard to answer,
but fortunately we do have one interesting reaction which is worth
discussing. As already noted ( 2), in 1928 Kristensen published a
treatise on the divine trickster which contains his now familiar themes.
Hermes is chthonios, an "earth-god", and his ithyphallic pillars symbolise the god as responsible for the vegetation of the earth. He is
the god who sends up life from the earth and as saviour of life he
can also be a healer. Kristensen also connects Hermes with Pandora
on the basis of both being cheaters, and ends his argument by stating that through his stealing Hermes acquires the life hidden in
death. Hermes, so Kristensen, is the god who cheats people into
death, but who also cheats the gods of the underworld to give life
in his terminology "absolute life"to mankind.
Besides the now familiar words of life from death we once again
miss any historical depth in Kristensen's argument. In fact, Hermes'
close tie with the world of the dead is a relatively late development,
which derives from his general role as the crosser of borders. Naturally,
his contemporaries could not yet know this persuasive opinion of
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood,64 nor could they know that Hermes'
name would turn up in Linear-B and thus predate Homer by many
centuries. Yet one fellow member of the Dutch Academy was not
persuaded.
Just one year later, the Leiden professor of anthropology Pieter
de Josselin de Jong (18861964) presented a completely different view
of Hermes to the audience of the Royal Academy in his The Origin
of the Divine Trickster.65 De Josselin de Jong had started his student
63
During the conference on which this volume is based, Kristensen's daughter,
Mrs. G. Volkenborn-Kristensen, told me that her father did not want to be quoted
by Huizinga. For the warm relationship between the two families see the many references to Kristensen in J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling, ed. L. Hanssen, W. Krul, A.
van der Lem III (3 vols, Utrecht and Antwerpen, 1989-1991) index s.v. Kristensen.
64
See her "Reading" Greek Death to the End of the Classical Period (Oxford, 1995)
passim.
65
J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, "De oorsprong van den goddelijken bedrieger", in
Med. Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. (Amsterdam, 1929).

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JAN N. BREMMER

career with Dutch, but under the influence of the Dutch linguist
C.G. Uhlenbeck (1866-1951) he shifted to Indo-European, from
which he always kept an interest in Old Norwegian; he also followed
Uhlenbeck when the latter widened his field of interest beyond IndoEuropean to North American languages. After many years as curator of the departments of Africa, America and Australia of the
National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and activities as an archaeologist in the Dutch Caribbean, his interest shifted from archaeology
towards anthropology in the middle 1920s. From pottery and native
American languages he now moved to the works of Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917) and Marcel Mauss (1872-1950).66 It was in this period
of his life that he reacted to Kristensen's analysis of Hermes,67 leaning especially on the excellent study of Hermes by the Oslo classicist
Samson Eitrem (1872-1966).68
De Josselin started his discussion by noting that stealing is only
one side to Hermes, but that there are many others as well. And,
in a manner of approach which would not be out of place today,
he takes his point of departure in the many oppositions and contradictions in Hermes' figure, which he refuses to reduce to one particular feature. Thus he adds to Kristensen that the figure of Hermes
is closely associated with Aphrodite, an association which is responsible for the figure of the ambiguous Hermaphroditus, both male
and female, a divinity emerging in fourth-century Athens. Having
arrived at this point, he observed that every human classification

66
Durkheim: from the immense literature note S. Lukes, Emile Durkheim (London, 1973); J. Sumpf, "Durkheim et le probleme de 1'etude sociologique de la religion", Archives de sociologie des religions 20 (1965) 63-73; H. Firsching, "Emile Durkheims
Religionssoziologiemade in Germany?", in V. Krech and H. Tyrell (eds.), Religionssoziologie um 1900 (Wurzburg, 1995) 351-63. Mauss: A. Momigliano et ai, Gli uomini,
le societa, le civilta. Uno studio intorno all'opera di Marcel Mauss, ed. R. di Donato (Pisa,
1985); M. Fournier, Marcel Mauss (Paris, 1994); the special issue devoted to Mauss
of the Revue europeenne des sciences sociales 34 (1996) no. 105.
67
I owe this information to F.R. Effert, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, curator and archaeologist. A study of his early career (1910-1935) (Leiden, 1992).
68
S. Eitrem, Hermes und die Toten (Kristiania, 1909). On Eitrem see E. Smith,
"Eitrem, Samson", in E. Bull and E. Jansen (eds.), Norsk Biografisk Leksikon III (Oslo,
1926) 497-500; the obituaries by A.-J. Festugiere, CRAI 1966, 413-7; B.A. van
Groningen, Jaarboek Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. 1966-67, 406-8; L. Amundsen, Gnomon 39
(1967) 429-32 and Arbok. Del Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo 1967 (Oslo, 1968)
6976; finally, the charming recollections by K. Kleve, "Samson Eitremon the
threshold of antiquity", in D.R. Jordan et al. (eds.), The World of Ancient Magic: Papers
from the First Samson Eitrem Seminar (Bergen, 1999) 13-19; for his bibliography,
L. Amundsen, Symbolae Osloenses 43 (1968) 110-23.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ROME

129

presumes a dualism and proceeded to analyse with this Durkheimian

insight a series of American and Melanesian myths about tricksters.
On the basis of this ethnological material, de Josselin argued that
contradictions and a mediating position are inherent to culture heroes
and tricksters and concluded that we find similar contradictions in
the figure of Hermes. When still a child, he already went out robbing, an activity for adults. He also invented fire and musical instruments, indispensable elements for the transition from nature to culture.
Regarding Hermes' status, de Josselin notes that for mortals Hermes
is only a minor divinity of a lower order, whereas among the gods
he is only a servant, a status which approaches him to the level of
the mortals. As Hermes with the epithet agoraios, he is the mediator
between groups with economic transactions, ceremonial or commercial, and as sacrificer he mediates between mortals and immortals.
At this point de Josselin somewhat abruptly stops. His picture of
the mercurial god is surely not fully satisfactory, since some important elements, such as historical depth and Hermes' connection with
the gymnasium, are missing;69 moreover, the ethnological and classical parts of his arguments do not really harmoniously fit together.
Yet, what an exciting manner of proceeding! Here we have an
attempt at accounting for the fullness of the data, which is not limited to a few observations and one guiding idea, but provides an
adventurous analysis based on wide reading and an open mind. His
structuralist approach even predates Jean-Pierre Vernant's famous
and equally structuralist analysis of Hermes and Hestia by at least
three decades.70 De Josselin de Jong should have become widely
recognised as the precursor of Levi-Strauss' structuralism, but the
publication of his insights in Dutch doomed them to forgetfullness
right from the start.
V. CONCLUSION
It is time to come to a conclusion. It would certainly be unfair to
be only negative about Kristensen and I would like to single out
four positive aspects of the man and his oeuvre. First, in addition

69
For the various qualities of Hermes see now F. Graf, Nordionische Kulte (Rome,
1985) 68, 270-2.
70
J.-P. Vernant, Mythe et pensee chez les Grecs, 2 vols (Paris, 19712) I, 124-70.

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JAN N. BREMMER

to his attention to many minor divinities, his interest in the Near

East and his willingness to look at Greek and Roman religion in the
wider compass of the Eastern Mediterranean is still very modern.
This point of view has only recently received respectability through
the works of Walter Burkert and Martin West, even though their
main focus is on the influence of Mesopotamia rather than Egypt.71
Secondly, any reader of his work will be struck by the many illustrations and the attention to iconography. This is still not the rule in
the study of ancient religions, which often neglects the rich iconographic evidence we have. Thirdly, Kristensen's reverence for the
ancient evidence sometimes prevented him from an evolutionistic
and reductionist approach, which other, more rationalistic scholars
did not avoid. Fourthly and finally, during his life he was a respected
member of the Dutch scholarly community as his membership of
the Royal Dutch Academy may illustrate; his local fame was such
that even the later Queen Juliana followed his lectures during her
study in Leiden.72 He also was the teacher of many Dutch Egyptologists and historians of religion, in particular C.J. Bleeker (1898-1983),73
A. de Buck (1892-1959),74 G. van der Leeuw ( 2) and J. Zandee
(19141991). 75 In this respect his influence can hardly be overrated.
However, his overconfidence in his own interpretations and his
refusal to engage in a real dialogue with fellow scholars prevented
him from noticing the debatable side of his insights and approach.
Kristensen remains a problematic scholar.76

71
W. Burkert, The Orientalising Revolution (Cambridge, 1992); M.L. West, The East
Face of Helikon (Oxford, 1997).
72
A. van der Lem, Johan Huizinga. Leven en werk in beelden & documenten (Amsterdam,
1993) 241.
73
On Bleeker see Z. Werblowsky, Numen 30 (1983) 129-30; M. Heerma van
Voss, Phoenix 30 (1984) 3 and in M. Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion 2 (New York
and London, 1987) 246-47; J.H. Kamstra, Ned. Theol. Tijds. 38 (1984) 67-69;
J. Waardenburg, History of Religions 24 (1984) 155-56.
74
On De Buck see B.A. van Groningen, Jaarboek Kon. Ned. Ak. Wet. 1959-60
(1960) 366-72.
75
On Zandee see D. van der Plas, Ned. Theol. Tijds. 46 (1992) 51.
76
For information I would like to thank my colleagues L.P. van den Bosch,
R. van den Broek, J. van Dijk, M.S.H.G. Heerma van Voss and Y. Kuiper. Clifford
Anderson kindly corrected my English.

W. BREDE KRISTENSEN'S CONCEPT

"LIFE OUT OF DEATH"
JENS E. BRAARVIG

This paper aims to discuss some of the implications of one of W.

Brede Kristensen's main ideas or, rather, what can be seen as the
leitmotif of the whole of his work. This idea is contained in the title
of one of his books, Livet fra doden (1925), translated into Dutch in
1926 and recently translated into English as Life out of Death. Studies
in the Religions of Egypt and of Ancient Greece (1992). In this work, which
originated from his Olaus Petri lectures held in Uppsala in 1922, he
states, referring to Babylonian religion with Ishtar as an example,
that "there was no doubt that death was the source of life for both
god and the natural world" (1992: 2) and "that death is the source
of spontaneous life as well as the source of absolute and eternal life"
(1992: 3). This is true of gods, but not, as he assumes, men in the
Babylonian setting; for the Egyptians and the Greeks, however, resurrection also holds good for humans, the treatment of which, in a
comparative and phenomenological investigation, he makes the object
of this work. Thus, for Kristensen, "Osiris was in a universal sense
the god of death and as such the source of all life" (1992: 107), and
the gods of the underworld, above all "Demeter-Kore, Hades and
Dionysos" (1992: 115) are connected with life and death, as well as
with vegetation: "... the same concept concerning the nature of
death, as the vegetation myth. Death is enemy and friend. It is the
mystery of life." (1992: 138)
Kristensen treats a whole range of both Egyptian and Greek gods
in this perspective; Osiris is most important in the Egyptian setting,
while Hermes, Dionysos, and Demeter-Kore have this role in ancient
Greece. He also discusses other divinities in the same perspective. It
may truly be called a leitmotif in his work because the concepts of
human death and resurrection, as mirrored in vegetation and identified with divine personalities, are also treated throughout his Meaning of Religion (1960), e.g., when treating the pharmakos ceremony at
the Thargelia festival. Here "the absolute life of the plant god, his
death and resurrection, was actualized," and, as Kristensen interprets,

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JENS E. BRAARVIG

'"Death is caused by life'; where both death and life work together,
there we find absolute life, the spontaneous, self-sustaining, divine
life." (1960: 111) Also in his last work, Religionshistorisk studium (The
Study of Religion), published posthumously in 1954 and translated into
Dutch in 1955, these ideas are central. Again we read about the
"absolute" and "spontaneous life" found in death and resurrection
the mystery of life and death, death and resurrection, of absolute
life for man and god, and in nature, is not something borrowed by
one culture from another, as he assumes; it is a phenomenological
essence basic to the mystery of existence itself, as it is celebrated in
the religious mysteries everywhere, exemplified by Kristensen with
Egyptian and Greek material (1954: 16, my translation):
An example of evident correlation, which cannot be caused by borrowing the one way or the other, are the ritual mysteries which are
found in most of these religions [i.e., the "Western religions", including partly even Indian religion]. The fundamental idea is the same
everywhere, namely an absolute life, which is death and life together,
as it is revealed in resurrection from death; death is potential life, and
life finds its consummation, its telos, in death. Therefore, the absolute
life belongs to death. The mystery is the resurrection as it takes place
in the yearly renewal of the earthhappening by itselfand the daily
renewal of light, and as it is believed to happen in the victory of man
over death. This mystery of death and life is displayed as images in
ritual acts, and thus poetically transposed to the external reality.

Throughout his life, then, Kristensen favoured the idea of the dying
and resurgent god as the mystical expression of the eternal but periodic life of man and nature. As for the lack of borrowing, one should
be allowed to disagree, at least when it comes to the Mediterranean
area. The above quotation also contains much of Kristensen's methodological approach. He displayed his material in the phenomenological fashion, making the material speak for itselfthis being the
idealand does not really explicate or discuss the ideas on which
he bases his interpretation. His aim is to find the "essences" of religion, the religious universals in man. He does not, however, discuss
in detail the ontological status of these essences in a perspective of
philosophical reflection.
Though Kristensen is clearly inspired by the contemporary ideas
of the dying-arising god, he refers only in passing, and quite critically, to James Frazer and Wilhelm Mannhardt in Life out of Death
the authors credited with the ideas of the dying-arising vegetation
godthough he uses Frazer in particular as a source of religious

BREDE KRISTENSEN'S CONCEPT "LIFE OUT OF DEATH"

133

phenomena. Later, however, he calls Mannhardt's Wald- und Feldkulte

(1875-77) a work of lasting importance, but he politely remarks on
the Golden Bough that "it is not surprising that the religious significance
and value of the data [of the Golden Bough] are not always done justice" (Kristensen 1960: 110). In Kristensen's approach one also easily
detects the influence of Schelling's Philosophie der Mythologie and the
romantic vision of mythology as a poetic and direct expression of
the human psyche; at the end of his last book, he states that true
religion is its own expressionthe reality or essence of religion cannot be expressed even through symbols. Schelling's tautagoria speaks
through Kristensen (1954: 67, my translation):
We can play with symbols because symbolism is conscious imagery of
speech; between symbol and reality there is always distance. The expressions of religious faith, however, in myth or sacred act, are not imagery
of speech. There is no distance between the expression of faith and
its object.

Here the word symbol is accorded the meaning usually given to the
word allegory, as used by Herder, Goethe and their followers, but the
idea of religion and myth as poetical and direct, spontaneous expressions is still the same in Kristensen and German romantic thinking
(cf. Braarvig 1997). This view, and also the view that the modern
world, even classical Greece, is religiously degenerated because of
anti-religious rationality (1954: 167f.), is of course very much part
of the phenomenological approach, especially as continued by Rudolf
Otto, Mircea Eliade and others, though not so much in the Swedish
phenomenological school. This poetical dimension is also part of
Kristensen's own writings and somehow seems to have a certain preponderance over the analytic aspects of his phenomenological work.1
The idea of the dying-arising god has generally had great impact
on religious studies. Among influential followers of the idea is Mircea
Eliade (1965 et passim) who also included the dying-arising god among
his religious phenomena; one cannot avoid noticing that Eliade's style
of writing is quite similar to Kristensen's and to Adolf E. Jensen's Die
getotete Gottheit (1966). But criticism of Frazer and others favouring
the idea has also been in abundance: the grand category has been
severely criticized by, among others, Jonathan Smith, who (1987)2
criticizes the practice of subsuming the material on Adonis, Aliyan
1
2

On Kristensen's views on religious and profane poetry, cf. 1960: 219ff.

See further Jonathan Smith's updated bibliography on the discussion, ibid.

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JENS E. BRAARVIG

Baal, Attis, Marduk, Osiris and Tammuz/Dumuzi under this category, the characteristics of these gods scarcely suiting it. He contends that "(as) the above examples make plain, the category of dying
and rising deities is exceedingly dubious. It has been based largely
on Christian interest and tenuous evidence. As such, the category is
of more interest to the history of scholarship than to the history of
religion." (1987: 526) Smith says, meanwhile, that "(the) majority of
evidence for Near Eastern dying and rising deities occurs in Greek
and Latin texts of late antiquity, usually post-Christian in date."
(1987: 522) The contemporary view on the category as employed
on Greek material is also not positive: "Das groBzugige allgemeine
Bild vom 'orientalischen Vegetationsgott', wie es Frazer entworfen
hatte, dem Gott, der periodisch stirbt und wieder auferweckt wird,
ist von der neueren Wissenschaft Stuck fur Stuck wieder abgebaut
worden," according to Walter Burkert (1990: 64, cf. also Colpe 1969).3
Robert Ackerman contends (1987) that Frazer's real intention is to
show that Jesus Christaccepted by all, be they for or against the
category, as a dying-arising godis nothing but a dying-arising god
like all others of the type found around the Mediterranean and even
in other cultures, and thus nothing but an abstraction of the changes
of vegetation and agriculture throughout the seasons of the year.
The dying-arising god of Frazer, then, is part of his evolutionistic
scheme to show that religion is basically a misunderstanding (ibid.):
For although in his survey of dying-and-reviving gods of the eastern
Mediterranean Frazer never mentions the name of Jesus, only the slowest of his readers could have failed to make the comparison between
pagan rites that result from an imperfect (because irrational) understanding of the universe and contemporary Christianity. Frazer employed
the "objective," scientific comparative method as a weapon to finally
dispatch Christianity as an outworn relic of misunderstanding, credulity,
and superstition.

Frazer is influenced by Mannhardt, as quoted by him passim, but of

course the idea of the dying-arising god in an evolutionistic perspective is closely related also with Max Muller's views on mythology, viz. that the gods of mythology really are natural phenomena
which by "disease of language" have become abstracted from the
3

A Scandinavian contribution on the subject is a seminar in 1995, published in

Chaos, no. 25, 1996. The author (Braarvig 1996) had the pleasure of being the only
one to defend the category in the highly deconstructive setting.

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135

straightforward words denoting exactly these natural phenomena, and

then have been misunderstood as separate and individual divine entities. Thus, for example, the word for "sky" has become the name
of a god "Sky", somehow related with the sky, but still dissociated
from its natural substratum as an entity of its own. Even though
Frazer does not explicitly refer to Muller in this connection, the same
kind of thinking is behind Frazer's dying-arising god: nature in its
change throughout the seasons has been hypostatized as deities,
though changing nature is nothing but changing nature, even when
misunderstood as divine when named. But historians of religion, even
anthropologists, like to kill their fathers, as demonstrated by Frazer
himself in his quite ironic reference to the old-fashioned Muller, from
whom he denies any inspiration (191115, I: 33334):
This instability of judgement, this tendency of anthropological opinion
to swing to and fro from one extreme to another with every breath
of new discovery, is perhaps the principal reason why the whole study
is still viewed askance by men of sober and cautious temper, who naturally look with suspicion on idols that are set up and worshipped one
day only to be knocked down and trampled under foot the next. To
these cool observers Max Muller and the rosy Dawn in the nineteenth
century stand on the same dusty shelf with Jacob Bryant and Noah's
ark in the eighteenth, and they expect with a sarcastic smile the time
when fashionable anthropological topics of the present day will in turn
be consigned to the same peaceful limbo of forgotten absurdities. It is
not for the anthropologist himself to anticipate the verdict of posterity on his labours; still it is his humble hope that the facts which he
has patiently amassed will be found sufficiently numerous and solid to
bear the weight of some at least of the conclusions which he rests
upon them, so that these can never again be lightly tossed aside as
the fantastic dreams of a mere bookish student.

How true and how relevant for any time! Frazer may indeed have
been right in his eloquent though somewhat pompous critique of science in his own time, but soon after, notwithstanding his attempts
to escape the everchanging academic fashions, he would himself be
ridiculed much in the same way, being targeted by Ludwig Wittgenstein
not long after the Golden Bough appeared (1967: 238):4
Welche Enge des seelischen Lebens bei Frazer! Daher: Welche Unmoglichkeit, ein anderes Leben zu begreifen, als das englische seiner
Zeit! Frazer kann sich keinen Priester vorstellen, der nicht im Grunde
4

In 1930-1, see Wittgenstein 1967: 233.

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ein englischer Parson unserer Zeit ist, mit seiner ganzen Dummheit
und Flauheit.

Wittgenstein, however, is mainly concerned with Frazer's magic (cf.

Braarvig 1999), and in his criticism he reiterates that magic is somehow a quite natural thing, which is connected to personifications of
natural phenomena, our environment, and the things which naturally are our greatest interests (1967: 239):
In diesen einfachen Bildern wird naturlich die Personifikation eine
groBe Rolle spielen, denn, daB Menschen (also Geister) dem Menschen
gefahrlich werden konnen, ist jedem bekannt. DaB der Schatten des
Menschen, der wie ein Mensch ausschaut, oder sein Spiegelbild, daB
Regen, Gewitter, die Mondphasen, der Jahreszeitwechsel, die Ahnlichkeit und Verschiedenheit der Tiere unter einander und zum Menschen,
die Erscheinungen des Todes, der Geburt und des Geschlechtlebens,
kurz alles, was der Mensch jahraus jahrein um sich wahrnimmt, in
mannigfaltigster Weise mit einander verkniipft, in seinem Denken (seiner
Philosophie) und seinen Gebrauchen eine Rolle spielen wird, ist selbstverstandlich, oder ist eben das, was wir wirklich wissen und interessant ist.

Wittgenstein is enthusiastically criticizing Frazer, but he is still very

sympathetic to the idea that what makes up our near world of experienceas he saysis important for man's thinking and his philosophizing, which indeed is relevant for our present discussion. What
humans experience every day, year after year, as rain and thunder,
the moon phases and the changes of seasons, are really the most
interesting things, and, as such, are expressed in a quite natural way
in magic, and, presumably, in religion and mythology: "In unserer
Sprache ist eine ganze Mythologie niedergelegt" (1967: 242). Thus
he also seems to end up in some kind of implicit nature mythology,
at least when judged on the basis of his dictum above.
But neither nature mythology nor dying-arising gods are in favour
in mainstream religious studies today. There is not so much concern for seeing religious language as made up of metaphors taken
from natural phenomena, though this is, in an overwhelming number of cases from Mediterranean religion, quite easy to demonstrate,
either by means of etymology or by means of interpreting divine
names and personalities in context.5 Muller treated such nature
5
With G. Baudy's "Ackerbau und Initiation" (1998) and his treatment of Dionysos
Aisymnetes in Patrai, the tide seems possibly to change slowly: "So gut wie alles,

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137

metaphors rather as a "disease of language," as he provokingly styled

mythology (1898b: 292-93). "Much of what we now call mythology
was in truth a disease or affection (
) of language." (Muller
1899a: 1011) There is a process where the nomen becomes numen,
as his slogan goes: "But names have a tendency to become things,
nomina grew into numina, ideas into idols, and if this happened with
the name Dyu, no wonder that many things which were intended
for Him who is above the sky were mixed up with sayings related
to the sky." (Midler 1899b: 560-61; 1898a: 84; cf. also his work on
metaphors, 1899c.)
It is not difficult to agree with Muller, when studying his own
examples or others, that divinities originally connected with nature
phenomena become dissociated from these phenomena, and get, so
to speak, their own life as independent entities in mythological language and religious rites. It is also possible to demonstrate that, with
the beginnings of philosophy, many divinities end up as abstract,
metaphysical, and philosophical concepts. This change of paradigm,
which has often been styled the change from mythos to logosoften
in a vein of cultural imperialismcan be studied from a great wealth
of material, mostly from Greece, but also from India, from the middle centuries of the last millenium before Christ. Early philosophy
grows out of mythology as interpretation and criticism, and a metaphysical terminology is developed to replace the divine persona of
mythology, a metaphysical terminology in different degrees dissociated from "real" objects in the "real" world, objects and phenomena like wind, thunder, fire, earth, sky, man, woman, mountains and
vegetation, all discernable in our mythological material. Such abstract
or metaphysical concepts arose either by way of a divine gestalt or
directly, metaphorically, from an object identifiable in the outer world.
As an example of the last case we may mention all the words for
soul, spirit, etc., which are almost all generated directly from words
denoting wind and breath (cf. Onians 1954: 480ff. et passim): psyche,
animus, spiritus, napistum, nepes, ruah, prana, even atman, and many more.
These words were, or may originally have been, used as metaphors,
which more and more were dissociated from their natural substratum

was mit Landwirtschaft zu tun hat, ist seit Jeanmaire [and his book from 1939]
aus der altertumskundlichen Initiationstheorie verbannt" (144), but then, as he continues (145): "Demgegenuber erscheint es heute geboten, die religionssoziologische
Mythostheorie um die aus ihr verdrangten landwirtchaftlichen Aspekte zu erganzen."

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so as to be autonomous conceptspart of language games, to borrow a phrase from Wittgensteinwhich exist not in the capacity of
denoting "real" objects identifiable in the outer world, but denoting
a significatum established by these words and categories themselves.
Establishing the nature of such objects ontologically would of course
be the object of a long discussion, into which we have no time to
enter here, but we still might ask the following question: If mythology is, according to Muller, a disease of language, what, then, is our
rich stock of abstract, metaphysical and philosophical conceptsit
can be nothing but the death of language, a thought that might
have been acceptable also to Wittgenstein in his philosophical programme to end philosophy.
A more positive view on metaphors is taken by more recent theory of metaphors and cognitive science. George Lakoff, in his Women,
Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind (1987: xiv),
argues rather schematically and simplified dichotomously, it must be
admittedor maybe pedagogicallythat strong evidence supports
the following views of the new cognitive sciences, views opposed to
the traditional views on thought, abstract concepts, metaphors and
objective reality: "Thought is imaginative, in that those concepts which
are not directly grounded in experience employ metaphor, metonymy,
and mental imageryall which go beyond the literal mirroring, or
representation, of external reality. It is this imaginative capacity that
allows for "abstract" thought and takes the mind beyond what we
can see and feel. The imaginative capacity is also embodiedindirectlysince the metaphors, metonymies, and images are based on
experience, often bodily experience. Thought is also imaginative in
a less obvious way: every time we categorize something in a way
that does not mirror nature, we are using general human imaginative properties.Thought has gestalt properties and is thus not atomistic; concepts have an overall structure that goes beyond merely
putting together conceptual "building blocks" by general rules." Also
Lakoff's views on meaning and reason are connected with metaphors:
"The new view takes imaginative aspects of reasonmetaphor,
metonymy, and mental imageryas central to reason, rather than
as a peripheral and inconsequential adjunct to the literal." (1987: xi)
Based on Lakoffwe would like to argue that cognitive science and
metaphor theory can contribute to the understanding of myths and
religious language. The study of religious metaphors, how they develop,

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139

and to what extent the metaphors are dissociated from their original meaningbe they divinities, or even abstract or metaphysical
"transcendent" concepts, which are frequent in myths of complex
cultures and intellectually developed culturesmay reveal to what
extent they are connected with nature and agriculture, as well as
huntinga mythical substratum also generally accepted todayand
the ontological status of these concepts. For the dynamics of rationality in the religious context, Lakoff's perspective on reason is also
fruitful for its flexibility, even though Lakoff may seem a bit grandiose
in his formulation of his programme of cognitive science: "It is vital
that the mistaken views about the mind that have been with us for
two thousand years be corrected . . . such studies . . . have something
magnificent about them: evidence that the mind is more than a mere
mirror of nature or a processor of symbols . . ." (1987: xvivii)
It is a little surprising that the great influence of nature metaphors
on religion is not studied more todayespecially with the great interest in ecological problemsor indeed the question of whether
religious metaphors and abstract religious concepts are completely
dissociated from their substrate or still have some of the original submetaphoric meaning left. Such a study would not necessarily approach
religion in an evolutionistic and reductionistic Frazerian style; in fact,
metaphors are created in all periods of history, inspired by the types
of language which are en vogue. Today sporting metaphors, economic
metaphors and computer metaphors are filling up our vocabulary,
even New Age religious language. The Norwegian language is also
full of metaphors from shipping and sailing, important activities in
Norwegian history. But there are no metaphors, it seems, which are
more important than nature metaphors, weather metaphors, and
plant metaphors. So it is no surprise to find that peoples living in
simpler cultures, nearer nature, use nature metaphors to describe
their life and existence to a greater extent than one does in our
complex cultures, which are less dependent on the gifts of nature
and not as close to the dangers of nature. But such metaphors, as
Lakoff suggests, are not merely reducible to their substratum; their
imaginative use in wider contexts is an expression on its own, an
expression that goes "beyond the literal mirroring".
Mannhardt also talks of mirroring, but it appears not to be the
"literal mirroring" of concept and object. It seems rather to be the
metaphorical mirroring of nature in the human psyche, the poetical

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representation of human destiny by means of metaphors which reciprocally express the reality which is shared by nature and man, employing the Demeter myth as example (Mannhardt 1884: 351):
Derselbe psychische Vorgang, auf welchem so viele Stucke des Baumcultus beruhen, ist auch der erste Keim des Demeter-Mythus gewesen,
ich meine der Vergleich des Pflanzenlebens mit dem Menschenleben.
Nicht allein das Aufwachsen, Bluhen und Verwelken des Baumes ist
frulizeitig mit den Zustanden und Entwickelungsphasen der Thiere und
Menschen in Parallelismus gestellt; vielleicht noch deutlicher tritt in
der Sprache und Sitte der Volker eine gleichgeartete Ideenverknupfung zwischen Getreidepflanze und Mensch hervor. Von den beiden
Gliedern des Gleichnisses kann bald das eine bald das andere zur
Hauptsache gemacht, die Pflanze kann im Spiegel des Menschenlebens,
oder umgekehrt das Menschenleben im Spiegel der Pflanze betrachtet
werden.

But Mannhardt criticizes Muller for a reductionist position, and he

reproaches him for reducing myths only to a psychic reflection of
nature. Thus, in accordance with the romantic spirit of his time, he
seems to indicate that mythology, through its origin in poetry, or
through metaphors, if we are to keep with metaphor theory, expresses
something more than the mere mirroring of external reality. Mannhardt's programme, then, was not the evolutionistic and what seemed
to him the reductionist agenda of his predecessor Muller, nor that
of his successor Frazer, as is clear from his letter to Karl Mullenhoff
in 1876 (1884: xxv):
Ich bin weit entfernt, alle Mythen mit Kuhn, Schwartz und M. Muller
sammt ihrer Schule fur psychische Reflexe von Naturerscheinungen zu
halten, noch weniger ausschliesslich fur himmlische (solare oder meteorische); ich habe gelernt, die dichterische und litterarische Production
als wesentliche Factoren in der Ausbildung der Mythologie zu wurdigen und die aus diesem Sachverhalt folgenden Consequenzen zu ziehen
und in Anwendung zu bringen. Aber andrerseits halte ich fur gewiss,
dass ein Theil der alteren Mythen als Naturpoesie hervorging, die uns
nicht mehr unmittelbar verstandlich ist, sondern durch Analogien
erschlossen werden muss, . . .

In this we also probably find the reason why Mannhardt's work was
more palatable to Kristensen than that of Frazer, whose Golden Bough
does not seem to have been on the innermost dusty shelf of Kristensen's
library. But Frazer was still too reductionist for Kristensen's concept
of religion. It should also be noted that Mannhardt's view of Max
Muller is not entirely fair; Kristensen's view of Muller is in fact quite

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141

positive, at least to judge from the one place where, in Kristensen's

words, he is referred to as assuming "that an infinite, self-subsistent,
or divine reality is sensed as the essence of the perceptible phenomenon [of the sky]." (1960: 41). Mannhardt's approach is also related
to that of the Danish Hans Sofus Vodskov. In his Soul-worship and
Nature-worship: A Contribution to the Determination of the Mythological Method
(1897), he treats, e.g., the Vedic hymns as priestly poetry (which is
not, however, "pristine poetry") and understands it in the tension
between nature, metaphor and rituala trichotomy to which we will
return. Vodskov, however, is very critical of the work of M. Muller,
A. Kuhn and S. Bugge, against whom he polemicizes (Tybjerg 2000).
Lakoff does not refer or acknowledge any debt either to Muller
or Mannhardt, though it is quite possible to see him as their heir.
He is, however, more interested in literary metaphor than religious
ones. In his (and Mark Turner's) Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (1989),
though, the examples of the metaphor PEOPLE ARE PLANTS
abound. This is one of the basic metaphors for describing the cycle
of life and death; others are LIFETIME IS A DAY or LIFETIME
IS A YEAR. These metaphors belong together in the same complex, but they are, according to Lakoff's investigation, very frequent
in literary composition. He gives numerous examples from Western
literature, starting off from the Iliad (1989: 12ff., Il. vi, 145-49).6
Another metaphor, which is secondarily developed from the PEOPLE
ARE PLANTS metaphor, is the metaphor of DEATH IS A REAPER.
This metaphor is also an old metaphor and must have its origin in
Kronos with the sickle; the Titans are also connected to the death
of nature, as personified in Dionysos.
All these metaphors described by Lakoff as basic literary metaphors,
are also religious metaphors if we choose to interpret myths as
metaphors of vegetation and natural phenomena. Now, in literature,
impersonal metaphors are employed to describe persons, as in the
above mentioned examples, but it may also be the other way around
impersonal death is personified with the REAPER metaphor, this
being a secondary vegetation metaphor and a personification (cf.

"Why ask my birth, Diomedes? Very like leaves upon this earth are the generations of menold leaves, cast on the ground by wind, young leaves the greening forest bears when spring comes in. So mortals pass; one generation flowers even
as another dies away." (Tr. R. Fitzgerald)

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1989: 72ff.). This is what above all has happened with mythological metaphors.
Also interesting is Lakoff's reflection on really how few metaphors
are used in literature and how these are used in a very imaginative
way to produce the richness of literary creation and human language
(1989: 26):
What is remarkable in what we have seen so far is not how many
ways we have of conceiving of life and death, but how few. Where
one might expect hundreds of ways of making sense of our most fundamental mysteries, the number of basic metaphorical conceptions of
life and death turns out to be very small. Though these can be combined and elaborated in novel ways and expressed poetically in an
infinity of ways, that infinity is fashioned from the same small set of
basic metaphors.

The same could be said of mythology. Myths seem to be variations

on the basic and important objects of life as well as the items of
nature of the environment where the myths are created, and the life
and death cycle is basically understood through the vegetation
metaphors. This of course is also relevant for the study of religion
and ecologystill a fashionable topic. In the case of myths, personification7 of metaphors are of course particularly important; still it must
be said that the divine powers of many mythologies are in fact only
secondarily conceived as divine persons, and especially in their epithets the metaphorical substratum is apparent. What can be envisaged, following in the main Muller (1899b), is that mythology starts
with employing thunder, clouds, wind and rain metaphorically, following the experience of its importance for the life of both humans,
animals, agriculture and vegetation; then the complex "thunder,
clouds, wind and rain" is gradually personified as part of a ritual
and of narrative structures, producing divine names, such as Zeus,
Tor, Indra and all the other phenomenologically related divinities;
then, at least in the case of Zeus, he is made into the One Life of
the Universe, becoming a transcendent god. This development gradually gives birth to the purely metaphysical and abstract concepts to
replace the mythological figures as explanations of the universe.
Thus it is important to study mythology historically and contextually. A given mythical figure does not have one fixed meaning or

On the problem of personification as essential in religion, see Guthrie 1993.

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explanation when viewed as developing historically; its original meaning is not necessarily its most important meaning, but how a mythical metaphor is employed throughout the history of a given culture
carries a lot of information on that particular culture. Thus one may
argue that Zeus and many other mythological figures may have originated as metaphor from a nature substrate; developed as divine
through narrative personification, being then turned into a religious
symbol in a formalized theology; then even into an abstract concept,
to end up, at its best, as an allegory, or else in total oblivion. Several
of these phases, though, may overlap.
As mentioned, the metaphor PEOPLE ARE PLANTS is very frequent, and it can be followed far back in our history; even in the
Minoan iconographical material we may see man as one with plantlife, and one with the double axe. Several examples can be given
from archaic Greek material. Lakoff has referred to one in the Iliad.
The following is another example: "Shaker of Earth, as a nowise
sound of mind wouldest thou count me, if I should war with thee
for the sake of mortals, pitiful creatures, that like unto leaves are
now full of flaming life, eating the fruit of the field, and now again
pine away and perish. Nay with speed let us cease from strife, and
let them do battle themselves."8
An instructive example of how mythological metaphor develops
and changes is the case of Narcissus, also very instructive of the
metaphor PEOPLE ARE PLANTS. The name Narcissus is a preGreek plant name of the lily, probably the daffodil. The lily ornament is known from Minoan pottery and iconography. The plant
appears in connection with the mysteriesKore picked a narcissus
when she was carried away to the underworldand also with funerals, that is, with death, symbolic or real. Interestingly enough this is
also the flower that forms part of celebrating Easter, the Christian
mystery. The name has been connected with narke, meaning infatuation or sleep, and also designating the dangerous fish, the torpedo.
At some time the plant, which is really bowing its flower downwards,
was personified as the beautiful boy who rejects his lovers, male or
female (the female being Echo, at least in Ovid), but fades away
contemplating his own image mirrored in the water of a small pond.
8
Il. xxi, 462-67, tr. A.T. Murray. Cf. also Od. xiv, 213, this nature metaphor
is commented upon in Ar. Rh. iii,10,2. On plants' kinship with men cf. also Onians
1954: 113ff., 221, 271-2.

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Pausanias reports an old cult by a sacred spring in Boiotia, but says

his story cannot be true, giving a rationalistic historical interpretation treating the figure as an historical person. Then conies Ovid's
poetical and symbolic use, and then Plotin's and Poimandres' use of
the motive; they do not mention the name, but still employ the
image as an allegory of the pure soul mirroring itself in the material world. In this way the metaphor becomes an abstract structure,
approaching an abstract entity. In modern times the figure has been
painted again and again, used in innumerable poems, and is the
image of homosexuality or autosexuality in Freud, or that of the
esthetic mode in Kierkegaard, etc., etc. One can see how the plant
substrate is gradually lost, though even in the present use of the narcissus for the Easter celebration throughout Europe it is somehow
still kept, and how the image is used metaphorically and imaginatively to convey very different meanings in a huge number of contextsmeanings still suggested by the same image.9
My contention, then, is that reading myths as developing metaphors
again makes nature mythology, including the dying-arising typus, relevant for mythological and religious studies. Myths may be used as
narratives in many contexts, and their nature substrate may be lost,
but it is important to study them historically in this perspective to
understand man as creating metaphors that explain his place in the
universe, for man to develop a rich language to communicate, religiously and otherwise, with his fellow humans. I am thus in doubt
as to whether the dying-arising god, to use Frazer's own words, is
something to be "lightly tossed aside as the fantastic dreams of a
bookish student" to the "limbo of forgotten absurdities" or if it is
something that still is worthy of being part of the discussion of religious studies. It has not been in fashion since Eliade, but, indeed,
ritual theory has. And as for Muller and the rosy dawn, do they
deserve to be left on a dusty shelf? What about Mannhardt? And
Kristensen? With the strong interest in ecological problems, it is surprising that nature mythology and its theories are not taken into
account, but it is also surprising that it is somehow excluded by the
numerous adherents of ritual theory; hunting as the origin of mythologies and initiation rituals have been salonfahig for decades now, but
not agriculture. Why? The reductionist and evolutionist tinge of the

On the sources and development of the Narkissos theme, see Vinge 1967.

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jagd und initiation programmes, adhered to by among others the eminent researcher Walter Burkert, is also quite evident; is it a corollary of the Neo-Darwinist approaches popular today?10
In fact, the three moments of initiation rites according to ritual
theorythe phase before initiation, the liminal period, and the period
of integrationcorrespond very well to the three phases of life, death
and ressurrection, which are the three phases of the dying-arising
god, often a divinity easily interpreted as a vegetation god, a type
of divinities which are often connected to initiations.11 The rites, as
described by ritual theory, give us a glimpse into the societies where
they are performed, but the narrative side, viz. the myths used and
referred to in such rites, are also essential for understanding the
mentality of these individuals as part of such a given society. If both
the myths and the rites can be analyzed into three moments in this
way, what are these three moments? Now, Propp tried to analyze
narratives into 31 moments or "functions", and Burkert has tried to
reduce them into a smaller number; these "tale structures, as sequences
of motifemes, are founded on basic biological or cultural programs
of action" (Burkert 1979: 18). What can be said, however, echoing
Aristotle's threefold sequence of the narrative, mythos, (Po. 6-8,
1450a3ff., blff., cf. also Burkert 1979: 6 and n. 6) that of arche,
peripeteia and lusis, katastrophe (the beginning, the unexpected and dramatic change, and, at the end, the solution), is that most stories can
be analyzed into three momentsthat is, simply, beginning, middle
and end, this also being the case with myths of life, death and resurrection, as well as their ritual counterparts. As many decades of
study into rites and myths have shown, it is not at all easy to correlate myths and rites; they seem to develop by their own power in
different directions. But since both may be analyzed into three
moments, where can we find the structure that contributes with these
three moments to both of them? One possibility of correlating the

10
Cf. Burkert 1996: xi: "An attempt to tie historical and philological reasearch
to biological anthropology . . ."
11
Cf. also Versnel's "polypragmatic" approach (1990: 66) which takes into account
both the initiatory aspects as well as the myth and ritual complex: "What I have
to offer is thus nothing but a tentative, somewhat intuitive suggestion that enables
me to return to those complexes that up to now have been felt, more often than
not, to be mutually exclusive: the myth and ritual complex of the New Year
sacral kingdying and rising god, on the one hand, and that of initiation, on the
other, in order to view them from the perspective offered by Burkert." (1990: 63)

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three moments of myths and rites is with the structure of past, present and future, which we as humans all share, where the present
is the limen between the past and the future, the ever present betwixt
and between, to use an expression from the now universal parlance
of ritual theory. This is where we have to live and make our decisions, not to mention the ever recurrent trichotomic theme in religious faith, myth and ritual of life, death and the hope of an afterlife,
an essential theme of human existence that is a basic reservoir for
giving meaning to key symbols (cf. Braarvig 1997) and metaphors,
such as Lakoff's "women, fire and dangerous things" (1987). In myths
narrated, rites acted out, and also in life as lived by the individual,
each of these three moments seems to dichotomize and dichotomize
infinitely, not into limited numbers by some orderly principle or
structure.
Thus I do not think that there is a reason to lightly toss the dyingarising god away, be it studied as one of man's great mythical
metaphors to explain his existence or as part of ritual theory. It may
not suit a rigid set of characteristics, but the threefold
("descent into Hades") type appears in many contexts. Whether
one calls shamanism Orphic or Orphism shamanistic, the threefold
metamorphosis still seems basic. Jonathan Smith, in the conclusion
of the article referred to above, states (1987: 522):
All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of
dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes
of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities
return but have not died; in the second class, the gods die but do not
return. There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions
of a dying and rising deity.

One wonders whether this categorization can be relevant, since gods

are usually seen as immortal in most cultures, in opposition to men,
and the "death" of the god, or hero winning immortality, is usually
depicted as a visit to the underworld, the place of the dead, and is
not a death like that of humans. Dionysos is torn to pieces by the
Titans, but somehow does not really die, since his heart is kept alive;
still one must say that being torn to pieces comes close to dying.
Strangely enough, Smith does not treat Dionysos in his article, even
though Frazer treated the god over many pages in The Golden Bough12
12

Part V, "Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild", vol. i, 1-34 as "The Dying

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as "a god of trees, especially fruit trees" and as "a god of agriculture". For Kristensen, Dionysos is "responsible for the fertility of the
soil and for triumphing over outside enemies"; he is "repeatedly
identified with the god of death and resurrection" (1960: 5, 127) and
is the "cornucopia," but also the "essence of resurrection" (82-3),
and, in a somewhat theological mood, "they [Pluto, Dionysos, Triptolemus, Hera, Athene, Demeter and Themis] are symbols of water
and vegetation, which is to say, of the divine life of the earth, in
which God reveals Himself." (477) He also mentions Dionysos several times in Life out of Death, though quite fragmentarily as being
this type of god, but Kristensen is in fact concerned with almost the
whole array of Greek gods as being of this type. Frazer has also not
made much of an impression on more modern researchers into the
case of Dionysos. Martin West (1983) and Burkert, as mentioned
above, are examples of this, not surprisingly. Walter Otto (1965:
152-59: "Dionysos revealed in Vegetative Nature") and Karl Kerenyi
(1976) accept Dionysos as a god of grapes and ivy, and of wine, but
they do their best to explain away Dionysos being associated with
the fruits, as all Frazer's material amply demonstrates. Guthrie (1935)
is also not interested in the vegetation substratum. To Marcel Detienne
(1977, 1989), with his Franco-Dionysiac cuisine project, Dionysos
may be the god of the ripe fruits, but Detienne is not concerned
with the overall connection of Dionysos with vegetation; his emphasis is still most of all on the omophagist part of the myth. Neither
in the recent Masks of Dionysos (Carpenter, Faraone 1993) does the
divinity get much attention as dying-arising god of nature; his role
as an Orphic saviour god, however, is much stressed. Robert Eisler
(1921: 280ff., 1925: 226 and passim, 1951: 40, 128)13 has given an interpretation of the narrative in a nature mythology perspective, while
Jane Harrison (1908: 518) is not at all adverse to Dionysos being
the anthropomorphosis of a nature substrate, even though her main
project was the rituals: ". . . we have seen the liknon [harvest basket
and winnowing fan, cf. ibid.: 401-2, 517ff. on its cultic use] in use
as a cradle for the infant god. It will further be noted that Dionysos

and Reviving God of Vegetation in Ancient Greece", and in vol. ii under the heading "Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals", 1-47. In both volumes Demeter
is treated just after.
13

Cf. also his Weltmantel und Himmelzelt. Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur

Urgeschichte des antiken Weltbildes, Munchen, 1910.

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JENS E. BRAARVIG

Liknites is, like the infant Ploutos in the cornucopia, only an anthropomorphic presentation of the new-born fruits of the earth, of the
fruits whether of spring or autumn; he is a male form of Kore the
earth-daughter. The ceremony of 'waking' him was primarily but a
mimetic summons to the earth to bring forth the fruits in due season." M.P. Nilsson also takes Dionysos seriously as both Vegetationsgott
(1955: 582-85) and Weingott (1955: 585-90), and as a dying-arising
god (1955: 320-21, 581).
The question of Dionysos is particularly important when it concerns the dying-arising god and its relation to the Christ and to
Christian ideas since this god is part of active religious life, both
before and after the advent of Christianity, and in the same culture.
The two divinities were compared even in the writings of the early
Christian Fathers, who used Dionysos as an example to introduce
the Christ in their apologetic endeavours. Our main question, then,
would be whether Dionysos, as a dying-arising god, is a creation of
late antiquity and modern commentators who have the Christ as the
archetype, or whether the divinity of the dying-arising type is also
found before Christ. We would have the following alternatives, of
which one or more may be true: a) Christian views influenced modern reseachers like Frazer; b) Christian views influenced the Neoplatonic descriptions of Dionysos; c) the Dionysiac theologies influenced
Christian theologies and the view of Christ; or d) Dionysiac and
Christian religions were both the outcome of earlier images of the
dying-arising god as an integral part of Mediterranean culture.
The Orphic narrative of Dionysos, as integrated into the Orphic
poem, is built into the archaic Greek view on the creation, as depicted
by Hesiod, though not Eros, but Khronos (time) and Ananke (necessity) are the beginnings of creation. They give birth to Aither, Khaos
and Erebos. Phanes, or Protogonos, and Eros are born from an egg
created by Time in Aither. Then Ouranos and Gaia, heaven and
earth, are born from Phanes and Nux, the night. Kronos, the son
of Ouranos and Gaia, then fathers Zeus with Rhea. Zeus swallows
the Phanes, forms the original creation, and becomes the king of the
universe, just as depicted in Hesiod's Theogony. Thus the main
frames of the cosmos are created and the contents of the world can
be created; this happens largely due to the amorous adventures of
Zeushe begets Kore with his sister Demeter, and when she grows
up he impregnates the daughter, this time in the form of a snake,
with Dionysos. Kore, however, is still to be married to Apollon, but,

BREDE KRISTENSEN'S CONCEPT "LIFE OUT OF DEATH"

149

while weaving a dress ornamented with flowers, she is taken to the

underworld by Hades. Her weaving is left unfinished, and Kore
becomes the Lady of the Underworld. The child Dionysos is lain
in a basket for winnowing grain and brought to the Ida mountain.
Zeus puts him on a throne, five years old, and grants him kingship
by placing a sceptre in his hands. But the Titans, instigated by the
jealous Hera, put gypsum on their faces and entice the child with
toysa mirror made by Hephaistos, a cone, a sort of instrument,
knucklebones, a ball, puppets, apples, raw wool and the narthex
all evidently cultic symbola. They tear him into seven pieces which
they cook, roast, and then eat. Athene, however, saves the heart,
still beating, and brings it to the father Zeus who destroys the Titans
with his thunderbolt. The bones of Dionysos are brought to Parnassos
and buried by Apollon. But Dionysos is reborn from the living heart.
This event has several versions. One is that Demeter collects the
broken limbs of Dionysos and gives him new life; another is that
Semele is given the crushed heart to eat and thus becomes the
mother of the reborn Dionysos; still another is that Zeus swallows
the heart and impregnates Semele, but she cannot bear the sight of
the thunder god and is burned to death, so that Dionysos has to
grow in the thigh of Zeus. Anthropogony and the fate of man is
also closely related with this mythical event and the violent Titanic
deed because Zeus created a new race of men from the soot after
the Titans had been burned. Thus man has a twofold naturea
mixture of violent Titanic and divine Dionysiac nature. The reborn
Dionysos can thus free the divine element from the Titanic and
redeem humans from the Titanic original sin, so to say. Dionysos is
appointed by Zeus along with Persephone to help man perform rites
and sacrifices for his redemption. Thus the reborn Dionysos is called
luseusredeemer or saviour.
Our evidence,14 crucial parts of which can be dated B.C., indicates that Dionysos is the personification and the metaphorical expression of the fruits, the wine, and as part of the development of
vegetation throughout the year, and that the myths on the divinity,
among them the Orphic drama of the creation of the world, can

14
A detailed treatment of this evidence will appear in a forthcoming volume,
viz., Myths, Metaphors and Metaphysics: Orphic Metamorphoses of Dionysos. Thus our treatment of Dionysos in this paper mostly appears as a set of conclusions, rather than
a proper discussion.

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JENS E. BRAARVIG

be understood in terms of agriculture. Already in antiquity, before

the Christian era and probably far back in prehistory, the figure of
Dionysos and his transformations were modelled on the changes of
vegetation. These metaphorically generated narratives and myths
describe the fate of man in the universe, as dying, but with the hope
of resurrection, in the same way as the god Dionysos, who would
always be reborn from nature in the fruits, the seed being kept after
the god was crushed as the personification of the grapes pressed for
the purpose of wine production. The Titans, who tore the Dionysos
child to pieces represent, also according to pre-Christian sources, the
harvest and the processing of the fruits and the other agricultural
products, but they also represent the divine tragedy, where the god
is killed and man is createda tragedy which was probably enacted
as part of a mystical initiation rite, by which the slain god, being
also the god again arising to life, would become the saviour of man.
As acknowledged by the voluminous research on Orphism, the sparagmos, or Titanic tearing to pieces of the Dionysos child, is central in
the mysteries of death and resurrection of the god. The sparagmos
theme, even though probably the most secret part of the Orphic
rites, is documented as early as Callimachus and Euphorion of the
early 3rd century B.C., as is the resurrection of the god.
Thus the mythological figure of Dionysos, as it appears, develops
out of nature substrata by a metaphorical process; this personification
of nature develops as a divinity close to humans; and the divinity,
as the image of life, death and rebirth appears as the liberator of
man, and is then ultimately employed metaphorically to describe the
human soul and its fate in a metaphysical universe, unfolding itself
in the philosophy of especially the Platonic tradition. Through personification of agriculture as the life-giving force, "saving" humans
from death and giving them nourishment and joy, Dionysos appears
as the dying and reviving god, metaphorically derived from the seasonal changes and expressed in narrative and ritual as a nature
metaphor and part of a system of similarly generated metaphors
through which man understands himself and his existence. Thus
Dionysos appears as a metaphor for the health and well-being of
the collective community, as personified by the king, but also gradually for the individual. With history the metaphors change into
more specific and technical concepts, as in the Orphic theologies
which describe human existence through an ideology which belongs
to certain secret cultic groups.

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151

Even though all the elements of the narrative cannot be explained

fully as metaphors of the metamorphoses of natureindeed some
elements are clearly culticit is quite possible to outline their connection with nature as the main substratum of the myth. Thus
DIONYSOS and WINE (~VINE-GRAPES) often appear as interchangeable metaphors. There is reason to believe, however, though
it is difficult to show because of the absence of prehistoric evidence,
that the personification of the god Dionysos was generated metaphorically out of a nature substrate. Then DIONYSOS/WINE is metaphorically employed to express the spiritual part of man, the nous of man,
which is seen as undergoing the same changes as nature and its
divine personification, viz., Dionysos, which has been generated
metaphorically from the seasonal metamorphoses of nature and agriculture. Indeed man mirrored himself in the metamorphoses of nature
and borrowed concepts from nature to describe his existence with
multiple nature metaphors: PEOPLE ARE PLANTS. Dionysos, in
the Orphic context, was at the centre of this metaphorical structure
as the god of life and deathof the transformation of human existence as well as of natureand as the dying and reviving god. Thus,
with Lakoff, metaphors, and in this case the figure of Dionysos, are
not merely reducible to their (nature-)substratum; their imaginative
use as myths, rituals and religious doctrines in wider contexts are
expressions on their own "which go beyond the literal mirroring"
(cf. above) of the items and transformations of nature.
Thus the dying and arising saviour god seems to be there before
Christ, and may even have influenced Christian theology, notwithstanding Jonathan Smith's arguments to the opposite. Frazer built
on Nonnus, Firmicus Maternus, Clemens, and Origenesall late on
the subject, but dicta in Plutarch (46-120 A.D.), Diodoros Siculus
(60-30 B.C.), and even earlier evidence suggest the pre-Christian
conception of the type. Even though it can scarcely be documented,
one cannot help wondering whether the breaking of the bread of
the Eucharist is related to the mythical and probably ritual motive
of tearing an animal to pieces and eating it as symbolic of the god,
and whether the wine, more than anything the symbol of Dionysos,
surely also in a cultic context, is an ancestor of the Christian ritual.
Thus all four alternatives mentioned above are probably true. But
c) and d) are most relevant for understanding both Orphism and
Christianity, though a) is important for understanding modern research
on the topic; b) is not amply documented, but cannot be ruled out:

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JENS E. BRAARVIG

the Neoplatonics were indeed part of a discussion with the Christians,

but they were, needless to say, much more influenced by the Platonic
and Orphic traditions than the Christian.
How universally relevant the category of the dying-arising god is,
and how essential the phenomenon is a long discussion. It is very
probable, however, that Dionysos, also in his pre-Christian form, is
one of the type, and that a theology of resurrection, namely Orphic,
existed before the Christ. Equally probable is that man always mirrored himself in nature and borrowed its names and words as
metaphors to describe his own changing existencean existence that
was depicted as presided over by divinities, who were generated as
metaphors from the same substrate of nature. In this paper I have
attempted to argue that one of the main ideas, or maybe the main
idea, of W.B. Kristensen, that of life out of death, still deserves to
be part of the academic discourse called religious studies. I have
been inspired by his work to discuss the idea in the light of more
recent theory, especially metaphor theory, and to argue against opponents of the idea. Thus I have no doubt that this is an important
idea academically, but also a perspective for reflecting on life generally, which also appears to me to be Kristensen's perspective.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ackerman, R. (1987): "Frazer, James G.", in: ER 5: 416-18.
Baudy, G. (1998): "Ackerbau und Initiation. Der Kult der Artemis Triklaria und
des Dionysos Aisymnetes in Patrai", in: Burkert 1998: 14367.
Betz, H.D. (1998): "Der Erde Kind bin ich und des gestirnten Himmels", in: Burkert
1998: 399-419.
Braarvig, J. (1996): "Dionysos som doende og gjenoppstaende guddom", Chaos, no.
25, Copenhagen: 18-34.
(1997): "The Function of Religious Rites in Creating and Sustaining the
'Meaning' of Symbols", in: In Search of Symbols. An Explorative Study, ed. J. Braarvig
& Th. Krogh, Occasional Papers No. 1, Department of Cultural Studies, University
of Oslo, Oslo: 44-67.
(1999): "Magic: Reconsidering the Grand Dichotomy", in: The International
Samson Eitrem Seminar on Ancient Mane. Athens 1997. Proceedings, ed. D. Jordan,
H. Montgomery, E. Thomassen. Bergen.
Burkert, W. (1972): Homo Necans, Berlin.
(1979): Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley and Los
Angeles.
(1990): Antike Mysterien, Munchen. (The German edition is updated with recent
finds. English edition: Ancient Mystery Cults, London 1987).
(1996): Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Cambridge, Mass.

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(1998): Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Geburtstags-Symposium fur Walter Burkert,

ed. F. Graf, Stuttgart & Leipzig.
Carpenter, T.H. and Faraone, C.A., ed. (1993): Masks of Dionysos, (Ithaca & London).
Colpe, C. (1969): "Zur mythologischen Struktur der Adonis, Attis- and Osirisuberlieferungen", in: Festschrift W. von Soden, Neukirchen-Vluyn.
Detienne, M. (1977): Dionysos mis a mort, Paris.
(1989): Dionysos at large, London = Dionysos a del ouvert, Paris, 1986.
Eisler, R. (1921): Orpheus the Fisher. Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Cult
Symbolism, London.
(1925): Orfisch-Dionysische Mysteriengedanken in der christlichen Antike, Berlin.
(1951): Man into Wolf, London.
Eliade, M. (1965): Rites and Symbols of Initiation. The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth,
London; 1New York, 1958.
ER = Eliade, M., ed. Encyclopedia of Religion, London 1987.
Frazer, James G. (1911-15), (1936): The Golden Bough, 13 vols., London.
Guthrie, S.E. (1993): Faces in the Clouds. A New Theory of Religion, Oxford.
Guthrie, W.K.C. (19522, revised ed. of 19351): Orpheus and Greek Religion, London.
Harrison, J. (19082): Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge.
Jensen, Adolf E. (1966): Die getotete Gottheit Stuttgart.
Kerenyi, C. (1976): Dionysos. Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, London.
Kristensen, W. Brede (1925), Livet fra doden. Studier av aegyptisk og gammel graesk religion,
Oslo.
(1926): Het leven uit de dood. Studien over Egyptische en oud-Grieksche godsdienst,

Haarlem.
(1954):
(1955):
(1960):
(1992):
Lovain.

Religionshistorisk studium, Oslo.

Inleiding tot de godsdienstgeschiedenis, Arnhem.
The Meaning of Religion, The Hague, 19682.
Life out of Death. Studies in the Religions of Egypt and of Ancient Greece,

Lakoff, G. (1987): Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the
Mind, Chicago & London.
Lakoff, G. and Turner, M. (1989): More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic
Metaphor, Chicago & London.
Mannhardt, Wilhelm (1875-77): Wald- und Feldkulte, vol. i: "Der Baumkultus der
Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstamme" (1875); vol. ii: "Antike Wald- und Feldkulte"
(1877); Berlin.
(1884): Mythologische Forschungen aus dem Nachlasse von Wilhelm Mannhardt, ed.
Hermann Patzig in Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Culturgeschichte der germanischen Volker, Strassburg, vol. vi.
Muller, M. (1898a): "Comparative Mythology," Collected Works, vol. viii: 1-154,
London.
(1898b): "Solar Myths," ibid., vol. viii: 287-327.
(1899a): "The Science of Language a Physical Science," ibid., vol. xi: 1-27.
(1899b): "Jupiter," ibid., vol. xii: 524-76.
(1899c): "Metaphor," ibid., vol. xii: 430-86.
Nilsson, M. P. (i:19552, ii:1950): Geschichte der griechischen Religion, Munchen.
Onians, Richard Broxton (1954): The Origins of European Thought. 2Cambridge.
Otto, W. (1965): Dionysus. Myth and Cult, London.

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Smith, J. (1987): "Dying and Rising Gods", ER 4: 521-26.

Turner, M.: vide Lakoff (1989).
Tybjerg, T. (2000): "The Introduction of History of Religions as an Academic
Discipline in Denmark", in this volume: 237-251.
Versnel, H.S. (1990): "What's Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander: Myth
and Ritual, Old and New" in Approaches to Greek Myth, ed. L. Edmunds, Baltimore:
25-90.
Vinge, L. (1967): The Narcissus Theme in Western European Literature up to the Early 19th
century, Lund.
Vodskov, H.S. (1897): Soul-worship and Nature-worship: A Contribution to the Determination
of the Mythological Method, Copenhagen.
West, Martin L. (1983): The Orphic Poems, Oxford.
Wittgenstein, L. (1967): "Bemerkungen uber Frazers The Golden Bough", Synthese, 17:
233-253.

PART THREE

PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION: PROGRAMME

AND PROBLEM

This page intentionally left blank

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT:

DISTINCTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF W.B. KRISTENSEN'S
PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION
JOHN B. CARMAN

Let me begin by expressing my thanks for being invited to participate in a significant academic event celebrating a century of scholarship and remembering with respect and affection Professor Brede
Kristensen.
I did not have the privilege of sitting in Kristensen's classroom to
hear and see him lecture. Nor am I a student of those religions to
whose study Kristensen devoted his life. My only glimpse of him
was at the fall convocation of the Theological Faculty of the University
of Leiden in early September, 1953. "That is the great Kristensen,"
the student next to me whispered in my ear. I turned and saw a
tall, frail figure sitting down on one of the raised benches at the side
of the room. It was only a fortnight later that we were mourning
Kristensen's death.
That glimpse of the master-teacher was important for me because
I had been hearing about "the great Kristensen" ever since I arrived
in Leiden the previous September, and the first book I was assigned
to read and discuss with my adviser, Professor K.A.H. Hidding, was
Kristensen's Verzamelde bijdragen.1 At first I could read those essays
only very slowly, with dictionary in hand. (I may be the only American
who ever learned Dutch by reading the essays of a Norwegian scholar
about Ancient Greek and Egyptian religions!)
Strangely it was Kristensen's death that occasioned my first meeting with Mevrouw Kristensen, which then precipitated the discussions
with Professor Kraemer that led to my being asked to translate Kristensen's class lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion, which finally
appeared under the exceedingly vague title of The Meaning of Religion.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the best known work of Kristensen's
1
Kristensen, W.B. 1947: Verzamelde bijdragen tot kennis der antieke godsdiensten [Collected
Contributions to Knowledge of the Ancient Religions]. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche
Uitgevers Maatschappij.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

available in an international language of scholarship should focus on

his general lectures on phenomenological topics rather than on more
specific subjects, like the Egyptian boat or the Delphic tripod, or
lengthier treatments of particular religions.2 The balance between
topics and traditions in his lectures here in Oslo after the Second
World War (Religionshistorisk studium)3 are more characteristic of his
work as a whole. He thought of his discipline as the "History of
Religions" within which phenomenology of religion was simply the
systematic arrangement of common topics. His conception of historical study, however, was sufficiently comparative that it is not too
important whether we refer to his work as "historical" or "phenomenological", provided we focus on his particular scholarly style. There
has, after all, been much other work in the history of religions that
looks more systematic than historical.
We might say that Kristensen's aim was to convey Ancient insight
to modern European scholars andin his class lecturesespecially
to liberal Protestant theological students in Holland. The word "convey" may suggest too much, however. Perhaps his words only hint
at an understanding that even his own scholarship, with knowledge
of the original languages, can do no more than approximate. He
never tired of saying that the only religious reality is the faith of the
believer. This faith is not in the first place a general human quality but a specific grasp and articulation of a Divine mystery, one
that modern interpreters can at best understand approximately but
cannot share, because for modern students the gods in whom the
Ancients believed are not "powers in life".
This is clearly what Professor Kristensen said and wrote, but those
who saw and heard him sometimes experienced communication of
insight in a less modest sense. Like a skilled actoror an Ancient
magicianhe could conjure up the serpent of wisdom from diagrams and words, without even Aaron's staff. Even to use this
metaphor is to depart from modern categories of rational thought
in a way that may make us very uncomfortable. If so, we can restrict
ourselves to what Kristensen wrote, but we are left with the para-

2
Recently there has appeared a translation of Kristensen's Het leven uit de dood
into English. See Kristensen, W. Brede 1992: Life Out of Death: Studies in the Religions
of Egypt and of Ancient Greece. Louvain: Peeters Press and Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans.
3
Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: Religionshistorisk studium [Studies in the History of Religion].
Oslo: Olaf Norlis Forlag.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

159

dox of spiritual communication among human beings, even if we

live too far away to share in it. In any case, Kristensen's frequent
polemic is directed not so much against those who admit their noncomprehension of alien religions as against those who claim to understand them but in fact misunderstand them by applying rationalist
categories foreign to those religions.
It is this critique that is especially characteristic of Kristensen's
treatment of Greek religion, since the modern Western understanding of classical Greece is largely derived from what Kristensen calls
the "enlightened circles", whom he claims misunderstood their own
religious past precisely because they did not recognize how radically
their rationalistic and aesthetic approach to reality differed from Ancient wisdom. Since this Greek "Enlightenment" goes back to the
Homeric epics and stretches forward through the classical philosophers and geographers, he took on formidable opponents in his interpretation of ancient Greek religion, which he insists is clearly evident
in the most archaic and primitive expressions of Greek culture.
The university lecture (Dies-college) that Kristensen gave during his
first year as a professor at Leiden (9 February, 1902) is entitled
"Primitive Wisdom", a title he intended as a challenge. "We all know
what wisdom is ... but we are anything but primitive. How can we
talk about primitive wisdom?"4 He then goes on to say that he is
"not going to talk about the wisdom that is now generally claimed
to be found in the myth and magic of so-called primitive peoples."5
He is doubtful whether anyone has yet succeeded in understanding
the religious thought world of primitive people, adding "I have not
succeeded, I regret to say."6 Then he comments:7
There are also cases, however, that we at first consider examples of
the same type of incomprehensible primitive thinking and action, but
where a closer examination shows that we are mistaken: the beliefs
and practices of peoples that are closer to us [culturally] and that we
do have the means to investigate more thoroughly. Such cases occur
among the Ancient peoples whom we know through historical documents in which they speak more or less extensively about their faith.

4
Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: "Primitieve Wijsheid", in Symbool en werkelijkheid: Een
bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the History
of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus, p. 333.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid., p. 334.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

"Here we sometimes must acknowledge, to our shame," Kristensen

continues, "that those peoples have understood features of reality [de
verschijnselen] more accurately and profoundly than we have. In those
cases we may certainly speak of primitive wisdom, wisdom in a primitive guise."8
Thirty-eight years later, soon after his retirement, Kristensen wrote
an article entitled "Ancient Science or Learning" (Antieke Wetenschap]
in which he deals specifically with the theoretical reflections of Ancient
people that contrast with classical (i.e., rationalist) Greek thinking.9
Among the Egyptians there was the magic act that was "the science
of the mystery of life", the act of healing that was also knowledge
of resurrection from death, for "healing is resurrection". The same
"science" was practiced by historians and those that interpreted the
oracles. These ancient scholars sought "insight into the all-encompassing order of life". Because their goal was completely different,
their "science" cannot be compared with ours. They don't measure
up to our modern standards, but our science would also fare poorly
by their standard concerned with the wisdom of life.10
Kristensen's comparative categories in his phenomenology of religion depend on the similarities among the Ancient religions of the
Mediterranean world. Occasional references to other parts of the
world suggest that it is possible to include other religions in a wider
concept, but Kristensen does not want to claim that he understands
religions whose languages he cannot read, nor those whose basic
approach to life seems different from those of his central focus. In
this category he places the post-Vedic religions of India, specifically
Buddhism and Upanishadic mysticism. The Biblical materials that
he includes in comparisons relate for him to pre-prophetic Israelite
religion. About later Judaism and Islam he says nothing. Some features of Christianity seem comparable with the Ancient religions, but
modern Protestant Christianityor at least modern theologyseems
to be regarded, not as part of the religious material to be comprehended, but as part of the obstacle created by rationalist thought to
8
9

Ibid.

Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: "Antieke wetenschap", in Symbool en werkelykheid:

Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the History of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 319-332.
10
Ibid., p. 332.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

161

our proper understanding of Ancient religion andwe may infer

to religious wisdom itself.
The religions of primitive peoples constitute a special category.
Here the difference with the Ancient Mediterranean religions, as we
have seen above, is not necessarily substantive but certainly epistemic. We are unable to understand them. At times, as in the lecture from 1902, the problem seems to be a massive cultural gap that
makes it impossible to sense the spiritual affinity necessary for understanding, but in later publications it is the lack of written documents
that looms larger. Kristensen does not trust information gathered in
response to outsiders' questions, especially outsiders from modern
Europe.
I note these large omissions from Kristensen's religious map because
I am interested in the way his students were interested in religions
other than those on which he focused. Not surprisingly in a Dutch
university in the early twentieth century, much of that interest was
in the religions of Indonesia. This would not seem very fertile ground
for applying Kristensen's approach, since he has so little to say about
Islam, Hindu or Buddhist mysticism, or "primitive religion". Perhaps
surprisingly, some later scholars concerned with religions of Indonesia
had a high regard for Kristensen and his interpretation of Ancient
religion. The surprise may be the greatest with respect to his immediate successor in the general history and phenomenology of religion, Hendrik Kraemer. Both Kraemer's utilization of history of
religion for Christian apologetics and Kraemer's characterization of
non-monotheistic religion as religion of self-realization seem diametrically opposed to Kristensen's approach. Nevertheless the two men
were friends and Kraemer says that Kristensen recommended him
to become his successor. (There is undoubtedly more to this story
than I have learned.) What interests me here is that Kraemer felt
that Kristensen's treatment of Ancient religion illuminated both the
non-Islamic tribal religions of Indonesia and the Indonesian form of
Islamic mysticism. I should add here that Kraemer's successor, K.A.H.
Hidding, who differed with Kraemer in many respects, also approached
the general history of religion on the basis of many years in Indonesia,
and Hidding had an equally high regard for Kristensen as an interpreter of archaic and primitive religions. Perhaps this is the best
example of Kristensen's "ancient magic" as a teacher, but I can
report that some of my students at Harvard particularly interested
in East Asian religion have also been struck with the aptness of

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JOHN B. CARMAN

Kristensen's treatment of general religious categories. I can say the

same for myself as a student of Indian religions, especially with
respect to the Hindu belief in the divine presence in the consecrated
material image of a deity. What may be applicable to much more
of the world than the ancient Mediterranean is Kristensen's depiction of the religious sense of nature, along with his warning against
rationalistic misunderstandings of that approach to life.
"The Religious Sense of Nature" was, in fact, my suggestion of
what would be the most appropriate title for his lectures on the
Phenomenology of Religion. Even more basic to his interpretation,
however, is the theme of his first book, growing out of his dissertation: Life out of Death. The general doctrine that physical death can
be the gateway to eternal life is worth little, according to Kristensen,
as an abstract generalization. It becomes saving knowledge to the
extent that it is realized in the particular divine powers and in the
sacramental initiation into death provided in some particular religious cult. Here, at the heart of Kristensen's effort at approximate
understanding of the religious life of others is something that suggests or even depends upon his experience as a Christian. What has
this view of Kristensen meant to his successors?
This may, I very hesitantly suggest, have meant the most to the
student who did not acknowledge him as a formative influence
Gerardus van der Leeuwand of whose work Kristensen seems to
have not had a high opinion. Since I think I have learned from and
indeed been inspired by both scholars, this "negative silence" between
the two scholars is something I have always regretted. Does it conceal an affinity that neither one found it possible to acknowledge
because along with that similar understanding of the mystery of death
and resurrection were not only differences in personality but also
different conceptions of the task of the student of religion?11
Many of Kristensen's students in the Netherlands wanted to use
the insight into the nature of religion (whether of a particular religious phenomenon or of religion in general) derived from historical
and phenomenological study for a theological or philosophical interpretation of religion. Kristensen touches on this quest at various
points in the lectures translated in The Meaning of Religion and he
deals with it specifically in two essays included in Symbool en Werkelykheid'.

11

See Willem Hofstee's article in this volume.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

163

"Concerning Evaluation of Historical Data",12 and "The Absoluteness

of Christianity".13
Kristensen begins the first article by saying that he is approaching the subject, not philosophically, but by way of the experience
gained during historical study. He recognizes that "the historian often
evaluates phenomena and ranks them into higher and lower classes
according to norms of which he is not aware". Indeed, "the need
for historical orientation as a rule expresses itself so strongly that the
evaluation and ranking occurs almost instinctively, largely determined
by a priori assumptions".14 The important question is: "what is the
relation of evaluation to actual historical research?"15
"The first thing to be noted is that evaluation is always based on
comparison. Second, historical data can be compared without evaluation."16 This is most obvious when, for example, Greek ideas have
been influenced by Egyptian ideas, or vice versa, but it is also the
case when it is not clear whether there has been an influence or
even when it is certain that there is no historical connection. In cases
of striking similarities, Kristensen continues, the case about which
we are better informed or grasp the meaning better can help to clarify the less well known phenomena. "Many such phenomena make
evident the unity of the human mind."17
While no objection can be made to such comparison, the same
is not true of another method that compares the data with a particular ideal in order to express their value and significance. Such
evaluative comparison is extremely popular, but it raises peculiar
difficulties. Kristensen gives an example. Justin Martyr's view about
the pagan gods, whose similarities to true divine revelation are ascribed
to the work of fallen angels, who tried to make false pagan doctrines look as much as possible like the truth, in order to confuse

12
Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: "Over waardering van historische gegevens", in
Symbool en werkelijkheid: Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection
of Studies in the History of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 66-84. Originally
published in Onze Eeuw, 1915.
13
Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: "De absoluutheid van het Christendom", in Symbool
en werkelijkheid: Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of
Studies in the History of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 8595. Originally
published in Eltheto, 1928.
14
"Over waardering van historische gegevens", p. 66.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid, p. 67.
17
Ibid.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

people. Thus Dionysus is presented as the son of Zeus who was put
to death in a frightful way and thereafter rose to heaven.18 Justin's
kind of evaluative comparison, Kristensen says, "cannot possibly contribute to penetrating more deeply into the data and understanding
them better." "Greek religion is right from the start put in a false
light. This is not because of the comparison with Christianity, which
itself is not such a bad method, but because of the Christian evaluation." "From his standpoint he feels no need to ask what value
the pagan people themselves found in their religion." "He is only
looking at the similarity to or difference from Christianity. Everything
else about Greek religion, all the central beliefs and practices Justin
doesn't even once consider."19
Kristensen immediately adds that Justin's condemnation of paganism is not illegitimate as long as we understand that "his task was
to separate clear divine truth from falsehood". "His position is straightforward, which would not be the case if he were to show the slightest sympathy for falsehood." The passionate conviction of men like
Justin, expressed with partiality and fanaticism, "brought down the
ancient world and made a new world arise." "The historian takes a
different approach because he is not concerned with practical affairs."20
Because times have changed and there is no longer a practical need
to battle against Greek religions, it is readily conceded that to understand real Greek religion we have to look at it differently than the
church fathers did. "Their criticisms and ridicule do not teach us
about the essence and the power of the religions they were combating."21 The non-ethical or super-ethical conception of the divine,
the worship of natural objects, and the belief in many gods all seem
wrong to Christians, but "as long as we consider them errors, we
shall never understand their true content."22 We begin to understand
a primitive religious phenomenon when we give up our own initial
prejudice and listen carefully for what we can learn from it:23
History opens itself only to the one who surrenders to it. But then an
evaluation of an entirely new kind appears and we learn with amaze-

18
19
20
21
22
23

Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,

pp. 68-69.
p. 67.
p. 70.
p. 73.
pp. 74-75.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

165

ment and joy of this internal and autonomous value of the alien. For
that too is an evaluation, although it does not arise from a previously
accepted ideal. In other words, it is not a comparative evaluation in
the sense in which we have used the term until now. There is no
question here of true or false, culturally developed or primitive, etc.
It is the evaluation that appears when we have been grasped by an
impression and our lively sympathy has been aroused. We could call
it the evaluation of sympathy or of love. Here the norm is not brought
in from outside but has grown within us precisely under the influence
of what we have learned to value.

The Dutch verb waarderen obviously means to value, but the gerund
waardering is ambiguous, and Kristensen plays on that ambiguity. Up
to the last few sentences I had to translate waardering as "evaluation",
but at the end he speaks of a new kind of valuing, from inside, and
this can well be translated as "appreciation", which he clearly understands to be, not an imposition of an outside standard of value, but
rather the recognition of the religion's own values.
Kristensen then takes up the widely held view, which he says was
shared by his own teacher and predecessor Tiele, that a common
value needs to serve as a measuring rod in order to make sense of
the history of religions as a whole. This is a view popular among
conservative Christians, who, he says, would like a comparative approach to demonstrate the historical preparation in other religions
for what they consider the highest religion, Christianity. It is equally
popular, however, among radicals who have a different view of evolution but an equal interest in showing the direction of historical
development.24 In any case an outside measuring rod is applied to
all religions but Christianity, and this outside norm makes it impossible to understand other peoples' religions as they have understood
themselves. "As soon as we think of these religions as needing some
addition or improvement, we are in reality not dealing with their
religion; we have left the historical foundation and are discussing
and criticizing what never existed . . . We are inclined to do this
because we so dislike to give up thinking of ourselves as the goal of
history."23 The church fathers demonstrated, Kristensen continues,
the practical value of an evaluative understanding, but even affirming
the relative value of other religions as moments in the full truth is

24
25

Ibid., p. 76.
Ibid., pp. 77-78.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

quite different from historical understanding, for the believers in other

religions knew, not the relative, but the absolute value of their religion. "This character of absoluteness, even holiness, disappears as
soon as the historian tries to bend his material to fit in a scheme
of universal development."26
"History", Kristensen says, "is a dangerous science, because it
teaches us religious ideals of autonomous value and the flexibility
necessary to put ourselves into what is alien and broaden our sympathy so that we feel at home there. But it does not show us the
way back to our own [religion]."27 Thus the history of religions
requires that we give up the idea of our centrality and acknowledge
that there are many centers, each with its own autonomy. This weakens our ability to adopt a particular religious standpoint. "We become
helplessly uncertain in our judgment. Even the most opposite positions have equal rights. I do not hesitate to say that this unlimited
sympathy paralyzes our ability to act, to intervene in religious events."28
We have to accept the fact, Kristensen contends, that we cannot
use history in the service of our own religious orientation, but we
do not need evaluative comparison for the growth of our religious
life. If other religions represent absolute centers, so does our own.
"Every religion claims that the reality behind religious feeling is infinite and inexpressible; it is the divine reality itself." "The recognition of mutually conflicting religious values should not lead us to
skepticism but should lead us deeper into the mystery that is the
nurturing soil of all religions."29 "By acquainting us with others,
History of Religions teaches us humble self-knowledge." That is no
solution to the question, for while humility is praiseworthy, life can
also impose other requirements. It can require that one-sidedness
necessary for any victory. Historical study works against the one-sidedness necessary for action. That is the price we must pay for it.
Whether that should be done is for each person to decide.30
The following essay, "The Absoluteness of Christianity", was written thirteen years later. It also presents a position that Kristensen
does not claim to be a theoretically satisfactory solution. As the pre-

26
27
28
29
30

Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,

p.
p.
p.
p.
p.

78.
80.
81. The italicized words are in the original Dutch text.
85.
84.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

167

vious essay shows, the absoluteness of any religion is, not its being
placed on the top of a historical pinnacle, but its direct and autonomous
expression of the divine reality behind all religions. Christianity, like
all other religions, lies in the heart of its believers. It is "not a theory
but a living reality that reveals itself in the believers". The relationship
in which a Christian prays to God is the foundation of his existence
and the nourishing source of his spiritual life. "In his relation to
God he goes outside the realm of finite relations. That is the absoluteness of his religious life."31 For Kristensen this is not a theoretical
definition, but an indication of a factual Christianity: "the absoluteness of this fact speaks for itself."32 Absoluteness is not a theory but
a primary reality that we know with our whole being. The Christian
believer puts his life on the line for his Christian faith. The "victory
over this world" achieved by the heroes of Christianity "is the reality of the absoluteness of Christianity". Emphasizing the real Christianity
living in every individual Christian is not an approval of unbridled
individualism and subjectivism in the religious life, Kristensen goes
on to say, because the "individualism" grounded in God is no longer
individualism, since the believer's freedom is derived from God. He
is bound to God, and the content of his faith is a divine gift, a faith
that is actually always a corporate faith that keeps us in an "infinite
connection with our fellow Christians".33
Every religion, Kristensen concludes, is a unique phenomenon.
This is true for Christianity, which does not need a comparison with
other religions, especially since Christian students of religion are able
to become acquainted with it first hand. The true absoluteness of
Christianity does not have to be proved by comparing it with other
religions. Even so, our knowledge of other religions probably does
have significance for our own religious life. "We grow (or change)
spiritually as a result of all our experiences, but no one can say how
this happens."34
Kristensen's comments make clear that he differed from the various theological and philosophical interpretations of some of his Dutch
students in a fundamental respect: he did not consider that the proper
historical understanding of religion was of any use for an apologetics

31
32
33
34

"De absoluutheid van het Christendom", p. 90.

Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 91-92.
Ibid., pp. 94-95.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

concerned with the practical task of promoting Christianity. Interestingly he does not reject apologetics for all Christians. You have to
make a choice, he says, and his choice is to do no ranking of religions, but to recognize them all as expressions of an inexpressible
divine reality. He does not seem to recognize this as an alternative
theological position that needs some justification. This is a factual
reality that is for him self-evident; it speaks for itself.
What these essays make clearer to us is that Kristensen's approach
to the Ancient religions of the Mediterranean world owes more than
he usually admits to the way he regards his own Christian faith
though he readily admits the possibility of influence in the other
direction. Some further light on Kristensen's theoretical approach is
provided by his essay on "Schleiermacher's Conception of the History
of Religions",35 which he begins by stating that Schleiermacher's
work has been little appreciated by historians of religion and has
had little influence in the century since his death. Classical rationalism managed to maintain its interpretation of Greek antiquity
against romanticism, and the study of Egyptian and Babylonian religious texts required narrow specialists. "It didn't penetrate the consciousness of these scholars that their new knowledge was only that
of external facts."36 Historical evolutionism was popular and its shallowness was not recognized.
More recently the shortcomings of the nineteenth century scholarship have been recognized, but not the fact that Schleiermacher
and other romantic scholars such as Herder and Creutzer had long
since discovered that historical insight has other grounds than simply factual knowledge. Kristensen considers these romantic scholars
to be "realists" in recognizing only the faith of the believer as religious reality. Their leader was Schleiermacher who in his Reden
(Speeches on Religion) clearly set out his concept of religion in general
and of the various religions, a standpoint that he largely maintained
in later publications.37
In his definition of religion as Anschauung des Unwersums Schleiermacher
understood Anschauung as "our ability to conceive a spiritual reality",
35
Kristensen, W. Brede 1954: "Schleiermacher's opvatting van godsdienstgeschiedenis", in Symbool en werkelijkheid: Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality:
A Collection of Studies in the History of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 24-30.
Originally published in Vox Theologica, March 1934.
36
Ibid., p. 24.

37

Ibid., pp. 24-25.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

169

utilizing the external facts through a creative intuition. He understood Universum as a personal being, which he could have called God.
Individual religions arise when a single vision of the universe gains
a central significance to which all other elements of the religion can
be related. Schleiermacher saw myths and doctrines as poetic or theoretical formulations of the intended divine reality, but distinct from
the reality itself. Likewise ritual actions express only indirectly what
goes on in the feeling-center of the human person. This approach
required a symbolic interpretation of all myths and rituals in order
to separate appearance from reality.38
Kristensen ends this very brief discussion of Schleiermacher as follows: "Thus speaks someone who engaged in the study of many religions, not to defend himself but in order to discover something of
infinity and divine reality by becoming acquainted with some of the
countless possibilities of Anschauung des Unwersums"39
What is striking to me about this very brief essay is that Kristensen
identifies Schleiermacher with the romanticism of Herder and even
Creutzer, and his calling this approach "realistic". It is also interesting that there is no mention of Schleiermacher's later theological
work, especially the Glaubenslehre, which includes a ranking of Christianity in relation to other religions. Kristensen also says nothing about
Rudolf Otto's effort to revive interest in Schleiermacher's Reden.
The students and successors of Kristensen who utilized his interpretation of religion in their own more general studies differed sharply
in their particular theologies, but like Kristensen's predecessors in
the Netherlands, Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye, they tried to
place their historical and phenomenological study in a theological or
philosophical framework. Bleeker's notion of distinct and multiple
divine revelations seems the closest to Kristensen's interpretation of
Schleiermacher. It is an interpretation that regards the human apprehension of divine reality as response to a somewhat personal revelation of God or the gods whose superior power is clearly acknowledged.
Unlike the later position of Schleiermacher, however, Kristensen does
not rank the different revelations and their cultural embodiments
according to their purity or profundity. Nor does he try to enumerate and describe other types of religion with Bleeker's worldwide

38
39

Ibid., pp. 25-29.

Ibid., pp. 29-30.

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JOHN B. CARMAN

sweep. Still less does Kristensen's implicit theology resemble those

of his successors in Leiden, Kraemer and Ridding. The latter can
rightly claim to have developed the implications of Kristensen's systematic distinction between the "Ancient" and the "Classical" ways
of experiencing the world. Kraemer may have well felt that his category of naturalistic religions was informed by Kristensen's interpretation of the Ancients, but Kristensen had a confidence in divine
initiative precisely in what Kraemer regarded as religions motivated
by the effort at human self-realization. Van der Leeuw's intellectual
relation to Kristensen seems to me more complicated because of van
der Leeuw's conception of human religiosity as both naturally Christian
and open to a human yearning for power that could extend to
demonic perversion. Van der Leeuw's basic religious categories, moreover, are developed historically through a series of transpositions,
elaborations of a spiritual process Kristensen seems to have felt lay
beyond our academic comprehension.
With their more explicit theological interests, including Hidding's
suggestion of ideal Christianity as a fragile synthesis of his two types
of human disposition, these four very different students share with
one another and their teacher Kristensen a confidence in the existence of a divine reality and a general human capacity to respond
to it. Kristensen was reacting to a Christian evolutionism and seems
to have found it unnecessary to engage in Schleiermacher's polemic
against the "cultured despisers of religion". The rationalism against
which he argued was not Comte's positivism, transcending all kinds
of religions, or any variety of practical or theoretical atheism. Since
we are so close to the two hundredth anniversary of Schleiermacher's
Speeches, it is worth noting that Kristensen inherited a legacy from
Schleiermacher that he felt no need to defend, a legacy that for him
laid the foundation, not only for a more profound appreciation of
his own Christian faith but also for a more fruitful exploration of
other religious worlds.
Chantepie de la Saussaye began the phenomenology of religion
as a very modest discipline, a thin slice of the pie between the
descriptive-historical and normative-philosophical approaches to religion. Both he and his successors soon started expanding this new
discipline, but in different directions. One advantage of the suspension of theological judgmentwhether or not called epocheis that
theologians with sharply different opinions could think together about
the meaning of other peoples' religions. That, however, is only the

MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF ANCIENT INSIGHT

171

negative side of a requirement Kristensen laid on historians as well

as phenomenologists. The positive side Kristensen frequently calls
sympathie, which may not be adequately translated with the current
English word "sympathy". This is an imaginative connection, across
linguistic, cultural, and religious boundaries, of a common human
capacity, a paradoxical ability of the finite to grasp and be grasped
by the Infinite. The requisite scholarly imagination may well have
an aesthetic component. It may call for artistic gifts that not everyone has, and it requires a knowledge of the languages of the texts
to be studied.
Kristensen's conception of this special kind of scholarly imagination seems to me to make certain theological assumptions, specifically
those of Schleiermacher's Speeches on Religion. The distinctive feeling
underlying Christian piety is understood as one actual exemplification
of a general human capacity for the "reverent beholding of the
(divine) Universe" (Anschauung des Universums) that underlies all genuine
religions. Kristensen remains with the young Schleiermacher in avoiding any theoretical centrality of Christian faith in defining religion in
general, but Kristensen is quite aware that his factual starting point
as a European scholar is in Christian piety. He must depend on his
religious intuition as a Christian of the mystery of life's triumph over
death, rather than on a rationalistic Christian theology, if he is to
appreciate the Ancients' different formulations of that same mystery.
Many of Kristensen's Dutch theological students ignored or rejected
his sharp separation of religious understanding from theological defense
of Christian distinctiveness. Their attempt at appropriating his insights
for the task of formulating a new Christian theology of religion simply
did not accept Kristensen's insistence that the believer's own formulation of their religious values is the only religious reality. Nevertheless theyand here I should include myself in a "we"share with
Kristensen a confidence in a general human religiosity that makes
possible some measure of religious understanding and appreciation
from scholars outside a particular religious community. We agree,
moreover, that such an intuitive understanding is crucial to the style
of scholarship we call history and phenomenology of religion.
The difficulty in our appreciating Kristensen a hundred years after
his first Oslo lecture is that many of the scholarly community studying religion, like many non-scholars in modern European society, no
longer accept Kristensen's underlying assumption, which he took to
be Schleiermacher's as well. Orthodox Protestants have rejected the

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JOHN B. CARMAN

link between Christian faith and general human religiousness. PostChristian humanists consider the scholarship romantic and the theological assumptions naive. Now there is also a third group of critics,
the post-modernists, for whom the generalizations about a common
humanity are invalid as well as blind to their post-colonial Western
perspective.
This is not the place to enter into a general theological or philosophical debate. I want simply to note in conclusion that Kristensen
considered the scholar's religious imagination the heart of his scholarship, without which he is only a collector of "facts". We may reject
his view, but then we need to be aware of the implications for the
history and phenomenology of religion of that rejection. Without
sharing Kristensen's view of the distinctive religious imagination we
may remember Kristensen's the legend and even admire him as an
"old fashioned" scholar. We shall have lost, however, what for him
was the essential legacy of Schleiermacher, and what for us, I submit, is the legacy of Brede Kristensen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kristensen, W. Brede 1947: Verzamelde bijdmgen tot kennis der antieke godsdiensten [Collected
Contributions to Knowledge of the Ancient Religions]. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche
Uitgevers Maatschappij.
1954: "Antieke Wetenschap", in: Symbool en Werkelijkheid: Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien {Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the History of Religion].
Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 319-332.
1954: "De absoluutheid van het Christendom", in: Symbool en werkelijkheid: Een
bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the History
of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 85-95.
1954: "Over waardering van historische gegevens", in: Symbool en werkelijkheid:
Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the
History of Religion]. Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 66-84.
1954: "Primitieve wijsheid", in: Symbool en werkelijkheid: Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien [Symbol and Reality: A Collection of Studies in the History of Religion].
Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus: 333-346.
1954: Religionshistorisk studium [Studies in the History of Religion]. Oslo: Olaf Norlis
Forlag.
1992: Life Out of Death: Studies in the Religions of Egypt and of Ancient Greece.
Louvain: Peeters Press and Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans.

PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION VERSUS

ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION?
THE "GRONINGEN SCHOOL" 1920-19901
WlLLEM HOFSTEE

On a rainy afternoon in November 1933, the Norwegian scholar

William Brede Kristensen, who had moved to the Netherlands in
1901 to be appointed professor in history of religions at Leiden University, sat down behind his desk at home and wrote a long letter to
his former pupil Gerardus van der Leeuw, who in 1918 had become
his colleague in Groningen. The publication in the first week of
November 1933 of van der Leeuw's Phanomenologie der Religion, a copy
of which the author had sent him, was the reason for his writing.
Of course Kristensen sent his warm congratulations to van der
Leeuw; he considered the book a major achievement in the study
of religion, but, at the same time, he expressed his doubts about van
der Leeuw's methods and ideas concerning the understanding of
other religious beliefs and practices:2
Many thanks for sending me the Ph.d.R. And my sincere congratulations on the completion of this great work. It is, in my opinion, the
best of everything that has been published in this field so far. And it
will find its way wherever the history of religions is practised seriously.
Of course I have my doubts; once again, we are moving in different
directions. Or, better, we are trying to achieve the same thing with
different means. To mention only this: in my opinion, you make it
much too easy for the reader. Gradually, he will get the idea that he
understands the subject-matter to a certain extent, even in cases of
which I am sure he will not understand their real complications. [. . .]
You write, for instance, about the orator and the magic power of his
word; all you say about that is very well understandable, and the

I would like to thank Jan Bremmer and Yme Kuiper for commenting on the
draft version of this article.
2
Kristensen to van der Leeuw, 20.11.1933 (my translation). The letters of
Kristensen to van der Leeuw are written in Dutch and kept in the Van der LeeuwArchives, University Library Groningen.

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

reader finds phenomenology a pleasant and friendly science. But what

if the question was raised as to why the orator in the Greek national
assembly, and the judge during the fulfillment of his task, holds a mace
in his hands; [. . .] indeed, in that case the reader would become a
bit dizzy, because such a question would bring us closer to the classical perception of the orator and the word, which is, for us, so difficult
to understand, than everything else he is reading. You write about the
holiness of trees and woods, and you mention, by the way, the mythical tree from which Benefit gives food and drink to the Dead: I would
be grateful if you could explain this tree of Benefit to me; it has tortured me already for a long time. "Tree of heaven" does not mean a
thing to me. Nor does the "romantische Dammerstimmung" (in the
wood), of which you disapprove as an explanation, but which you
introduce again in the words of Seneca; Seneca, who was a man as
modern as you and me. It reminds me of the most terrible example
that I know of modern sentimentality in explaining holiness in ancient
religions: see what Otto Kern, who doesn't understand anything at all,
writes about the cave-temple, Rel. der Griechen p.80. (Martin Nilsson also
delivers this kind of nonsense from time to time.) All such rubbish,
derived from modern and ancient poets (or dreaming men of science)
should better be expelled from the history of religions; most regrettable for those readers who saw all this as a nice path on the way to
Einfiihlung in the ancient way of thinking.
You see, the more I go deeply into these subjects, the more strange
and complicated (but at the same time more interesting) I find them
to be. I am convinced that our science, maybe even less than Einstein's
theory of relativity, can be presented to the public. Even if one tries
to introduce them along the way of the "primitives" (I tried the best
I could to move along that way), that will be in my opinion explicable
obscurum per obscurius. Even the Egyptians are closer to us, and, above
all, have explained their religion better than negroes and indians.
Everybody thinks he understands the idea of "power" of these peoples
is it not an illusion? Are we not satisfying ourselves only with general
terms and words? That is precisely the area which makes me dizzy,
and from which I stay away. But I admire your latest achievement.
Nobody has shown himself a better master of the magnificent subjectmatter than you have. My congratulations! (signed: W.B. Kristensen)

This letter brings me to the theme I would like to discuss here. In

the years between the two world wars a small group of scholars in
history of religions, mainly in the Netherlands and Scandinavia,
started to look for the possibilities of a method that would provide
a path to the understanding (Verstehen) of religion, a comparative
method that would help to grasp its essence (Wesen) by means of an
as far as possible value-free examination of all its manifestations

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

175

(Erscheinungen).3 All this in order to create a synthesis out of the multiplicity of text-editions, monographs and studies on all manner of
subjects in the area of religion. This program was called "phenomenology", and the problem central to this program was how to understand religious ideas and practices. Closely connected with this, of
course, is the use of general terms and the comparative method.
Phenomenology is often considered a relic of the past, and sometimes even a subversion of the scientific study of religion.4 It is true
that van der Leeuw's phenomenological method is imperfect and
subjective according to our modern standards, although his views
were considered modern in his own time. In order to understand
religion, van der Leeuw followed the French philosopher-cum-sociologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl in his interest in primitive systems of
thought. Most of these ideas involve what may be called cognitive
relativity, that is, the notion that modes of thought do not have a
universal logical structure everywhere. Following Durkheim, LevyBruhl states that the mentality of individuals is derived from the collective representations of their societies. Societies vary; so do collective
representations and consequently human thinking. Could it be that
van der Leeuw was on the way to an interpretative science of religion, just because of his use of Levy-Bruhl's cognitive relativism?5
For what reasons was this approach so heavily criticised? What precisely influenced these critical reactions, and, above all, did these
reactions bring problems of understanding and comparison closer to
a solution?
In order to start to answer these questions, I will briefly discuss
here the relation between phenomenology and anthropology of religion, being the two disciplines in which the researcher deals with
other cultures and other ways of thinking, in most cases far away
in time and place, and, consequently, with problems of comparison
and the use of general terms. My essay consists of two parts. First,
I will compare the ideas of the phenomenologists Kristensen and
van der Leeuw and examine their contacts with anthropology (19201950). Secondly, I will discuss the reactions to this phenomenological
3

Sharpe, 19862: 220; Ryba, 1991: 237.

Cf. Wiebe, 1999: 31-50, 173-190.
5
Cf. C. Scott Littleton's inspiring introduction to the 1985 edition of Levy-Bruhl's
How Natives Think.
4

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

program as they were expressed especially in Groningen by Fokke

Sierksma and Theo van Baarenbeing the two examples of an "anthropological injection" into Dutch history of religionsand the direction in which this "Groningen School" developed (1950-1990).
The history of the science of religion is to a considerable extent
the history of groups. What I refer to is groups of friends, discussion partners, close-knit circles that in some respects seem to have
the characteristics of social movements. It is important to describe
their organisational and intellectual history, and also trace the dissidents who are as much a part of the network structure as the
favorites.6 Intellectual ideas or "products", as Bourdieu puts it, develop
and function in a context, or "field", with a structure and dynamics of its own.7 The intellectual field is a social structure of people
competing about authority and prestige. Because of the relative autonomy of the intellectual field, political or socio-economic developments act upon this field in a specific way; they are first of all
translated into an idiom of its own, an idiom of intellectual discourse.
Before World War II, questions of comparison and relativism were
hardly a methodological or theoretical problem for most phenomenologists of religion, except, maybe, for Kristensen. Van der Leeuw was
convinced that understanding was possible, and that Einfuhlen was
the key to its realisation. Of course, in his view, this required special capabilities of the researcher, who had to practise restraint (epoche)
in order to understand religion. He did not see any serious problem in comparing similar phenomena from different religions with
each other. Eventually, for van der Leeuw, the similarities were more
important than the differences. He preferred to make things more
understandable, instead of making them more complex, as they already were. His phenomenology of religion, which leans on philosophical ideas of Karl Jaspers, Max Scheler, Ernst Cassirer and Lucien
Levy-Bruhl, not only functioned as a manner of gathering knowledge and interpreting religious phenomena, but, at the same time,
as an instrument to help modern Western man in his struggle to
find his place in a world with different religious beliefs and secular
world views. His science of religion was also a cultural critique.8
6
For an impressive and ambitious attempt to trace these networks in the history of philosophy, see: Collins 1998.
7
Cf. Bourdieu, 1975.
8
Cf. Kippenberg & Luchesi, 1991.

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

177

Kristensen's perception of phenomenology of religion was somewhat different. He defines phenomenology of religion as the "systematic, that is to say, comparative, history of religion".9 He saw
this primarily as a descriptive undertaking in which the researcher
ought to come to the conclusion that the believer is always right.
Differences were more important than similarities. His view suggests
the possibility of absolute objectivity and the elimination of all presuppositions by the researcher. Kristensen was a very careful scientist and did not like van der Leeuw's world-wide contemplations. He
preferred to stay as close as possible to the observable facts, and did
not see the necessity of developing a specific method for comparing
and understanding religious phenomena. For him, understanding and
comparison were "intuitive undertakings", strictly personal. Every
researcher had to find his own method, and the results should show
whether or not he was right. But, at the same time, Kristensen seriously doubts the possibility of a genuine understanding, and considers religious ideas and practices to be more and more complicated
during the course of his investigations. In the historical study of these
ideas and practices, the investigator should inquire only into what
the believers of a given religion themselves expressed. It is their sole
right to testify about their religion, and the historian of religion has
no right to doubt or question their testimony. Their conceptions and
judgements are the only reality that exists for the historian; his
"method" consists of learning to see with their eyes in order to understand them as they understood themselves. Especially with regard to
ancient religions, Kristensen recognised the great differences between
their conceptions and his own. He admitted that their experience
cannot be completely relived: a modern cannot see with ancient eyes.
So, we can only know indirectly and approximately. Empathy and
imagination are therefore necessary to construct the "other" reality.10
Many aspects of Kristensen's ideas seem to be very similar, at
least from a methodological point of view, to the ideas of many
anthropologists today. Nevertheless, Kristensen distrusted ethnography because of its supposed positivist and rationalist idea of science.
He paid no attention to social issues, and stressed the study of written sources in their original languages. He also severely criticised
psychological approaches, like the one advocated by his pupil van

9
10

Kristensen, 1955: 22-23; cf. also Plantinga, 1989.

Cf. Kristensen, 1992 (1926).

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

der Leeuw. One of the main causes for the lack of contact in the
Netherlands before the World War II between the Religionswissenschqftler
and the anthropologist or ethnographer is that anthropology was
seen by the former as a positivist product of the Enlightenment.
Historians of religion, most of them trained first as theologians, preferred to see themselves as critics of the rationalism of the Enlightenment, inspired by Romanticism. So most anthropologists distrusted
historians and above all phenomenologists of religion, not only because
of their critical attitude towards rationalist science, but also because
of the close ties most of them held with theology. The only public
debate between representatives of the two disciplines in the Netherlands
took place in 1928 in Leiden, between Kristensen and his colleague
J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, professor of anthropology at Leiden
University and the founding father of a structuralist approach in
anthropology, long before and independent of Claude Levy-Strauss.11
Both lectures dealt with "The Devine Trickster" and were published
by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW).12 Unfortunately,
this event was never repeated.
In Groningen, however, van der Leeuw tried, unlike Kristensen,
to introduce other disciplines such as sociology, ethnology and psychology into history of religions. Between his appointment in 1918
and the appearance of his Phanomenologie der Religion in 1933, he formulated his main scientific ideas. In the early twenties, van der
Leeuw began to use the psychological insights of the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, the German psychologist Eduard Spranger,
and, most of all, the German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers
in order to construct a methodological framework for his phenomenology of religion. His doctoral dissertation on images of gods in
ancient Egyptian pyramid texts, published in 1916, is not only a
philological study, but is at the same time an attempt to understand
the psychology of the Egyptians.13 Here we find the first references
to the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, the French philosopher
Lucien Levy-Bruhl and the German ethnologist Konrad Th. Preuss.
The rather positivistic influence of van der Leeuw's teachers in
Egyptology, Adolf Erman and Kurt Sethe, is less present here. Van
der Leeuw compares Egyptian thinking with other examples of non11
12
13

Van Baal & van Beek, 1985: 217-218.

De Josselin de Jong, 1929; Kristensen, 1928.
Van der Leeuw, 1916: 4-6.

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

179

Western religious thought, since he wants to discover its common

structure. The same attempt was made in his monograph on the
Egyptian Pharaoh Achnaton, published in 1927, whom he considered as an original idealist not understood in his own time.14
The relation between Kristensen and van der Leeuw was, despite
their differences of opinion, very close and friendly. Van der Leeuw
greatly admired Kristensen and expressed his respect for his former
tutor many times. This meant a great deal to Kristensen, as he
expressed in a letter to van der Leeuw:15
Your feelings of sympathy and friendship mean perhaps more to me
than you probably think. They make it more easy for me to overcome the awareness of all my shortcomings. If I would pay attention
to that, I could throw everything down. So I go on my own way, as
if nothing is, working just for my own pleasure and for nobody else's,
grateful to my friends who see something good in it at last. . .
In 1944, during World War II, Kristensen's house in Oosterbeek, a
village close to Arnhem, was bombed and he lost most of his possessions. Again, in a letter to van der Leeuw, he expressed his feelings about his scientific work and life in general:16
Since October 26 we are refugees [...], after several weeks of roaming about the country. Our house in Oosterbeek, where we lived during the last three years, has been destroyed and plundered. When we
visited it for the last time, it was almost completely looted, and the
bombardment on Oosterbeek continued later on. Probably all my books
and manuscripts, and the whole scientific apparatus, is lost. Only the
goods we could carry on our shoulders and bikes have been saved. [. . .]
Our plan is to return to Leiden as soon as possible. Until the end
I was studying. Articles on the boat of Sokaris, about the "holy way"
and about the classical perception of justice (the task of the judge)
were almost ready for publication. It is hard to give up all this now;
there was so much I wanted to do. But I never had the idea that my
way of working was the only solid one. (To work only for my own
pleasure and not for that of anybody else, and always looking for the
static, not the genetic or dynamic, reality.) If that ends, because I am
deprived of my material, then I will submit to that. It is, then, God's
will. My efforts have not been completely useless, but have been condemned as being one-sided. So be it. And I am content with that,
because I believe that life, which is after all a divine energy, will lead
14
15
16

Van der Leeuw, 1927a: 63-68; cf. Hofstee, 1997: 122-142.

Kristensen to van der Leeuw, 13.10.1926 (my transl.), VdL-Archives.
Kristensen to van der Leeuw, 18.12.1944, VdL-Archives.

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

to new directions and teach me new values. Life is creative, and nobody
can predict creation. Only God is creator; he will help me too. There
is no single moment that I doubt his loving guidance. I look forward
and upwards, not back and downwards. Pessimism is always disbelief.
I very much wanted to tell you all this. You will understand it.
Kindest regards to you and your wife from both of us here, (signed
W.B. Kristensen)
In his work on Greek religion, van der Leeuw continues his efforts
to understand both ancient Greek religion and the common roots
of religious thinking in Western civilisation. From the study of literary texts, he considered Greek religion dualistic in character (Apollo
versus Dionysos). For van der Leeuw, stories, fairy-tales and myths
are more interesting than ritual as a religious structure.17 To a certain extent, they emerge from a feeling of dissension about everyday life and give meaning to life by repeated images and symbols.
Van der Leeuw's interpretation of religion is based on a communicative relation between gods and men. From this point of view,
he created a mythical ideal-image of Greek religion, which served
as a model that presents knowledge as well as values. It turns out
that van der Leeuw's view of Greek religion became increasingly
"primitive" over the years due to his intensive reading of Levy-Bruhl.
It is precisely his close relation with Levy-Bruhl which has led to
severe criticism of van der Leeuw after his death in 1950, and especially by his successor in Groningen, Theo van Baaren. Earlier, during the interbellurn years, Levy-Bruhl himself had been the permanent
target of critics. Because these early attacks on Levy-Bruhl play an
important role later on in van Baaren's criticism of van der Leeuw,
I will discuss them first.
At the outset of his book Les fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieures,
Levy-Bruhl makes it clear that the way "undeveloped peoples" perceive the world is different from the way we do, and this primitive
way of thinking involves the notion that all things and beings are
in a certain manner connected. In this view there is no distinction
at all between self and other, or between subject and object, past
and present, animate and inanimate. Here interpretation is the key
descriptive concept, and the notions of time and space as we understand them have no meaning. Such a thought process does not merely
17

Van der Leeuw, 1927b; Hofstee, 1997: 142-170.

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

181

violate the traditional rules of Western logic, such as the rule of noncontradiction. It has no connection with these rules, and is predicated
on what Levy-Bruhl calls the loi de participation. This so-called "law",
which is expressed in an intricate set of interpenetrations among all
parts (human or otherwise) that make up a collective representation
is inherently "mystical". Primitive thought processes, then, are predicated on what he calls "mystical participation". This is, at bottom,
a manifestation of the "prelogical mentality". Prelogical thought is
not absurd, but must be understood in its own terms as a wholly
separate reality-construct predicated on the "law of participation".18
After its publication in 1910 (the English translation appeared in
1926),19 Levy-Bruhl was attacked by many anthropologists, especially
in Britain and the United States, primarily because they thought he
criticised the doctrine of "cultural relativism", which was considered
to be unquestionable in those days. The British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski was one of the first to comment on it. He thought
that Levy-Bruhl denied any knowledge among the primitives of a
rational outlook or technical insights, asserting that they were entirely
mystical.20 But Malinowski's statement, based on his fieldwork in the
Trobriand Islands, that the primitives "are in possesion of a considerable store of knowledge, based on experience and reason" is
precisely what Levy-Bruhl tried to make clear in his book. It shows
that Malinowski did not understand Levy-Bruhl's point at all.21
The most persistent of Levy-Bruhl's anthropological critics, however, were to be found in the school of the American Franz Boas,
amongst whom Paul Radin and Robert Lowie were the most hostile. Boas and his pupils (like, among others, Ruth Benedict and
Edward Sapir) launched an empiricist attack on the evolutionary
and speculative theories of Tylor and Frazer. They considered these
comparative theories to be Euro-centric, and not based on sufficient
empirical research in separate primitive societies. The fact that LevyBruhl also stood up against Tylor and Frazer in the first chapter of
his book seems to have escaped their attention. According to the
Boasians, the only aim of research should be to collect as many

18

Scott Littleton, 1985: xiii-xiv; cf. also Horton, 1973.

Entitled: How Natives Think, authorized translation by Lilian Clarke, reprinted
in 1985 by Princeton U.P.
20
Malinowski, 1925: 28.
21
Cf. Evans-Pritchard, 1934: 17, n. 3; Evans-Pritchard, 1981: 199.
19

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

empirical facts as possible, one culture at a time, that is to say, within

limited geographic areas and historical periods. In this particularist
research program there was no room left for unilinear reflections,
like the origin and destination of mankind (a theme favoured by the
evolutionists), or the essence of religion in general (a central issue
among phenomenologists). Paul Radin in particular considered the
work of Levy-Bruhl as too close to the evolutionist approach, and,
moreover, was convinced that human thinking all over the world
functioned according to logical processes that were essentially the
same everywhere. Radin was thoroughly committed to the cause of
cultural relativity and the concomitant notion that there are no fundamental racial or ethnic differences when it comes to the way the
mind works. The basic complaint of the Boas school was that LevyBruhl failed to appreciate the fundamental similarities in the way
men think, whatever their overall level of cultural complexity.22
This complaint was, however, based on moral judgements, not on
careful objective reading of Levy-Bruhl's work. Because the Boasians
were so preoccupied with relativism, inspired without doubt by the
need to create an American identity and to emancipate American
society, they were not able to see the same sense of relativism in
the work of others, in this case Levy-Bruhl's. American anthropology flourished in the period after almost all native Americans were
driven into reservations. The message was to make clear that all patterns of culture are relative, including the values of Western civilisation. So the ethnography of the native Americans not only increased
the knowledge about these cultures, but, at the same time, served
as a cultural critique.23 In other words; there was a moral aspect
involved in this particular program. In spite of their efforts to conduct objective empirical research, the Boasians presented scientific
ideas which were influenced by moral and political motivations from
the very start.
Van der Leeuw was not the only one who admired Levy-Bruhl's
work. Probably the only British anthropologist in those days who
wrote with critical sympathy about Levy-Bruhl was E.E. EvansPritchard. His views stand in sharp contrast to the negative position
taken by Malinowski, Radin and other Boasian critics. Evans-Pritchard

22
23

Scott Littleton, 1985: xviii.

Cf. Marcus & Fischer, 1986: 111-136.

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

183

stated that Levy-Bruhl was one of the first to emphasise that primitive ideas are meaningful when seen as parts of patterns of ideas
and behaviours, each part having an intelligible relationship to the
others; that he recognised that values form systems as coherent as
the logical constructions of the intellect, that there is a logic of sentiments as well as of reason, though based on a different principle;
and that he took primitive magic and religion as given, and sought
only to show their structure and the way they are evidence of a distinctive mentality common to all societies of a certain type.24 Besides
this, Evans-Pritchard noted, not without subtlety, that "a book gains
its value not only from the ideas which the author puts into it but
also from the ideas to which it gives rise in the mind of the reader."25
It makes clear how he judged Malinowski's and Radin's ordeals.
Before World War II, van der Leeuw had few critics among Dutch
historians of religion. Kristensen was one of the very few. In this
circle van der Leeuw's authority on primitive religion was almost
unanimously accepted. Among ethnologists, however, we see the
international division of opinion on Levy-Bruhl also present in the
Netherlands: a few supported van der Leeuw, but most of them
rejected his views on primitive mentality. Only after his death in
1950 did a real discussion start on van der Leeuw's phenomenology
among Dutch historians of religion. His pupil Fokke Sierksma
was the first to criticise van der Leeuw's phenomenological method
in his doctoral dissertation published in 1950. Sierksma, who left
Groningen and held the Chair in Leiden from 1973 till his death
in 1977, tried to improve the theoretical framework of van der
Leeuw's phenomenology. Therefore he rejected Levy-BruhPs concept
of primitive mentality and Jaspers' Weberian method of Verstehen,
and turned to the complex psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. The
big problem for Sierksma was theology: history of religions had to
be liberated from a priori suppositions and from so-called "explanations from within".26 Because of his strong focus on theological questions in van der Leeuw's phenomenology of religion, and because
of his personal struggle with the ideas of his tutor, Sierksma failed
to see the point of contact in Levy-Bruhl's theory with an analysis

24
25
26

Evans-Pritchard, 1965: 86.

Evans-Pritchard, 1934: 35. See also: Kuiper, 1982.
Cf. Sierksma, 1950. See also Platvoet, 1998: 336-339.

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

of religion as a system of meaning, as Evans-Pritchard had done in

1934 and Clifford Geertz would do later on in 1966.27
In van Baaren's critique of van der Leeuw, first published in 1957
and again in 1960, the same moods and motivations present in the
Boasian critique of Levy-Bruhl can be observed.28 Van Baaren launched
a heavy empirical attack on his predecessor, revealed a lot of mistakes in van der Leeuw's work, but blindly followed Boas and Radin
in his rejection of Levy-Bruhl.29 In fact, he paid hardly any attention
to theoretical notions underlying the works of Levy-Bruhl and van
der Leeuw. Evans-Pritchard's comments on Levy-Bruhl obviously
escaped his attention. There is no evidence that van Baaren ever
read Evans-Pritchard's study on primitive religion (1965), nor his
article on Levy-Bruhl (1934). He did read the studies on the Azande
and the Nuer, but only as examples of empirical research. Van
Baaren did not see Evans-Pritchard's study on the Azande as a critical elaboration of Levy-Bruhl's theories.30 Van Baaren, like Sierksma,
emphasised the necessity of liberating history of religions from theology. He was trained under H.Th. Obbink at the University of
Utrecht, and did not know van der Leeuw personally. He only met
him once, at the first IAHR congress in Amsterdam in 1950. There,
van der Leeuw made very critical remarks about the work of Radin,
who was also present at the conference. Van Baaren admired Radin,
and from that moment on he disliked van der Leeuw (as van Baaren
told me in 1988). In contrast with Sierksma, who tried to improve
van der Leeuw's method, van Baaren wanted only to free himself
from what he saw as "van der Leeuw's burden". So, at the end of
the fifties, he radically turned in a completely different direction,
namely the empirical British-American anthropology in which there
was hardly any room for theory formation. His preoccupation with
method (not theory!) and "pure empirical research" did not only
stem from a need for cold analysis, but also served to give the historian of religions the possibility "to create a realistic relation and a
climate of mutual tolerance and appreciation between different eth-

27
Reprinted in Geertz 1973: 87-125; cf. Hofstee, 1986, for some introductory
remarks on Geertz' work.
28
Cf. van Baaren, 1964 (German translation of the 1960 Dutch edition).
29
Cf. van Baaren, 1957.
30
Platvoet fails to see this point, and states wrongly that van Baaren "adopted
the anti-positivist position of Evans-Pritchard" (Platvoet, 1998: 341).

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

185

nic groups and peoples".31 Van Baaren's methodological aims were

accompanied by a morally based Boasian cultural relativism, which
went hand in hand with the upcoming process of decolonisation in
the sixties. Although van Baaren tried to eliminate the phenomenological approach by embracing functionalist anthropological ideas,
he hardly succeeded in the methodological elaboration of these ideas
in his own work. His studies on revelation and sacrifice, which are
impressive and show a great erudition, remain at bottom phenomenologically oriented from a methodological point of view.32
In 1968 van Baaren had started the "Groningen Work Group for
the Study of Fundamental Problems and Methods in the Science of
Religion". It dealt especially with the problem of reducing subjectivism in the study of comparative religion. It criticised any intuitive
approach and suggested as a solution that religion should be considered as a cultural phenomenon and that the methods of social
anthropology should be applied to it. This program should assure a
less biased interpretation of non-Christian religions than phenomenology was able to give. The members of the work group, notably
H.J.W. Drijvers, H.G. Hubbeling, H. te Velde, J.D.J. Waardenburg
and, later on, H.G. Kippenberg, soon had to envisage the no less
serious problem of the interpretation of other cultureshow should
one compare cultures or aspects of cultures at all? The well-known
comment of Evans-Pritchard that "there exists only one method in
social anthropology, namely the comparative method, which is impossible" points to the intricacy of the problem. The Groningen work
group came to the conclusion that the translation of other cultures
should be the central problem. Van Baaren defined religion as "all
that is learned", and stated that religion has to be studied in connection with other functions of culture, such as social order, art, economics, law, etc. But Drijvers already takes a less functionalist position,
draws attention to the work of Max Weber, and rightly emphasises
the importance of theory formation with regard to questions of historical discipline, such as the great predilection for written sources
and the consequent use that is made of earlier work. The meetings
of the work group between 1968 and 1973 discussed the borderlines
between theology, philosophy of religion, history and comparative

31
32

Van Baaren, 1960: 233 (my transl.).

Van Baaren, 1951 and 1978.

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

science of religion, and the relevance of the logical and empirical

presuppositions of these disciplines.33
Another way of defining religion is to see it as a model of and
for reality. Then religion has to be studied as a concept of order
and disorder, structure and anti-structure, legitimacy and illegitimacy.
Between 1978 and 1982 the group discussed especially the latter
definition and the research strategies related to it. Functionalism was
only marginally interested in historical research. So the history of
religions had to be seen as a branch of the history of culture in
order to study developments of and changes in the varieties of religious experience, insofar as historical sources allow us access to knowledge of them.34 In the meantime van Baaren had retired in 1980
and the group, now led by Kippenberg, concentrated on struggles
and alliances of gods, theories of symbols and the concept of person in religion and thought.35 The ideas of the Dutch anthropologist Jan van Baal, who advocated a more structuralistic approach to
the study of religious symbols, played and still play an important
role in the discussions of the work group.36
The work group did not develop new theories, but applied wellknown ideas to historical and ethnographical materials and traced
its themes in different religious traditions. As van Baaren had stated
earlier: "There exists no Groningen School, at most a certain Groningen climate [. . .] We form a group of equals, rather unstructured,
more or less comparable to a band of African Pygmees . . .".37
But this statement is perhaps too modest and probably also incorrect. At the time van Baaren was succeeded in Groningen by Hans
Kippenberg, who was trained in Germany under Carsten Colpe, it
became clear that he wanted to take some concepts from the "old
phenomenology" seriously in order to apply them to his own ideas
about the task and methods of history of religions: hermeneutics and
Verstehen.38 He followed the main direction taken by van Baaren
religion to be studied as a cultural phenomenonbut at the same
time wanted to do justice to van der Leeuw's intentions, one of them
33

Cf. papers of the group published in: Van Baaren & Drijvers, 1973.
Cf. Drijvers, 1980: 8.
Papers published in: Kippenberg, Kuiper & Sanders, 1980; Kippenberg, Drijvers
& Kuiper, 1984: and Hubbeling & Kippenberg, 1986.
36
See Kuiper, 1986, for a useful introduction to van Baal's work.
37
Van Baaren & Drijvers, 1973: 5.
38
Kippenberg, 1980: 3-4.
34

35

PHENOMENOLOGY VERSUS ANTHROPOLOGY?

187

being aware of the similarities between primitive and modern thought

and paying attention to the irrational, which is not represented anymore by scientific culture. Because van der Leeuw's phenomenology
and van Baaren's functionalism were too a-historical, Kippenberg
elaborated a science of religion which was not based on one general
accepted definition of religion, nor on the superiority of science.39
His Religionswissenschaft became a more sociological and anthropological one, especially influenced by Max Weber and Clifford Geertz,
and also became more connected with social-political and intellectual history.40 Next to this, he strengthened the importance of iconography of religion on the international level. In 1968 van Baaren
had founded the Institute of Religious Iconography, which was in
fact the continuation of a theme started by van der Leeuw: the relation between religion and art.41
In 1989 Kippenberg went to the University of Bremen and was
succeeded in 1990 by Jan Bremmer, who studied classical languages
in Amsterdam and taught ancient history in Utrecht. Bremmer continued the emphasis on cultural anthropology and, moreover, stressed
the importance of cultural history and histoire de mentalite in the study
of (ancient) religions.42
The conclusion of all this must be, as I see it, that there seems
to exist a consistent line of thinking in the "Groningen School". Van
der Leeuw started to introduce material from other disciplines into
history of religions, especially from sociology (Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl)
and psychology (Jaspers). His most important aim was to understand, not to explain. Despite his eclectic and rather subjective choices,
despite his insufficient knowledge of ethnography and sociology, and
despite his imperfect methodology, he laid the foundations of an
interpretive science of religion to be formulated later in the seventies
and eighties. In the meantime, the criticism of both Sierksma and
van Baaren was important because it showed the weak spots in van
der Leeuw's phenomenology. But this criticism missed the theoretical
link between the Levy-Bruhlian dimension of van der Leeuw's phenomenology and a sub-field in cultural anthropology which emerged
in the fifties and sixties: symbolic anthropology. The immediate roots
39
40
41
42

See Kippenberg, 1983.

Cf. Kippenberg, 1991, 1997 and Kippenberg & Luchesi. 1991.
The series Iconography of Religions started to appear by Brill (Leiden) in 1970.
Cf. Bremmer, 1989, 1991 and Bremmer & Roodenburg, 1991.

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WILLEM HOFSTEE

of symbolic anthropology lie in the same subsoil that produced cognitive anthropology, namely, the disenchantment with materialism
that surfaced in the mid-fifties, and the increasing awareness of the
extent to which linguistic models could be applied to the analysis of
cultural data as a whole.43 Exponents of this approach, such as
Clifford Geertz, are all concerned with the extent to which a society's "key symbols" form a code, a semiotic system which exercises
a powerful force on both the world-view and the behaviour of those
who have internalised it. Geertz in particular shows a consistent
respect for both competence (i.e., a shared symbol-system or code)
and performance (i.e., the specific behaviour patterns that are generated by the symbols). The complex integration of both is the essence
of what he calls "thick description". Much of this was anticipated
by Levy-Bruhl. His approach to the analysis of symbols and symbolic systems, admired in different ways both by van der Leeuw and
Evans-Pritchard, anticipates the relativist approach shared by Geertz.
This interpretative approach has without doubt brought problems
of understanding religion closer to a solution. Geertz' hermeneutic
agenda, that is, to interpret the semiotic patterns of the webs of
significance spun by humankind, does leave room for explanation.44
It is the ethnography itself, in this case the ethnography of thinking, which is an attempt to make it an object of analytic description and interpretive reflection.
In Groningen, Kippenberg integrated the ideas of Weber and symbolic anthropology into his science of religion. Bremmer added to
this a more Durkheimian and Anglo-Saxon oriented cultural history.
In doing so, they both continued a line of thinking that was initiated
many years ago, namely to connect interpretive anthropology and
historical research. In this respect one could say that the "Groningen
School" exists. A tradition was invented.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Anthropological Study of Religion, Assen.
Baaren, Th.P. van 1951: Voorstellingen van Openbaring Phaenomenologisch Beschouwd, Utrecht.

43
44

Scott Littleton, 1985: xxxix; also: Ortner, 1984: 128-132.

This position is severely criticised by Lawson & McCauley, 1990: 16-18.

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189

1952: Geruststellingsriten. Een bijdrage tot de critiek op de gangbare opvattingen over magie,

Groningen.
1964: Menschen wie wir, Gutersloh.
1978: Het Offer. Inleiding tot een complex religieus verschijnsel, Utrecht.
Baaren, Th.P. van & HJ.W. Drijvers 1973: Religion, Culture and Methodology, The
Hague/Paris.
Bourdieu, P. 1975: "Le champs scientifique", in: Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales
2/3: 88-104.
Bremmer, J. 1983: The Early Greek Concept of the Soul, Princeton.
(ed.) 1989: From Sappho to De Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality, London.
1991: Prqfeten, zieners en de macht in Griekenland, Israel en het vroegmoderne Europa,
Utrecht.
Bremmer, J. and H. Roodenburg (eds.) 1991: A Cultural History of Gesture, London.
Collins, R. 1998: The Sociology of Philosophies. A Global Theory of Intellectual Change,
Cambridge, Mass.
Drijvers, HJ.W. 1980: Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, Leiden.
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of the Faculty of Arts of the Egyptian University 2/2: 1-36. Reprinted in: Journal of the
Anthropological Society of Oxford 1/2 (1970): 39-60.
1965: Theories of Primitive Religion, Oxford.
1981: A History of Anthropological Thought. Ed. by A. Singer and intr. by
E. Gellner, London.
Geertz, C. 1973: The Interpretation of Cultures, New York.
Hofstee, W. 1986: "The Interpretation of Religion. Some remarks on the work of
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Representation of Religion, Berlin/New York: 7083.
1997: Goden en Mensen. De Godsdienstivetenschap van G. van der Leeuw 1890-1950,
Kampen.
Horton, R. 1973: "Levy-Bruhl, Durkheim and the Scientific Revolution", in:
R. Finnegan & R. Horton (eds.): Modes of Thought. Essays on Thinking in Western
and non-Western Societies, London: 249-305.
Hubbeling, H.G. & H.G. Kippenberg (eds.) 1986: On Symbolic Representation of Religion.
Berlin/New York.
Kippenberg, H.G. 1980: Onze begrippen en huin begrippen: andere godsdiensten en vergelijkende godsdienstwetenschap, Groningen.
1983: "Diskursive Religionswissenschaft", in: B. Gladigow and H.G. Kippenberg
(eds.): Neue Ansatze in der Religionswissenschaft, Munchen: 928.
1991: Die vorderasiatischen Erlosungsreligionen in ihrem Zusammenhang mil der antiken
Stadtherrschaft, Frankfurt.
1997: Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte, Miinchen.
Kippenberg, H.G., HJ.W. Drijvers & Y. Kuiper (eds.) 1984: Struggles of Gods,
Berlin/New York.
Kippenberg, H.G., Y.B. Kuiper & A.F. Sanders (eds.) 1990: Concepts of Person in
Religion and Thought, Berlin/New York.
Kippenberg, H.G. and B. Luchesi (eds.) 1991: Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik.
Beitrdge zur Konferenz "The History of Religions and the Critique of Culture in the Days of
Gerardus van der Leeuw (18901950)", Marburg.
Kristensen, W.B. 1955: Inleiding tot de Godsdienstgeschiedenis, Arnhem.
1992 (1925): Life out of Death. Studies in the Religions of Egypt and of Ancient Greece,
Leuven.
Kuiper, Y.B. 1982: "Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973)", in: G. Banck &

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G. v. Heijningen (eds.): Beroep Antropoloog. Vreemde volken, visies en vooroordelen,

Amsterdam: 43-62.
1986: "Religion, Symbols and the Human Condition. An analysis of the basic
ideas of Jan van Baal", in: H.G. Hubbeling & H.G. Kippenberg (eds.): On Symbolic
Representation of Religion, Berlin/New York: 57-69.
Lawson, E. Th. & R.N. McCauley 1990: Rethinking Religion. Connecting Cognition and
Culture, Cambridge.
Leeuw, G. van der 1933: Phd'nomenologie der Religion, Tubingen.
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Marcus, G.E. & M.M.J. Fischer 1986: Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An Experimental
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173-188.
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Scott Littleton, C. 1985: "Lucien Levy-Bruhl and the Concept of Cognitive Relativity",
introduction to: L. Levy-Bruhl (transl. by L.A. Clarke): How Natives Think, Princeton:
vxlvii.
Sharpe, E.J. 19862: Comparative Religion. A History, London.
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bijdrage, Assen.
Wiebe, D. 1999: The Politics of
J Religious Studies, New York.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION: AN IDEAL

AND ITS PROBLEMS1
INGVILD SAELID GILHUS

I. INTRODUCTION
When I came to the University of Bergen as a young scholar, I was
confronted with phenomenology of religion in its different varieties.
For daily use, phenomenology was applied as a way of making comparisons between similar phenomena in different religions and as a
method one could use to construct typologies and definitions. The
students read books by Mircea Eliade and an article by Maurice
Merleau-Ponty and were told in the curriculum that advanced phenomenology was to find structures of general validity and universal
laws in accordance with a timeless model of religion. We never
became that advanced, and it was difficult to understand what the
phenomenology of religion really consisted of. One of the reasons
was probably that it consisted of too many things at the same time,
and some of them were markedly different from each other. I do
not think my experience was unique. On the contrary, what Dag
Hedin recently wrote about his first meeting with the phenomenology of religion at the University of Uppsala suggests a similar experience (Hedin 1997: 11):
When I and my fellow students were introduced to the phenomenology of religion, much of the time was spent on conveying a feeling of
the atmosphere around a particular religious act, be it prayer in general or a rite of some particular type. These objects of studies were
called religious phenomena. The method in use was very congenial
but it was never really clear to me what it consisted of. Was it just a
sympathetic way of becoming familiar with other people's conceptions
of the world? Or was it, as some of our books seemed to suggest, a
genuine attempt to enter into the religious reality of another person?

There is an ambivalence concerning the object of the phenomenological procedure, whether its object is the psychology of the believers
1

The author thanks Lisbeth Mikaelsson and Jeppe Sinding Jensen for helpful
comments on previous drafts.

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INGVILD SAELID GILHUS

or the categories of cultures, whether its aim is to reconstruct the

religious experience of the believers or to be a general comparative
and systematic study of religion. This ambivalence is rooted in issues
that the phenomenology of religion has been criticized for at least
for the last thirty years (for instance, Penner 1970).
II. DIFFERENT BRANCHES, DIFFERENT TREES?
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the different branches
of the discipline tend to become intertwined with each other (Gilhus
1994). A survey of the history of the phenomenology of religion
reveals that it can be divided in different ways, for instance, in a
hermeneutical and a typological variant, where Ricoeur's creative
combination of phenomenology and structuralism with his more existential-hermeneutical orientation becomes a sort of third way in relation to the two older branches (Gilhus 1984).
Sumner B. Twiss and Walter H. Conser have used a musical
metaphor to characterize the complex history of the phenomenology of religion as "a musical composition that contains three separate but related voices" and go on to describe how the three voices
interact with one another, "shaping the overall melody and contrapuntally contributing their parts to the resonance and power of the
composition as a whole" (Twiss and Conser 1992: 1-2). This is a
positive way to describe the situation, but difficult to accept, not
least when one contemplates the history of the phenomenological
branches. For these branches have different origins and aimsthey
virtually belong to different trees, rooted in either German philosophical phenomenologies which aimed at an analysis of consciousness (Lambert/Kant and Husserl) or in an English tradition of
descriptive phenomenology which aimed at a classification of phenomena (James 1985, James 1995: 22-46, Ryba 1991, Spiegelberg
1984: 7ff.).
Examples of new shoots on old trees are Jacques Waardenburg's
"new style phenomenology" and Jeppe Sinding Jensen's recent launching of phenomenology of religion as a new human and social science of religion which has taken a definitely cultural turn (Waardenburg
1973, Sinding Jensen 1993).
In reality, this variety, combined with the fact that the term phenomenology of religion designates something which frequently is very

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193

different from what phenomenology usually means within the phenomenological movement in philosophy and from how it is used in
sociology, does not make the term "phenomenology of religion" easier to come to grips with. It is not easy to explain and defend our
special use of "phenomenology" against the ruling meaning of the
concept, which today is the philosophical.
III. CAKES OR RECIPES?
It has been said about general phenomenology or philosophical phenomenology that "its most characteristic core is its method" (Spiegelberg
1982: 678). Its method is to investigate particular phenomena, investigate general essences, apprehend essential relationships among
essences, watch modes of appearing, watch the constitution of phenomena in consciousness, suspend belief in the existence of phenomena
and interpret the meaning of phenomena (Spiegelberg 1982: 682).
This is a complex and complicated procedure, and a rather curious
mixture of cognitive science, epistemology, metaphysics and hermeneutics. The philosopher Edmund Husserl applied a phenomenological
method on his own experiences; historians and sociologists of religion have used related methods or techniques to study other people's experiences and their meaning systems. In an ironical comment
on the connection between philosophical phenomenologists and phenomenologists of religion, the philosopher and theologian Thomas
Ryba remarks: "It has been said, with no little justification, that the
philosophical phenomenologist is like the baker who spends all his
time fiddling with his recipe and no time baking his cake. It is equally
accurate to say that the phenomenologist of religion is like the baker
who spends all his time baking bad cakes without a recipe." (Ryba
1991: 231)
This statement is, of course, very striking; I think, though, the
cakes are not bad in the sense that they do not taste good, they
may even be addictive. Though many of the older phenomenologists of religion were practising a phenomenological method rather
than elaborating on its technicalities, they baked the sort of cakes
which it is still a pleasure to eat (Kraemer 1971: xxi). Obvious classical examples are the works by Mircea Eliade, Brede Kristensen
and Gerardus van der Leeuw. Their prose is stimulating, and their
texts function pedagogically, not least by reflecting a coherent view

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of religion. The texts have an enduring seductive appeal which has

made it difficult to break out of the conception of religion that these
scholars have contributed to establishing for us. This conception
implies that religion is something sui generis, a systematic entity and
focused on the believer. I think these implications are problematic
because they reflect a one-sided conception of religion; and I will
return to them below.
IV. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION AS A SCIENTIFIC IDEAL
In an evaluation of the contributions that the phenomenology of religion has given to the broader field of the history of religion, I think
it is a crucial point how phenomenology has worked as an ideal.
Phenomenology has been an ethical approach in the study of religion and has constituted a general perspective and an ideal within
the field.
Of course this ideal is not without its problems; looking back at
its history, a critical question is at what cost has the phenomenology of religion been an ideal in a general study of religion?
The most basic part of the phenomenology of religion as a scientific
ideal is probably the scrupulous reverence for facts combined with
a genuinely sympathetic understanding of the believers as expressed
in Brede Kristensen's old watchword, "the believers were completely
right" (Kristensen 1971: 14). This means entering the world of the
Other and taking the religious reality of the Other seriously. This
has been an ideal procedure, a deeply humanistic procedure and, in
many cases, a fruitful procedure.
A scrupulous reverence for facts combined with sympathetic understanding of the believers often creates fresh perspectives on religions
which is one of those things that shows that the phenomenology of
religion still has a part to play. It also sometimes results in controversial texts, for instance, when new religious movements are treated
in the same respectful and insightful way as the traditional religions.
Recent Scandinavian examples are works by the Danish historians
of religion, Mikael Rothstein and Dorthe Refslund Christensen (Christensen 1997, Rothstein 1991). Rothstein uses an Eliade-influenced
perspective on new religious movements, Christensen investigates
Scientology with sympathetic understanding. The work of both these
scholars have been subjects of debate in Denmark, mainly, I think,

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195

because the phenomenological approach to these religions renders

them too "positive" in relation to how they are usually presented in
the media.
However, when the phenomenological procedure also allows the
possibility that some religious beliefs could actually be true, it becomes
more difficult. Not that some religious beliefs could not actually be
true, but rather that science works on another level than metaphysics.
The "new" consciousness in the humanities about how human experiences are mediated by language, which has resulted in a general
linguistic turn, implies that we are studying social realities, not metaphysics; this is argued for very interestingly in relation to the phenomenology of religion by jeppe Sinding Jensen (Sinding Jensen 1993
and 1998). Paul Ricoeur is one example of that linguistic turn (Ricoeur
1981). But for Ricoeur, because his reference is the consciousness of
the believers and because the intention of that consciousness is,
according to him, the sacred, every phenomenology is a phenomenology of the sacred (Ricoeur 1970: 29, Gilhus 1994). The sacred/
profane dichotomy is one of the difficulties in the phenomenology of
religion and history of religions, because it takes an emic opposition
and makes it into the basic etic opposition upon which a science of
religion is built.
When the phenomenology of religion is repeatedly said to bracket
metaphysical questions of the real existence of the divine, it can be
questioned whether this dictum at the same time presupposes implicitly the existence of the same metaphysical reality which it is putting
in brackets. The bracketing of metaphysical questions shows how the
phenomenology of religion has been a balancing act. The wish not
to overrule the reality of the believers on the one hand and resistance against theology on the other, without tipping over either way,
is very difficult and has led to accusations, as that of Hans Penner,
"that the history and phenomenology of religion as we know it today
could reasonably be described as Christian theology carried out by
other means" (Penner 1989: 42).
The ruling phenomenological ideal carries with it that the rhetoric
of historians of religions and the rhetoric of anthropologists are often
markedly different. In opposition to historians of religions, anthropologists have traditionally tended to take a more sceptical attitude
to the religion they are studying (Douglas 1996: 199). Anthropologists
have realized that it is hard to "believe in levitation every time there
is news of a saint who can rise up and stay in the air. It is equally

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INGVILD SAELID GILHUS

hard to believe in bi-location, the power to defy space and time and
be in two places at once; hard to accept that a person can be present in purely spiritual form, invisible and taking up no space at all"
(Douglas 1996: 199-200). Mary Douglas' point is that the major
stumbling block to "believing" that sort of thing arises from our commitment to certain fundamental laws of Newtonian physics.
Phenomenologists of religion do not usually believe these things
either, but their attitude is programmatically open rather than sceptical. Such an attitude could be problematic because it is easier to
suspend judgement in relation to some manifestations of religion than
to others, because these manifestations are more easy to identify with,
for instance because they are more easy to associate with Christian
categories. For that reason it could seem to be more "natural" to
study some phenomena than others.
Suspension of judgement, which is basic in a phenomenological
procedure, is also difficult because it lies at the basis of that type of
rationality that is an inherent part of Western science that dead bodies do not rise, letters do not fall from heaven as they did when the
theosophist Mme Blavatsky was in Adyar in India, and magic does
not work, at least not in a concrete way. One of the founding fathers
of history of religions in Norway, Wilhelm Schencke, characterized
the theological faculty's relationship to the university as an infected
appendix, because, according to his view, it was trading in beliefs
rather than facts. I do not mean to advocate a positivistic stand
against religion, but rather to say that beliefs are interesting as cultural facts and not because of their truth or lack of truth (Sinding
Jensen 1993, Gilhus 1998: 33-35).
It is not coincidental that some of the criticism of phenomenology
and recent attempts to suggest alternative strategies have taken their
recourse to Michel Foucault and started to discuss the possibilities,
in his works, for a study of religion (Asad 1993, Gilhus 1994, Martin
1998, Penner 1989). With Foucault, we enter an anti-phenomenological constructionism. His approach is one way of asking why things
are as they are; the insiders' view of things are not accepted at face
value. In Foucauldian thinking, religion is conceived as power relationships. It is a very important point in relation to the phenomenology of religion that the sympathetic view of the belief of the Other
may blind us to the less positive things connected to religions. Power
and oppression of the Other are often expressed in a religious language. The category of the sacred is as much a category of power

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197

as it is of religion. The phenomenology of religion is not construed

in a way that makes it suitable to expose a religious language of
power and oppression. The ideological dimension of religious languagehow it intersects, challenges or protects the structure of power
in a given societyis seldom commented upon.
V. THE SYSTEMATIC NATURE OF RELIGION AND RELIGION
AS A SEPARATE PART OF CULTURE
In the phenomenology of religion, religion has been constructed as
something sui generis. This is in accordance with how Protestantism
established religion as a separate sector outside the sphere of power
and the domain of science. Inside this sector the belief and consciousness of the believer has been the center of religious life (Asad
1993: 27ff.). Basic to the different branches in phenomenology of religion is an encouragement to re-enact and re-experience the religious
intentions, motivations and emotions of the believing soul and/or
community. In classical phenomenology of religion one is empathically or imaginatively rehearsing the feelings and beliefs of the believing soul with the purpose of reconstructing its religious state and
religious consciousness in general. I think this means that we are
working with an implicit model of religion where the most believing member of a religion stands at the center of our investigation.
The experiences of this believer, the "homo religiosus" of Eliade,
are seldom differentiated by gender, class, race and age (Shaw 1995).
The experiences of religion are also primarily connected to the religious virituosi, which means that re-experience presupposes religious
peak-experiences. This model presupposes further that religion has
a systematic character with an agreement between the different parts.
Cosmology, mythology and rituals reflect each other, interlock and
make a totality. This way of looking at religion suits defined groups
and organized religion very well, but is not so well suited to an
analysis of religion which is not organized and has actors who are
not restricted to one tradition. Lisbeth Mikaelsson has called such
actors multi-religious (Mikaelsson 1999). In a way the traditional
model implies that religion is something solid and with a stable structure. The model fits, for example, Christianity better than New Age.
(It would be interesting if, rather than thinking about religion as a
solid, we thought about it more as a fluid.)

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The traditional model of religion as something systematic and sui

generis has probably been allowed to dominate too much. It is a onesided way of looking at religion which misses many of the interesting
things that religion is also about. Like other models, a phenomenology
of religion will give results in some areas, but at the same time work
as a barrier to development in others.
I would suggest that significant parts of religion are not religious
if "religious" connotes only piety and belief. Religious symbols, myths
and rituals appear abundandy in contexts that are not primarily religious, and religion is intertwined with non-religious sectors of society and cultural processes that are not primarily religious. This was
the case, for instance, with the cult of the emperor in the GraecoRoman world and is the case with the spread of New Age today
(Gilhus and Mikaelsson 1998). With our construction of religion as
a coherent system with a sharp division between the sacred and the
profane, and our focus on the believer, we easily miss those other
dimensions or regard them as less important.
The founding fathers in the field reflected their own society and
contemporary issues in what they were writing. A study of religion
is dependent on a ruling comprehension of religion. Even if history
of religions has long been a global phenomenon with conferences
held in different parts of the world and participants from other religions than Christianity, history of religions is still not founded on a
Muslim or a Buddhistic comprehension of religion, but on a modern,
Western, Christian comprehension. If our scientific comprehension
of religion has been thoroughly informed by Western Christianity
and by religion as a separate sector in society characterized by piety
and belief, how would it influence the academic construction and
study of religion if Western religion is changing its character?
One symptom that changes are taking place in the Western comprehension of religion today is not the new religious movements,
which are small and for the most part not so significant, but the
New Age or informal new religious aspect of contemporary Western
culture which is very visible. It is visible, for instance, in advertizing, music videos, rock music, novels, non-fiction books, comics and
cartoons. These creations presuppose a concept of religion which is
characterized by the market and not the Church, fantasy rather than
belief, playfulness rather than seriousness, re-enchantment rather than
sacredness. It is global rather than national. I think that our traditional academic model of religion is seriously challenged by this devel-

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199

opment. The reason why is that this is a development within the

culture in which the original comprehension of religion was shaped.
VI. PHENOMENOLOGY AS A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM
As we have seen, the object of the phenomenology of religion can
be the mental states of the believers or cognitive mechanisms as well
as cultural categories; its method can be construed to make typologies as well as to reveal universal structures; its goal can be to reconstruct the religious experiences of the believers as well as to be a
comparative and systematic study of religion. In addition to the variations in the objects, methods and goals of the phenomenology of
religion, there are also variations in what level it appears on. As we
have seen, the phenomenology of religion has worked on different
levels: as a method (classification of categories or mapping of mental states); a discipline (Scandinavia and the Netherlands); an ideal
(to be understanding and sympathetic); a model (religion is something sui generis, systematic and focused on the believer); and, finally,
as a scientific paradigm.
As a paradigm for the study of religion, the phenomenology of
religion at one time succeeded evolutionism. The Norwegian historian of religion, Anne Stensvold, has related the use of the concept
of "phenomenology" as a designation for different theoretical and
methodological directions within the broader field of history of religions to Thomas Kuhn's idea about a ruling scientific paradigm
(Stensvold 1998). A paradigm is something given, which is usually
not challenged and perhaps not even defined. For a time, a paradigm will cover up theoretical and methodological differences and
veil possible conflicts. In the long run, the accumulation of differences
will make the paradigm unstable. If we regard the phenomenology
of religion as a ruling paradigm for the study of religion, it is perhaps understandable how it has been so long-lived.
The fact that it is difficult to make a definition of the term "phenomenology" to the point that it in some cases appears as a metaphorical word more than an exact scientific term (Penner 1970) probably
supports the idea that the phenomenology of religion has worked as
a scientific paradigm in the study of religion. The difficulty in defining
the term and the multiplicity of approaches which it has included
does not necessarily mean that such a variety of uses may not be

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fruitful in a scientific endeavour. The complex and often contradictory strategies that live side by side under the phenomenological
umbrella could in reality have offered that sort of flexibility and
potential for dynamic development which is in general an inspiration for creative thinking. Otherwise it would have been difficult to
understand how the phenomenology of religion, which has been so
much criticized for its lack of methodological stringency and for its
wavering between essentialism, theology, typologies and hermeneutics, has at the same time stimulated the production of so many
influential texts. In many of these texts, the phenomenological perspective has worked as a sort of ideal for how to study religion. For
instance, in the introduction to Brede Kristensen's book, The Meaning
of Religion., he is said to be an example that good phenomenology is
not primarily a method, but an art (Kraemer 1971: xxi).
The phenomenology of religion has during more than a century
generated a plethora of texts about one or several religious phenomena. What these texts have in common are a sympathetic representation of other people's beliefs and a way of depicting religion
as a systematic, coherent and sui generis phenomenon. The phenomenology of religion creates a universe of meanings and intentions
where the theoretician maps the reality of the believer, and perhaps
sometimes develops this reality further than the believer and in a
much more systematic direction. Depending on how far one goes
along this path, the phenomenology of religion takes on a certain
similarity to systematic theology. The focus of the discipline is the
most devout members of a religious community or rather an invented
or hypothetically most devout member of a society. This member
happens to be ageless, classless and sexlessa rather impossible and
perhaps not quite human construction of religious people.
VII. CONCLUSION
When historians of religion sometimes complain about the academic
marginalization of the study of religionthat it does not attract the
attention of academics in other fields (Sinding Jensen 1998: 13)one
of the reasons could be a monolithic theory of religion in which religion is seen as a sui generis phenomenon and with a systematic character. The phenomenology of religion has contributed to sustaining the
comprehension of religion as a self-contained system and to giving

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION

201

it emotional support by its appeal to a sympathetic attitude to the

believer, depth, inner meaning and the need to understand religious
phenomena. But it is a long time since it has inspired major works
with a similar impact on the field as those of the past masters.
If we were more interested in cultural categories than in states of
mind; if we were more interested in how religion contributes to general cultural processes and strategies than in its systematic and sui
generis nature; and if we were more interested in how the category
of the sacred also appears as a category of power and oppression as
well as one of religion, perhaps the phenomenology of religion would
lose some of its significance within the general field of the history
of religions, and perhaps that should not be lamented.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Asad, Talal 1993: Genealogies of Religion, Baltimore: John Hopkins.
Christensen, Dorthe Refslund 1997: Scientologi: En ny religion, Kobenhavn: Munksgaard.
Douglas, Mary 1996: Thought Styles, London: Sage Publications.
Gilhus, Ingvild Saelid 1984: "The Phenomenology of Religion and Theories of Interpretation", in: Temenos, 20: 26-39.
1994: "'Is a Phenomenology of Religion Possible?': A Response to Jeppe
Sinding Jensen", in: Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 6, 2: 163-171.
1998: "Religion og religioner. Om religionsfenomenologi og hva den kan
brukes til", in: D. Rian (ed.): Religion i en verden i endring, Trondheim: Tapir: 27-40.
Gilhus, Ingvild Saslid og Lisbeth Mikaelsson 1998: Kulturens refortrylling. Nyreligi0sitet i
moderne samfunn, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Hedin, Sven 1997: Phenomenology and the Making of the World, Stockholm: Almquist &
Wiksell International.
James, George Alfred 1985: "Phenomenology and die Study of Religion: The Archaeology of an Approach", in: The Journal of Religion 65, 3: 311-35.
1995: Interpreting Religion. The Phenomenological Approaches of Pierre Daniel Chantepie
de la Saussaye, W. Brede Kristensen, and Gerardus van der Leeuw, Washington D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press.
Kraemer, Hendrik 1971: "Introduction", in: Kristensen 1971: xi-xxv.
Kristensen, W. Brede (1960) 1971: The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology
of Religion, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Martin, Luther 1998: "Rationalism and Relativity in History of Religions Research",
in: Sinding Jensen and Martin 1998: 145-156.
Mikaelsson, Lisbeth 1999: "Kulturforstaelse i religionsvitenskapen", in: KULT's skriftserie, Norges Forskningsrad: Oslo.
Penner, Hans 1970: "Is Phenomenology a Method for the Study of Religion?", in:
Bucknell Review 18: 29-54.

202

INGVILD SAELID GILHUS

1989: Impasse and Resolution: A Critique of the Study of Religion, New York: Peter
Lang.
Ricoeur, Paul 1970: Freud & Philosophy. An Essay on Interpretation, New Haven/London:
Yale.
Rothstein, Mikael 1991: Gud er bla: De nye religiose beviegelser, Kobenhavn: Gyldendal.
Ryba, Thomas 1991: The Essence of Phenomenology and Its Meaning for the Scientific Study
of Religion, New York: Peter Lang (Toronto Studies of Religion).
Shaw, Rosalind 1995: "The Gendering of Religious Studies", in: U. King (ed.):
Religion and Gender, Oxford: Blackwell: 65-76.
Sinding Jensen, Jeppe 1993: "Is a Phenomenology of Religion Possible? On the
Ideas of a Human and Social Science of Religion", in: Method & Theory in the
Study of Religion 5, 2: 109-133.
1994: "The Name of the Game is 'Nominalism': A Reply to Ingvild Saelid
Gilhus", in: Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 6, 3: 277-284.
1998: "Rationality and the Study of Religion: Introduction", in: Sinding Jensen
and Martin 1998: 9-23.
Sinding Jensen, Jeppe and Luther Martin (eds.) 1998: Rationality and the Study of
Religion, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Spiegelberg, Herbert 1984: The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Stensvold, Anne 1998: "Hva Kuhns vitenskapsteori kan fortelle om religionshistorisk
faghistorie", hhtp://www.uni.-marburg.de/fbl 1 /religionswissenschaft/journal.
Twiss, Sumner B. and Walter H. Conser, Jr. 1992: Experience of the Sacred. Readings
in the Phenomenology of Religion, Hanover/London: Brown University Press.
Waardenburg, Jacques DJ. 1973: "Research on Meaning in Religion", in: Th. P.
van Baaren and H J.W. Drijvers (eds.): Religion, Culture and Methodology, The Hague:
Mouton: 111-136.

PART FOUR

SCANDINAVIAN PIONEERS OF HISTORY

OF RELIGIONS

This page intentionally left blank

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN:

THE NORWEGIAN CAREER OF W. BREDE
KRISTENSEN*
SIGURD HJELDE

On Sunday, 30 September 1888 an article appeared in the Kristiania

newspaper Dagbladet entitled "Noget gammelt, som er blet nyt"
("Something old that has become new"). This may have been the
first time that modern science of religions, or rather history of religions, was introduced into Norway.1 The author, W. Brede Kristensen,
refers to the very promising beginnings of this academic subject both
in England and on the European continent; he mentions by name
and also cites such distinguished initiators as Max Miiller in Oxford
and Maurice Vernes in Paris. He particularly stresses the Dutch contribution; not only could one find in this "industrious and gifted
people" the greatest number of scholars within the field, but professorships in history of religions had been established at every university in the country. Looking at his own country, Kristensen could
not see the same possibilities; first one had to awaken a public interest in the subject. However, there was reason to be optimistic. "It
is just a matter of time until this science also makes its entry into
our country."
When William Brede Kristensen wrote this article, he was a young
student at the University of Kristiania, only 21 years old. Yet his
youthful optimism was not to deceive. Eight years later, on 18 June
* This article is based to a large extent on private letters held in the manuscript
collections of the National Library of Oslo (e.g., letters addressed to Bj0rnstjerne
Bjornson) and in the university libraries of Uppsala (e.g., letters addressed to Nathan
Soderblom) and Leiden (primarily non-catalogued letters to family and friends). The
autobiographical notes Herinneringen 19211950, in which Bjarne Kristensen of Arnhem
gives important information about his father's life, are another important source.
Conversations with Kristensen and his sister, Gunhild Volkenborn-Kristensen of
Osterbeek, have in various ways helped to complete the picture.
1
This does not mean that contemporary-minded Norwegians were not already
aware at this time of the growth of modern science of religion. In his weekly newspaper Folketidende (21 July 1875) the liberal politician S0ren Jaabaek ironises about
theology's lack of science and refers to developments in Holland, where theology
was in the process of developing into an academically legitimate science of religion.

206

SIGURD HJELDE

1896, he became the first Norwegian student to obtain the doctorate of philosophy in history of religions, and two years later he was
granted the first fellowship within this field of study at his university. Kristensen did not, however, become the first professor in history of religions in Norway. Such a chair was not established in
Kristiania until 1914,2 and by then Kristensen had already held a
more respected position for some years. In 1901 he had responded
to an invitation from the University of Leiden to succeed the world
famous scholar Cornelis Petrus Tiele (1830-1902).
I. CHILDHOOD, SCHOOL YEARS, AND PREPARATORY STUDIES
IN KRISTIANIA
William Brede Kristensen3 was born on 21 June 1867 in Kristiansand,
a medium-sized town by Norwegian standards, where his father,
Kristen Nicolai Kristensen (1838-1916), was a chaplain.4 His mother,
Karoline Emilie (18481929), was a sister of Bjornstjerne Bj0rnson,
who was not only the most important Norwegian writer after Henrik
Ibsen, but also a leading cultural figure in Norway in the second
half of the 19th century. Brede was the second child, with an elder
brother, Ingvar (b. 1865), a younger brother, Bj0rn (b. 1869),5 and
two younger sisters, Ragna (b. 1871) and Dagny (b. 1876).6 A fourth
son, born between the two sisters, died in infancy.
2
This chair was then given to Wilhelm Schencke (1869-1946) who had taken
over the fellowship when Kristensen went to Leiden.
3
Of his two Christian names, normally the latter was used; his first name was
originally spelled Villiam (cf. certificate of baptism, Kristiansand, 6 March 1916). He
was baptised on 5 July 1867 and confirmed in Holum on 9 October 1881.
4
In Norwegian, "personelkapellan", an assistant minister directly beneath a bishop.
Kristensen received his degree in theology in 1862, was personellkapellan from 1863
for Peder Bjernson (his father-in-law) in S0gne, and arrived in Kristiansand in 1866.
5
Bj0rn became the editor of the newspaper Moss Avis, which Brede submitted
articles to for many years on different academic and cultural subjects; he also sent
two "travel letters" from his stay in Paris in 1893 (cf. newspaper cuttings kept in
the university library in Leiden).
6
Dagny Kristensen founded the "Maria-ordenen" (Order of Maria) in 1916, a
closed order for women which on a Christian ethical basis aims "to promote selfrealisation amongst its members and support their work for personality development". In 1999 the order had around 6,000 members, with most groups in Norway,
some in Sweden and Denmark, and one in Germany. In autobiographical recollections (from 1956 and 1957) Dagny Kristensen leaves behind impressions of family life at the parsonage in Holum. About a dozen letters from Brede to Dagny
(from the 1930s and 1940s) are kept in the university library in Leiden.

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

207

The Kristensen family lived in Kristiansand until 1879. Shortly

before Brede's 12th birthday, they moved to the farm of Fodneb0
in Holum, where his father had now become a parson.7 In this rural
community near Mandal, the neighbouring town to Kristiansand,
Brede spent the rest of his childhood. However, there were no schools
beyond primary school, so he and his brothers had to leave home
at the age of 14, spending only their summer holidays at the farm.
The most practical solution was sending the boys to Kristiania, the
far-away capital, where the boys' grandmother on their mother's side
could keep an eye on them.
After graduating from secondary school in 1884,8 Brede continued
on to the university, where he passed the so-called "second examination" ("examen philosophicum")9 in 1885, an obligatory test at the
end of the first year of university before real academic studies began.
After that, the young Kristensen worked for a year as a private tutor
in S0r-Fron in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen10 in the east of Norway
before starting on his planned study of theology. He passed the obligatory examination in Hebrew in the autumn of 1886, but only one
year later, in the autumn of 1887, he left theology to concentrate
exclusively on the study of history of religions.
What lay behind this change of direction? It may well be that the
study of theology itself, as Kristensen found it in Kristiania in the
latter half of the 1880s, did not appeal to him.11 In this decade, often
associated with the breakthrough of modernity in Norway, Fredrik

' His father's later career included being resident curate ("residerende kapellan")
in Bergen (parish of Korskirken) from 1889, and vicarand later dean ("prost")
in Stavanger (the parish of St. Petri) from 1892.
8
The certificate for "klassisk examen artium" at Aars og Voss's latin- og realskok
(grade: laudabilis) is kept in the university library in Leiden.
9
This certificate (grade: laudabilis prae ceteris] is also kept in the university library
in Leiden. A note about passing the preparatory test in Hebrew is written on it.
10
This information is given by Kristensen himself in Studenteme fra 1884, Kristiania
1909, p. 195. In a biographical note ("Aantekeningen over Brede", probably written by Kristensen's wife, Jacoba) kept in the university library in Leiden, Hoggerud
is given as the name of the farm. However, there are no farms with this name in
the district of Sor-Fron; this is probably a misspelling of Heggerud, which lies in
Harpefoss and functioned as a farmstead for the local magistrate from 1861 onwards
for about 30 years. It was usual for the children of a magistrate to have their own
teacher. (Source: Knut Tvete, S0r-Fron.)
11
In a letter to Bjornson (Leiden, 21 December 1891, cf. also footnote 27 below),
where Kristensen tells about Abraham Kuenen's death and wishes that Norway had
had a man like him, he makes it fairly clear that he did not hold the theologians
there in particularly high esteem: "I know how those Kristiania lectures are."

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SIGURD HJELDE

Petersen (1839-1903), professor of dogmatics, stood out as a moderate spokesman for new theological thinking. He was willing to
interpret the new ideas of the time as expressions for something more
than regular disbelief and he sought to meet them with apologetics
geared to contemporary issues. But the majority of the faculty's professors still represented a strict confessional Lutheranism of an orthodox or pietist type. Kristensen's religious orientation and theological
sympathies certainly did not take him in this direction. By virtue of
his family background he was at home in the Grundtvigian tradition,
which with its more culturally open attitude played a considerable
role in Norwegian church life for large parts of the 19th century.12
However, there are no reasons to suppose that Kristensen's change
of course was due primarily to any conscious, radical break with the
theological tradition. It is more likely that a genuine and positive
interest for the study of history of religions made him see this as an
ideal alternative to classical theology. Childhood experiences also
undoubtedly played a role. An Englishman who regularly came fishing
in the river Mandalselva used to leave behind copies of the Illustrated
London News, which included articles about, amongst other subjects,
the latest archaeological excavations and finds in Egypt. These articles
fascinated Kristensen and his father and awakened an interest which
never left him and which was to be decisive for his whole life.
But the choice of history of religions instead of theology set Kristensen on a lonely and uncertain path.13 Not only were job prospects
uncertain, but also the very pursuit of such a line of study. There
was no academic milieu for history of religions at the University of
Kristiania and no formal syllabus, either at the Faculty of Theology
or the Faculty of Arts. This did not mean that Kristensen had nothing to gain there. He clearly saw the importance of a thorough philological training as a condition for studying history of religions,14 and
12
The Danish clergyman and poet N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) also exercised
an important influence in Norway, not least through the movement of "folk high
schools". Kristensen's father was apparently a declared Grundtvigian (cf. biographical note from the family, kept in the university library in Leiden), and his son
speaks out clearly in different private letters in favour of free thinking and liberalism, both in religion and political life. In a letter to Bj0rnstjerne Bjornson from his
period of study in Leiden (27 May 1892), he also agrees with his uncle that history of religions "has a practical mission in the face of foolish orthodoxy".
13
In a letter to Bjornson just before his departure for Leiden (Bergen, 26 July 1890)
Kristensen clearly expresses his dissatisfaction with having to work on his own.
14
In a letter to his father written from his period of study in Leiden (15 May

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

209

both Indo-European and Oriental linguistics had in the second half

of the 19th century gained a firm foothold in Norway. Many highly
qualified and internationally renowned philologians had also done
thorough work with old religious texts. Amongst those leading the
way was the pioneering and unusually productive Sophus Bugge
(1833-1907). As Professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
and Old Norse, Bugge produced ground-breaking studies on the Old
Norse mythology. In contrast to the traditional, romantically inspired
interpretation, where the Edda poems constituted Nordic culture's
characteristic common property, Bugge put emphasis on the external influence, both from Graeco-Roman and from Judaeo-Christian
myths and legends.
Kristensen himself has put forward two names as his philological
teachers from his student years in Kristiania: Alf Torp (1853-1916)
and Jens Lieblein (1827-1911).15 He studied Sanskrit with Torp, but
it was almost certainly the study of Egyptian with Lieblein that more
than anything else attracted his interest and attention.16 In addition
to pure language studies, he also had the opportunity to attend lectures in folklore, a newly established subject in 1886, with Moltke
Moe (1859-1913) as the first professor.17 Otherwise he undoubtedly
1892) the young Kristensen stresses the importance of philological competence for
the study of history of religions and points to the need for independent access to
the original texts.
13
Kristensen makes special mention of both in Studenteme fra 1884. Alf Torp had
studied comparative linguistics in Germany (with, amongst others, Georg Curtius)
and had taken his doctoral degree in Leipzig in 1880 with a thesis on the inflection
system in Pali in relation to Sanskrit. In 1882 he became a research fellow ("adjunktstipendiat") in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at Kristiania, and in 1894 an
additional professorship was specially set up for him. For Lieblein, see the article
written by Saphinaz-Amal Naguib entitled "Lieblein, Kristensen and Schencke and
the Quest for Egyptian Monotheism", pp. 101-113.
16
The annual reports of the university state that Lieblein had not had any takers for his courses in "Ancient Egyptian Writing and Grammar" in the autumn of
1886 and the spring of 1887. From September 1887 to June 1888 he was away
(on a trip to Egypt). In the autumn semester of 1888, however, he lectured on
"Hieroglyphic Grammar" to an audience of three. In the following three semesters,
when he followed up with hieroglyphic and hieratic texts (and also Coptic grammar in spring 1890), his audience was reduced to two. In a letter to Bjornson
(Bergen, 26 July 1890) Kristensen writes that he has had to put Sanskrit aside for
a year, but now looks forward to being able to take it up again, primarily so that
he can read the Rigveda texts "without too much difficulty".
17
Moltke Moe was the son of the poet-priest J0rgen Moe, who together with
P. Chr. Asbj0rnsen was responsible for gathering together a considerable part of
the Norwegian folk story tradition. In a collection of newspaper cuttings stored in
the university library in Leiden, Kristensen kept a review of Moe's inauguration

210

SIGURD HJELDE

read the literature of history of religions on his own, parallel to his

language studies.18 As we have seen, he passed on part of the knowledge that he acquired in these preparatory years of study in his
homeland in the form of newspaper articles, above all in the Kristiania
newspaper Dagbladet, organ of the political party Venstre.19
II. STUDIES ABROAD AND AT HOME UNTIL THE DOCTORATE
To make real advances in his field of study, Kristensen had to study
abroad. With the generous financial support of his parents,20 he was
able to spend the necessary years in scholarly centres such as Leiden
(1890-1892), Paris (1892-93) and London (1895). His decision to
start studying abroad in Leiden was perhaps also due to the advice
of his uncle, Bj0rnstjerne Bj0rnson, who had become one of the
most influential defenders of Darwinism in Norway and was thus
one of the admirers of the evolutionist theories of religion proclaimed,
amongst others, by Tiele.21 In Leiden, there was also the Dutch

lecture (Dagbladet, 2 October 1888), and in a letter to Bj0rnson (Bergen, 26 July

1890) he mentions Moe, together with Lieblein, as someone he thinks of with special gratitude. There was also contact between W. Brede Kristensen and Moltke
Moe to the extent that Kristen N. Kristensen's last year as assistant minister in
Kristiansand (1875-1879) coincided with J0rgen Moe's first years as bishop there.
18
The university library in Leiden contains a handwritten document (32 pages
and a number of extra sheets with their own numbering) entitled "Om methoder
for mythologisk og religionshistorisk forskning". An annotation written in pencil on
the top of the first page indicates that this outline may originally date from the
spring of 1890, i.e., the semester before his departure for the study period in Leiden.
19
An album with a number of newspaper cuttings from Kristensen's period of
study in Kristiania is kept in the university library in Leiden. In addition to the
article in Dagbladet of 30 September 1888, these include the following contributions
signed by W. Brede Kristensen: "Ernest Renan" (Dagbladet, 12 May 1889), "Om
nogle billioner aar. Lidt astronomi" (Lindesnes, 1 August 1889), "Agnostikerne"
(Dagbladet, 9 and 11 October 1889) and moreover a review (and recommendation)
of Nordisk Tidsskrift for Filologi, volume 10, nr. 1 (5 November 1889). He also wrote
a piece entitled "En aegyptisk mumie" in the well-reputed children's magazine Illustreret
Tidendefor Born (5th year, 1889-90, pp. 207-211).
20
Letters to Bj0rnson (Leiden, 21 December 1891 and 27 May 1892) show that
Kristensen received a scholarship of about 600 Norwegian kroner from the University
of Kristiania until at least his second year of study in Leiden. The university's
annual report for 18901891 shows that this consisted of support (given here as kr.
300) from the Count Hjelmstjerne-Rosencronske endowment "to continue study in
the history of religions abroad".
21
In one of his letters before his departure for Leiden (Bergen, 26 June 1890),
Brede reminds his uncle that he had promised to give him a letter of recommendation for Tiele.

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

2 11

Museum der Oudheden, where Kristensen could study Egyptian monuments at close quarters and learn to handle antiquities under the
leadership of the director, Dr. Pleyte.22
Thus it was under the tutorship of Tiele that Kristensen first learnt
the methodological foundations of the study of history of religions.
Under his tutelage he also started to learn the Mesopotamian cuneiform
alphabet.23 To begin with, relations with his teacher seem to have
been marked by a certain distance, but gradually he came into closer
contact.24 He must have worked very thoroughly and conscientiously
as he also had to learn the Dutch language at the same time. Anyhow,
he felt at home in Leiden25 and he made some lasting friendships
in those first years abroad.26 He particularly appeared to appreciate
his teacher for the Old Testament, Professor Abraham Kuenen,
whose death in 1891 deeply affected him.27
22
Cf. letter to Nathan Soderblom (Kristiania, 19 September 1898): "It was in
that museum that I first began to work by myselfI see it almost as a home."
23
Following sensational finds that shed light on the Mesopotamian background
of many of the Bible stories from Genesis, there was an increasing interest in
Assyriology in many circles towards the end of the 19th century. In a letter to
Bjornson (Leiden, 27 May 1892), who clearly shared this interest, Kristensen has
to argue why he nonetheless thinks that from a history of religions perspective it
is more profitable to concentrate on Egyptology.
24
Cf. the following statement in a letter to Bjornson (Leiden, 21 December 1892):
"It takes time to learn to assess Tieleso he is not particularly admired by his students. He is too aristocratic, they say, and he speaks with too much pathos, which
does not inspire confidence." Cf. also a letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 19 September
1898): "Remember not to misinterpret Tiele, as I did for a long time at the beginninghe appeared to me at that time so neat and fine like a lady that I couldn't
see much else. Only little by little did I discover him!" The welcome that Kristensen
received in a letter from Tiele's wife after his appointment in 1901 bears witness
to a closer relationship to his teacher. Kristensen translates it into Norwegian in a
letter to his father-in-law Thorstein Lunde (Kristiania, 27 April 1901): "Whatever
we can be and do for you so that you will be happy in Leiden we can promise
you. You are leaving behind a great deal and have an unknown future before you,
but in our house and in our hearts you will find a place as though you were a
beloved son. . . . Just as Humme is like a son to us, so will you be." The letter is
signed "your best friend in Leiden, Antoinette Tiele-Rugchaven".
25
Cf. letter to Bjornson (Leiden, 27 May 1892): "But how grateful I am to that
city and that university!"Kristensen also writes of his good experiences from Leiden
and his positive relationship to the city and university in a letter to his friend
Humme (Kristiania, 18 April 1901, cf. footnote 26 below). A letter to Soderblom
(Kristiania, 19 September 1898) shows that in these two years he found lodging
with "an old maid" in Rapenburg 102.
26
The university library in Leiden contains some letters (from the years 1897-1909)
from Kristensen to his friend A.A. Humme, who was a fellow student in theology
at Leiden and who later became editor of the newspaper Het Vaderland in the Hague.
27
In a letter to Bjornson (Leiden, 21 December 1891), in which he characterises

212

SIGURD HJELDE

After two years in Leiden, Kristensen continued his Egyptian and

Assyrian studies in Paris.28 He passed an examination in cuneiform
writing at the Ecole du Louvre29 and had the opportunity to work
at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes under the famous Egyptologist
Gaston Maspero.30 In Paris, which was very popular at the time
among Scandinavian artists and intellectuals, Kristensen shared for
some time a small two-room flat in Rue de Vaugirard with the Norwegian poet Knut Hamsun. They both lived in poor circumstances
and had just enough to survive. Although their relationship as neighbours was quite good, they never became lasting friends.31
From Paris, Kristensen returned to Kristiania for one year (1894)
to work on his doctoral thesis and also to prepare for the examination which had to be taken before the disputation, as Kristensen
had not passed his obligatory final exams in Kristiania.32 However,
to work more with the sources, he had to go abroad again, this time
to London for half a year (January to June 1895) where the required
texts were deposited in the British Museum. During this period of
study he also managed to complete the work for his doctorate:
sEgypternes Forestillinger om Livet efter Doden i Forbindelse med Guderne Ra

Kuenen not only as a first class scholar but also an exceedingly noble personality,
Kristensen expresses sincere respect for his beloved master. In this letter he also
mentions a plan to send an article about Kuenen to Dagbladet. However, a search
of Dagbladet for the month of January 1892 could not confirm this. In another letter to Bj0rnson (Leiden, 27 May 1892) he writes that "the only sorrow I have had
here was when Kuenen diedI respected him more than anything".
28
During this time Kristensen sent two "letters from Paris" to Moss Avis (4 January
and 16 September 1893); cf. footnote 5 above.
29
His examination certificates are kept in the university library in Leiden: "a
passe le 8 Juin les Examens d'Epigraphie Assyrienne, et d'Epigraphie Phenicienne,
avec la note Tres Bien".
30
His "Certificat d'Etudes", dated 2 July 1893 and signed by G. Maspero, is
also kept in the university library in Leiden.
31
Hamsun came to Paris to learn French, if possible without any tiresome study
of French grammar. Thus he was very eager to listen to his neighbour speaking
French. Cf. Ferguson 1988, pp. 153ff. Hamsun seems to have had a closer relationship to Brede's sister Dagny. The collection Knut Hamsum brev, edited by Harald
S. Naess, Oslo 1994ff., so far contains 9 letters from the poet to Brede's sister (vol.
2: 1896-1907, Oslo 1995; vol. 3: 1908-1914, Oslo 1996; vol. 4: 1915-1924, Oslo
1997) from the years 1900-1916. In one of these letters he speaks of the linguistically clever brother, who, according to Hamsun, mastered 14 languages: "Once in
Paris, Brede was to teach me French" (letter no. 559, vol. 2, p. 165). In another
letter, Hamsun writes that he had been in Belgium for a short time and had thought
of visiting Brede in Holland (letter no. 590, vol. 2, p. 192).
32
Cf. Studenterne fra 1884, p. 196.

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

213

og Osiris,33 which he defended at home in Kristiania a year later.

Prior to the disputation Kristensen took three examinations and gave
three lectures.34 The disputation itself took place in the university
lecture hall on 16 June 1896.35 One of his two opponents was his
former teacher, Professor Jens Lieblein, the other was the pastor and
doctor of theology, Simon Michelet, who had studied history of religions in Germany before specialising in Old Testament theology.36
Two days later, just before his 29th birthday, Kristensen was made
a doctor of philosophy.37
Kristensen's thesis was published in connection with the disputation and put on sale,38 though in a very simple version based on a
handwritten manuscript.39 Originally Kristensen had wanted to translate his thesis to French during a planned stay in Paris the following
year.40 Nothing came of this however. This may have had something
33

The manuscript that was originally submitted has a slightly different title:
AEgypternes forestillinger om Liv efter deden i forbindelse med Ra og Osiris. The manuscript
is kept in the National Archive in Oslo. The pages have text (with simple crossings-out) on the left, and notes (and some corrections) on the right. On the last
page (p. 213) are the words "British Museum 7 June 1895".
34
Cf. university archive, journal no. 289 (3 June 1896). In the university library
in Leiden (under the signature BPL 2587 I) are three handwritten manuscripts
(dated 1896) which are probably these lectures: "Hvad forstaaes i religionshistorien
med en naturgud?" (34 pages), "Babyloniske bodssalmer" (24 pages) and "Brahma"
(22 pages). The Brahma lecture was published as a book in 1898.
33
Cf. university archive, journal nos. 289 and 321, 1896, and the university yearbook for 1895-1896, p. 95.
36
After taking his final university examinations in theology in 1887 and a practical theology examination in 1888, Simon Michelet (1863-1942) had studied history of religions and Indian languages for two years in Germany. At the bidding
of the Faculty of Theology he had then concentrated his studies on the Old Testament
to qualify for the professorship after Carl Paul Caspari, who died in 1892. Due to
a dispute about this position, it was not advertised for some time, and Michelet
was not appointed until the autumn of 1896; cf. Norsk Biogrqfisk Leksikon, volume IX,
Oslo 1940, pp. 199 202. A collection of 13 letters from Kristensen to Michelet
(from 1896 to 1916), kept in the National Library in Oslo, bears witness to a certain degree of friendship between the two.
37
Cf. university yearbook for 1895-1896, p. 95. This date, which is also the
same as that in the doctoral certificate (kept in the university library in Leiden), is
the one that Kristensen himself gives in Studentene fra 1884, p. 195.
38
Cf. advertisement in Dagbladet, 18 June 1896.
39
Only the title page and the list of contents were printed. According to a letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 24 June 1898) the largest part of the thesis (172 pages)
was written by his sister Dagny, while the final pages (p. 156 onwards) were written by his fiancee, Anna Lunde.
40
Cf. letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 17 August 1896). This letter is a reply to
an offer by Nathan Soderblom to review the thesis in the Revue de l'histoire des religions, the leading French contemporary journal for history of religions. Kristensen

214

SIGURD HJELDE

to do with the fact that this stay, as we shall see, had a different
outcome to that foreseen. But it is not unthinkable that Kristensen's
own assessment of his thesis as clearly "preparatory work" may have
led to the translation not being prioritised.41
III. POST-DOCTORAL STUDIES IN PARIS AND KRISTIANIA
After successfully completing his studies, Kristensen could pursue other
aims. Now, with a financially secure future, he could think of marriage. Only a few months after his promotion, on 27 October 1896,
he married Anna Lunde, a 25 year old law student from Lillehammer,42
daughter of one of the most prosperous and prominent merchants
in the town.43 She had finished her final examination on the same
day as her fiance had obtained his doctorate. Shortly after the wedding, the young couple moved to Paris. Kristensen had been granted
a scholarship44 which enabled him to continue his studies in history
of religions; now he wanted to learn ancient Iranian at the Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes in order to be able to read the Avesta
literature. His teacher was Antoine Meillet and one of his fellow students was the Swede Nathan Soderblom (1866-1931),45 who was
approximately the same age as Kristensen and was pastor of the
Scandinavian Lutheran community in Paris. He and Kristensen
became close lifelong friends.46
thought that a review should await the French edition. Moreover his fellow student
Anathon Aall had already offered to write a short review of the thesis, cf. RHR 31,
1896, p. 246. Here too there is a reference to the planned translation.
41
Cf. letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 14 June 1898): "But you will see that the
work is almost exclusively collecting and reworking material for an account in history of religions: in my opinion there is such a lot of actual preparatory work to
do with the Egyptian religion, so many new 'instruments' to put forward and explain,
that I have not had time or even managed to draw the final religious and historical conclusions that must and certainly can be drawn."
42
Born 24 November 1870, baptised 26 December the same year, confirmed 2
May 1886.
43
Thorstein Lunde (1835-1902) ran a successful manufacturing business and
played an active role in the city's public affairs, holding the office of mayor for a
number of years. Lunde was also a good friend of Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Kristensen's
uncle, who had settled down at the Vonheim farmstead in Gausdal, not far from
Lillehammer. Cf. Gunnersen 1917, pp. 300-303; cf. also Frolich 1919; pp. 42-46.
44
Houen's Endowment, cf. Studenterne fra 1884, p. 196.
45
In a letter to Tor Andre (Leiden, 31 August 1931) Kristensen also mentions
an Armenian fellow student.
46
Some of the letters from Kristensen to Soderblom are deposited in the university library in Uppsala and some from Soderblom to Kristensen in the university

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

215

The marriage to Anna Lunde, however, would only last a very

short time. After a few months in Paris, the pregnant young woman
fell ill with diphtheria and died in hospital on 21 February 1897.
Shortly after, Kristensen returned to Kristiania. In the autobiographical note which he wrote for the 25th student anniversary in 1909, the
young widower described this event in the following words: "this, in
a certain way, became a turning-point in my life."47 It is natural to
ask to what degree this critical turning-point also influenced the course
he followed in his later work in history of religions, with its strong
concentration on the interplay between the mystery of life and death.48
But at this point it is difficult to draw any clear conclusion.49
Kristensen continued his studies in history of religions at home
in Kristiania by himself. In the first three to four years, as with
the stay in Paris, the main thrust of his work was on the Avesta literature. The translation of the principal texts was time-consuming
work,50 and the idea was probably to produce a complete account
of the ancient Iranian religion.51 The promising young researcher
probably gave lectures on occasion,52 as well as contributing to the

library in Leiden. In the letter to Tor Andrse (cf. footnote 45 above) Kristensen
gives a greater insight into his friendship with Soderblom.
41
Studenteme fra 1884, p. 196. Kristensen also expresses his thoughts and feelings
about the death of his wife in a letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 14 June 1898).
Many of his private letters show that Kristensen maintained very close contact with
Anna's parents after her death, and his friendship with his brother-in-law Einar
Lunde, who gradually became interested in anthroposophy and gave up his business, was a lifelong one.
48
Cf., e.g., G.R.H. Wright 1996, pp. 63-69, in particular p. 67: "He was an
Orpheus who had been in the underworld in quest of a cherished woman." Cf.
also the article by Jan N. Bremmer in this volume: "W. Brede Kristensen and the
Religions of Greece and Rome", p. 126f.
49
At any rate it is necessary to underline that his inclination for this topic was
apparent already in his doctoral thesis.
Rough notes from this translation work are kept in the university library in
Leiden (BPL 2587). Kristensen discusses a number of problems related to the translation of the Gatha songs in a letter to Tiele (Lillehammer, 3 May 1900).
51
In letters to Bj0rnson (Kristiania, 5 June 1899), Tiele (Lillehammer, 3 May
1990) and Soderblom (Kristiania, 17 September 1900) Kristensen mentions his work
on the manuscript for such a book, though in the letter to Soderblom this is in a
somewhat pessimistic tone: ". . . but I do not know when it will be finished."
52
The university library in Leiden (BPL 2587) has manuscripts for two such lecturesone, dated 19 May 1899, given in the Academy of Science (Videnskabsselskabet)
in Christiania, which Kristensen became a member of on 25 March 1898; this has
the tide: "Forestillinger i Zarathushtras religion om det godes nytte". The other,
dated 14 November 1899, was given "for the benefit of fishermen on the west
coast" and has the title "Om opstandelse, dom og gudsriget i den gamle Persiske
religion".

216

SIGURD HJELDE

contemporary-minded periodical Ringeren (1898-1899).53 A good picture of his academic profile at the time is given in both the twopart article "Det religiose i de gamle religioner"54 and the portrait
"Religionshistorikeren C.P. Tiele",55 where Kristensen still stands out
fairly clearly as a faithful disciple of the great master in Leiden.56
Even though it was academic work that undoubtedly took up most
of Kristensen's time and attention in these early post-doctoral years,
he maintained a strong interest in current affairs. He clearly admired
and had great sympathy for what his famous uncle, Bjornson, wrote
on different topics of the day.57 He himself seems to have been specially interested in the case of the union, one of the central questions in Norwegian politics towards the end of the 1890s: should
Norway work for a dissolution of the union with Sweden? As a liberal patriot, Kristensen was in no doubt about the answer, and was
disappointed by the misleading account of the Norwegian attitude
that he sometimes found in foreign newspapers.58
In 1897 Kristensen took part in the first congress for science of
religion held in Stockholm in the late summer of that year; his own
contribution to the proceedings were "short comments . . . mostly of
a historical nature" about the relationship of morals to religion.59
33
The periodical, which came out just two years, was edited by Sigurd Ibsen
with the collaboration of Bj0rnstjerne Bjornson and J.E. Sars.
54
Ringeren 1898, Nr. 4, pp. 6-9, and Nr. 5, pp. 8-10. It is fair to suppose that
this is the piece that Kristensen mentions in letters to Soderblom (Kristiania, 29
January 1898) and Humme (Kristiania, 21 March 1898) as "a type of programme"
for his work. Kristensen also sketches out in a letter to Bjornson (Kristiania, 5 June
1899) what he calls his "working hypothesis": ". . . that religion is submission to
those powers (gods) which one considers at the actual cultural stage to be the ones
which the individual's, the community's, and the world's life and well-being depend
on. The gods are always in their deepest meaning life's lords or powers in the world,
and the will to livevouloir vivreis that which always keeps religion going; religion is the form which the will to live takes, when it searches back the furthest
and creates its system about life's validity and supreme power in the world."
53
Ringeren 1898, nr. 16, pp. 3-7. Kristensen also wrote a similar portrait ("Professor
C.P. Tiele") for the monthly Dutch journal Woord en Beeld (1899, pp. 348-354).
36
In a letter to his friend Humme (Kristiania, 21 March 1898) Kristensen clearly
expresses a great debt of gratitude to Tiele: "voraal wat methode betreft". The article "Om religionernes inddeling i naturreligioner og etiske religioner" (Norsk Theologisk
Tidsskrift 2, 1900, pp. 153-175) also follows Tiele's thinking in general.
57
Cf. letters to Bjornson already from his study period in Leiden (21 December
1891). Cf. also a letter from Kristiania (18 August 1898): "after this I will create
my own collection of cuttings. . . Oh, if only I had begun earlier."
58
Cf. letters to Bjornson (Kristiania, 16 June 1897) and Humme (Kristiania, 9
November 1897).
59
Cf. Religionsvetenskapliga Kongressen i Stockholm 1897, published by S.A. Fries,

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

217

But he did not take part in the first official congress for history of
religions in Paris in 1900, and, as is well-known, Kristensen was not
a frequent guest at international conferences and symposia in his
later academic career.60 But what kept him away from the Paris congress may also have been the painful memories of Anna's illness and
death in that very city three years earlier.61
An important breakthrough in Kristensen's academic career came
in the autumn of 1898 when he was granted a scholarship in history of religions at the University of Kristiania, which required him
to lecture at the Faculty of Arts.62 His concentration on the history
of ancient Iranian religion during these years naturally led him to
chose this materialwith a focus on Zarathustraas the topic for
his first series of lectures, which were attended by about 20 students,
according to Kristensen himself. In addition he offered a course in
the Avesta language, but no students registered any interest in this.63
With the Kristiania scholarship, Kristensen could be relatively sure
of a future at the university. The Faculty of Arts had suggested
already in 1900 the possibility of setting up "a personal position"
for him. However for various reasons it was decided to postpone
Stockholm 1898, pp. 487-491. Three letters from Kristensen to Dr. S.A. Fries, the
organiser of the congress, are deposited in the university library in Uppsala. However,
in the official tally of congresses held within the discipline of history of religions,
this one is not included. Cf. otherwise the article by Bjorn Skogar in this volume:
Neoprotestantism in Stockholm in 1897, pp. 57-70.
60
Cf. what he says on a postcard to Soderblom (Leiden, 20 December 1911):
"Oh well, congresses (collectivism!) have never appealed to me".
61
Cf. letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 17 September 1900): "I would have liked
very much to have met you at the congress in Parisif only it were not in Paris."
Cf. also a letter to Tiele (Lillehammer, 3 May 1900): "Naar Paris kan ik, tot mijn
groter spijt, niet komen. Vroeger meende ik, dat ik daarheen nooit in mijn leven
zou terugkeren; ik weet niet hoe het daarmee kan gaan. Maar op het oogenblik
neen." Also in a later letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 22 April 1901) he expresses
the same feelings: "No, for me, Paris cannot be an indifferent place".
62
The scholarship (from the Hans A. Benneche endowment) amounted to 1,600
kroner p.a.; it was given on the same conditions as the university's own scholarships ("adjunktstipendier"). (Cf. the university's annual report for 1897-1898.) The
two other applicants that year were the theologian Anathon Aall (cf. footnote 40
above) and the Indologist Sten Konow.
63
The first lecture series was held during the autumn semester of 1898, the second during the spring and autumn semesters of 1900. During the other semesters
Kristensen was exempt from teaching (cf. the university's lecture catalogues and
annual reports for 1898-1901). The handwritten manuscripts for these lectures are
held in the university library in Leiden (BPL 2587). Kristensen also talks briefly
about his lectures in Kristiania in a letter to Tiele (Lillehammer, 3 May 1900) and
expresses a hope that history of religions will soon become an obligatory subject
for theology students.

218

SIGURD HJELDE

this until the following year's budget came up for consideration;

amongst other things it was seen as desirable that a larger work
which the scholar was working on first be completed.64 But during
the first half of 1899 Kristensen had already on a couple of occasions heard very flattering rumours from Leiden: his teacher Tiele,
who was now close to retirement, had apparently expressed a wish
that his former Norwegian student succeed him. However, at first,
Kristensen did not raise his hopes too high about such prospects.
One of his informants had told him that the "authorities" probably
wanted a Dutchman.65
In the end, though, it was Kristensen who was appointed to succeed Tiele.66 Accepting the post was almost as difficult as the call
to Leiden was distinguished. Kristensen honestly doubted whether
he was qualified for the job.67 He had certainly worked zealously for
the past 13 years towards the goal of becoming a professor in history of religions. However, the problem was not only the great expectations that faced Tiele's successor, but also the fact that the chair
comprised both history of religions and philosophy of religion; Kristensen
did not feel sufficiently trained in philosophy. But in the end he
overcame his scruples. Kristensen accepted the offer, was appointed
professor in Leiden on 17 April 1901, and a few days later resigned
the scholarship that he had recently been granted for another year
in Kristiania.68 In the middle of May he travelled to Leiden for five

64
Cf. Stortingsforhandlingene 1900-1901, la, St. pip. nr. 1, hovedpost IV, ch. 2,
p. 7. Here is probably a reference to the planned book on the Avesta religion (cfr.
footnote 51 above). See also Sigurd Hjelde: "Teologi og religionshistorie: samspill
eller sammenst0t? Om innforingen av religionshistorie som fag ved Universitetet i
Oslo", in Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 99, 1998, pp. 3-18.
65
Cf. letter to Bjornstjerne Bjernson (Kristiania, 5 June 1899). One of Kristensen's
sources was his friend Humme (cf. footnote 26 above); the Dutch candidate mentioned was Dr. (Laurentius) Knappert (1863-1943), who after having obtained his
doctorate in history of religions under Chantepie de la Saussaye in 1887 had been
a preacher in the Dutch Reformed Church. His interests had gradually moved in
the direction of Church History and he obtained this chair at the University of
Leiden in 1902 (cf. BWN I, pp. 303-305).
66
The other two candidates named were Nathan Soderblom and the Dane Edvard
Lehmann.
67
In letters to his friends Humme (Kristiania, 18 April 1901) and Soderblom
(Kristiania, 22 April 1901) he expresses his doubts, to Soderblom as follows: "I am
frightened, terribly frightened. I am not ready to accept such a position by a long
stretch."
68
Cf. university archive journal nos. 164 and 234, 1901. Kristensen's application to keep his scholarship until 30 June was approved.

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

219

to six weeks on a "preliminary journey", first and foremost to get to

know the conditions and freshen up his language.69 After three weeks
holiday with his parents in Norway, in Stavanger, he was back again
in July to give himself as much time as possible to become acquainted
with the university milieu before giving his inauguration lecture on
25 September70 and officially beginning his work as "Hoogleeraar"
in a very distinguished, but also very demanding position.71
IV. CONCLUSION: LASTING CONTACTS WITH NORWAY
AND SCANDINAVIA
Kristensen never regretted his decision to answer the call to Leiden.
It is true that he seems to have gone to the Netherlands believing
that he would come back to Norway after some years.72 However,
this was not to be.73 He felt at home in his new world, in the country of the people of which he had spoken so respectfully in his youth,
and his work was going so well that a return to Kristiania was soon
no longer a realistic alternative, and all Norwegian attempts to bring
him back were in vain.74 It was too late. Norway's first historian of

69
Cf. letter to Soderblom (Kristiania, 22 April 1901). The application to the university for travel leave was for the period 12 May to 30 June (cf. university journal no. 234, 1901).
70
Published in its own right as Het verband tusschen godsdienst en de zucht tot zelfbehoud, Leiden 1901.
71
This is how Kristensen sketches out his further plans in a letter to Soderblom
from the "preliminary" journey to Leiden ("Hotel du Commerce", 19 June 1901).
A postcard to Johan Ernst Sars in Kristiania is dated Leiden 12 August 1901.
72
Cf. letter to Nathan Soderblom (Kristiania, 22 April 1901): "I hope, however,
that even I shall be able to come back to my own people one day. I consider the
stay in Leiden as a continuation of my studies in the best surroundings." Similar
tones are heard in another letter to his friend, in which Kristensen congratulates
him on his professorship in Uppsala (Leiden, 19 June 1901): "You are going home
at the very moment when I leave. You thus have the better task. But don't think
that I have forgotten or given up my homeland. I don't know when I will be able
to return, but I am looking forward to the time when we can visit each other from
Stockholm to Kristiania. No, Upsala, Upsala!" Cf. also letter to Gina Oselio (alias
Ingeborg Aas, Leiden, 9 October 1903): "I cannot imagine that I will not one day
come back to Kristiania for good . . ."
73
In a letter to Lyder Brun (Stavanger, 30 June 1908), in which Kristensen writes
that he no longer has plans to return to Kristiania, he also says that he had decided
this the previous autumn.
74
In the year 1910 the Faculty of Arts in Kristiania could report that Kristensen
had declared that he had no intention to apply for a professorship in Kristiania,
cf. Stortingsforhandlingene 1910, la, St. prp. nr. 1, hovedpost V, chap. 2, p. 8. This

220

SIGURD HJELDE

religions stayed in Leiden, and after some years he decided that the
time had come to apply for Dutch citizenship. At this time, almost
20 years after Anna Lunde's death, he was also ready for marriage
and family life again, and on 25 April 1916 he married Jacoba Heldring (18921984), a priest's daughter from Amsterdam.75
Until his retirement in 1937, Kristensen fulfilled the tasks of a
Leiden professorresearch and teachingconscientiously and faithfully. Throughout these years, he regularly visited Norway in the
summer holidays. He also kept in touch with Norwegian and other
Scandinavian friends and colleagues.76 Twice, in 1913 and 1946, he
was invited as a guest lecturer to the University of Kristiania/Oslo,77
and once, in 1922, to the University of Uppsala.78 Occasionally he
was also asked to evaluate scholars applying for a doctorate or a
university position.79 He might even have cherished a plan to return

notwithstanding, a parliamentary majority admonished the government two years

later, in 1912, to ask Kristensen formally whether he was willing to accept the
planned post. Above all, this decision shows the high esteem in which Kristensen
was held, but it was also a tactical move by those parliamentarians who, while
accepting a chair in history of religions, would not tolerate seeing Wilhelm Schencke
in the post (cf. footnote 2), whose personal attitude towards religion and the Church
seemed suspicious; cf. Stortingsforhandlingene 1912, 7a, pp. 78ff.
75
The Kristensens had three children: Ingvar (1918-1996), Gunhild (b. 1919,
m. to Volkenborn-Kristensen) and Bjarne (b. 1921).
76
E.g., the theologians Simon Michelet and Lyder Brun and the historian of religions Wilhelm Schencke, but above all the classicist Samson Eitrem (13 letters or
cards in the National Library, Oslo). His closest friends in the other Scandinavian
countries were Nathan Soderblom, Uppsala (cf. footnote 46), and Johannes Pedersen,
Copenhagen.
77
In November 1913 he gave four lectures in Kristiania. Two of them were
published under the title "Mysteriereligioner i Oldtiden" in Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift
14, 1913, pp. 294-336; the lecture "Hvad religionshistorisk studium berover os og
gir os" was published in For Kirke og Kultur 21, 1914, pp. 65-85. In connection with
this visit, Wilhelm Schencke, Kristensen's "successor" in Kristiania in 1901 and
Norway's first professor in history of religions, gave a short presentation of the guest
lecturer in Tidens Tegn (9 November 1913). The lectures from 1946 were later published (posthumously in 1954) in book form under the title Religionshistorisk studium
(cf. bibliography).
78
The Olaus-Petri lectures which he gave thereat the invitation of his friend
Soderblomwere later published in book form under the title Livet fra doden (Life
out of Death), a title that in many ways sums up the central theme in Kristensen's
work in the field of history of religions.
79
He was twice (in 1908 and 1915) involved in judging Karl Void's thesis for
the doctoral degree in theology, Synd og soning i de gammelsemittiske religioner, which he
found both times to be unworthy of public defence. He also took part (in 1940
and 1946) in assessing applicants for Wilhelm Schencke's post, which became vacant
in 1939; because of the war no decision was reached, and the position was advertised a second time after liberation.

FROM KRISTIANSAND TO LEIDEN

221

to Norway after his retirement, but when the time finally came, this
dream proved to be illusory. Kristensen had to recognise that the
country was not the same as the one he had left a generation before.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Unpublished Material
Private letters held in the University Libraries of Leiden and Uppsala and in the
National Library of Oslo.
Various documents in the W.B. Kristensen archive in the University Library of
Leiden.
The Herinneringen 1921-1950 of Bjarne Kristensen (son of W.B. Kristensen).
2. Works and Articles of Kristensen
1889-90: "En AEgyptisk Mumie", in: Ittustreret Tidende for Born 5, 1889-90: 207-211.
1896: AEgyptemes Forestillinger om Livet efter Doden i Forbindelse med Guderne Ra og
Osiris, Kristiania.
1898:
"Det religiose i de gamle religioner", in: Ringeren, Nr. 4: 6-9.
1898:
"Religionshistorikeren C.P. Tiele", in: Ringeren, Nr. 16: 3-7.
1899:
"Professor C.P. Tiele", in: Woord en Beeld: 348-354.
1900:
"Om religionernes inddeling i naturreligioner og etiske religioner", in:
Norsk Theologisk Tidsskrift 2: 153-175.
1901:
Het verband tusschen godsdienst en de zucht tot zelfbehoud, Leiden.
1909:
"W.B. Kristensen", in: Studenterne fra 1884biographical information collected
on the occasion of their 25th student anniversary, Kristiania.
1913:
"Mysteriereligioner i Oldtiden", in: Norsk Teologisk Tidskrift 14: 294-336.
1914:
"Hvad religionshistorisk studium berover os og gir os", in: For Kirke og
Kultur 21: 65-85.
1925:
Livet fra doden, Oslo.
1954:
Religionshistorisk studium, Oslo.
3. Articles of Kristensen in Norwegian

Newspapers

Dagbladet, Kristiania:
30 September 1888: "Noget gammelt som er blet nyt";
12 May 1889: "Ernest Renan";
9 and 11 October 1889: "Agnostikerne";
5 November 1889: Review of Nordisk Tidsskrift for Filologi, vol. 10, nr. 1.
Lindesnes, Mandal:
7 August 1889: "Om nogle billioner aar. Lidt astronomi".
Moss Avis, Moss:
4 January 1893: "Fra Paris";
16 September 1893: "Pariserbrev".
4. Secondary Literature
Aall, Anathon 1896: Review of Kristensen 1896, in: Revue de I'histoire des religions 31:
246.
Brandrud, Andreas (1911): "Teologien", in: Gran 1911: 3-62.

222

SIGURD HJELDE

Ferguson, Robert 1988: Gaten Knut Hamsun, Oslo.

Folketidende, Mandal: 21 July 1875.
Fries, S.A. (ed.) 1898: Religionsvetenskapliga Kongressen i Stockholm 1897, Stockholm.
Frolich, Thorbj0rn 1919: Lillehammer i 70 aarene. Spredte traek i to b0ger, Kristiania.
Gran, Gerhard (ed.) 1911: Det Kongelige Frederiks universitet 1811-1911: festskrift,
II, Kristiania.
Gunnersen, G.F. 1917: Lillehammer i nitti aar 18271917, Lillehammer.

vol.

Hjelde, Sigurd 1998: "Teologi og religionshistoriesamspill eller sammenst0t. Om

innforingen av religionshistorie som fag ved Universitetet i Oslo", in: Norsk Teologisk
Tidsskrift 99, 1998: 3-18.
Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, Oslo, vol. II (1925): 356-368 (on Sophus Bugge); vol. VIII
(1940): 1-2 (on W.B. Kristensen); vol. IX (1940): 272-276 (on Moltke Moe); vol.
XVI (1969): 547-552 (on Alf Torp).
Nasss, Harald S. (ed.) 1994ff.: Knut Hamsuns brev, vol. 1-4, Oslo.
Stortingsforhandlingene 19001901, la, St. prp. nr. 1.
Stortingsforhandlingene 1910, la, Str. prp. nr. 1.
Stortingsforhandlingene 1912, 7a.
Olsen, Magnus (1911): "Filologien", in: Gran 1911: 290-380.
Schencke, Wilhelm 1913: "I tidens fylde. I anledning av professor Kristensens forelaesninger", in: Tidens Tegn, 9 November.
Wright, G.R.H. 1996: "Introduction to W. Brede Kristensen's Studies on Cult
Objects", in: Journal of Prehistoric Religion 10: 63-69.

WILHELM SCHENCKE
NORWAY'S FIRST PROFESSOR IN HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS
EINAR THOMASSEN

In the beginning was Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Schencke. And the

beginning was on July 1 st 1914, when Schencke became the first
holder of a chair in history of religions in Norway. However, this
chair was not a creatio ex nihilo. It had been in preparation a long
time before it was finally established. William Brede Kristensen was
a significant forerunner, whose first lectures as a newly appointed
university research fellow provide the occasion for this centenary
commemoration seminar. But Kristensen, who was expected to become
Norway's first professor in the discipline, left the country three years
later in order to take up the chair in Leiden. Thus he was lost to
Norway and was not going to exert much influence on the further
development of the history of religions in this country.
So Schencke became the starting-point. When Kristensen went
away in 1901, his fellowship was given to Wilhelm Schencke, who
for many years continued to teach the subject and do his research
under the frustrating conditions of an annually renewed stipend until
he was finally rewarded with a regular chair. With the establishment
of this chair, however, the discipline became definitively entrenched
in the Norwegian university, and an institutional tradition was created of which all practising historians of religions in Norway today
form a part.
Whether there is awareness of this tradition, and to what extent
it can be said to exist at all, are questions to which there are no
obvious answers. Positing a beginning, and postulating a tradition
emanating from it, easily turn into a myth-making endeavour. As is
the case with the writing of history in generalincluding history of
religionsrepresenting the history of a discipline often takes the form
of constructing a myth of origins. And in particular the context of
this seminar, a ritual commemoration of the past, seductively invites
this kind of myth-making. Wilhelm Schencke acquires the aspect of
primeval creator and founding father, while we, who today make up

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EINAR THOMASSEN

the third and fourth generations, may find ourselves in the ambivalent roles of the "young gods", divided in our sentiments between
pious respect for the titanic progenitor on the one hand and the
parricidal impulse of self-assertion and revolt on the other.
It must be said, however, that Wilhelm Schencke today is largely
forgotten. Nobody reads his work any longerunless they have to,
having been asked to talk about him at seminars such as this. One
looks in vain for the titles of his publications in modern scholarly
works. Moreover, it is doubtful whether anyone has bothered to read
these publications, even in Norway, for the last fifty or sixty years.
Clearly, Wilhelm Schencke is not a classic writer who has been able
to influence and inspire subsequent generations of scholars. In that
sense, he has not left a legacythere is no scholarly tradition emanating from him. When I once asked Herman Ludin Jansen, who was
effectively Schencke's successor to the chair, about him, all he could
remember was Schencke's beautiful handwriting on the blackboard.1
So there is not much either to mythologize or demythologize.
Schencke cannot, I am afraid, be seen as the beginning of Norwegian
history of religions by virtue of his scholarly merits. We may take a
kind of antiquarian interest in him, out of a more or less idle curiosity for things of the past, but it would be rather pointless to do so
here. It might of course be the case that Schencke, like some others, has been rather unjustly forgotten and deserves to be saved from
the shadows of history. I do not, frankly, think so, but I shall say
more about his scholarly contributions later. The main interest of
Schencke today has less to do with who he was and what he accomplished as a scholar, and more to do with what he exemplifies
with a certain style, which he personified, of doing history of religions,
and with how he posited the discipline in an academic context. In
these regards, his career does offer us a lesson, and can even be
said to have produced lasting effects on the discipline in Norway.
Let me first, however, sketch out the bare essentials of biographical background.2 Wilhelm Schencke was, as many historians of religions of his day, a candidate in theology and was trained as a biblical
scholar. Further studies in Germany, with Wellhausen and Gunkel,
1
In fairness it should be added that Ludin Jansen wrote a very positive biographical sketch of Schencke in 1954.
2
For some more information, cf. Schencke's own statement in Schencke 1912a;
the obituary by H. Birkeland (1948); and Hjelde 1998.

WILHELM SCHENCKE

225

made a profound impression on him, and later, in articles addressed

to the general public, he was to express unreserved enthusiasm for
these genial pioneers of the critical study of the Hebrew Bible.3 He
also studied Semitic languages and Egyptology, and graduated in
Kristiania (later Oslo) in 1904 with a dissertation on the Egyptian
notion of deity (Schencke 1904). This was not, however, to be the
beginning of a life devoted to scholarly contributions. Rather, he
seems to have spent his energies publishing articles for the general
public about archaeological discoveries in the Near East or about
topics from the world of religion. The great mass of these articles
appeared in daily newspapers. Many of them were reprinted in a
book entitled Hvad jorden gjemte ("Hidden in the Earth"), which appeared
in 1911. Another book, Da kristendommen blev skapt ("When Christianity
was Created") from 1914, outlines the religio-historical background
of Christianity. Of really independent and significant scholarly works
there are, apart from his doctoral thesis, only two worth mentioning. The first is a work about the Wisdom figure in Hellenistic
Judaism, written in German and published in 1913a relatively
short work of some ninety pages, which he wrote, one suspects, most
of all in order to prove himself competent to be a professor (Schencke
1913b). The other is a fairly lengthy article published in Norwegian
in 1912 about the Jewish papyri from Elephantineactually a very
well-documented and learned piece of work (Schencke 1912c).
It is rather disconcerting to have to state that that was all. The
rest was popularization and summaries of the current state of knowledge, as he saw it, in the study of the history of religions.4 In all
the 25 years that he was "Norway's first professor in the history of
religions" he did not publish a single contribution to research in the
discipline of which he was professor. We know, however, that he
was working all this time on a Norwegian translation and commentary of the Qur'an. Part of this was eventually published posthumously (Schencke 1952), and it should be duly acknowledged that
it is a competent and in many respects admirable work. Sadly, the
manuscript of the entire work seems to have been lost.5

Cf. in particular Schencke 1899, and id. 1916.

For a full bibliography of Schencke's publications cf. Birkeland 1948: 70f., and
[Anon. 1953]; add Hjelde 1998: 17, n. 38.
5
Efforts by S. Hjelde to locate it have been unsuccessful (Hjelde, personal communication).
4

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EINAR THOMASSEN

The meagreness of his output of original scholarship contrasts

rather remarkably with the emphasis he placed on the importance
of the scientific study of religion in the articles he wrote for the general public. Unkindly, it might be suggested that he seems to have
been more concerned with acting the role of a scientifically minded
scholar of religion than with actually being one.
So why should we bother about Wilhelm Schencke? It is true that
he was there in the beginning. But does it make sense to speak about
a beginning in a case such as this, when, it might be argued, nothing
much happened? It makes sense at least on one particular point. To
Schencke goes the creditor at least I would hold it to his credit
of having caused the chair of the history of religions to be placed
within the faculty of arts, and not in the faculty of theology. In consequence, the discipline remained in that faculty and came to acquire
its identity as an indisputably independent discipline, and one of the
human sciences. And thereby hangs a tale, as the saying goes.
Wilhelm Schencke was, as already mentioned, a theology graduate. He nevertheless turned away from theology, and came to regard
history of religions as the only scientific way of studying religion.
Personal experiences may have contributed to this. In a newspaper
article introducing Hermann Gunkel, who was about to give a guest
lecture at the university in 1916, he told his readers about an experience he himself had had twenty years earlier, as a young man of
26. He had just read Gunkel's Schopfung und Chaos and, in a lecture
delivered to an audience of local ministers in a small Norwegian
town near the capital, he enthusiastically expounded Gunkel's epochmaking ideas. But instead of the thundering applause and shared
enthusiasm he expected from his audience, he was met with utter
silenceuntil the chairman stood up and asked the "brethren" to
join him in a prayer for the salvation of the soul of the young candidate (Schencke 1916). Over the years he came to develop a strong
antipathy towards theologians, a sentiment which culminated in an
article he published in 1913, in the liberal daily newspaper to which
he was an eager contributor. The article was entitled: "Det teologiske fakultet bor sloifes" (The faculty of theology should be got rid
of") (Schencke 1913a).
What provoked Schencke to write this article was something rather
trivial. The faculty of theology had announced a series of lectures
in history of religions, to be given by its professor of Old Testament
theology. Schencke saw this announcement as a personal affront,

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227

since he had been in charge of such lectures himself for the previous 11-12 years. He used the occasion, however, to launch a harsh
counter-attack on theology as an academic discipline: "we must
declare war on the faculty of theology, with the openly pronounced
intention of getting it out of the university, or to be more precise,
to get rid of it". The article provoked a couple of responses in the
newspaper,6 and there was also a debate in the student society four
years later between Schencke and the dean of the faculty of theology, Lyder Brun; the texts of this debate were subsequently printed
in a Norwegian journal (Brun 1917; Schencke 1917).
The confrontation between theology and history of religions has
been a frequently debated issue, which is still very much alive today,
both in Norway and elsewhere. For this reason, it will be of more
than just antiquarian interest to look at the arguments proposed in
this debate more than eighty years ago. History of religions, Schencke
argues, does not distinguish between true and false religions. Rather,
it studies "genuine" religion wherever it is found. Methodologically,
it does not accept supernatural causes, such as revelations and miracles, just as these as a matter of principle are not accepted by any
other true science. The Bible must be studied as any other humanly
written and edited book, and Jesus as an ordinary human being.
Theology, however, cannot do this without ceasing to be theology.
And theologians who pretend to be scientific without renouncing the
name "theology" must be distrusted above all others. These people
want to have it both ways, which they cannot; for that reason they
are harmful to the university as an academic institution.
It is also interesting to report the response of the dean of the faculty of theology in this debate, especially because it follows a strategy which is not unusual in this kind of argument even today. First,
he asserts that the theologians in his faculty do in fact subscribe to
and obey the rules of modern critical scholarship no less than in
other disciplines. Then he goes on to argue that Schencke's notion
of science/scholarship is too narrow, saying that he fails to recognize intuition as a necessary element in many disciplines of the humanities. Next, he claims that in order to understand religious life in
particular, "personal acquaintance" with religious experience must
be a prerequisite. Then, finally, he says (Brun 1917: 393f.):

For details, cf. the bibliographies in Birkeland 1948 and [Anon. 1953].

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EINAR THOMASSEN

When it comes to the study of the Christian religion, it seems evident

that it should normally be conducted by men (sic) who in addition to
the necessary purely scholarly qualifications also possess the personal
qualification which consists in a personal life within this religion, a
personal acquaintance at first hand with religious experience in its
Christian form.

As an afterthought, however, he concedes that people who do not

meet all these qualifications should not be denied the right to study
Christianity, and may even be permitted to do so in the university.
"In the faculty of arts", he says, "they will find the natural place for
doing their work" (ib. 394).
It is not very difficult to expose the fallacies of this argument. In
the first place, two different notions of science/scholarship are manipulated; one which refers to generally respected criteria for scholarship in all disciplines, and another for which the believing theologian
reserves for himself (sic) the privilege of definition. Secondly, considerations regarding personal qualifications for conducting scholarship are confused with the intersubjective criteria necessary for
evaluating its conclusions. (The scholar's state of mind when doing
research is of course irrelevant to the validity of the final product.)
Thirdly, if the principle that one has to be a believer in order to
conduct proper research on a religion is generalized, it quickly leads
to absurd consequences. Not only will the principle render any kind
of comparative work impossible, it will also fail to provide any criteria for determining what exactly one's own religion is. In the final
analysis it boils down to a question of sheer power: the theological
faculty wished to retain the right to employ only Lutheransand
the sort of Lutherans they likedin their service.
Schencke most probably saw through this kind of double-talk, and
found it utterly distasteful, a confirmation of his allegations. This is
not to say that he was all right and the theologians all wrong in the
debate. Wilhelm Schencke was a man of strong principlesor at
least he wished to beand no doubt had a propensity for seeing
reality in unambiguous black-and-white dichotomies. His stance in
the debate was clearly related, however, to basic notions he had not
only about the nature of scientific scholarship,7 but about that of

7
The difficulty of rendering the Norwegian videnskap (equivalent to German
Wissenschqft) into English is of course notorious. I shall translate it as "science" in
the following. It is interesting that Schencke seems to have preferred the term reli-

WILHELM SCHENCKE

229

religion as well. On the one hand, there was science, which was
strictly based on empirical evidence. On the other hand, there was
religion, which was a matter of emotions and simple, spontaneous
piety. Between the two there was nothing. Schencke disliked what
he called "metaphysics" as much as he detested theology. He expressed
this sentiment, for instance, in an article called "Staggering Souls"
("Sjanglende sjaele"), where he attacked certain forms of modern philosophy fashionable on the Continent and in North America (Schencke
1912b). Schencke was not very sophisticated when it came to philosophy. For him, there was apparently not much difference between
Bergson and Swedenborg.
I think Schencke at this point exemplifies an attitude which was
not atypical of scholars of history of religions of his generation. There
is an anxiousness to construct science and religion as two opposite
entities, with no bridge between them. It is understandable that this
was done in the interest of creating a new discipline, distinct from
previous, confessionally biased forms of religious studies. I shall not
play the post-modernist game of pretending to abolish all distinctions and claim that there is no essential difference between science
and religion. But I do wish to suggest that reflection needs to be
made on this distinction, in order to see a bit more clearly what,
like all distinctions, it reveals and what it renders invisible.
It is an interesting observation that, for Schencke and many others of his generation, the notions of science and religion are related
to one another by a certain dialectical bond, which defines at the
same time both the object of study and the methods envisaged for
studying it. The construction of a science of religion implies an act
of objectivization through which the scientist is posited as the subject speaking about religion, with the "believer" doing religion as the
object. In order to maintain this relationship of objectivization, there
developed a tendency to focus on the non-verbal and spontaneous
in religious behaviour as offering its most typical and most genuine
forms of expression. We find this tendency, for instance, in the popularity which the pre-animist theories enjoyed in the discipline; in
Rudolf Otto's ideas about the sacred as a "Gefuhl"; or in the highlighting of the religious "cult", both in its theoretical formulations
gionsvidenskap to religiomhistorie, which was more common in his days. At least he did
so in his popular and more polemical publications. No doubt his choice of word
was motivated by a desire to highlight the "scientific" ambitions of his discipline.

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EINAR THOMASSEN

by Durkheim and in the variants of the myth-and-ritual scheme,

including the theories of Gunkel and, in Norway, Sigmund Mowinckel.8
In contrast to what is sometimes asserted, historians of religions
have nearly always been interested not merely in religious doctrines,
but also in religious practice, conceived either as "experience" or as
"cult". Schencke himself defines religion in one place as "a presumed
relationship" between human beings and supernatural beings. He
rejects formulas such as "belief in" (Tylor, etc.) precisely because it
is too narrow, not including the element of action in religion, i.e.,
cult, and he also underlines the emotional element, which he formulates in Schleiermachian-Ottonian terms as a feeling of total dependence (Schencke 1930: 26).
This concern to define religion as practicewhich is methodologically quite healthyshould also be interpreted as part of a more
or less clearly articulated strategy of distinguishing history of religions from theology, especially the familiar kind of Christian theology which was very much preoccupied with doctrinesdogmas. This
meant that historians of religions liked to see religion as embedded
in religious experience and ritual action, and also as articulated in
the convictions and practices of the actual believer and practitioner
rather than in the prescriptions of the orthodox elite. Schencke's
approach to his discipline was guided by similar ideas. There is a
connection here, and a consistency, between his behaviour vis-a-vis
the theologians on the public scene, and in university politics, and
the ideas he pursued in his most scholarly works.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Schencke had many original ideas. But it is possible to follow one theme which in particular preoccupied him as a scholar. That was the notion of monotheism.
In his doctoral thesis he described what he saw as a tendency towards
monotheism in ancient Egyptian religion. He detected an evolution
driving at the subordination of all the gods under one supreme deity,
in particular Amon-Ra, and their eventual merging in him. Here I
am not concerned with the validity of his analyses, but rather with

8
Cf., e.g., Mowinckel's most famous book, Psalmenstudien II: Das Thronbesteigungsfest
Jahwas und der Ursprung der Eschatologie, Kristiania 1922; also, his Religion og kultus,
Oslo 1950, 2nd ed. 1971. Mowinckel, although a theologian, was undoubtedly a
greater historian of religions than Schencke. He too was strongly influenced by
Gunkel, but was able, in addition, to make independent and creative use of Gunkel's
ideas.

WILHELM SCHENCKE

231

the attitudes he expresses. Although he has much sympathy for the

genuine devotion he finds in the hymns to the gods, especially the
famous hymn to Amon-Ra, towards the end he points out that what
he has been studying is, after all, "theology, speculation, thought,
theory" (Schencke 1904: 320). He then proposes seeing what happened when these theories were transformed into practice; this took
place, he argues, with Amenhotep IVAkhnaton. The hymn to Aton
from Al-Amarna, he says, is the highest expression both of Egyptian
monotheism and of religious "life" in Egypt: "When all the previous development was about to blossom, when life unfolded at its
richest, and the breakthrough seemed closethen everything suddenly stopped" (ib. 348). Why? Because of the alliance of Horemhab,
the pretender to the throne, and the clergy. Together, they put an
end to this unfolding of religious life. "Orthodoxy had prevailed",
as Schencke laconically puts it (ib. 348). (In his popular book, Hvad
jorden gjemte, he is less laconic. Akhnaton was destined to lose, he
says, because "against intriguing and power-greedy theologians and
stupid and fanatical priests even the gods struggle in vain" [1911: 13].)
Whereas Schencke in his dissertation was looking for Egyptian
monotheism, his other main work, about the Jewish Wisdom figure,
was an investigation into Jewish polytheism. In this work he attempts
to show that Wisdom became an independent personified hypostasis in "Late Judaism". He also suggests that the figure of Wisdom
can be explained as a revitalization of a female goddess associated
with Yahweh and guardian of the tree of life in pre-exilic Hebrew
religion, and that the influence of the Iranian Amesha spenta Armaiti
contributed to this revitalization. It is, in my opinion, not a particularly convincing work, mainly because of the lack of precision in
the use of terms, and insufficient attention to source criticism in the
attempts to draw historical connections with non-Jewish religions.
He does formulate one general conclusion, however, which seems
to sum up both of his two main works. In notions of deity a "law"
of mutually interacting centrifugal and centripetal forces operates,
sometimes reducing minor deities to attributes of a single god, at
other times hypostatizing a single god's attributes into independent
figures. As formulated by Schencke, this proposition is hardly more
than a descriptive observation, but it could have provided a theoretical starting-point for further studies of the concept of deity, where
Schencke might have made a contribution to relativizing the far too
crude concepts of monotheism and polytheism we all still use. But

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EINAR THOMASSEN

Schencke was not sufficiently inclined to abstract and systematic theoretization to follow up his idea.
In this respect, however, he was not unusual. There was not much
theory in the history of religions in the first decades of this century.
What there was related to "primitive religion", and people like
Schencke, who worked with textually and archaeologically documented historical religions, did not have much of an idea about what
to do with this kind of theory in their own research.9 In addition to
that, however, I suspect that Schencke did not quite understand, or
ever quite come to grips with, the real object of his chosen discipline. He had an intuition, on the one hand, that what he should
be studying was religious "life", "genuine" or practical religion as
experience and ritual action, and that this was something different
from the theologians' representations of religion. On the other hand,
what he studied in reality was, as he admitted himself, "theology,
speculation, thought, theory". Apparently this had much to do with
his training. He was trained as a biblical scholar and had acquired
excellent philological qualifications, mastering the classical and all
the major Semitic languages, as well as some Iranian. This made
him very well-equipped to study texts. But, as we know, texts are
mainly vehicles of religious ideas, not of religious practice, and they
document mainly the ideas of the religious eliteof, indeed, theologiansnot those of ordinary people. Texts are not, therefore,
direct sources of religious "life".
We can see Schencke looking for practical religion as something
behind the texts: in his admiration for the religious sentiments expressed by Egyptian hymns; in his early attempts to study the prehistory of the Christian sacraments;10 in his interest in demonology,
which seems to surface several times;11 in his idea that there was
ultimately a personal female goddess behind the abstract figure of
Wisdom; and, finally, in his interest in archaeology. But in the end
he seems to have lacked the conceptual tools necessary to identify
adequately practical religion, and to analyze it: for instance, some

9
Though Mowinckel, as well as Gronbech in Denmark, actually attempted to
do so, with a fair measure of success.
10
Schencke 1905; also cf. Verdens Gang, 6 and 8 April, 1905.
11
Cf. Schencke 1902, where he explains the belief in demons by the theory of
animism; also 1911: 15861, and 1914: 78ff. (cf. also the exchange in Verdens Gang
15, 21, 27 February, and 3 March, 1910).

WILHELM SCHENCKE

233

notion of the relationship of myth to ritual, some conception of the

coherence of a religious system, some rudimentary theory of the
social role of religion, or some ideas about the nature of religious
symbolism. So rather than analyzing religion he presented texts. And
rather than analyzing the texts he presented, he tended to offer one
more text. In this way he was able to display much learning, heaping "parallel" upon "parallel", taking care to quote the original languages and scripts as if that in itself constituted scientific method.
But the reader is often left frustrated, because the common ideas
that all these texts are supposed to share are not defined well enough
and the individual accents of each text not sufficiently respected.
Schencke was the victim of a tendency which afflicted more than
a few early historians of religions: that of seeing everywhere "the
same thing"synthesis without analysis, generalization without individualization. As many others too, he liked to do this in particular
with regard to the Bible and its historical context. He was anxious
to demonstrate "parallels" between the Bible and texts from other
Near Eastern religions, to theorize about "influences", and to look
for the "origins" of ideas (a search for beginnings, as if all ideas could
be explained by tracing them back to their primeval origins in the
most ancient civilizations of the Near East).
So, in a sense, it could be suggested that his form of history of
religions was a kind of anti-theology, governed by an interest to
demonstrate the relativity, rather than the uniqueness, of the ideas
in the Bible. This interest, however, was in turn governed by a further interest which may in itself be qualified as theological: his sympathy for what he considered "true" religion, the sincere piety and/or
lofty morality which could be found in many religions, and which
stood for the opposite of theological exclusivism and speculation.
The strong dichotomy between religion and theology was a personal concern with Schencke, one which determined not only his
private Weltanschauung, but also his methodology as a scholar and the
positions he took in university politics. For this dichotomy between
religion (for which he had sympathy) and theology (which he disliked) hinged on the other dichotomy in his mind, that between religion and science. This latter dichotomy constructs "science" as the
discursive, rational subject and "religion" as the object, as pure
expression of "life". Theology therefore becomes a hybrid, an entity
which does not fit into this dichotomous classification scheme. The
kind of theology Schencke accepts is therefore logically not university

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EINAR THOMASSEN

theology, which pretends to be scientific, but that form of theology

which is openly religious, and which was represented by the Norwegian
Free Lutheran Faculty ("Menighetsfakultetet"). In consequence, we
get the paradox that Schencke on the one hand declared it as his
mission to enlighten Christians and free them from fundamentalist
preconceptions of the Bible,12 and on the other hand came to support the independent fundamentalist-minded (at least in those days)
evangelical faculty against the theologians in the university.
The second paradox, to which we have already alluded, is that
the true religion, as he perceived it, never really concretized in his
work as an object of studyhe primarily studied theologically formed
ideas. This is not due to a failure on Schencke's part, as if the true
form of religion without theology which Schencke imagined actually
exists, only that he never found it. By studying ideas and theology,
Schencke did in fact, though he did not quite realize it, study religion, because theology is itself a part of religion, because religion is
not simply pure, spontaneous practice, but also reflects upon and
conceptualizes itself. So whereas Schencke in theory found no place
for theology either in religion, as the object of study, or in science,
as the investigating subject, in practice he nevertheless had to recognize the phenomenon of theology as a fact, both as part of religion and as an academic institution (albeit outside the university).
But, almost tragically, he failed in this process to catch sight of either
the proper function of theology as part of religion or the implicit
rationality of theology as an academic endeavour.
Schencke's notions of a religion without theology as well as a science of religion without theology did not work. Theology crept back
in, both in the object of his research; in his prejudices as a scholar,
with the distinction between genuine and not genuine religion; and
in the practical consequences of his declared position, with his preference for the Free Lutheran Faculty against the university theologians. The lesson in this is that although religion, theology and history
of religions are clearly distinct enterprises, there are also ways in
which they are dialectically interrelated, serve mutually to define one
another and engage each other in dialogue. It was a good thing that
our discipline asserted its independence more than eighty years ago
through Schencke. But it is undoubtedly a good thing too that the-

12

Cf. his statements in Verdens Gang 3 March, 1910.

WILHELM SCHENCKE

235

ology as an academic enterprise has continued to exist, and especially in the university. It may be argued that theology which seeks
to be scientific and rational, albeit not always successfully, is preferable to theology which has abandoned all such ambitions. Moreover,
the relationship of our discipline to its subject matter cannot simply
be construed as one of subject and object, with all rationality belonging to the scientific subject and the objectreligionbeing by
definition irrational. Rather, between the two there is a continuum
of reflection on religion, including religion's reflection on itself as
theology. At various junctures on that continuum the science of religion can, and must, be prepared to communicate with theology
and vice versa. Very likely, the tension and controversy created by
this diversity of approaches to religion contribute in no small way
to keeping all of these approaches alive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Works of Schencke
1899:
1902:
1904:
1905:
1911:
1912a:
1912b:
1912c:
1913a:
1913b:
1914:
1916:
1917:
1930:
1952:

"Julius Wellhausen", in: Ringeren 2: 494-496.

"Det magiske element i den aegyptiske religion", Norsk teologisk tidsskrift 3:
97-112.
Amon-Re: En studie over forholdet mellem enhed og mangfoldighed under udviklingen of
del aegyptiske gudsbegreb, Kristiania.
"Endel religionshistoriske bemerkninger angaaende de kristelige sakramenter",
in: Historiske Afhandlinger tilegnet Professor Dr. J.E. Sars: 182-98, Kristiania.
Hvad jorden gjemte: Om utgravninger og tekstfund i Palaestina og nabolandene, Kristiania.
"De jodisk-aramaeiske papyri fra Elephantine", in: Norsk teologisk tidsskrift 13:
305-42.
"Sjanglende sjaele", in: Tidens Tegn, 14 December.
"Wilhelm Schencke", in: Studenterne fra 1887: biogrqfiske meddelelser samlet i anledning av 25-aars jubilaet 241-242, Kristiania.
"Det teologiske fakultet bor sloifes", in: Tidens Tegn, 28 January.
Die Chokma (Sophia) in der judischen Hypostasenspekulation: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der religiosen Idem im Zeitalter des Hellenismus (Videnskaps-selskapets skrifter), II.
Hist.-filos. klasse 1912: 6, Kristiania.
Da kristendommen blev skapt: Sider av urkristendommen i lys fra religionshistorien,
Kristiania.
"Hermann Gunkel", in: Tidens Tegn, 30 March.
"Horer et teologisk fakultet hjemme ved et universitet?", in: Samtiden 28:
293-313.
"Primitiv tenkning og religion", in: Fra religion og sjeleliv (Universitetets radioforedrag), Serie B, nr. 2: 5-38, Oslo.
Koranen i utvalg. Oversatt til norsk med innledning og tolkning [av] Wilhelm
Schencke, forkortet og bearbeidet av Harris Birkeland, Oslo; rpt. Oslo 1989.

236

EINAR THOMASSEN

2. Works about Schencke

[Anon. 1953]: "Johan Fredrik Wilhelm Schencke", in: Bibliogrqfiske monogrqfier 2:

77-79, Oslo.
Birkeland, H. 1948: "Wilhelm Schencke", in: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo:
Arbok 1947: 65-71, Oslo.
Brun, L. 1917: "Teologiens plads ved universitetet", in: Samtiden 28: 379-98.
Hjelde, S. 1998: "Teologi og religionshistorie: samspill eller sammanst0t? Om innforingen av religionshistorie som fag ved Universitetet i Oslo", in: Norsk teologisk
tidsskrifi 99: 3-18.
Jansen, H. Ludin 1954: "Wilhelm Schencke", in: Norsk Biografak Leksikon 12: 328-330,
Oslo.

THE INTRODUCTION OF HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE IN DENMARK*
TOVE TYBJERG

I. INTRODUCTION
The introduction of history of religions as an academic discipline in
Denmark was mainly due to three charactershere I shall discuss
two of them: Hans Sofus Vodskov (1846 1910) and Whelm Gronbech
(1873-1948). The third was Edvard Lehmann (1862-1930),1 who was
the first reader in history of religions at the University of Copenhagen,
appointed in the year 1900. Petitioning the Faculty of Philosophy
(as the humanities were then called) for the establishment of a post,
Lehmann wrote:2
the popularity presently enjoyed by the study of religions might easily
lead it astray, if left without scholarly stewardship. In this country as
well as others, Buddhist, Hinduistic and Parsee theories, from a scientific
viewpoint all of a highly dubious character, worked their way into society accompanied by Spiritualism and Theosophy; and they would be
difficult to weed out if left to themselves. The University had a natural obligation to ensure that an abiding interest of this sort should
lead to a more profound understanding of the religious life rather than
to muddling it up.

According to Lehmann, a chair of history of religions ought to be

established in order to guide the population safely past the pitfalls
of the many novel religious movements invading society around the
turn of the century. Gifted both as a scholar and as a writer and
lecturer, Lehmann fitted the description like a glove. In 1900 he was
appointed docent5 and worked for 10 years at the university.

* The author would like to thank mag.art Bo Alkjaer, mag.art. Erik Reenberg
Sand and dr.phil. Jens Henrik Vanggaard for their useful comments.
1
As for the history of the study of religion, I rely on Prytz Johansen 1979.
2
Aarbog 1899-1900: 369-370.
3
The "docentur" was justified by the faculty as follows:
Over the last three or four decades the historical and comparative study of
folk religions had expanded tremendously and interest in them had become

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TOVE TYBJERG

However, it was not Lehmann who made the major impact upon
Danish history of religions; it was his successor Vilhelm Gronbech.
When Lehmann went to Germany to the University of Berlin in
1910, Vilhelm Grenbech was appointed as his successor and a professorship was established for him in 1914. Gronbech was able to
pressure the University, as he had also been offered the professorship in Leipzig after Soderblom.4 Gr0nbech, however, decided to
stay in Denmark. His influence upon Danish historians of religions
has been immense, but he has remained little recognized or known
internationally.
My other main character, Hans Sofus Vodskov, was a literary
critic and an historian of religions; he was a little older than both
Lehmann and Gronbech and is relatively unknown in Denmark as
well as in the rest of the world. I have chosen to discuss both Vodskov
and Gronbech, because together they reveal three characteristics of
Danish history of religions: reservations about comparative studies,
reservations about a phenomenological treatment of religion,5 and

more and more widespread and extended to a much wider circle. More and
more people took into their heads the wish to learn more about these important forms of spiritual life. It was of no small importance that expert guidance
for the satisfaction of this wish was not lacking. Equally, there was in and of
itself a great deal of scientific interest attached to illuminating this aspect of
human mental life as comprehensively and thoroughly as possible. (Aarbog
1899-1900: 370).
The word "Folkereligion" is not a common word, but as Prytz Johansen says in
his history of the study of religion in Denmark, it probably had something to do
with misgivings of theologians towards the humanistic interests in foreign religions.
4
Prytz Johansen 1979: 24-25 and Prytz-Johansen 1987: 21.
5
The term phenomenology of religion is easily misunderstood and a few words
of explanation might be appropriate. According to Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, phenomenology of religion can be classified into "two main types, . . . the typological and
the hermeneutic phenomenology of religion." The typological phenomenology uses
external criteria for the classification of phenomena; the hermeneutic phenomenology
stresses "description, not in accordance with external characteristics, but in accordance with the real essence (das Wesen) of the phenomenon" (Gilhus 1984: 2627).
In both types, phenomena are classified into groups disregarding their geographical
and historical relationships. As Danish historians of religions have generally stressed
the importance of contextualizing religious phenomena, they have been rather critical of the methods of both types of phenomenology.
Of course it should not be forgotten in this context that Edvard Lehmann, whose
writings on typological phenomenology of religion have been quite influential, was
the first professional historian of religions in Denmark; however, his phenomenology of religion became more influential internationally than in Denmark, where
Gronbech's critical stance towards any kind of typologizing became dominating. As
for Gronbech, it should also be mentioned that there are clearly similarities between

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

239

an approach to religion based on a combination of the methods of

anthropology and philology.
Moreover, although Gronbech is clearly the most important and
influential of the two, Vodskov is of equal interest for the purpose
of characterizing the period from which the study of religion grew.
In the following sketch of Vodskov, and then of Gronbech, I will
first look at their lives, and then at their critical endeavours and
their approaches to the study of religions. I thereby hope to put into
perspective the emphasis laid in Danish history of religions on studying "each individual culture in the fullness of its own specific character", to quote Vilhelm Gronbech.
II. VODSKOVS LIFE
Vodskov6 began studying at the University of Copenhagen in 1865.
Following his wide interests, he studied philosophy, literature, history, aesthetics and especially mythology, but never took any university degree.7
From early childhood Vodskov had a love for the Old Norse literature;8 it drove him in the direction of mythological studies, and
to an healthy critique of contemporary scholars in the field, but it
did not butter his bread. To earn a living, he took up work as a
critic in 1872. Miscellaneous Studies (Spredte Studier) from 1884 is a selection of his critical works; among these is the article "Gods and
Vocables" (Guder og Gloser), a sharp, terse and extremely well-written critique of comparative mythology as practised by Adalbert Kuhn,
Max Muller and the Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge.
On the basis of this publication he was awarded a grant from the
Danish government to further his mythological studies and this was
later extended for life. Vodskov's main work, Soul-worship and Natureworship: A Contribution to the Determination of the Mythological Method, volume 1, part 1 (Sjaeledyrkelse og Naturdyrkelse], was published from 1890

his hermeneutical approach and the intentions of some of the hermeneutical phenomenologists of religion. However, Gronbech always stressed the social and historical context of religious phenomena.
6
As for the story of Vodskov's life, I rely on Reitzel-Nielsen's introductions in
Reitzel-Nielsen 1972 and 1992.
7
Reitzel-Nielsen 1972, II:iv.
8
Reitzel-Nielsen 1972, I:243.

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TOVE TYBJERG

to 1897. The 700 pages of Soul-worship and Nature-worship mostly deal

with Rigveda. No additional volumes or parts were ever published
of this work that was planned in 3 volumes.
Vodskov now lived as a recluse in a little wooden house on a
small island or peninsula (depending on the rainfall) in the remote
woods of Smaland. In 1908, after more than 20 years in Smaland,
he moved back to Copenhagen, where he died in 1910. Two days
before his death he wrote his last letter to a friend from his youth:9
Ah, if you only knew how easy and pleasing it is to die; all foolish
claims to an eternal ego and eternal bliss fade away; Truth seizes us
and leads us free and happy through the Gates of Death, because
Death itself is the only bliss, the greatest life has to offer us.

As perhaps intended by Vodskov, these lines reverse the final words

of the Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen's novel Niels Lyhne, the
most famous atheist character in Danish literature: "And finally he
died Death, that difficult death."10
Let us go back with Jens Peter Jacobsen to Vodskov's youth in
the 1860s and to the issues of those times:
III. THE ISSUES OF THE DAY
As a student in Copenhagen during the 1860s, Vodskov boarded
with a group of brilliant students of which Jens Peter Jacobsen was
to become the most famous. They had lively debates on the issues
of the day: Darwinism, belief versus science, and the ideas of the
great literary critic, Georg Brandes (1842-1927).11

Reitzel-Nielsen 1972, 1:529.

Danish: "Og endelig dode han da D0den, den vanskelige Dod."On this connection, see Reitzel-Nielsen 1972, II:150, referring to Troels G. Jorgensen Dacia
XXXVII (1971): 11.
11
Vodskov vied with J.P. Jacobsen for the right to translate Darwin's On the Origin
of Species. J.P. Jacobsen won, the translation was published in 1871-72 and Vodskov
wrote an extensive review explaining the main points to the public. This 1873
review was also an attempt to mitigate religious scruples. "The Bible never intended
to act as professor in natural history," wrote Vodskov. Darwin's On the Origin of
Species was not an attack on religion neither were other scientific theories:
Every scientific discipline concerns itself only with actual things and the laws
operating on them and whether the sun circles the earth or the earth the sun,
or whether the species were created all at once or from a few originals, has
no direct bearing on religion . . . We could thus, all of us, whether we call the
10

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

241

The influence of Georg Brandes was profound in Denmark during the latter part of the 19th century. His lectures in 1871 became
the breakthrough of modernism and among those greatly influenced
were Jens Peter Jacobsen and Vodskov, with Vodskov the more critical. Brandes divided people into friends and foes, and the literary
and cultural climate became rather militant. Vodskov always chose
an independent course, finding himself incapable of "feeling either
admiration or repugnance on demand".12
Religion was a case in point. Brandes hated Christianity and was
a militant atheist. Vodskov found this bellicosity unbalanced and misplaced. He regarded religion as a work of man, but a human construction of tremendous importance for the understanding of human
culture.
In an 1872 application for a post as a critic to the editor of the
most important conservative anti-Brandes daily paper, Vodskov explicates his position on religion:13
Were all human beings divided into three classes, those who feel that
religion supports everything good and honest worth fighting for and
who therefore hold on to it without question, those who believe that
religion is man-made and who heap ridicule on everything sustained
by it, and [finally] those who also believe that religion is man-made,
but conclude for that very reason that the sense of right and duty, the
yearning for joy of oneself and others that has given rise to such poetry,
must be so deeply ingrained in our nature, that it can stand on its
ownthen I would count you in the first category, Brandes, for instance,
in the second, and myself in the third.

wellspring of existence Brama or Jehovah or ontological subjectivity support

Darwinism. It presents us with a far worthier conception of the boundlessness
of God, of his workings as beyond all human analogy; as it is not of itself
either blasphemy or devotion, it may become the latter for all of us. (Vodskov
1992, I:49)
Religion contra science was a major issue in the philosophical debates of the 1860s.
Both Jacobsen and Vodskov had read Feuerbach and Strauss and both followed
closely the religion-science debate in Denmark between philosophers Rasmus Nielsen
(1809-94) Hans Brochner (1820-1875), Harald Hoffding (1843-1931), and a very
young Georg Brandes. One of Georg Brandes' early writings, "Dualism in our
newest Philosophy" (1866), was an attack on Rasmus Nielsen's position that because
belief and science were essentially different they did not conflict and could be united
in the same consciousness. To Brandes this was untenable and a hypocritical attempt
to avoid facing up to a world without God.
12
Vodskov 1884: Forord.
13
Vodskov 1972, 1:50.

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TOVE TYBJERG

Needless to say, Vodskov did not get the post, but he did say something important about his view on religion as a human construction
based on man's creative forces and the principles guiding the conduct of human life.
Vodskov was critical of Brandes as an agitator, but greatly admired
his talents as a literary critic and was also influenced by him. Furthermore, like Brandes, Vodskov was influenced by the French critics Sainte-Beuve and Hippolyte Taine. Vodskov translated into Danish
one of Taine's main works, Histoire de la litterature anglaise (1864, published 1872-77). He did not proffer a determinism like Taine's, and
of the three great general factors: "race", "milieu" and "moment",
or to use Peter Gay's translation: heredity, environment and circumstances,14 environment was probably the most important to Vodskov.
A general awareness of the historical and socio-cultural context of
literature became part of Vodskov's program both in his literary critique and in his study of mythology. One might say that it was
exactly this will to contextualize that turned Vodskov from nineteenth
century mythologist to modern historian of religions. As Vodskov
saw it, this movement in the study of religion had four stages.
IV. THE FOUR STAGES
The first stage is romantic-speculative: the romantic-speculative method
viewed all the diverse myths as more or less clear manifestations of
an ideal, speculative "primeval vision" of the world. The second
stage is romantic-philological: the romantic-philological method implied
the same concept of myth, a-historical, idealist, and speculative, but
took the Indo-European language-tree as its model. Because Sanskrit
was regarded as the earliest known Indo-European language, Rigveda
myths were awarded the same status. The approach to myths was
regrettably, as Vodskov saw it, the same as to words, regrettably because this linguistic turn meant slackness in the use of comparative
method:15
Without at any point breaking consciously with the romantic conception of the nature of myth, these scholars, all of them philologists, dealt
with the matter purely from the outside; tracing the other gods back

14

15

Gay 1976: 4.
Vodskov 1897: III.

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

243

to the Indian ones to their mind meant discovering formal similarities

between myths and between common names of divinities; for them
gods became words, the study of religion became etymology, and in
their crass philological one-sidedness, they went so far as to define
myths as a "disease of language".

The third stage is ethnological. As knowledge of primitive cultures

increased, the interpretation of gods as personifications of natural
phenomena came under attack. New answers were given by British
ethnologists, by Herbert Spencer and most importantly by Edward
Tylor; in Primitive Culture he demonstrated the wide distribution of
belief in spiritual beings, i.e., of animism. Vodskov agreed with Tylor,
but he was critical of tendencies to exaggerate the importance of
animism.16
With the fourth stage we reach Vodskov's own historical-comparative method. Vodskov steers his own course in the study of religion as he did as a literary critic. His main point is that every
mythology is a whole in its own right:17
As I have claimed earlier and been made to repeat ad nauseam by the
abuses of comparativism, every mythology is a whole in its own right,
a living organism, where each detail has to be understood and can
only be understood from the totality of its surroundings.
Vodskov's method is:18
to interpret the myth on its own account, but with an eye open to all
analogies, with the help of every manifestation of the same religious
basic conditions, is my immensely simple and straightforward rule. And
yet it also remains an unattainable ideal.
In Soul-worship and Nature-worship he practised this simple and straightforward rule to the best of his ability.

16
"The religion of all 'savage' peoples is the worship of souls, that is, they worshipped their dead forefathers, pure and simple." (Vodskov 1897: IV)
However, to Vodskov's critical mind, the enthusiasm for the evolutionary animistic viewpoint could easily be overdone: "One remark (by Lippert) is supposedly
sufficient to characterize this approach: 'that Thor should be a Thundergod is a
mere invention of Adam of Bremen'enough for the knowledgeable" (Vodskov
1897: V), cf. his sarcastic analogy a little further on between seeing a forebear in
Thor and classifying a whale as "an unusually well-developed mollusc" (Vodskov
1897: VII).
17
Vodskov 1897: V.
18
Vodskov 1897: VIII-IX.

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TOVE TYBJERG

V. SOUL-WORSHIP AND NATURE-WORSHIP: A FRAMEWORK

"Sjaeledyrkelse" or soul-worship translates the animism of the British
evolutionists, as "naturdyrkelse" or nature-worship covers the naturemythological interpretations of scholars like Kuhn, Schwartz and
Max Muller. However, it is a translation with a difference. Fundamental
to Vodskov's concept of soul-worship is that for the soul-worshipper
"man is God"19 and if man is God, any attempt to comprehend
nature's life and laws is precluded. "Explanation is given a priori:
dead parents or grandparents govern nature. What happens in nature
results from the favour or the wrath of the dead,"20 a conception of
life that to Vodskov is sheer madness and nonsense. Nature-worship,
on the other hand, is based on a clear-cut distinction between God
and man, a shrewd perception of nature's divine character and a
firm conviction that existence is bound by eternal laws. Vodskov
finds that only Indo-Europeans have attained a fully developed natureworship and that the development of the natural sciences in the West
is but a consequence of this old nature-worship. He concludes that:21
Soul- and nature-worship are found in the most varied refractions
among all people, but nature-worship has attained its full scope only
among the Indo-Germans. Nature-worship is the first and only effective
attempt to break through the fairy world of soul-worship and on the
outcome of this attempt depends the fate of the peoples. Briefly stated,
that is the central idea of the present work.

His evolutionary conception of two fundamentally different types of

religion is perfectly comprehensible, given the schism between animistic ethnologists and nature-mythological philologists, illustrated
with such rhetorical skill and fervour by the debates between Max
Muller and Andrew Lang.22 Vodskov, however, thus set his work as
a whole within a conceptually unsatisfactory framework.
Vodskov could not explain how "the nature-god waxed great under
the mask of the dead",23 and within his framework he had difficulties
with the Vedic material. He found "that far from being the point
of departure of the other Aryan mythologies, Rigveda turns away

19
20
21
22
23

Vodskov 1897: CI.

Vodskov 1897: CI.
Vodskov 1897: CIII.
Dorson 1971.
Vodskov 1897: IX.

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

245

from them and that heremaybe for the first and last time in worldhistorywe see a people with a fully developed nature-worship fall
back on soul-worship".24
Vodskov's analysis of the Vedic material is much more convincing than this theoretical construct.
VI. RIGVEDA METAPHORS
It became evident to Vodskov through his reading of the Rigveda
hymns that this was not pristine poetry ("urtidspoesi"); neither did
Rigveda reflect a society in a primeval state. He stresses the importance of complex stanzas, in more than 24 different metrical forms,
and unravels the elaborate metaphors, for instance the metaphorical use of cows:25
everything that gives birth, everything that nourishes, everything that
bellows, everything that congregates in large groups, that is, just about
everything under the sun, living and dead, was made into cows, and
from this mighty cow-shed they did not pick images in order to elucidate the text; rather increasingly laboured circumlocutions . . .

"Expressive oddity" often seemed to be the goal. As a literary critic,

Vodskov was an expert in unraveling the tangled metaphors. He
writes:26
It is both beautiful and natural when in Rigveda the firegod for instance
is said to seek the firewood, as the cow seeks the lush grass, or when
every yearning, every loving care is compared with the cow that hastens to its calf or with the calf bellowing for its mother . . . but [we
also find] rather contrived expressions like "We bellow for you, o god,
as unmilked cows, ... I call the god with song as a cow to be milked. . .

To Vodskov, Rigveda is priestly poetrythe product of a late development, not to say overdevelopment; it is certainly not "urtidspoesi",
pristine poetry.27
24

Vodskov 1897: IX.

Vodskov 1897: 25.
26
Vodskov 1897: 25.
27
With that conclusion Vodskov has already demolished the basis of comparative mythology. His argument gathers further support in the voluminous introduction, with the somewhat surprising tide "The Settlement of the Earth in a Mythological
Perspective".
Vodskov's main point in the introduction is to establish beyond any doubt that
25

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TOVE TYBJERG

The two most original chapters in Vodskov's book are the ones
on Agni and Soma. Step by step Vodskov unravels the complicated
metaphors and stresses how laboured and far-fetched they appear.
According to Vodskov the metaphors had become laboured to such
an extreme degree because they were the work of priests who over
and over again had to glorify Agni as the sacrificial fire and Soma
as the sacrificial drink. In these chapters Vodskov discloses the priestly
interests behind Rigveda's hymns and their close connection to the
ritual reality of their performance, i.e., he contextualizes the hymns.
He does, however, have a somewhat limited understanding of the
realities of ritual drama. As we shall see, Gronbech had a keen eye
for his shortcomings.
To sum up, Vodskov's critical assessment of the comparative mythological studies of his age was devastating. Instead of studying myth
as a phenomenon in itself, Vodskov's work on Rigveda led to the
study of myth as part of religion, of religion as part of society and
culture, and of society and culture as part of historywhich brings
us to the far more famous and important figure of Vilhelm Gronbech.
VII. VILHELM GRONBECH'S LIFE
Vilhelm Gronbech's academic career28 was a far more regular one
than Vodskov's. Gronbech finished his studies at the University of

every culture and every religion is "stedbunden" ("locality-bound"). It is repeated

again and again to disprove the general point of view of German ethnology and
Indo-European studiesthe so-called "Wandertheorie".
Vodskov argues that the settlement of the earth took place in a more or less
"culture-less" period, the settlement was performed by hunters and gatherers, and
where cultures developed beyond this stage, they sprang from and were bound to
their specific environment:
It is evident that religions are locality-bound, therefore a mythologist would of
necessity sooner or later claim the same of peoples and cultures. Wander-theorie and the study of religion could not work together. (Vodskov 1897: XVII)
As for "Wandertheorie", Vodskov warns us:
This should be sufficient warning against scattering lost primeaval peoples all
about and letting cultures move house all across the world. It is certainly
enough to teach us that a culture is not something you can stick in your pocket
and without further ado transport to distant lands and foreign climes, but that
it consists precisely in the close interplay of a country and its inhabitants,
shaped by the toil of millenia. (Vodskov 1897: XXXIV).
28
I rely on Prytz Johansen 1979 and 1987 on Gronbech's life and career.

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

247

Copenhagen in 1897 with a degree in Danish, English and Latin.

Inspired by the great linguist Vilhelm Thomsen, he studied linguistics
and wrote his dissertation on the history of Turkish phonology. However, while working on his thesis, Gronbech realized that it was not
the languages that interested him so much as the people speaking
them; not the history of language, but the history of men. As a consequence, Gronbech turned to history of religions. In 1909-1912 he
published the main work of his youth The Culture of the Teutons, and
in 1915 his little book on Primitive Religion. I shall not delve into Gr0nbech's later life and works here but try to characterize his approach
on the basis of a short article, "Soul or Mana", from 1912 and some
unpublished lecture notes written by a student from Gronbech's
191617 lectures on Vedic Religion. However, I shall first address
Gronbech's critical crusade against evolutionistic anthropology.
VIII. EVOLUTIONISM
Gronbech greatly appreciated the evolutionists' veracitytheir love
of truthbut was at the same time a passionate critic of their views
on primitive people, of their comparative method and of their phenomenology of religion.29
The evolutionists were wrong in regarding primitive people as underdeveloped: So-called primitive peoples were not embryonic human beings,
but bearers of cultures fully formed, sometimes perhaps even overcultured beings, however inadequately equipped with material goods
they may have appeared in the eyes of a European . . . Behind the
Indian and the Aborigine, as much as in our own case, stretches a
history thousands of years long, and that we regard them as belonging
to a primitive stage of mental development is due to our natural selfsatisfaction, whereby we assume that our way of thinking is the only
proper one, and that whatever does not agree with our beliefs must
belong to an inferior order.

The evolutionists were also mistaken in treating primitive cultures as

a homogeneous mass:30
Ethnological method has now continued long enough banalizing all
problems by presenting a raw average of diverse people far removed
from civilization as the highest solution of psychological problems, by

29
30

Gronbech 1922.
Gronbech 1909-1912, II:233.

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TOVE TYBJERG

always asking in the most general sense what worship (and so on)
is, and by then forcing this common denominator on Negroes and
Indians and Greeks, all and sundry, with a meagre concession to "later
development".

The very idea that religions could be explained by any single phenomenon was distasteful to Gronbech and he clearly perceived that
the phenomena focused on by the evolutionists were determined by
their own background. Gronbech's solution is a different one. He
allows that comparative studies may be necessary, but only insofar
as the special character of each culture is not effaced:31
. . . the path to an understanding of humanity's nature leads through
a study of each individual culture in the fullness of its own specific
character, as sure as culture is an equilibrium, a state of harmony;
each by itself, the ancestral societies must be investigated in a manner whereby the important peculiarities are not blurred by misplaced
comparisons.

In order to be a bit more specific as to Gronbech's own approach,

I shall refer to "Soul or Mana".
IX. SOUL OR MANA
"Soul or Mana" was read to the 4th International Congress for the
History of Religions at Leyden in 1912. Gronbech based his argument on extensive studies of the sources of Old Norse religion and
studies of several "primitive" religions, especially as recorded in texts
in the original languages. His point of departure was the question
of "Soul or Mana"at the time an important theoretical issueand
he writes:32
To the best of my understanding, there is no such problem as soul or
mana. The question of primitive psychology has changed its character to me while I was engaged in a prolonged study of the Teuton's
state of mind, as it has stamped itself upon the legends, the laws, the
history and the religion of our race.

The problem was not a problem of terminology, but of understanding.

European terms and distinctions didn't necessarily fit other cultural

31
32

Gronbech 1909-1912, II:233.

Gronbech 1913: 34.

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

249

contexts, and to reach an understanding these distinctions had to be

"ruled out of court".33' 34
As students of alien cultures we are apt to start with a ready-made
distinction between what is natural and rational, and what is magical;
because in an unreformed state every man, even a scholar, speaks as
the civilization that is within him gives utterance. But civilization is
never congruous with the facts of the universe, it is a reconstruction
of facts into serviceable or, if the word may be allowed, workable realities, and each culture strikes its own average.

About Teutonic culture he writes:35

Here we see living and working a type of humanness that does not
admit of being classified either under soul or mana, because it combines both forms of manifestation in one indivisible unity.

Therefore neither "soul" nor "mana" were particularly useful in the

translation. Gronbech was completely misunderstood at the 4th
International Congress for the History of Religions at Leyden in
1912. In the summary he was said to develop a theory of mana or
magic power and to make a distinction between mana and soul.36
The whole point of Gr0nbech's argument was that such distinctions
were meaningless and that the problem was how to capture the message contained in alien concepts and distinctions with a receiver that
was out of tune.
Gronbech did not develop his argument along theoretical lines.
His problem was how to understand and translate foreign worldviews. His interest was in coming to grips with individual cultures
and the way to do this was through meticulous and detailed philological studies. His misgivings on the phenomenology of the evolutionists is clearly and most sharply voiced in the following remarks
on magic:37

33

Gronbech 1913: 8.
Gronbech 1913: 11-12.
35
Gronbech 1913: 14.
36
The summary in Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, tome LXVI, 1912: 239, reads:
"M. Gronbeck (Copenhague) a expose une serie de recherches sur la theorie du mana,
force magique qu'il oppose a la force representee par 1'ame chez les peuples indoeuropeens. L'action du mana est absolue et porte sur un point determine, tandis que
l'action de 1'ame est dispersee. Les faits a 1'appui de cette these se trouvent exposes
dans le livre de M.G.: Lykemand okNiding".See also Prytz Johansen 1979: 24.
37
Gronbech 1913: 12.
34

250

TOVE TYBJERG

"Magic" is not only an ethnological misnomer, when it is dispensed

with a liberal hand on facts only partly understoodit has the mischievous effect of substituting a word for an idea, and thus relieving
us of the trouble to understand.

X.

GR0NBECH AND VODSKOV

What did Granbech think of Vodskov? One place to look is in his

1916-17 lectures on Vedic religion.38 We do not have Gronbech's
notes, but notes taken down with meticulous care by one of his students, the later rather well-known historian of religions, Fritz Pullich.
These lectures are quite famous because here, for the first time, we
find Gronbech's explicit view of ritual drama; this drama is a creation of the world (in the sense of cosmos); the content of the ritual performance is told in the myth and the performance as such
can be quite a-mimetic.39
On several occasions Granbech refers to Vodskov and is mostly
quite critical. Gronbech's point is that Vodskov mistakes a cultic
reality for a literary one. The relationship between soma and the
moon, for instance, is not "purely" metaphorical and is not to be
explained by priestly efforts to inflate the power of ritual and thereby
themselves. The words are a part of cultic reality. The ritual drama
is a cosmic recreation of the moon, the stars and nature as a whole.
It is not a wildly laboured metaphoric exercise, when the drink soma
is said to be the moon, but an expression of the cosmic realities of
the ritual drama.
Granbech is quite right. Vodskov's perception and understanding
of primitive religion was very limited and he had absolutely no appreciation of the intricacies of ritual drama; to him, primitive cult was
a senseless exaggeration of human ability. On the other hand, seen
from the present perspective, it is amazing how much Vodskov got
right, even though his appreciation of primitive religion was faulty.
Furthermore, Vodskov's analysis also puts the bias of Granbech into
perspective. Granbech was rather insensitive to differing social interest and to tensions in the social structure. As an aside, it might also
be mentioned that the difference between the perspective of Vodskov

38
39

Vilhelm Granbech 189/165: 3, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Handskriftssamlingen.

Prytz Johansen's summary, Prytz Johansen 1979: 27.

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN DENMARK

251

and that of Gronbech leaves us with the interesting task of determining the relationship between metaphorical thinking and ritual
efficacy.40
To conclude, Vodskov's credo could be Gronbech's:41
every mythology [or religion or culture] is a whole in its own right,
a living organism, where each detail has to be understood and can
only be understood from the totality of its surroundings".

Vodskov formed his thesis in a critical stance against the philologists'

comparative mythological studies; a similar thesis was formulated by
Gronbech in his critical stance against the evolutionary anthropologists and their so to speak phenomenological approach to primitive
religion. In Denmark, Gronbech's hermeneutic approach and interest in religious mentalities have inspired the historians of religions,
whereas the sociologists have tended to take Vodskov to their heart.
Until recently, a phenomenological approach held little appeal for
either side of the Danish history of religions scene.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dorson, Richard M. 1971: "The Eclipse of Solar Mythology", in: Myth: A Symposium.
Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Bloomington: 25-63.
Gay, Peter 1976: Art and Act On Courses in HistoryManet, Gropius, Mondrian.
New York.
Gilhus, Ingvild Saelid 1984: "The Phenomenology of Religion and Theories of
Interpretation", in: Temenos 20: 25-39.
Gronbech, Vilhelm 1909-1912: Vor folkeaet i oldtiden I-IV, K0benhavn.
1913: Soul or Mana, Paper read to the 4th International Congress for the
History of Religions at Leyden 1912, Kobenhavn.
1915: Primitiv religion. Stockholm (Populare etnologiska Skrifter 12). Reedited
by Mikael Rothstein (ed.) 1996: Liv og virkelighed. Vilhelm Gronbechs "Primitiv
religion", Kobenhavn.
1922: "Religionshistoriens midler og opgaver", in: Nationaltidende Aftenudgave, 9.
og 10. marts.
Prytz Johansen, J0rgen 1979: "Religionshistorie", in: Kebenhavns Universitet 1479-1979,
Bind XI, Det filosofiske Fakultet, 4. del. Povl Johs Jensen (ed.), Kobenhavn: 1-48.
1987: Religionshistorikeren Vilhelm Gronbech, K0benhavn.
Reitzel-Nielsen, Erik 1972: Breve fra og til Hans Vodskov. Bind I: Breve 1864-1910.
Bind II: Indledning. Brevfortegnelse. Noter og kommentarer. Register, Kobenhavn.

40
Prof. Jens Braarvig introduced and discussed these questions in his lecture at
the symposium.
41
Vodskov 1897: V.

252

TOVE TYBJERG

1992: Hans Vodskov. Litteraturkritik i udvalg. Bind I: Litteraturkritiske artikler

1871-1886. Bind II: Indledning. Kommentar. Bibliografi. Forkortelser. Titelregister.
Personregister, Kobenhavn.
Revue de I'histoire des religions, tome LXVI, 1912.
Riisgard, Ejvind 1974: Vilh. Gronbechs kulturopgor III, Kobenhavn.
Sharpe, Eric J. 1975: Comparative Religion: A History, London.
Vodskov, Hans Sofus 1884: Spredte Studier, K0benhavn.
1897: Sjaeledyrkelse og Naturdyrkelse. Bidrag til Bestemmelsen af den Mytologiske
Metode. F0rste Bind: Rig-Veda og Edda, Kobenhavn.
Aarbog for Kjobenhavns Universitet 1899-1900: 369-371.

PART FIVE

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS TOWARDS THE END

OF THE 20TH CENTURY

This page intentionally left blank

PROGRESS IN RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN

RELIGIONS (1898-1998)
JACQUES WAARDENBURG

I. DISCIPLINE AND FIELD

"History of religions" as a name for our discipline is not without
problems. If history of religions was seen at first as a precise discipline
of text-historical research, in the course of time it has acquired a
much wider meaning, as the German term Religionswissenschqft suggests.
William Brede Kristensen (1867-1953), one of the early representatives of the discipline, conceived what he called the "historical"
study of religions in a very different way from what we understand
today by historical research, at least in his Leiden period (1901-1937).
For him it comprised not only the precise historical study of religious texts, symbols and other religious data from the distant past,
but also their comparison and classification, which he called phenomenology. It also implied the search for their original deeper religious meanings as well as the life- and world-views underlying them.
All these findings were then brought together and their overall meaning was reconstructed into a harmonious whole. This was not present-day historical research. In fact, there is hardly any chronology
or hint at historical changes or developments to be found in his
work. Nor does he refer to the economic and political, social and
cultural contexts in which the religions of antiquity which he studied arose, flourished and died. Still, he considered himself a historian, albeit a historian of religions, and, at least in the Netherlands,
he has been considered a model for later historians of religions.1
During the 20th century, history of religions developed from a
specific historical discipline (Religionsgeschichte] to a broader interdisciplinary field of research (Religionswissenschqft), although it kept the
1
Kristensen's way of doing research is particularly clear in his scholarly papers
presented at the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and brought together in his
Bijdragen tot de kennis der antieke godsdiensten. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandse Uitgevers
Maatschappij, 1947. This book was later reprinted as an Aula pocket under the
title of Godsdiensten in de oude wereld. Utrecht & Antwerpen: Het Spectrum, 1966.

256

JACQUES WAAKDENBURG

name "history of religions". Nonetheless, until the mid-20th century

it consisted largely of literary, historical and comparative studies of
religious texts and other religious data from the past and from what
were called "primitive religions". After World War II its scope
expanded to what must be called the scholarly study of religions; it
should now be considered a "field" of scholarship rather than a
specific discipline. Cultural anthropology and sociology studying religions in specific contexts, or as part of cultures and societies, have
thrown light on the social realities which condition them. Fundamental
research has been carried out on questions of method and theory.
The field has not only grown in the "softer" humanities and the
"harder" social sciences; it has also become divided into ever increasing specializations and smaller fragmentations. Kristensen claimed to
study and know the ancient Egyptian and Greek religions from the
sources; such a claim would be ludicrous today.
There is no longer any "total" approach to religion in general or
even to one religion in particular. We now have only disciplinary
and specialized approaches to specific aspects of a religion or to certain religious aspects of a culture; the study of a religion and a culture is mostly combined nowadays. Most scholars working in the
field of the study of religions do not identify themselves at present
as scholars or historians of religions but rather, for example, as
Egyptologists, Indologists, "Islamic" scholars. Or they consider themselves anthropologists, sociologists or psychologists who have a special interest in the study of religion. In other words, much research
that is relevant for the study of religions is in fact carried out outside the discipline and field of research that bears this name.
My concern here is to trace some interesting developments which
have occurred in the study of religious meanings during this century, on what may be called a macro-level. I shall not consider studies of religious meanings which remain restricted to specialized research
on a micro-level. I will focus on some scholars who looked for meanings of a more general nature. Finally I shall discuss, at least theoretically, new ways and means to pursue the further study of
"subjective" religious meanings especially in the living religions.

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

257

II. THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE

20TH CENTURY
Without going into the history of our field in depth, a few remarks
on the subject are in place.2 Established as a scholarly discipline in
various countries before the turn of the century, history of religions
took off along lines which were already drawn in the 1870s. A certain concept of religion was generally accepted, although scholars
differed in the way they defined it. And the discipline served to
acquire scholarly knowledge of the historical and social realities indicated by the concept. There was a strong feeling for historical continuity and the historical orientation of the discipline was shared by
most scholars; some in France went ahead with a sociology of religion along the lines of Emile Durkheim, and some in Britain with
what was to be called anthropology along the lines of Edward Tylor
and others. The conviction reigned that there was positive development and even evolution in the realm of culture and religion.
Christianity was seen by most religious people as definite truth, and
nearly all considered European civilization as the summit of all civilizations past and present. Up to World War II the main branches
of the study of religions were: (1) history of religions based foremost
on textual studies (religious texts and religious history, especially in
Germany); (2) comparative studies; (3) sociology of religion (especially
in France); (4) anthropology of religion (especially in Britain); and
(5) phenomenology of religion (especially in the Netherlands and
Scandinavia).
From the very beginnings, the scholarly study of religions has been
the object of theoretical reflection and the discipline, as I see it, was
2
For the history of the study of religions, see for instance J. van Baal & W.E.A.
van Beek, Symbols for Communication. Religion in Anthropological Theory. Assen: Van
Gorcum: 1971, 2nd ed. 1985; Michel Despland, L'emergence des sciences de la religion.
La Monarchie de Juillet: un moment fondateur. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999; Hans G. Kippenberg, Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschaft und Moderne. Munchen:
Beck, 1997; Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion. A History. First ed. London: Duckworth, 1975; 2nd rev. ed. La Salle, 111.: Open Court, 1986; Jan de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie. Freiburg-Munchen: Karl Alber, 1961; Jan de Vries, Perspectives
in the History of Religions. Berkeley etc.: Univ. of California Press, 1977; J. Waardenburg,
"Introduction. A View of a Hundred Years' Study of Religion" in Jacques Waardenburg, Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theories of Research,
Vol. 1: Introduction and Anthology. The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1974. Paperback edition Berlin etc.: Walter de Gruyter, 1999.

258

JACQUES WAARDENBURG

founded on certain theoretical postulates. Throughout the period

under consideration this reflection was apparently nourished by at
least two basic theoretical schemes, which led to different interpretations of religious data and religions, and consequently to different
ways of studying them. These may be called explanatory theory and
hermeneutics.
According to the first orientation, a scholarly theory serves as a
general model to explain specific facts. In the search for an objective, generally valid study of religion, one has to break up religious
data into empirical facts and bring to light objective relationships that
exist between them, apart from the subjective opinions of the researcher.
In fact, the researcher as a person does not play a significant role
in research, and any general theory should be developed apart from
his or her subjective preferences. In this way some broader scholarly explanatory theories were developed in the first fifty years of
the discipline. As is well-known, most of them tried to explain religion from nature, from society or through the human psyche. The
virtue of explanatory theory is its maximal objectivity. It develops
models that are independent of the person of the scholar and one
scholar can easily replace another.
In the hermeneutical orientation, by contrast, the problem is to
find the rules of interpretation according to which the meaning of
texts or other phenomena expressing meaning can be opened up by
scholarly study. The meanings in question are those which a particular phenomenon has had or has within a given cultural and religious tradition and also for particular groups or persons within that
tradition. In the perception of these meanings the person of the
scholar plays an important role. Such scholarly research into meaning can be extended from the history of the exegesis of particular
texts to that of the interpretation of other religious phenomena like
myths, symbols, rites and ethics. It can also be applied to the interpretations adherents give to the nature and history of their own religious community or to the ways in which they interpret and practise
their religion. The central question here is what was, has been or
is meaningful to other people.
In retrospect, it appears unfortunate that these two major theoretical approaches, which were introduced and applied in the scholarly study of religion by the end of the 19th century and which used
the explanatory and the hermeneutical model respectively, parted

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

259

company around the time of World War I. The exaggerated claims

of certain "hermeneutical" scholars to have direct access to religious
realities and the other side's exclusivist claims to represent true science and scholarship are partly responsible for this. Only a few scholars since then have been able satisfactorily to combine both approaches
in their research work.3
Theoretical differences, however, did not prevent the young discipline from growing quickly; on the contrary. Even the most demanding positivistic scholar cannot but rejoice at the incredible accumulation
of known data concerning religions during the first half of this century, not to speak of the period after World War II.
Without diminishing the value of an immense number of textual and
historical studies, and of different kinds of comparative research, the
most significant progress in the study of the most recent history and
contemporary situation of the living religions is due to the social sciences.4 Kristensen already knew about the British anthropology and
French sociology of religion of his day; after World War II, whether
he liked it or not, he must have been aware of the impact which
anthropological fieldwork and theory, especially from North America,
was starting to have on the study of religions.
The discussions which have been engaged in by historians, sociologists and anthropologists of religion represent an encounter between
different paradigms and distinct research traditions and practices,
stressing either a more direct or a more indirect reading of sources,
looking for what had been considered to be religious truth in the
past or for a truth reached through the filters of newly conceived
research methods. With the entry of the social sciences into the broad

Compare Jacques Waardenburg, "The Emergence of Science of Religion:

Explanatory Theory and Hermeneutics", Religion (Brno), Vol. 5 (1997) Nr. 2, pp.
107-116. In both approaches a critical scholarly attitude should prevail. Compare
Kurt Rudolph, "Die religionskritischen Traditionen in der Religionswissenschaft",
in Hans G. Kippenberg and Brigitte Luchesi (Eds.), Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik.
Beitrdge zur Konferenz The History of Religions and Critique of Culture in the Days of Gerardus
van der Leeuw (1890-1950). (Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, 1991), pp. 149-156. See
also Rainer Flasche, "Der Irrationalismus in der Religionswissenschaft und dessen
Begrundung in der Zeit zwischen den Weltkriegen", in the same volume Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik, pp. 243-257.
4
See Frank Whaling (Ed.), Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, Vol. 2:
The Social Sciences. Berlin etc.: Mouton, 1985.

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JACQUES WAARDENBURG

field of the study of living religions and their active involvement in

it, this field has undergone a dramatic change. As suggested earlier,
one of the results has been the establishment of the scholarly study
of religions no longer as one discipline called "history of religions"
but as a field of interdisciplinary research which places the highest
demands on the researchers concerned. To give one example; the
study of new religious movements outside or inside existing religions,
and that of the rise of new religions, especially in the Third World,
would never have been possible without the social scientists. Combining
the approaches may sometimes have been explosive but the results
have been the better for it.
III. RESEARCH ON RELIGIOUS MEANINGS UNTIL WORLD WAR II
The concept of "religious meaning" in research suggests a particular
quality of perception and interpretation (cognition).5 I use the term
to refer to an experience, a value or a norm which gives a fundamental orientation to individual or communal life. In various ways
and in different social contexts this orientation forms or transforms
life into something highly meaningful. A person's quest for "religious" meaning often has its origin in the experience of something
in lifesuch as injustice, suffering or deaththat overcomes him or
her as fundamentally ununderstandable, if not inexplicable, meaningless. The study of religions shows the many ways in which mankind
has looked for, found or constructed religious meaning in order to
cope with reality. For the person or group concerned, religious meaning implies a commitment with an absolute reference.

5
On the term "meaning": "that which is intended to be, or actually is, expressed
or indicated; signification; import" (e.g. meanings of a word); "the end, purpose, or
significance of something" (meaning of life); "full of significance; expressive" (full of
expression, meaningful). See The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. The
unabridged edition. Ed. in Chief: Jess Stein (New York: Random House, 1967),
p. 888. In the first two senses it is the meaning of something in itself that is stressed
(German Sinn). In the third sense it is suggested that something is meaningful to a
person or group ("this painting means/says a lot to me") (German Bedeutung); it
indicates a clear relevance and suggests an underlying relationship. In this case there
may be an existential connotation of meaning for the person or group concerned.
The term "religious meaning" indicates the religious quality of "meaning" in the
first two senses (Sinn, sens); it also stands for the existential character of a meaning
for a person or group when they are taken up by it, receive an orientation from
it, are transformed by it (Bedeutung, signification; here with a religious connotation).

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

261

W.B. Kristensen is the main figure in this context.6 His prestige

and authority among his students and later admirers in Leiden seems
to have been due not only to his presentation of new data, but also
to the particular way in which he derived a religious meaning from
them. Apparently he could say that other scholars might know the
ancient Egyptian language better than he did, but that, unlike the
others, he studied these texts as a historian of religions, i.e., as someone looking for religious meanings. His pupil G. van der Leeuw
made a similar remark in a review of a learned German Egyptologist's
study, saying that its author dealt with religious texts as a highly
competent philologist but neglected their religious meaning. Kristensen
thus formulated the demand of the study of religious meanings in
the scholarly study of religions; it would later constitute a fundamental problem in phenomenology of religion.
The study of ancient non-Biblical religious texts has a long history in Europe, starting with the Renaissance Humanists, if not earlier. It was mainly concerned with classical texts but extended from
Classical to Orientalist scholarship, thanks to the decipherment of
ancient Near Eastern languages by Champollion, Grotefend and others. Scholars approached these texts as literary documents, established their precise literal meaning, and interpreted them as far as
possible within their historical contexts. In a few cases they regarded
them as social documents conveying a social and political meaning
besides their literal one. The art of studying religious meanings was
something different, however. Applied to the Bible, it came under
theology with its long tradition of techniques of exegesis, using the
four levels of interpretation established by the Alexandrians and
medieval scholastics.
But what about the study of religious meanings in other religions?
6
For a succinct bibliography of and on W.B. Kristensen, see Jacques Waardenburg,
Classical Approaches, Vol. 2: Bibliography (The Hague, 1974), pp. 137-139.Five of
his books deserve mentioning here: Livet fra doden. Studier over agyptisk og gammel graesk
religion (Life out of Death. Studies on Egyptian and ancient Greek religion), Oslo,
1925 (Dutch tr. 1926); Bijdragen . . . (1947; see Note 1); Religionshistorisk studium (The
Study of History of Religions), Oslo 1954 (Dutch tr. 1955); Symbool en werkelijkheid.
Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien (Symbol and Reality. A Volume of Studies in
History of Religions), Arnhem, 1954; The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology
of Religion. Translated by John B. Carman. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1960.On
W.B. Kristensen's work, see for example Richard J. Plantinga, "W.B. Kristensen
and the study of religions", Numen, Vol. 36 (1989), pp. 173188; the same, "Romanticism and the History of Religion: The Case of W.B. Kristensen", in Religionswissenschaft
und Kulturkritih (1991, see Note 3), pp. 157-176.

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JACQUES WAARDENBURG

Kristensen often referred here to Schleiermacher, the recognized 19th

century master of hermeneutics. His example, as well as Kristensen's
own feel for nature, if not cosmic awareness, may have made him
read the religious texts of antiquity in a way comparable to the way
in which theologians study the Bible. Unlike philologists and historians, not to speak of social scientists, Kristensen was concerned
withand somehow committed towhat he saw as the truths
expressed in the Egyptian texts he studied. He did not read them
according to Western schemes of thinking current at the time, with
which he disagreed profoundly, but according to what he considered they meant for the believers, that is, according to the Weltanschauung
they expressed. In this "religious meaning" he saw their particular
message to present-day children of rationality and enlightenment.
Exactly how he read and interpreted specific texts must be left to
present-day Egyptologists to judge.
In any case, this exploration of the religious meanings which foreign religions had once had for their adherents represented a considerable advance beyond the readings which Frazer and others had
made according to their own evolutionary schemes. For Kristensen,
the religions of antiquity were not to be seen through modern Western
glasses and judged accordingly. They seem on the contrary to have
provided him with an effective alternative to rational modernity,
which he seems to have detested. These religions and their believers were his great "Other" in his defense againstor escape from
rationalism. He looked for a religious view of life and the cosmos
as it had existed in pre-rational antiquity, and he claimed to extract
that view directly from the texts. His approach was a-historical since
it did not look for historical process and change, and it was contentoriented since it did not consider contextual non-religious factors.
Looking back, I would suggest that he constructed from his readings a cosmic world-view or religion with eternal religious meanings.
He believed this cosmic religion to have been the fundament of the
religions of antiquity from early Egyptian and Mesopotamian times
onwards until they were destroyed by the rise of Greek rationalism
and exclusivist Christianity. We can find similar searches for ancient
religious views during Kristensen's lifetime by scholars such as Walter
F. Otto (1874-1965)7 and Karl Kerenyi (1897-1973)8 who were also
' For a succinct bibliography of and on W.F. Otto, see Jacques Waardenburg,
Classical Approaches, Vol. 2: Bibliography (1974), pp. 206-208.

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

263

fascinated by them. On the basis of their hermeneutics of Greek religious texts they discovered spiritual meanings which they held to be
revelatory for Being and of eternal value, comparable to the meanings about nature which Kristensen had discovered in Egyptian texts.
All these scholars arrived at a rather Platonic and static view of the
religions studied and the religious meanings and truths they discovered. This search for eternal religious meanings, which poets and
philosophers also engaged in, seems to have been a feature of European
culture around the turn of the century. Here it was carried over
into scholarship through the investigation of ancient religious texts.
This search for meaning would be an important incentive toward
phenomenology.
However, even during Kristensen's lifetime this absolutization of the
religion that formed the object of scholarly study was questioned.
G. van der Leeuw who, while being inspired by his teacher, was an
independent character, took a different course.9 Aware of the fact
that research could lead the researcher to identify with his object
of study, he preferred to use this possibility of identification consciously in order to reconstruct not only one religious Weltanschauung
of the past but a whole variety of religious experiences. In so doing
he displayed intuition but less critical sense. His aim was to gain
access to religious experiences, attitudes and meanings which had
been lived in other times and places. He thereby assumed (1) the
existence of a relatively small number of fundamental religious orientations; (2) that the meaning of a given religious phenomenon
8
A number of works of K. Kerenyi were published as Werke in Einzelausgaben, 8
vols. Darmstadt, 1966-1976.
9
For a succinct bibliography of and on G. van der Leeuw, see Jacques Waardenburg, Classical Approaches, Vol. 2, Bibliography (1974), pp. 149-156.On G. van der
Leeuw's work, see for example, Willem Hofstee, Goden en mensen. De godsdienstwetenschap van Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950). (Gods and Men. The Study of Religion
by Gerardus van der Leeuw, 1890-1950). Diss. Groningen. Kampen: Agora, 1997;
Yme B. Kuiper, "Van der Leeuw and Huizinga as Critics of Culture", in Religionswissenschqft und Kulturkritik (1991) (see Note 3), pp. 113-125; Jacques Waardenburg,
"Gerardus van der Leeuw as a Theologian and Phenomenologist", in the same,
Reflections on the Study of Religion (The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1978), pp. 187-247.
On phenomenology of religion in the Netherlands, see Jacques Waardenburg, "Religion between Reality and Idea. A Century of Phenomenology of Religion in the
Netherlands", Numen, Vol. 19 (1972); the same, "The Problem of Representing
Religions and Religion. Phenomenology of Religion in the Netherlands", in Religionswissenschqft und Kulturkritik (1991) (see Note 3), pp. 31-56; compare pp. 87-92 (in response
to Donald Wiebe).

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changed according to the fundamental religious orientation in which

it occurred, and (3) that the researcher could re-experience such religious orientations for himself. This was the key to his understanding of religious phenomena.
Van der Leeuw's own view of religion was far more dynamic than
that of his former teacher. However, more than most other historians of religions he was conscious of the role of the scholar's own
subjectivity in his research concerning religious meanings and the
problems this posed for any scholarly hermeneutics in history of religions. Apparently Kristensen, who kept strictly to his conviction of
the objective existence of religious meanings, interpreted this study
of religious experience by means of a conscious subjective re-experiencing as a "psychologizing" of religion. In fact, however, the pupil,
with his gift of imitation, had made a technique of what to his
teacher had been a scholarly vocation. He had put his finger on the
problem of subjectivity in the study of religious meanings.
In Germany during these years Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)10 and the
younger Friedrich Heiler (1892-1967),11 both in Marburg, kept to
the study of texts and the more classical forms and expressions of
religion, as Kristensen did in Holland. But unlike the latter they
worked out a basically theological view of religions. Characteristically,
they assumed that there was some kind of ultimate harmony between
religions in the experience of the sacred or the divine. Their concept of religion was a Western Christian one, theologically grounded
and experientially lived. It was the basis for their study of religious
meanings which they considered as objectively given. These could
be studied either in the classical expressions of the great religions (in
Religionsgeschichte) or in the systematic study of religious phenomena
assumed to refer to the Absolute (in Religionsphanomenologie), Both were
concerned to bring the various religions together in a far-reaching
effort at ecumenical fraternization and inter-religious dialogue. Heiler,
in particular after World War II, devoted himself to this task passionately. He believed that the religious meanings which can be discovered in authentic religious experiences, expressed in words or
10
For a succinct bibliography of and on Rudolf Otto, see Jacques Waardenburg,
Classical Approaches, Vol. 2: Bibliography (1974), pp. 200-206.
11
For a succinct bibliography of and on Friedrich Heiler, see Jacques Waardenburg,
Classical Approaches, Vol. 2: Bibliography (1974), pp. 102-107.

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265

otherwise, should be studied assiduously in history of religions in

order to bring about better mutual understanding. He tried to bring
such religious meanings into a theological synthesizing scheme which
had the deus absconditus at its center.
These are some examples of research on religious meanings in the
first half of the 20th century.
IV. THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE
20TH CENTURY
Again, before dealing with the study of religious meanings during
the second half of this century, I will indicate some general developments in the study of religions as a field since about 1950.12
First of all, a growing distinction has been made between the study
of religions of the past and of the present. This has turned out to
give more breadth to the study of major "living" religions like Islam,
Buddhism and Hinduism which earlier had mostly been studied in
the framework of Oriental studies, where only a few scholars paid
attention to specifically religious aspects of contemporary developments.
Until the mid-20 th century the discipline of history of religions was
mostly assigned to faculties of theology which were regarded as dealing with religion. Its main focus was on the religions of antiquity,
which constituted the broader context (Umwelt) for the study of ancient
Israelite religion and early Christianity. At the time the larger living
religions and the non-literate religions were often taught in the framework of missiology, without their languages being studied. Research
and teaching appointments were largely determined by theologians.
12

For developments between ca. 1945 and ca. 1980, see Frank Whaling (Ed.),
Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion. Vol. 1: The Humanities; Vol. 2: The Social
Sciences. Berlin etc.: Mouton, 1984-85. See in Volume 1 especially Ursula King,
"Historical and phenomenological approaches" (pp. 29-164) and Frank Whaling,
"Comparative Approaches" (pp. 165-296). See also Frank Whaling's "The Contrast
between the Classical and Contemporary Periods in the Study of Religion" (pp.
1-28).There are differences between developments of the field in Europe, North
America and elsewhere. We restrict ourselves to developments in Europe. Compare
Michael Pye, "Religious Studies in Europe: Structures and Desiderata", in Klaus
K. Klostermaier and Larry W. Hurtado (Eds.), Religious Studies: Issues, Prospects and
Proposals (Atlanta, Georgia; Scholars Press, 1991), pp. 39-55. For the situation in
continental Europe in the 1970s, see Jacques Waardenburg, "'Religionswissenschaft in
Continental Europe", Religion. Journal of Religion and Religions, Vol. 5 (Special issue
August 1975), pp. 27-54; the same, Religionswissenschaft in Continental Europe
excluding Scandinavia. Some Factual Data", Numen, Vol. 23 (1976), pp. 219-238.

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The greater attention that was given now to the living religions
was a recognition of their relevance. Yet, in practice, present-day
developments of the major religions have still often been seen very
much as an outgrowth ofor even appendix totheir more glorious history at their beginnings and in their classical forms, that is
to say in a particular historical perspective. Only slowly has it been
realized that the study of present-day religions poses very specific
problems, not only in terms of the methods of research and the
underlying theoretical viewpoints, but also as far as the contact with
the adherents of the religion under study is concerned.
During this period much research has been carried out on the
social context of religions, looking for instance at the relationships
between religious institutions and their societies, or between religious
authorities and their communities. This has provided new views of
the social basis of religions and their function in society. We speak
now of majority and minority religions, of ethnic and class religions,
of official and popular religion, of more restricted and more open
or even missionary religions. A great number of social features of
religions turn out to be caused by ordinary, non-religious factors and
contexts. There are specific reasons why in certain contexts certain
groups or persons tend to give their religion a particular interpretation or application, adopting certain practices and stressing certain
aspects, while neglecting or rejecting others. It has become increasingly
clear that not only the religious aspects of a phenomenon but also
its other aspects should be studied if one wants to understand it.
During the last fifty years the pendulum has swung back and forth
between the two basic orientations which I indicated earlier.13 On
the one hand, research has focussed on the facts of what may be

13
This pendulum was particularly clear in the Netherlands, with different orientations to be found in books like Jan van Baal, Symbols for Communication (1971,
see Note 2); Th.P. van Baaren & H J.W. Drijvers (Eds.), Religion, Culture and Methodology.
Papers of the Groningen Working-group for the Study of Fundamental Problems and Methods of
Science of Religion (The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1973); CJ. Bleeker, "Wie steht es
um die Religionsphanomenologie?", Bibliotheca Orientalis, Vol. 28 (1971), pp. 303-308;
Jacques Waardenburg, Reflections on the Study of Religion (The Hague & Paris: Mouton,
1978); the same, Religionen und Religion. Systematische Einfuhrung in die Religionswissenschaft
(Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1986); the same, Perspektiven der Religionswissenschaft (Wurzburg:
Echter Verlag & Altenberg: Oros Verlag, 1993). On the study of religion in the
Netherlands at the time, see for instance J. Waardenburg, "Recent Trends in Dutch
Studies of Religion", in the same, Reflections on the Study of Religion (1978), pp. 23-43.

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267

called the objective state of affairs of a religion at a particular time

and place, distancing itself from claims made by the believers. On
the other hand, research has focussed on the people concerned by
that religion, how they view things themselves and how they articulate their beliefs and practices. In the first case the search is for
laws and rules that govern the infrastructure and the social context
in which people live and which to a large extent condition their religious behavior and thinking. Here explaining prevails. In the second case it is the people's own articulation of their religion, what
they do with it and what it means to them, that is the focus of
attention. The context is only taken into account in as far as it sheds
light on that. Here understanding prevails.
In the course of the second half of this century the social relevance and the significance of the study of living religions have
increased considerably, not only for developments and policies in
Third World countries where religions play an important social and
political role, but also in the increasingly pluralistic and secular societies in Western countries. Its cultural relevance is beyond doubt in
a time in which cooperation and understanding is a necessity and
in which the search for orientation and identity is pervasive. In this
connection the fact that the study of religions has been distancing
itself from more or less clearly theological thinking and discourse is
more significant than most people think.
During this period Western scholarship on other cultures and religions has slowly taken cognizance of certain Western assumptions
and presuppositions which conditioned earlier studies in the field.
For a long time these studies were a Western affair. They represented a Western attempt to understand non-Western religions and
cultures; even if the study itself, because of its subject-matter, distanced itself from Europe, the West and Western religion, the prevailing context made it Europeanor Westerncentered. The intensity
of current research on the origins and the early history of our discipline is itself an indication of the growing awareness that the discipline has a certain cultural contingency. After all, in Europe it
developed in the spirit of a liberal society and a humanist culture
with an "enlightened" religion. The growing participation of researchers
and intellectuals coming from different backgrounds has not only
favored new questions of research. It has also helped to bring about
greater clarity about particular norms and ideals, social factors and
cultural assumptions which played a role in past Western studies of

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non-Western religions. Self-critical awareness has been growing among

scholars who recognize the limits imposed on any scholarly enterprise. Some of them suffer from the decline of humanism and the
humanities in the West, linked to what some would call the betrayal
of cultural ideals and others the weakening of the creative, critical
power of the mind in culture, thought and scholarship.14
At the end of the 19th century, academic scholarship on religion
could still be held to reveal metaphysical realities. W.B. Kristensen,
for instance, inquired all his life about what he called the belief of
the believers in antiquity. He defended the objective reality of the
things they believed in. He was convinced that a serious researcher
using all his faculties could grasp the spiritual realities which the
believers held to be "objectively" real. At present, some sixty years
after he retired, we are more aware of the fact that in true and critical scholarship we can only have access to the interpretations which
people have given to spiritual realities, not to these realities themselves. We have also acquired some insight into the ways in which
different disciplines perceive and explain such interpretations. And
we have become more interested in social practices.
In my view, religion itself as lived and practised is a less definable
reality than for instance music, art or literature; it is mainly a resource
to uncover or assign meaning and in this way helps people to cope
with reality. The scholarly concept of religion, on the other hand,
is a construct developed in order to study religions and to understand how people perceive religious meaning in the situation in which
they are living or attribute significance to life, on the basis of certain founding meanings considered as truth. This scholarly concept
of religionthe scholarly discourseis by its very nature different
from the ways in which religious people speak about religionthe
religious discourse. By using a nominalistic rather than a realistic
concept of religion the study of religions in my view has become
properly scholarly. However, it should be remembered that if the
concept of religion is either a construction on the believers' part or
a construct on the scholars' part, practised and lived religion itself
is not therefore a construct. It is bitter-sweet reality and its meanings for the people concerned are a subject of research.
14

The studies of scholars from Asia, Africa and Latin America who are working in this field in the West deserve special attention. Compare Note 22.

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V. RESEARCH ON RELIGIOUS MEANINGS AFTER WORLD WAR II

Most researchers on religions and religious meanings nowadays do
not see them as constituting a realm apart from mundane realities
as did several scholars referred to earlier. The cultural situation is
different now and the intellectual and ideological criticism of religion (Religionskritik), carried out in various forms since the Enlightenment,
has contributed to the dethroning of Platonic views of the religions.
During the last decades, criticism of what may be called "otherworldly" views in religion has been articulated in research as well,
for instance through studies relating religious expressions to social
groups or to experiences of nature and the body, or by feminist and
other criticisms of the assumptions of current religious discourse. It
should be noticed that during the last decades those researchers who
work on religious meanings have no longer based themselves exclusively on texts but also on social and political expressions, art, practices of healing and ritual behavior. The construction and perception
of religious meanings is seen increasingly as a communal rather than
as a purely individual affair.
I shall now address the work of two scholars who have clearly influenced research on religious meanings since the mid-20th century.
The first is Mircea Eliade.15 Of Rumanian descent, he was attached
to the European cultural tradition concerned with being, meaning
and truth, experience and existence, but rather in the Latin than
the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon strand of it. Eliade was an indefatigable searcher for religious meanings and has had a direct and indirect influence on further searches in this field. He achieved this by
formulating problems that set historians of religions and scholars of
15
For the bibliography of M. Eliade until 1979, see D. Allen and D. Doeing,
Mircea Eliade. An Annotated Bibliography. London-New York: Garland, 1980.The following scholarly books by M. Eliade which appeared in English may be mentioned
here: Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958); Toga (1958); Birth and Rebirth (1958); Cosmos
and History (1959); The Sacred and the Profane (1959); Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries: The
Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (1960); The Forge and the Crucible
(1962); Myths and Reality (1963); Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964);
Mephistopheles and the Androgyne (1965); Images and Symbols (1969); The Quest: History and
Meaning in Religion (1969); Zalmoxis (1972); Australian Religions (1973); The Myth of the
Eternal Return (1974); A History of Religious Ideas, 3 vols. (1978-1986); Images and Symbols
(1991).About Eliade's work, see Mircea Eliade, Ordeal by Labyrinth. Conversations
with Claude-Henri Roquet. Chicago, 1982. Compare Douglas Allen, Structure and Creativity
in Religion: Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology and New Directions (The Hague: Mouton, 1978).

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religion in general to work, and also by provoking debate on fundamental problems in the study of religions.
Marked by his own studies of Indian religions and religious experience, including the theory and practice of yoga, Eliade was apparently chiefly concerned with man's relation with and access to Being
and his acquiring thereby of an authentic and "true" existence. The
history of religions provides copious materials for this kind of research.
For Eliade religions are in a way deposits of mankind's encounters
with and access to Being and of certain existential experiences as
"tests" on a human being's way to true existence. The study of the
history of religions then becomes fundamentally the study of mankind's
experiences of and insights into being and true existence in the course
of history. The historical process itself acquires a negative connotation in this context; Eliade used to speak of the "terror" of history.
Whereas Kristensen's orientation suggests a view of religion in terms
of Nature and Walter F. Otto's a Platonic view, Eliade's orientation
suggests a Neo-Platonic view of religion. To him, Being is not a reality of a more or less static nature to be contemplated. Rather, it
pours out and manifests itself to man individually and communally
on numerous occasions; it is of a dynamic nature. In response to
such manifestations of Being mankind has created myths, symbols,
rituals and other communicative expressions pregnant with meaning.
For Eliade, any authentic experience of Being evokes a sense of mystery and constitutes what may be called a "door" to meaning.
Eliade was concerned with universal truths to which the religions
testify; he was one of the last scholars in the field who himself held
a universalist view of the total history of religions. This view was
centered on homo religiosus in the archaic, cosmic and Indian religions
rather than in the monotheistic varieties. His view of the discipline
corresponded with this view of religion. The careful study of manifold expressions of religious experiences at different times and places
should be able to retrieve certain solutions which have been found
in history, to basic human problems of all times and places or to
challenges posed to men and women under particular circumstances.
The wisdom acquired in the past should not be lost. Eliade's dream
was that of a hermeneutically oriented history of religions which
could give rise to a world-wide religio-cultural renaissance of mankind
in the future.
The second scholar to be discussed, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, was
also much concerned with problems of religious meaning but he

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developed an entirely different approach.16 Of Canadian origin,

Cantwell Smith stands firmly in the North American cultural tradition where problems of being and existence do not play a major
role. Consequently, he developed a very different model to study
religious meanings, eschewing Platonic or Neo-Platonic views and
schemes of interpretation. For him, moreover, the historical process
has a positive connotation.
For Cantwell Smith, religions are fundamentally traditions which
have cumulated in the course of the history of the communities that
have followed them. These traditions are the deposit of meanings,
values and truths that are constantly being reactivated and concretized through the faith of the believers. It is out of the interaction between a personal faith and a given tradition that religious
meanings arise. As a logical consequence, Cantwell Smith replaces
the single concept of religion with the twin concepts of faith and
cumulative tradition, in interaction with each other. "Faith" is a general potentiality of mankind; it has been articulated in different ways
and with different expressions in the various religious traditions. This
view of religion, focussed on the category of personal faith, is in tension with Cantwell Smith's earlier approach in which he focussed
on those infrastructuraleconomic and politicalforces which condition the presentations given to a religion; the specific example was
Islam in India in recent history.17
In the views that Cantwell Smith developed after World War II
it is "faith" that is stressed as the human capacity to discover meaning and give sense to one's life, society and the world. Religious
meaning does not exist in itself; it has faith as its source. And "religion" is subject to man's action and interpretation; unlike tradition,
16
A bibliography of W. Cantwell Smith until 1975 can be found in Religious
Diversity. Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith. Ed. by Willard G. Oxtoby. (New York etc.:
Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 185-194. See also the bibliography given in Wilfred C.
Smith, On Understanding Islam. Selected Studies. (Religion and Reason, 19) The Hague
etc.: Mouton, 1981 (also in paperback), pp. 335-344.Cantwell Smith's books in
the field of the scholarly study of religions may be mentioned here: Modem Islam in
India: A Social Analysis (1943); Islam in Modern History (1957); The Meaning and End of
Religion: A New Approach to the Religious Traditions of Mankind (1963); On Understanding
Islam. Selected Studies (1981); What is Scripture? (1993). I leave aside other books by
the author that fall outside the realm of the study of religion as I understand it.
17
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modem Islam in India,: A Social Analysis. Lahore: Minerva,
1943. Revised edition London: V. Gollancz, "1946" (in fact 1947). Reissued: Lahore:
Sh.M. Ashraf, 1963 and 1969; New York: Russell & Russell, 1972. Pirated edition,
Lahore: Ripon, 1947.

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religion is not something given. Here lies a fundamental difference

between Cantwell Smith and the other scholars I mentioned who
had more "passive" orientations.
All of these scholars had a more or less clear concept or view of
religion in general; their concept of religious meaning was related
to it. There was a pivotal relationship between their broader vision
or view of religion in general and their empirical research into religious data. Sometimes they had already at the outset formulated a
vision which gave direction to their empirical research; sometimes
their research was directed toward constructing a broader view of
religion; in some cases their research led to a more adequate theoretical framework. The quest for an adequate theoretical framework
to study meaningsincluding religious meaningsmay be said to
be a basis issue in the scholarly study of religions.
As far as Kristensen, Eliade and Cantwell Smith are concerned,
each of them had "religious" people in mind. For Kristensen such
people were the believers of antiquity, for Eliade they were the homines
religiosi sensitive to the manifestations of the sacred, and for Cantwell
Smith they were the people of faith. All three spoke of the role of
intuition and imagination in the study of meanings.
All three scholars enjoyed a warm reception and had a cultural
impact in the West. Kristensen's was on a small elite of Protestants
in the Netherlands; Eliade's on a public open to religion as mystery,
in Romania, France and the United States; and Cantwell Smith's
on a number of intellectuals of different confessional and religious
backgrounds in the Anglo-Saxon world, looking for a faith orientation in modern society. The constructs of religion and the concepts
of religious meaning that the last two scholars proposed have undoubtedly influenced the religious views of people from the sixties until
the late eighties.
To what extent these scholars were themselves aware of the cultural and social situations in which they worked and of the religious
and ideological implications and impact of their work remains an
open question. They of course underwent the effects of existing power
relations at the time, but did they seek to change them?

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VI. AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS MEANINGS

I would now like to indicate an alternative approach to the study
of religious meanings which has still less philosophical and theological
presuppositions than the ones mentioned above.18 It is assumed that
religions are more than bundles of bare facts but less than spiritual
entities that are "religious" without an empirical basis. Our startingpoint is, rather, that it is human perception, interpretation and practice, on an individual and communal level, which make certain
mundane realities "religious" to the people concerned. Consequently,
we should not consider meanings and values as things existing in
themselves; in scholarship we can only speak of meanings as they
are perceived, interpreted and practised by people. And the same is
true of religions: they can only be studied as human realities and
constructions.
As far as religious meanings are concerned, they seem to distinguish themselvesin human experiencefrom meanings in ordinary
life in that they convey what may be called "founding" meanings,
that is to say meanings which underpin "ordinary life" meanings. It
seems to me that, unlike ordinary life meanings, religious meanings
have a founding character: they give an orientation and guidance,
often with reference to something absolute. I have in mind, for
instance, meanings given to the fact of human life and the human
condition itself or to facts like injustice, suffering, death. In his or
her search for meaning in such experiences the human being can
draw on religions giving orientation and guidance.
In this view, on a theoretical level, religions are to be considered as
collections or open systems of more or less meaningful rules and
practices, sayings, texts and other elements available to adherents.
Certain elements are especially significant to certain groups and individuals; they practise and interpret them in ways that are meaningful to them in given situations. The specific selection, interpretation
18

Jacques Waardenburg, Reflections on the Study of Religion. Including an Essay on the

Work of Gerardus van der Leeuw (The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1978). See here the
papers "Objective Facts and Subjective Meanings in the Study of Religion" (pp.
921) and "Phenomenology of Religion Reconsidered" (pp. 89-137). Compare idem,
Religionen und Religion. Systematische Einfuhrung in die Religionswissenschaft (Berlin, W. de
Gruyter, 1986), (French revised tr. Des dieux qui se rapprochent. Introduction systematique
a la science des religions, Geneva: Labor et fides, 1993).

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and practice of the elements of a religionand the interpretation

and practice of a religion as a wholeby different groups of adherents depend on many factors. Among them there may be the more
or less spiritual intentions they have, material and political interests,
and various psychological motivations. There is also the impact of
religious authorities and institutions, and of social control in general.
In all cases, as soon as a religion has become significant to people,
it functions as a signification system with more or less freedom left
to the people to interpret and practise it.19
This approach to the study of specific religious phenomena as well
as overall religions views them in relation to the people for whom
they are meaningful. Such a study is easier in the case of presentday religions than in that of religions in the past, where the sources
are limited. The general starting point, however, is the same, that
is, to explore what is relevant and meaningfulreligiously or not
to specific groups and individuals. It focusses especially on what people door have donewith the religions they know of, and what
they have made of the religion to which they belong. There have
always been internal discussions among the people of a given tradition, but with modernity individual choices and responsibilities have
increased greatly.
The study of religious meanings is no longer to be seen in terms
of classical philosophy (e.g., Platonic or Neo-Platonic) or theology
(with or without Revelation), that is to say in normative terms, but
in terms of empirical research. The subject of attention is what a
person or group does as an active subject with the religious phenomena and religion with which they live. The interest ist focussed
on what groups or individuals ultimately hold or held to give meaning to life and how they act(ed) accordingly. The fundamental principle in this research is for scholars to acquire knowledge and insight
19
For an application of this approach to Islam, see Jacques Waardenburg, "Islam
Studied as a Sign and Signification System", Humaniora Islamica: An Annual Publication
of Islamic Studies and the Humanities, Vol. 2 (1974), pp. 267-285; the same, "Islamforschung
aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht", in Ausgewahlte Vortrage, XXI. Deutscher Orientalistentag.
(Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag, 1982), pp. 197211. See also Jacques Waardenburg,
Islam et sciences des religions. Huit lecons au College de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1998. It is noteworthy that present-day Islam is studied more by social and political scientists today than by scholars of religion and even Islamic scholars. Apart
from some presentations of Islamic spirituality, which leave out its social and political dimensions, Islam in Muslim countries is nowadays presented in the West mainly
in political terms, and in Western countries in social terms.

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about what has been religiously meaningful to others, rather than

to create or preach meanings themselves. In order to carry out such
research an adequate theoretical framework is needed.
VII. CHANGING CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
The study of religions is mostly concerned with religions of other
people, of the past or of the present. This "otherness" is perhaps
the basic incentive to the effort of understanding. However, doing
one's research one may come across certain religious phenomena the
meaning of which remains inaccessible, even though much is known
about them; they may give the impression of being meaningless, even
utter nonsense. Such a situation often occurs in the study of religions.
The typical question then is how can one make sense of such phenomena in scholarly terms, without imposing on them a given ideological, philosophical or theological view? The answer depends not only
on the data but also on the concepts used in order to arrive at an
understanding, and of course on our concept of understanding itself.
This is particularly true for the study of present-day religions.
When we look back at more than a hundred years of scholarly
research on religions, we can discern at least some progress in this
respect in research on religious meanings. It seems to me that this
has been particularly the case since the mid-20th century and in the
study of living religions. Here the question of meaning shows up
most urgently, in the context of profound social transformations where
old patterns and structures of meaning in social and individual life
make place for new perceptions of meaning. How can one know
then if something is religiously meaningful to the people concerned?
How should one proceed in studying this? This is largely a problem
of finding the right theoretical, that is conceptual framework in order
to arrive at a maximum of understanding.
Both questions hint at the importance of the concepts used in
research on religion in general and on religious meanings in particular. I would like to present three cases in which the need for a
new conceptual framework is particularly evident: subjective meaning as a hermeneutical problem; believers viewed as actors; and the
concept of religion itself.

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a) Subjective Meaning as a Hermeneutical Problem

It has been largely through fieldwork, carried out mainly since the
forties, that abundantly facts have come to be known about relationships between societies and their religions, and between social
structures and religious expressions. Theories have been developed
to explain these relationships. They arose in the social sciences and
led to the development of carefully elaborated models which were
applied to social reality in order to know and possibly even direct
it. In the sixties, model theory in social science research was rather
new in Europe, certainly among students of religion. It proved very
attractive to younger researchers who had been trained in pure factfinding research or in applying theories that had been deduced from
theological orientations, philosophical viewpoints or ideological positions. Models of religion were now designed and tested for their adequacy. Through its formalization of research techniques and its
near-elimination of subjective factors, model theory could claim a
maximum of objectivity. For students of religion at the time this was
a new and attractive approach.
Within the social sciences, however, alternative approaches existed.20
It was for instance contended that a researcher who wants to know
the inner structures and meanings of "foreign" or "past" societies
and cultures should familiarize him- or herself with the concepts and
categories, the norms and values with which people in those societies
and cultures themselves describe and interpret reality and their own
communal and individual life. In this way the student is able to find
or reconstruct certain meaning patterns and structures which prevail
in the societies, cultures and religions under study. What, in the light
of model theories, were seen as more or less "bare" interrelated facts,
turned out to be "interpreted" facts with a variety of meanings when
looked at from inside, that is to say from the participants' point of
view. These interpretations then became a subject of research. This
brought to light a great diversity in orientations with regard to a
given religion and a great variety of subjects' or "subjective" meanings where given religious phenomena where concerned.
In such emic studies in cultural anthropology, which took into
account the concepts and categories of meaning used by the actors
20
Especially cultural anthropology (e.g., symbolic anthropology) should be mentioned here. Many problems in the study of other religions run parallel to problems in the study of other cultures.

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themselves, theory formation was different in nature from that of the

model theories just mentioned. It offered other explanations and opened
new ways of understanding. It became clear that in the study of religions, when sources are available, the problem of understanding what
religious matters mean(t) to the people concernedthat is to say the
subjects' or subjective meanings of such mattersis unavoidable.
I would like to call this direction of research "applied hermeneutics", intent on grasping the subjective meanings of particular data
in relation to the people concerned by them. This is different from
any hermeneutical philosophy that takes the philosopher himself or
herself as its starting-point rather than the people to whom the phenomena or the religion studied have a signifying function and who
interpret them. This approach gives rise to further questions in the
study of religions. Who are the persons and institutions who have
created, elaborated, practised and transmitted the particular meaning patterns and structureswith their values and normsthat have
found acceptance in particular communities and societies? What have
they intended with them? By which authority, under which conditions and in which contexts have they done so? Which interpretations and applications have subsequently taken place?
Such "meaning" patterns and structureswhich may go across
ideologies, religions, and world viewsshould be studied intensively,
following certain principles and rules. The debate about such principles and rules is continuing, and research has taken different directions such as Intentionsforschung,21 the analysis of "subjective theories",
discourse-centered approaches, semantic text analysis. Each has developed its own methodology but all of them attempt to objectify, open
up and study "subjectivity". They arose as an alternative to the
"scientific" model theory described above, just as in the first decades
of the 20th century various phenomenological orientations had arisen
as an alternative to a certain "scientism" and historicism prevailing
at the time. In both cases there has obviously been a more or less
profound search for "understanding".
All these approaches address the original interpretations given,
meanings assigned and actions taken by the "subjectivity" of specific
21
Jacques Waardenburg, "Grundsatzliches zur Religionsphanomenologie", Neue
Zeitschrift fur Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, Vol. 15 (1973), pp. 304-325.
Engl. tr. "Toward a New Style Phenomenological Research on Religion", in idem,
Reflections on the Study of Religion (1978), pp. 113-137.

278

JACQUES WAARDENBURG

groups or individuals to given realities. They concentrate on the

interpretations given to objective reality, trying to understand and
explain them, and they constitute an alternative to the study of the
laws and rules which govern this reality itself. In the history of the
study of religions there have always been currents of research devoted
to issues of subjects' or subjective meanings in religious beliefs and
practices. During the last decades, however, for various reasons the
issue of "subjectivity" has presented a new challenge for research on
religions. New scholarly approaches have been developed to lay bare
and study subjective meanings that are attributed to objective facts,
in personal and social life situations, and especially in religion.
b) Believers Viewed as Actors

A second important change in the study of living religions during

the last fifty years which affects the conceptualization of research
concerns the way in which scholarship views the adherents of religions. Compared with studies of a hundred or even fifty years ago,
adherents are now recognized as less passive objects of the religious
systems sustained by religious institutions and authorities than former generations of researchers seem to have thought. Political independence, emancipation movements and increased education have
affected religions everywhere; moreover, researchers are increasingly
able to communicate directly with the people they study without a
clear-cut dependency on their part. It has also become evident that
religious groups can use various strategies to counteract excessive
domination, centralization and control on the part of the religious
leadership and institutions or other authorities.
Consequently, believers are not just "undergoing" their religions;
many of them can be recognized as more or less free actors and
even definers of religion. Believers contribute to the construction,
reconstruction or deconstruction of a religion by participating in communal acting and speaking, by refusing to participate, by advocating new kinds of communal action and discourse, or in other ways.
The construction or reconstruction of a religion is mostly an ongoing process, not a sudden event, and the believers play an essential
role in it. Deconstruction too is a process resulting from choices and
new orientations of believers rather than from anonymous forces.
Consequently, in research, believers should be treated no longer as
more or less subdued informants but rather as responsible repre-

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

279

sentatives of a culture, voices of a religion, and possibly partners in

research now or in the future.
With the establishment of more egalitarian relationships the tables
of research have been turned. Researchers can now be asked what
they are doing and why, and they are expected to answer. One
result is that research on religions can be liberated somewhat from
inadequate assumptions and prejudices and from ever-threatening
ethnocentrism; Western research, for instance, should be critically
discussed by Western and non-Western scholars alike. On the other
hand, communicating with believers as, in principle, free actors places
new demands on researchers, and specifically researchers from the
West. They now not only need technical skills like fluency in the
local language(s) and familiarity with practices of everyday life. They
should also be able to communicate freely, so to speak, on a common human level, with people of the culture they study. This presupposes, besides scholarly aptitudes, not only sensitive perception,
the absence of paternalizing tendencies and resistance to the temptation to dominateespecially if one has power. It also requires from
the researcher self-criticism, willingness to learn, preparedness to communicate, a feeling for freedom, a desire for insight, and last but
not least, what may be called personal character. As for researchers
from the culture concerned, they may now have access to specialized training in studying their own religious tradition, in their own
country or in the West. They should be on their guard, however,
that their work does not turn out to be just as ethnocentric and
prejudiced as some earlier Western studies were, though in the opposite direction.22
In order to arrive at truly scholarly work on a religion, researchers
from both sides must engage in an objectivizing process with the
help of categories which are not only "made in the West". There
should be room for new conceptualizations. The art of objectifying,
characteristic of a scholar, should be applied not only with regard
to the object and focus of studies but also with regard to the researchers' own scholarly or not-so-scholarly assumptions and presuppositions as well as the context within which he or she works.
22
On a first generation of non-Western scholars working in history of religions,
see Frank Whaling, "The Study of Religions in a Global Context", in Frank Whaling
(Ed.), Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religions, Vol. 1: The Humanities (Berlin
etc.: Mouton, 1984), pp. 391-451.

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JACQUES WAARDENBURG

Self-critical capacities are a key to inter-cultural cooperation and

scholarship, including the scholarly study of religions.
c) The Concept of Religion: Construction or Construct?

The most important challenge for present-day scholarship, particularly of living religions, is to take a critical distance to certain concepts which have been current for long in this field.23 It should be
admitted that these concepts, starting or ending with the concept of
religion itself, can be revised for the sake of scholarship. This may
entail important reorientations in the field of the study of religion.
Of course, our predecessors were greater than we are but we should
resist the temptation of "canonization" in scholarship. As in other
fields of research, here too there should be room for developing
more adequate concepts, both with regard to the technical terminology used in scholarly research and with regard to the names and
definitions of the subject-matter under study. As I see it, the tendency in advanced scholarship is toward using more "nominalistic"
concepts in empirical research. Things need to be named, defined
and classified differently if that leads to better knowledge; our conceptual apparatus should thus maintain a certain flexibility. The
scholarly enterprise should not be ideologized.
I would contend that, as long as the field of the study of religions
uses "realistic" concepts, believing that these concepts as such cover
ultimate realities, it does not yet have a scholarly status. It even runs
the risk of becoming subservient to various philosophical or theological, ideological or political discourses. These may have their relative value but they do not aim at obtaining knowledge and insight,
based on empirical data and reason, in a scholarly, that is, a critical and self-critical way.
Just as facts are always interpreted facts, on a theoretical level one
has to admit that the "religious" character of data and religions and
23
As a good example, see Robert D. Baird, Category Formation and the History of
Religions, 2nd ed. pb. Berlin etc.: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991. The author here also
discusses conceptualizations of religion by Mircea Eliade and Wilfred Cantwell Smith.
I plead for the use of an "open" nominalistic concept of religion in general and of
Islam in particular. See Jacques Waardenburg, "In Search of an Open Concept of
Religion", in Michel Despland and Gerard Vallee (Eds.), Religion in History: The
Word, the Idea, the Reality (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992),
pp. 225-240. Compare Note 18.

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

281

their "religious" meaning is a matter of interpretation. By reconstructing the interpretations given of the data we can grasp how religious
data and religions were and are constructed. At first sight this may
be disconcerting, but an example may clarify the issue.
After centuries of dispute the view is gaining ground that Christianity,
Islam and Judaism are three parallel monotheistic religions. This
view is not wrong in itself, but it is not strictly scholarly. Anyone
who has studied these three entities for a certain time will readily
admit that in the last analysis it is a simplification which neglects a
great number of historical differences and present-day tensions. It is
an ideological or theological construction serving certain aims and
purposes which may be praiseworthy, but it is not scholarly truth.
As scholars are perhaps more aware than others, many things in
religions as well as the concept of religion itself are in fact constructions or constructs. We consider "constructions" to have been made
by believers; they may demarcate, among other things, the spiritual
and social boundaries of the community. "Constructs", on the other
hand, are made by scholars used to making definitions, that is conceptual distinctions with regard to their subject matter.
Another example has to do with Islam. Current discourses about
Islam by Muslims and non-Muslims alike contain numerous statements as to its truth and value, or the connections between its religious, political and social aspects, which a scholar would readily
recognize as constructions. From a scholarly point of view they are
just wrong; as constructions, however, they may serve certain nonscholarly purposes.
A critical awareness of the scholarly constructs we use and of the
nominalistic nature of our scholarly concepts sheds some new light
on research on meanings in the study of religion. Most researchers
have started working from the idea that it is the religions as such
which confer meaning on man and the world; this is the discourse
of and in the religions themselves. I do not say that this is not true
but, again, it is not true in terms of scholarship; it is a construction.
The real state of affairs turns out to be more complicated, certainly
where living religions are concerned.
On an empirical level, certain elements of a religion have a clear
relevance and a manifest meaning for a given group of believers;
other elements are less relevant to them and their meaning remains
partly latent. In other words, in practice groups and individual people

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JACQUES WAARDENBURG

unconsciously or consciously select those aspects, elements or interpretations of a given religion to which they are sensitive and which
are relevant to them in a given situation or context. Consequently,
a religion may offer a great number of religious meanings to people; but it is the people who finally make their selection and give
their interpretation of them. They decide if and how they will practise that religion. Moreover, certain elements of everyday life that
are not at all part of the given religion may be held to be religiously
meaningful by them.
In consequence, what in actual fact is religiously meaningful to
an adherent or to a group of adherents is not necessarily the same
thing as the religion he or she or the group claims to belong to. It
is rather a construction, built up of elements of that religion plus
elements from outside. And the other way round, to certain groups
of adherents their religion may be meaningful, not "religiously" but
for instance culturally, socially or politically. In other words, people
construct religious meanings in their life world on the basis of the
reservoir of signs and symbols which religionsor other systems
offer them, with the addition of some especially meaningful elements
of their own life experience. Such lived religion fundamentally serves
to cope with realities of life. It results largely from the interaction
between people with their life experiences, certain elements from
their religion that are or have become meaningful to them, and elements from outside.
In living religions, as soon as they are conceptualized by the adherents, we thus have to do with very different constructions: highly
personal and more social ones, more spiritual but also more sociopolitical ones, held by different groups and persons. On one hand,
religions are full of constructions; on the other hand, many people's
life worlds contain religious constructions somewhere. Such constructions and their practical consequences should be a valid and
even urgent subject of research. They should be examined in their
social and historical context, with an open eye to the traditions which
preceded them and to the views which they offer for the future.
Lastly, it seems to me that what are usually called "religions" and
even "world religions" contain several patterns and structures of
meaning that extend largely beyond their boundaries. These more
general meaning patterns and structures exist alongside the more
specific "exclusivist" meanings given to the religions concerned. Both
kinds of meaning, common and exclusivist, should be studied. Not

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

283

only the conceptualized distinct religions but also the more general
patterns and structures of meaning, religious or not, can transform
ordinary life and make itat least from time to timemore meaningful and healthier for the people concerned as well as for others. We
have to do here with a kind of basic religious imperative in support
of life. Such fundamental imperativesand the practices and views
to which they leadare utterly meaningful to people. They are ethically and socially highly relevant and deserve to be better known.24
VIII. CONCLUSION
Let me summarize our findings as follows. In the course of the 20th
century the scholarly study of religions has known a development
during which, like other fields of study, it has become both more
interdisciplinary and ever more specialized, if not fragmented. Since
an immense number of religious data have become known, the question of their meaning, specifically their meaning for the people concerned, has become a relevant scholarly question.
In the first half of this century William Brede Kristensen was one
of the first scholars who consciously explored religious meanings in
religions other than his own on a scholarly basis. He tried to avoid
imposing Western schemes on them, through the precise study of
specific texts and symbols contained in his Egyptian and other sources.
His aim was to reconstruct what had been cosmic religion and
Weltanschauung for the ancients. During his lifetime other scholars,
like Walter F. Otto and Karl Kerenyi, also explored religious meanings in their own ways.
In the second half of this century a growing number of researchers
focussed on the study of religious meanings, again in different ways.
Some of them, like Mircea Eliade and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, did
this not only, like many others, in precise empirical research on a
small scale, but also studied such meanings within a broader conceptual framework, and on a larger scale.
24
We have to do here not only with patterns as a subject of phenomenological
discernment, but also with structures that lead to action (or non-action) and have
eminently practical consequences. As an example, I think of Hans Kiing's work for
the recognition of a "global ethic" based on certain commandments to be found
in the world religions. Such meaning structures may be found in fields as different
as healing, human rights, ecology, use of violence and non-violence, extending to
social ethics and political responsibility.

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JACQUES WAARDENBURG

I have paid special attention to the study of the ways in which the
subjects see their religion, practise it and draw meaning from it. This
may be called the "subjective" dimension of religious data and religions. This has become a field of scholarly research and various
approaches and techniques are already being applied in the study
of subjective meanings, and subjective religious meanings in particular. Such research demands an adequate theoretical framework and
conceptualization which takes into account: (1) subjective meaning
as a hermeneutical problem; (2) the place assigned to the believers
and the value of their statements as sources; (3) the revision of some
classical "realistic" concepts of the study of religions, including the
concept of religion, in favor of new "nominalistic" concepts. Moreover,
a fundamental distinction is made between constructions of religion
made by adherents and constructs of religion made by scholars, leaving aside the common discourse about religion(s).
With this renewed interest in the subjective dimension of religious
interpretations and practices, constructions and deconstructions of
religions, there is a link with the teaching of William Brede Kristensen
that started a hundred years ago, on 17th September 1898. Kristensen
may be considered a hermeneutical scholar working with certain
scholarly presuppositions and cultural assumptions of his time and
revolting against others. He wanted to reconstruct what he called,
for better or worse, the religion of the ancients, that is to say, what
was religiously meaningful to the peoples of antiquity. Critical analysis shows that this reconstruction was in fact his construct supported
by scholarly data and arguments. Kristensen himself held that by
studying "the belief of the believers" with utmost seriousness he would
be able to understand the objective reality in which believers in
antiquity believed.
For a long time the study of the subjective dimension in religious
historythe ways in which people have given religious meaning to
their life and world, and the ways in which they have interpreted
and practised their religionhas been the subject-matter of a few
scholars only, and then mostly in a philosophical or theological perspective. Most scholars have concentrated on studying what may be
called the "objective" factual aspects of religions and their contexts.
Within the broad field of the scholarly study of religions there is,
however, a growing attention for what certain religions, religious

RESEARCH ON MEANINGS IN RELIGIONS

285

expressions, beliefs and practices meant and mean to the people concerned. One can then also ask about their wider significance.25
Our knowledge has advanced beyond that reached by the Norwegian
Master in his time, and the religious and cultural situation has
changed; the problem of subjective religious meanings and their study,
however, is still there. Now that we are more linked to worldwide
human experience, it is perhaps less extraordinary but more human
to study religious meanings at the present time in relation to the
people who are immediately concerned by them, with due regard
for the contexts and situations in which they live.26 This implies,
however, that the demands of the scholarly study of religion in the
years to come will probably be higher than those which Kristensen
formulated for himself and his generation.

25
The Chicago "Fundamentalism Project", sponsored by the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, has surveyed what may be called anti-secular religious movements from the 1970s on. It has resulted in a series of books edited by Martin E.
Marty and R. Scott Appleby, and published by the University of Chicago Press
(19911995). Unfortunately, the term "fundamentalism" has here a rather negative
connotation and little attention has been paid to what the phenomenon actually
means for the persons and groups concerned.
26
For such studies we needbeyond cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology, and of course history of religions in the broader sense of the wordapplied
hermeneutics. On "applied hermeneutics" see Jacques Waardenburg, Religwnen und
Religion (1986) (French tr. Des dieux qui se rapprochent, 1993), Chapter 5.

This page intentionally left blank

WILLIAM BREDE KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Previous bibliographies

1937-38

"Lijst van geschriften van Prof. Dr. W.B. Kristensen", in: Jaarbericht EOL,
5, Leiden: 284-286.
1953-54 "Lijst van geschriften van Prof. Dr. W.B. Kristensen", in: Jaarbericht EOL,
13, Leiden: 268.
1960
"List of publications of W. Brede Kristensen", in: Kristensen 1960:
497-500.
1974
"William Brede Kristensen", in: Jacques Waardenburg: Classical Approaches
to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theory of Research, vol. II, The
Hague: 137-139 (Religion and Reason, 4).
1995
"Bibliografi", in: Margo Koene: William Brede Kristensen, Norges f0rste religionshistoriker. Hovedoppgave (master thesis), University of Oslo: 82-88.
2. Separate publications and articles in periodicals
1889

"En aegyptisk mumie", in: Illustreret Tidendefor Born, 5 (1889-90): 207-211.

1896a

JEgyptemes Forestillinger om Livet efter Doden i Forbindelse med Guderne Ra og

1896b
1898a
1898b
1898c
1898d
1899
1900
190la
1901b
1904
1908
1909
1910
1911
1913a

Osiris, Kristiania.
"Om ud0delighedstroen i orientens gamle religioner", in: KoK, 3: 513-526
and 577-590.
Brahma: et Stykke Indisk Religionshistorie, Kristiania: Cammermeyer (Den
frisindede Studenter-Forenings Smaaskrifter, 14).
"Det religiose i de gamle religioner", in: Ringeren 1/4: 6-9; 1/5: 8-10.
"Religionshistorikeren C.P. Tiele", in: Ringeren 1/16: 3-7.
(Om moralens forhold til religionen), in: Religionsvetenskapliga Kongressen i
Stockholm 1897, ed. by S.A. Fries, Stockholm: 487-491.
"Professor C.P. Tiele", in: Woord en Beeld. Gei'llustreerd maandschrift,
1899 (October): 348-354.
"Om religionernes inddeling i naturreligioner og etiske religioner", in:
NTT, 1: 153-175.
"Helvedet", in: Samtiden. Tidsskrift for Litteratur og Samfundssporgsmaal, 12:
14-23.
Het verband tusschen godsdienst en de zucht tot z.elfbehoud (Inaugural lecture),
Leiden: Brill.
"Dualistische en monistische denkbeelden in den Egyptischen godsdienst",
in: ThT, 38: 233-255.
"Een of twee boomen in het paradijsverhaal?", in: ThT, 42: 215-233.
(Reprint in 1954b: 243-257.)
"De Ruach Elohim voor de schepping", in: ThT, 43: 398-400.
"Over de godsdienstige beteekenis van enkele oude wedstrijden en spelen", in: ThT, 44: 1-16.
(Reprint in 1954b: 204-214.)
"De term 'Zoon de Menschen' toegelicht uit de anthropologie der ouden",
in: ThT, 45: 1-38.
(Reprint in 1954b: 277-303.)
"De heilige horens in den oud-Kretensischen godsdienst", in: VMKAW,
4/12: 74-99.
(Reprint in 1954b: 139-159.)

288
1913b
1914
1915a
1915b

1915c
1916a
1916b

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Mysteriereligion i oldtiden", in: NTT, 14: 294-336.
"Hvad religionshistorisk studium ber0ver os og gir os", in: KoK, 21: 6585.
"Over waardering van historische gegevens", in: Onze Eeuw, 15: 415-440.
(Reprint in 1954b: 66-84.)
"De plaats van het zondvloedverhaal in het Gilgames-epos", in: VMKAW,
5/2: 54-63.
(Reprint in 1947: 5-14.)
"Over de viering der Osiris-mysterien", in: VMKAW, 5/2: 68-91.
(Reprint in 1954b: 160-176.)
"Idealen van inzicht bij de volken der oudheid", in: Jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit
te Leiden, Leiden: 1-12.
"De Primitiven' of wij voorop?", in: W.J. Aalders et al.: Nagelaten sporen,
aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye door eenige zijner oud-leer-

lingen, Leiden: 100104.

"Over de Egyptische Sphinx", VMKAW, 5/3: 94-146.
(Reprint in 1947: 15-62.)
1918
"'Diepte-Psychologie'?", in: De Gids, 82/2: 493-499.
(On Nico van Suchtelen: Uit de diepten der ziel. Samenspraken over droom en
geweten. Met en algemeene inleiding over het psycho-analytisch onderzoek
van den droom, Amsterdam 1917.)
1919a
"De inaugurele reede van Professor Van der Leeuw", in: ThT, 53: 260 265.
1919b
"De symboliek van de boot in den Egyptischen godsdienst", in: VMKAW,
5/4: 254-288.
(Reprint in 1954b: 177-203.)
1923a "Over de wetenschappelijken arbeid van Herman Bavinck", in: JKAW,
1921-22: 1-12.
1923b "De loofhut en het loofhuttenfeest in den Egyptischen cultus", in: MKAW,
B/56/6: 179-198.
(Reprint in 1947: 63-81.)
1925a Livet fra d0den. Studier over aegyptisk og gammel graesk religion, Oslo:
Gyldendalske bokhandel (Olaus Petri lectures at the university of Uppsala,
1922).
(Dutch translation: 1926; English translation: 1992.)
1925b "De Delphische drievoet", in: MKAW, B/60/2: 9-22.
(Reprint in 1947: 83-102.)
1926
Het leven uit den dood. Studien over Egyptischen en Ouk-Griekschen godsdienst, Haarlem: De Erven Bohn.
(Dutch translation of 1925a; second edition 1949.)
1928a "De goddelijke bedrieger", in: MKAW, B/66/3: 61-85.
(Reprint in 1947: 103-124.)
1928b "De absoluutheid van het Christendom", in: Eltheto. Maandschrift der Nederlandsche Christenstudentenvereeniging, 82: 129140.
(Reprint in 1954b: 85-95.)
1930
"De goddelijke heraut en het woord van God", in: MKAW, B/70/2: 19-44.
(Reprint in 1947: 125-148.)
1931
"Symbool en Werkelijkheid", in: De Gids, 95/3: 76-85.
(Reprint in 1954b: 7-14.)
1932
"De Romeinische fasces", in: MKAW, B/74/2: 11-28.
(Reprint in 1947: 149-165.)
1933
"De ark van Jahwe", in: MKAW, B/76/5: 137-173.
(Reprint in 1947: 167-199.)
1934a "De antieke opvatting van dienstbaarheid", in: MKAW, B/78/3: 83-114.
(Reprint in 1947: 201-229.)
1917

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY
1934b
1934c
1936
1938a
1938b
1939
1940
194la

1941b
1941c
1942
1943
1946a
1946b
1946c
1947

1949
1951
1952a
1952b
1953

289

"Schleiermachers opvatting van de godsdienstgeschiedenis", in: VTh, 5:

97-101.
(Reprint in 1954b: 24-30.)
"Niet voor de school maar voor het leven studeeren." Rede bij de opening
van den cursus der theologische faculteit, in: Leidsch Universiteitsblad, 4 (5th
Oct.): 1-4.
"Rede gehouden bij de opening der theologische colleges", in: Leids Universiteitsblad, 6 (23. Oct.): 1-5.
(Reprint in 1954b: 347-355.)
"Kringloop en totaliteit", in: MKNAW, NR/1/4: 219-287.
(Reprint in 1947: 231-290.)
"Geschiedenis der godsdiensten", in: VTh, 10/3: 80-85.
"Abraham Kuenen", in: Leids Universiteitsblad, 9 (20. Oct.): 2-4.
(Reprint in 1954b: 31-35.)
"Antieke wetenschap", in: MKNAW, NR/3/8: 339-358.
(Reprint in 1954b: 319-332.)
Antieke en moderne kosmologie, ed. by W.B. Kristensen et al., Arnhem: Van
Loghum Slaterus (Voordrachten tijdens een studieconferentie gehouden door
de groep "Klassieke Oudheid" in de Internationale School voor .Wijsbegeerte
te Amersfoort 26-31 augustus 1940).
"Kosmologische voorstellingen in de vroege oudheid", in: 194la: 9-28.
(Reprint in 1954b: 109-123.)
"Den antikke tragedie og Henrik Ibsens verker", in: KoK, 48: 393-412.
(Dutch translation: "De antieke tragedie en Hendrik Ibsen", in 1954b:
49-66.)
"De rijkdom der aarde in mythe en cultus", in: MKNAW, NR/5/12: 25-38.
(Reprint in 1947: 291-314.)
"De godsdienstige beteekenis von de gesloten perioden", in: EOL, II (nos.
6-8; 1939-42): xv-xxvi.
Tro eller overtro?, Oslo: Olaf Norlis Forlag (Etnologisk samfunn. Skrfter, ed.
by Nils Lid, no. 1)
(Dutch version: 1946b.)
"Geloof of bijgeloof ?", in: VTh, 16/6: 166-172.
(Dutch version of 1946a; reprint in 1954b: 15-23.)
"Het mysterie van Mithra", in: MKNAW, NR/9/3: 25-38.
(Reprint in 1954b: 124-138.)
Verzamelde bijdragen tot kermis der antieke godsdiensten. Mededeelingen in de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam: NoordHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij.
(Selected articles, originallypublished in VMKA W/MKA W/MKNA W, 1915-42.
New edition: 1966: Godsdiensten in de oude wereld, Utrecht etc.: Het Spectrum,
Aula-boeken 294.)
"Het sacrament der uitzending, Missa", in: MKNAW, NR/12/6: 345-359.
(Reprint in 1954b: 304-318.)
"De dubbele gerechtigheid", in: JKNAW, 1950-51: 152-174.
(Reprint in 1954b: 225-242.)
"Prirmtiv visdom", in: KoK, 57: 521-536.
(Dutch translation: 1952b.)
Primitieve wijsheid, Leiden: Universitaire Press Leiden (Leidse voordrachten, 13)
(Dutch translation of 1952a; reprint in 1954b: 333-346.)
"De slangenstaf en het spraakvermogen van Mozes en Aaron", in: MKNAW,
NR/16/14: 591-610.
(Reprint in 1954b: 258-276.)

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KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1954a

Religionshistorisk studium. Oslo: Olaf Norlis Forlag (Etnologisk samfunn. Skrifter,

ed. by Nils Lid, no. 5.)
(Dutch translation: 1955.)
1954b Symbool en werkelijkheid. Een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien, Arnhem:
Van Loghum Slaterus.
(2nd impression 1961, Zeist: De Haan; Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus;
Antwerpen: Standard Boekhandel.)
1955
Inleiding tot de godsgeschiedenis, Arnhem: Van Loghum Slaterus.
(Dutch translation of 1954a; second impression 1976, Bussum: De Haan;
third impression 1980.)
1960
The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion, with an
introduction by Prof. Hendrik Kraemer, transl. by John B. Carman. The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff; second impression 1968; photomech impr. 1971.
1966
Godsdiensten in de oude wereld. Utrecht etc.: Het Spectrum (Aula-boeken 294.)
(New edition of 1947: Verzamelde bijdragen . . .)
1992
Life out of Death. Studies in the Religions of Egypt and of Ancient Greece,
Louvain: Peters Press.
(English translation by H.J. Franken and G.R.H. Wright of 1925a/1926,
based on the second Dutch edition, 1949.)
3. Articles in newspapers etc.
The following list is based on collected clippings found in the Kristensen archive
in the University Library of Leiden. Articles marked with an asterisk are not signed,
but probably written by Kristensen.
1887
1888
1889

1893
1894
1897
1899
1900
1902
1911
1923

14.7

Lister og Mandals
Amtstidende (Mandal) "En seir"
30.9
Dagbladet (Kristiania)
"Noget gammelt, som er blet nyt"
12.5
"
"
"Ernest Renan"
7.8
Lindesnes (Mandal)
"Om nogle billioner aar. Lidt astronomi"
9.10 Dagbladet (Kristiania)
"Agnostikerne. Om de engelske Agnostikere"
11.10
"Supplement med lidt af vore egne
Theologer om Agnosticismen"
4.1
Moss Avis (Moss)
"Fra Paris"
16.9
"
"
"Pariserbrev"
21.4
"
"
"Literaturkritik i Kristiania"
7.11 Dagbladet (Kristiania)
"Norge i Udlandet"
9.8
Moss Avis (Moss)
"Norsk Hedningemission"*
25.9
"
"
"Frankriges AEre"*
25.10
"
"
'"Over AEvne' paa Nationaltheatret"*
12.11
"
"
"Om Helvede"*
14.4
Moss Avis (Moss)
"Et nyt Syn paa en Bededags Hensigt og
Vaerd"
3.11
"
"
"Vigelands Abel-Monument"
19.11
"
"
"Universitetets Fond"
5.6
Algemeen Handelsblad
(Amsterdam)
"Noorsche cultuur"

4. Reviews by Kristensen
The list contains mainly reviews in the Dutch Theologisch Tijdschrift
claim to cover all reviews written by Kristensen.
1889
1902

and does not

Nordisk Tidsskrift for Filologi (vol. 10, no. 1), in: Dagbladet (5.11), Kristiania.
C.P. Tiele: Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid tot op Alexander den Groote,

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1903a
1903b
1903c
1904a
1904b
1905a
1905b
1905c
1905d
1905e
1905f
1905g
1905h
1905i
1905j
1905k
1906a
1906b

291

deel II, 2. stuk, Amsterdam 1901, in: Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (8.1),
Rotterdam.
Alfred Jeremias: Im Kampfe um Babel und Bibel, Leipzig 1903, in: ThT 37:
269-270.
Friedrich Delitzsch: Zweiter Vortrag iiber Babel und Bibel, Stuttgart 1903, in:
ThT 37: 270.
Hugo Winckler: Die Babylonische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zur unsrigen. Ein
Vortrag, Leipzig 1902, in: ThT 37: 270-271.
D. Volter: Agypten und die Bibel: Die Urgeschichte Israels im Licht der Agyptischen
Mythologie, Leiden 1903, in: ThT 38: 53-59.
Adolf Harnack: Die Aufgabe der theologischen Facultaten und die allgemeine Religionsgeschichte, Giessen 1901, in: ThT 38: 59-63.
Julius Grill: Die persische Mysterunreligion im romischen Reich und das Christentum,
Tubingen/Leipzig 1903, in: ThT 39: 88-89.
Otto Pfleiderer: Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens in religionsgeschichtlicher
Beleuchtung, Berlin 1903, in: ThT 39: 89.
John M. Robertson: Christianity and Mythology, London 1900, in: ThT 39:
89-91.
Troels Lund: De stenenhemel en wereldbeschouwing in den loop der tijden (Dutch
translation by C. van der Zeyde), Groningen 1902, in: ThT 39: 91.
Graaf Leo Tolstoi: Wat is religie en waarin bestaat haar wezen?, Gouda (s.d.),
in: ThT 39: 92-93.
Heinrich Zimmern: Keilinschriften und Bibel nach ihrem religionsgeschichtlichen Zusammenhang, Berlin 1903, in: ThT 39: 93.
H.V. Hilprecht: Die Ausgrabungen der Universitat von Pennsylvania im Bel-Tempel
zu Nippur, Leipzig 1903, in: ThT 39: 93-94.
Otto Weber: Theologie und Assyriologie im Streite um Babel und Bibel, Leipzig
1904, in: ThT 39: 93-94.
Julius Boehmer: Babel-Bibel-Katechismus in 500 Fragen und Antworten fur Bibeljreunde,
Stuttgart 1903, in: ThT 39: 93-94.
Fr. Giesebrecht: Friede fur Babel und Bibel, Konigsberg 1903, in: ThT 39:
93-95.
Emil Fuchs: Schleiermachers Religionsbegriff und religiose Stellung zur Zeit der ersten
Ausgabe der Reden (1799-1806), Giessen 1901, in: ThT 39: 95.
S.T. Bettany: De godsdiensten der wereld, vol. 1 & 2 (bewerkt, herzien en
uitgebreid door J.G. Boekenoogen), Amsterdam 1903, in: ThT 40: 418
420.
M. Beversluis: Geschiedenis van den godsdienst, vol. 1: De godsdienst der heidenen,
uitgave van de schrijver (s.d), in: ThT 40: 420.

5. Reviews on Kristensen
The list contains those reviews which the editor has been able to trace and does
not claim to be complete.
1896
1902
1914
1925
1925

Egypternes forestillinger om livet efter duden i forbindelse med guderne Ra og Osiris,

Christiania, by A. Aall, in: RHR 34, 1896: 246.
Het verband tusschen godsdienst en de zucht tot zelfbehoud, Leiden 1901, by H. Was,
in: ThT 36: 65-68.
"Hvad religionshistorisk studium berover os og gir os", in: KoK 21, 1914,
by Simon Michelet, in: KoK 21: 168-172 (within the article: "Litt religionspsykologisk orientering": 160172).
De loofhut en het loofhuttenfeest in den egyptischen cultus, in: MKAW 1923, by
H. Kees, in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 28: 71-72.
Livet fra doden, Oslo 1925, by Lyder Brun, in: Morgenbladet (24 October).

292

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1926

Het leven uit de dood, Haarlem 1926, by Gerardus van der Leeuw, in:
Nieuwe Theologische Studien 9: 145.
1948
Verzamelde Bijdragen tot kennis der Antieke Godsdiensten, Amsterdam 1947, by
B.A. van Groningen, in De Gids (September): 233234.
1948
Verzamelde Bijdragen tot de Kennis der Antieke Godsdiensten, Amsterdam 1947,
by C.J. Bleeker, in: Museum (December): 218-220.
1949
Verzamelde Bijdragen tot kennis der Antieke Godsdiensten, Amsterdam 1947, by
H.W. Obbink, in: NThT 3: 142.
195253 Primitieve wijsheid (dies-college 9. Februari 1952), in: Leidse Voordrachten
13, Leiden 1952, by Th.P. van Baaren, in: NThT 7: 110.
195556 Symbool en werkelijkheid, een bundel godsdiensthistorische studien, Arnhem
1954, by Th.P. van Baaren, in: NThT 10: 185.
195657 Inleiding tot de godsdienstgeschiedenis, Arnhem 1955, by Th. P. van Baaren,
in: NThT 11: 298-299.
1961
The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion, The Hague
1960, by Andre Caquot, in: RHR 160: 231-233.
1961-62 The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion, The Hague
1960, by B.A. van Groningen, in: NThT 16: 49-50.
1962
The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion, The Hague
1960, by Gustav Mensching, in: ZRG 14: 71-72.
1963
The Meaning of Religion. Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion, The Hague
1960, by G. Morel, in: RSR 51: 174-175.
1996
Life out of Death. Studies in the Religions of Egypt and Ancient Greece,
Leuven 1992, by M. Heerma van Voss, in: Bibliotheca Orientalis 53: 415416.
6. Biography and Appreciation
a) Selfportraits
1909
1934

"Kristensen, William Brede", in: Studenterne fra 1884. Biografiske meddelelser

samlet i anledning av deres 25-aars studenterjubileum, Kristiania 1909: 195-197.
"Kristensen, William Brede", in: Studenterne fra 1884. Minneskrift til 50drsjubileet 1934, Oslo: 46.

b) Viewed by others
1913a
1913b
1938
1946

1953a
1953b
1953c
1953d
1953e
1954a

Schencke, Wilhelm: "Tidens fylde. I anledning av professor Brede

Kristensens forelaesninger", in: Tidens Tegn (9 November).
Ihlen, Chr. and Edv. Sverdrup: "Professor Brede Kristensen", in: Luthersk
Kirketidende 50: 745-747.
Schencke, Wilhelm: "Kristensen, William Brede", in: Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
VIII: 1-2, Oslo.
(Signature E.D.): "Hvorfra?Hvorfor?Hvorhen? En temperamentsfull
og ungdommelig 80-aring sier sin mening. Intervju med tidligere professor i religionshistorie ved Leyden universitet, Brede Kristensen", i:
Aftenposten, 24 October.
Buck, A. de: "Herdenking W.B. Kristensen", in: Mededelingen uit de Civitas
Academica Lugduno Batava, No. 1 (October/November): 511.
Hidding, K.A.H.: "Herdenking W.B. Kristensen", in: Mededelingen uit de
Civitas Academica Lugduno Batava, No. 1 (October/November): 12-16.
Beek, M.A.: (On W. Brede Kristensen), in: Weekblad van de Nederlandse
Protestanten Bond, 10 October. Norwegian translation in: Kok 59, 1954: 50-51.
Boman, Th.: "Professor Brede Kristensen d d", in: Aftenposten (29 September).
Jansen, Herman Ludin: Brede Kristensen, in: NTT: 115116.
Bleeker, C.J.: "In memoriam Professor Dr. W. Brede Kristensen", in:
Numen 1: 235-236.

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

293

1954b
1954c

Buck, A. de: "In memoriam W.B. Kristensen", in: NThT 8: 190-191.

Buck, A. de: "Herdenking van William Brede Kristensen", in: JKAW
1953-1954: 294-305.
1955
Eitrem, Samson: "Religion og religioner", in: Morgenbladet (31 January).
1960
Kraemer, Hendrik: "Introduction", in: Kristensen 1960: XI-XXV.
1966
Hallencreutz, Carl F.: "Towards an anti-evolutionistic positionW. Brede
Kristensen", in: C.F. Hallencreutz: Kraemer Towards Tambaram. A Study in
Hendrik Kraemer's Missionary Approach, Uppsala: 113-118.
1969
Beek, M.A.: "Le professeur W.B. Kristensen et 1'Ancien Testament", in:
Liber Amicorum. Studies in Honour of professor Dr. C.J. Bleeker, Leiden:
14-26 (Studies in the History of Religions, XVII).
1972
Waardenburg, Jacques: "W.B. Kristensen (1867-1953)", in: Numen 19:
145-161 (within the article "Religion Between Reality and Idea. A Century
of Phenomenology of Religion in the Netherlands": 128203).
1973
Waardenburg, Jacques: "William Brede Kristensen", in: Jacques Waardenburg: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theory of
Research, vol. I: Introduction and Anthology, The Hague: 390 (Religion and
Reason, 3).
1978
Allen, Douglas: "W. Brede Kristensen", in: Douglas Allen: Structure and
Creativity in Religion. Hermeneutics in Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology and
New Directions, The Hague/Paris/New York: 64-66 (within the chapter
"Twentieth Century Methodological Approaches") (Religion and Reason, 14).
1987
Carman, John B.: "Kristensen, W. Brede", in: The Encyclopedia of Religion,
vol. 8. New York/London: 382-383.
1989
Plantinga, Richard J.: "W.B. Kristensen and the Study of Religion", in:
Numen 36: 173-188.
1991
Plantinga, Richard J.: "Romanticism and the History of Religion: The Case
of W.B. Kristensen", in: Hans G. Kippenberg and Brigitte Luchesi (eds.):
Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik. Beitrage zur Konferenz The History of
Religions and Critique of Culture in the Days of Gerardus van der Leeuw
(1890-1950), Marburg: 157-176.
1995a Capps, Walter H.: "W. Brede Kristensen: Phenomenology of Religion as
Descriptive Overview", in: W.H. Capps: Religious Studies. The Making of a
Discipline, Minneapolis: 124-128.
1995b James, George Alfred: "The Phenomenological Approach to Religion of
W. Brede Kristensen", in: G.A. James: Interpreting Religion. The Phenomenological
Approaches of Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye, W. Brede Kristensen and Gerardus
van der Leeuw, Washington, D.C.: 139-200 (= Part II).
1995c Koene, Margo: William Brede Kristensen, Norges f rste religionshistariker. Hovedoppgave (master thesis), Universitetet i Oslo.
1996
Wright, G.R.H.: "Introduction to W. Brede Kristensen's Studies on Cult
Objects", in: Journal of Prehistoric Religion, 10: 63-69.
1998
Ponsteen, H.J.: "Kristensen, William Brede", in: Biografisch lexicon voor de
geschiedenis van het Nederlandse protestantisme, deel 4: 266-269.
7. Abbreviations
EOL
JKAW

Ex Oriente Lux
Jaarboek der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen
JKNAW
Jaarboek der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van
Wetenschappen
KoK
For kirke og kultur (from 1919: Kirke og kultur)
MKAW (serie/deel/numero) Mededelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen. Afdeling Letterkunde

294

KRISTENSEN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

MKNAW/NR (deel/numero) Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie

van Wetenschappen. Afdeling Letterkunde. Nieuwe
reeks
Norsk theologisk tidsskrift (from 1910: Norsk teoloNTT
gisk tidsskrift)
Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift
NthT
Revue de 1'histoire des religions
RHR
Theologisch Tijdschrift
ThT
Verslagen en mededelingen der Koninklijke Akademie
VMKAW (reeks/deel)
van Wetenschappen. Afdeling Letterkunde
VTh
Vox Theologica
ZRG
Zeitschrift fiir Religions- und Geistesgeschichte

INDEX OF NAMES

Numbers in italics indicate that the name only appears in the footnotes on the page
in question.
Aalders, M.J. 23
Aall, A. 40, 214, 217
Ackerman, R. 7, 118, 133
Adam of Bremen 243
Ahlback, T. 121
Akhnaton, King 103f, 106, 179, 231
Alkjaer, B. 237
Allen, D. 269
Alles, G.D. 118
Altheim, F. 120
Amenhotep IV; v: Akhnaton, King
Amundsen, L. 107, 128
Anderson, C. 130
Andra, T. 214f
Anquetil du Perron, A.H. 73
Anselm of Canterbury 64
Appleby, R.S. 255
Aristophanes 126
Aristotle 145
Asad, T. 196f
Asbj rnsen, P.Chr. 209
Assmann, J. 110f
Auffarth, C. 120
Baal, J. van 178, 186, 257, 266
Baaren, T. van xx, 176, 180, 184ff
Baird, R.D. 280
Banck, G. 725
Barrows, J.H. 40
Bartholomae, Chr. 74, 77 f, 80, 84ff,
91
BaBler, M. 4, 11
Baudy, G. 136
Baumgarten, O. 10
Baumgartner, W. 27
Bavinck, H. 116
Beard, M. 120
Beaufort, W.H. de 41f
Bediaho, G.M. 118
Beek, W.E.A. van 178, 257
Beekes, R.S.P. 125
Benedict, R. 181
Benz, E. 118
Bergen, C. von 59
Berger, P.L. 16

Bergmann, J. 15
Bergson, H. 11, 229
Berman, M. 16
Bernal, M. 104
Berti, S. 123
Bertrand, E. 65, 66
Binswanger, L. 178
Birkeland, H. 224f, 227
Bjorck, A. 59f, 61, 62
Bjernson, B. 205, 206, 207ff, 210,
211f, 214f, 216, 218
Bj rnson, K.E. 105, 206
Bj0rnson, P. 206
Blavatsky, Mme 196
Bleeker, C.J. xix, 23, 28, 33f, 105,
130, 169, 266
Blusse, L. 44
Boas, F. 6, 181, 184
Bosch, L.P. van den 126, 130
Boudewijnse, B. 121
Bouquet, A.C. 28
Bourdieu, P. 176
Boyce, M. 88, 91, 92, 95f
Braarvig, J.E. xviii, 133, 134, 146, 257
Brandes, G. 240ff
Brandt, W. 24
Breckenridge, C.A. 42
Bremmer, J.N. xviii, 31, 119ff, 124,
126, 173, 187f, 275
Bremmer, R.H. 776
Briggs, W.W. 727
Broek, R. van den 130
Bruch, R. vom 4, l0f
Brugsch, H. 102, 104, 107
Brun, L. 219f, 227
Bryant, J. 135
Brochner, H. 241
Buck, A. de 130
Bugge, S. 141, 209, 239
Bull, E. 725
Burkert, W. 119, 120, 124, 130, 133,
145, 147
Burnouf, E. 73
Burrow, J.W. 6
B0hm, M.E. 107

296

INDEX OF NAMES

Cabanel, P. 46
Caland, W. 22
Calder, M.W. 121f
Callimachus 150
Cancik, H. 121, 124
Carman, J.B. xix, 23, 115, 261
Carpenter, T.H. 147
Caspari, C.P. 213
Cassirer, E. 176
Champollion, J.-F. 102,261
Chantepie de la Saussaye, D. 28
Chantepie de la Saussaye, P.D. xiv,
xvii, 20ff, 33, 34ff, 4If, 46, 49, 62,
169f, 218
Charpentier, J. 78
Chatellier, H. 4, 11
Chauduhri, N.C. 126
Chesterton, G.K. 49
Christensen, D.R. 194
Ciattini, A. 118
Clarke, L. 181
Clemens of Alexandria 151
Collins, R. 176
Colombus, Chr. 58
Colonna, F. 110
Colpe, C. 133, 186
Colyer-Fergusson, B.S. 27
Comte, A. 170
Conser, W.H. 192
Cossee, E. 116
Cratinus 126
Creutzer, G.F. 168f
Curtius, G. 209
Darmesteter, J. 26, 75
Darwin, Ch. 103, 120, 240
Dawson, W.R. 107
Delitzsch, F. 26
Demetrius of Phaleron 126
Despland, M. 257, 280
Detienne, M. 147
Dijk, J. van 130
Dilthey, W. 9f, 39
Diodoros Siculus 151
Dodds, E.R. 121
Doedes, J.I. 28
Doeing, D. 269
Donate, R. di 128
Dorson, R.M. 4, 244
Douglas, M. 195f
Drehsen, V. 4, 16
Dreyfus, A. 12
Drijvers, H.J.W. 185, 186, 266
Duchesne-Guillemin, J. 77

Durkheim, E. xvi, 3f, 12f, 26, 46,

128, 175, 178, 187, 230, 257
Effert, F.R. 128
Ehlers, D. 121
Einstein, A. 174
Eisler, R. 147
Eitrem, S. 128, 220
Ekman, J.A. 60
Ekstrom, A. 58
Eliade, M. 28, 130, 133, 144, 191,
193f, 269f, 272, 280, 283
Eliot, T.S. 7
Erman, A. 178
Euphorion 150
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 123, 181, 182ff
Faraone, C.A. 147
Fehr, F. 65f
Ferguson, R. 212
Festugiere, A.-J. 128
Feuerbach, L. 241
Ficino, M. 110
Firmicus Maternus 151
Firsching, H. 128
Fischer, M.M.J. 182
Fitzgerald, T.R. 141
Flasche, R. 259
Fliigge, Chr.W. xiii, xiv
Foucault, M. 196
Fournier, M. 23, 128
Frankfort, H. 1ll
Frazer, J.G. xvi, xix, 7, 26, 44, 103,
118, 121f, 132ff, 140, 144, 146ff,
151, 181
Freud, S. 144
Frick, H. 29
Fries, S.A. 59ff, 65f, 216f
Fr lich, Th. 214
Fustel de Coulanges, N.D. 12
Gadamer, H.-G. 10
Gardiner, P. 16
Gay, P. 242
Geertz, C. 123, 184, 187f
Geldner, K. 74, 80f, 86, 89, 91
Gellner, E. 123
Gershewitch, I. 74, 93
Gerth, H.H. 15
Giddens, A. 3
Gilhus, I.S. xx, 192, 195f, 198, 255
Gladigow, B. 63
Gnoli, G. 91
Gobliet d'Alviella, Count 26

INDEX OF NAMES

Goeje, M. de 42, 45
Goethe, J.W. 133
Graf, F. 119f, 129
Graf, F.W. 4, l0f
Gressmann, A. 45
Groethuysen, B. 9
Groningen, B.A. van 128, 130
Grotefend, G.F. 261
Grundtvig, N.F.S. 208
Gronbech, V. xxi, 232, 237ff, 246ff
Gunkel, H. 36, 224, 226, 230
Gunnersen, G.F. 214
Gunning, J.H. 25, 39
Guthrie, S.E. 142
Guthrie, W.K.C. 147
Habermas, J. 10, 47
Hackmann, H. 24, 37, 45
Hahn, A. 15
Hale, E.W. 95
Hall, S.G. 123
Hammacher, E. 10
Hamsun, K. 212
Hanssen, L. 127
Harder, A. 125
Hardy, E. 35
Harnack, A. 60, 65, 68
Harrison, J. 147
Hartman, S. 77
Hasting, J. 44
Haug, M. 73f, 83, 85
Hedin, D. 191
Heerma van Voss, M.S.H.G. 115, 130
Hegel, G.W.F. 28
Heiler, F. 23, 36f, 264
Hempel, J. 16
Henning, W.B. 93
Henri, Prince 41
Henrichs, A. 122, 124ff
Herder, J.G. 133, 168f
Herrmann, W. 65
Hesiod 148
Hidding, K.A.H. 157, 161, 170
Hinze, A. 76
Hirschmann, E. 29
Hjelde, S. xiv, xvi, xx, 34, 49, 218,
224f
Hodgen, M.T. 5
Hoens, D.J. 115
Hoffmann, K. 75
Hofgaard, A.K. 103
Hofmann, H. 125
Hofstee, W. xv, xx, 23, 27, 33, 39f,
118, 162, 179f, 184, 263

297

Homer 127
Horappollo 110
Horemhab 231
Hornblower, S. 124
Hornung, E. 102, 111
Horton, R. 181
Houtsma, M.Th. 45
Hubbeling, H.G. 39, 185, 186
Hubert, H. 22, 46
Hiibinger, G. 4, 10
Hugenholtz, F.W.L. 40
Huizinga, J. 127
Hultgard, A. xviii
Humbach, H. 76, 92, 95, 97
Humme, A.A. 211, 216, 218
Hurtado, L.W. 265
Husserl, E. 37, 38, 192f
H ffding, H. 241
Hok, G. 64
Ibsen, H. 104, 206
Ibsen, S. 216
Insler, S. 76, 92
Isaiah, Second 65
Isocrates 126
Jaabaek, S. 205
Jackson, W. 74, 77f, 83f, 85, 89
Jacobsen, J.P. 240f
Jahn, O. 121
James, E.O. 28
James, G.A. 27, 29, 32, 40, 192
James, W. 11
Jansen, E. 128
Jansen, H.L. 224
Jasanoff, J. 125
Jaspers, K. 37, 176, 178, 183, 187
Jeanmaire, H. 136
Jensen, A.E. 133
Jensen, J.S. 191, 192, 195f, 200
Jeremiah 65
Jesus 64, 66, 68, 78, 134, 227
Jevons, J.B. 36
Johach, H. 10
Johansen, J.P. 237f, 246, 249f
Johnstone, W. 118
Jordan, D.R. 128
Jordan, L.H. 19, 35, 45
Josselin de Jong, J.P.B. de 127ff, 178
Juliana, Queen 130
Jung, C.G. 183
Justi, F. 81
Justin Martyr 163f
J0rgensen, T.G. 240

298

INDEX OF NAMES

Kamstra, J.H. 130

Kant, I. 12, 28, 61, 63, 69, 192
Kellens, J. 76, 90ff, 95f, 97
Kerenyi, K. 147, 262, 283
Kern, H. 20, 22, 46
Kern, O. 120, 174
Kierkegaard, S. 62, 144
King, U. 265
Kippenberg, H.G. xvi, 3, 4, 5f, 14,
16, 47, 63, 115, 118, 176, 185ff,
257, 259
Kircher, A. 110
Kitagawa, J.M. 28
Klein, G. 60
Kleve, K. 128
Klimkeit, H.-J. 6
Klostermaier, K.K. 265
Knappert, L. 218
Koch, C. 120
Koene, M. 34
Kohl, K.-H. 4, 118
Konow, S. 214
Kraemer, H. 81, 157, 161, 170, 193,
200
Kramers, J.H. 45
Krech, V. 4, 128
Kristensen, Bjarne xv, 205, 220
Kristensen, Bj rn 206
Kristensen, D. 206, 212f
Kristensen, I. (brother of W.B.K)
206
Kristensen, I. (son of W.B.K) 220
Kristensen, K.N. 105, 206, 210
Kristensen, R. 206
Kristensen, W.B. xivf, xviiff, 15f, 20f,
23ff, 28f, 31ff, 38f, 45, 47, 49, 59,
77, 81, 101, 103, 105f, 108, 112,
115ff, 131ff, 140, 144, 147, 152,
157ff, 173ff, 183, 193f, 200, 205ff,
223, 255f, 259, 261ff, 268, 270, 272,
283ff
Kristensen-Heldring, J. 117, 157,207,
220
Krul, W. 127
Kuenen, A. 20, 26, 42, 44, 46, 47,
207, 211, 272
Kiing, H. 255
Kuhn, A. 140f, 239, 244
Kuhn, Th. 199
Kuiper, M. xxii
Kuiper, Y. xv, 725, 130, 173, 183,
186, 263
Kuyper, A. 116
Kvaerne, P. xiv

Lakoff, G. x, 138f, 141ff, 146, 151

Lambert, J.H. 28, 192
Lanczkowski, G. 5, 27
Lang, A. 26, 45, 244
Lange, A. de 116
Larsen, H.M. 61
Lawson, E.Th. 188
Leertouwer, L. 116
Leeuw, G. van der xvii, xixf, 15f, 21,
23, 25, 26, 28f, 32ff, 49, 118f, 130,
162, 170, 173, 175ff, 182ff, 186ff,
193, 261, 263f
Lehmann, E. xv, xxi, 20, 28f, 55,
35ff, 38, 39, 47, 77f, 80f, 83f, 85,
86ff, 93, 275, 237f
Lem, A. van der 727, 130
Lessing, H.-U. 9
Levi-Strauss, C. 129, 178
Levy-Bruhl, L. 175f, 178, 180ff, 187f
Lieblein, J.D.C. xviii, 101, 103ff, 107f,
112, 209, 210, 213
Lieblein, J.M. 103
Lippert, J. 243
Littleton, C.S. 775, 181f, 188
Lloyd-Jones, C. 727
Lommel, H. 91
Lowie, R. 181
Luchesi, B. 4, 63, 115, 176, 187, 259
Luckmann, Th. 75
Liidemann, G. 36
Lukes, S. 725
Lunde, A. 116, 275, 214f, 217, 220
Lunde, E. 275
Lunde, Th. 211, 214
Luther, M. 63, 65, 67
Luttikhuizen, G.P. 119, 126
Lyell, C. 120
Malinowski, B. 181ff
Mangani, G. 727
Mannhardt, W. 121f, 132ff, 139ff,
144
Marcus, G.E. 752
Marett, R.R. xvi, 6f
Marshall, D.G. 10
Martin, L. 196
Martinez, F.G. 779
Marty, M.E. 255
Marx, K. 67
Maspero, G. 20, 26, 102, 104f, 107,
116, 212
Mauss, M. 22, 26, 46, 128
Meckenstock, G. 5
Meid, W. 120

INDEX OF NAMES

Meillet, A. 78, 214

Meiners, Chr. xiii, 28
Mejer, J. 121
Mensching, G. 29
Merkel, R.F. xiii
Merleau-Ponty, M. 191
Meyer, A. 62
Michaels, A. 3, 4, 118, 123
Michelet, S. 60, 62, 213, 220
Mikaelsson, L. 191, 197f
Mills, C.W. 15
Moe, J. 209f
Moe, M. 209, 210
Mole, M. 90
Molendijk, A.L. xvii, xxii, 5, 22, 31,
45, 50, 116, 118, 121
Momigliano, A. 128
Moses 80
Moulton,J.H. 77, 80, 83ff, 88f, 91
Mowinckel, S. 230, 232
Mullenhoff, K. 140
Muller, A. 126
Muller, F.M. xiii, xiv, 4, 19, 20, 23f,
27, 40, 45, 60f, 126, 134ff, 139ff,
144, 205, 239, 244
Muller, G. 123
Muhammed 62, 82
Murray, A.T. 143
Naguib, S.-A. xiv, xviii, 209
Narten, J. 75f, 94, 95
Naumann, F. 68
Naville, E. 116
Neuhaus, D. 120
Nielsen, R. 241
Nietzsche, F. 9, 59
Nilsson, M.P. 121, 122, 123, 148,
174
Nonnus 151
North, J. 120
Nyberg, H.S. 88, 91
Nygren, A. 65
N ess, H.S. 212
Obbink, H.T. 184
Ozen, A. 35f
Oldenberg, H. 87
Olsson, L. 76, 93f, 96f
Onians, R.B. 137, 143
Oppermann, M. 126
Origen 151
Ortner, S. 188
Oscar II, King 57
Oselio, G. 219

299

Otterspeer, W. 42, 116

Otto, R. xvi, 8f, 29, 36, 118, 122,
133, 169, 229, 264
Otto, W.F. 147, 262, 270, 283
Ovid 143f
Oxtoby, W.G. 271
Panaino, A. 76
Parsons, T. 3
Paul of Tarsus 64
Pausanias 144
Pedersen, J. 220
Pels, P. 5, 118, 121
Penner, H. 192, 195f, 199
Perpeet, W. 10
Petersen, F. 20 7f
Pettazoni, R. 23
Pfister, F. 29
Pfleiderer, G. 8, 11
Pfleiderer, O. 26, 28
Phrynicus 126
Pickering, W.S.F. 3, 12
Pierret, P. 102
Pinard de la Boullaye, H. 35
Pirart, E. 76, 90ff, 97
Plantinga, R. 32, 40, 177, 261
Plas, D. van der 130
Plato 125, 126
Platvoet, J.G. 22, 183f
Pleyte, W. 105, 211
Plotin 144
Plutarch 126, 151
Poimandres 144
Ponsteen, H.J. 116
Prakash, G. 42
Preston, A. xxii
Preuss, K.T. 178
Price, S. 120
Propp, W.J. 145
Punjer, G.C.B. 28
Pullich, F. 250
Pye, M. 265
Radin, P. 181ff, 184
Reitzel-Nielsen, E. 239f
Renan, E. 78
Renouf, Sir P. le Page 102
Renz, H. 11
Reuterskiold, E. 77, 82ff, 86f, 91
Reville, A. 20, 36, 45ff
Reville, J. 46f
Ricoeur, P. 192, 195
Ridder, J.H. de 26
Ritschl, A. 6Iff

300
Rodi, F.

INDEX OF NAMES
9

Roessingh, K.H. 34, 39

Rohde, E. 121, 125
Roodenburg, H. 187
Rosenqvist, G.G. 60f
Rothstein, M. 194
Rouge, E. de 102
Rousseau, J.-J. 12
Rudolph, K. xiv, 47, 259
Ruijgh, C.J. 125
Ruud, I.M. xvi
Ryba, T. 175, 192f
Sabatier, A. 60, 62
Said, E.W. 42
Sainte-Beuve, C.A. de 242
Sand, E.R. 237
Sanders, A.F. 186
Sanner, I. 57
Sapir, E. 181
Sars,J.E. 216, 219
Schafer, H. 111
Scheele, K.H. Gezelius von 60
Scheler, M. 9, 29, 37, 38, 176
Schelling, F.W.J. 133
Schencke, F.W. 106
Schencke, J.F.W. xiv, xviii, xxf, 101,
103, 106ff, 112, 196, 206, 220, 223ff
Schepel, B. 123
Schleiermacher, F.D.E. xix, 8, 10, 35,
61, 63f, 68, 168ff, 262
Schlerath, B. 120
Schlesier, E. 121
Schmidt-Glintzer, H. 14
Schneider, H. 124
Schwartz, E. 140, 244
Schwarz, M. 93f
Seager, R.H. 40
Sebeok, T.A. 4
Seneca 174
Sethe, K. 178
Settis, S. 120
Shapiro, H.A. 120
Shapiro, J.J. 10
Sharpe, E.J. xiv, xv, xxi, 5f, 19f, 28f,
33, 37, 40, 47, 115, 175, 257
Shaw, R. 197
Siebert, A.V. 120
Sierksma, F. xx, 176, 183f, 187
Singer, A. 123
Skogar, B. xvii, xxi, 43, 65, 217
Skj erv , P.O. 76, 92
Smith, E. 128
Smith, J. xix, 133f, 146, 151

Smith, L. xv
Smith, W.C. 270ff, 280, 283
Smith, W.R. 26, 44, 118, 121
Soderblom, N. xv, xvii, xxi, 20, 25f,
28f, 36, 38f, 47f, 59ff, 65ff, 77, 80,
81ff, 87, 91, 205, 211, 213, 214,
215ff
Sophocles 126
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 127
Sparn, W. 4, 16
Spawforth, A. 124
Spencer, H. 243
Spiegelberg, H. 192f
Spranger, E. 39, 178
Staudlin, C.F. xiii
Stausberg, M. 73
Stein, J. 260
Stensvold, A. 199
Stocking, G.W. 5, 43, 118
Straten, F.T. van 120
StrauB, D.F. 78, 241
Strenski, I. 29, 46
Strindberg, A. 57
Sumpf, J. 128
Swedenborg, E. 62, 229
Taine, H. 242
Tallqvist, K.L. 62
Tambiah, S. 115
Tenbruck, F.H. 15
Thomassen, E. xx
Thomsen, V. 247
Tiele, C.P. xiv, 19ff, 29ff, 36, 38,
40, 45, 46f, 49, 77, 105, 116f,
165, 169, 206, 21 0f, 215, 216,
217, 218
Tiele-Rugchaven, A. 211
Todd, R.B. 121
Torp, A. 209
Trendelenburg, A. 63
Troeltsch, E. xvi, l0f, 36
Turner, M. 141
Turner, V. 122
Tvete, K. 207
Twiss, S.B. 192
Tybjerg, T. xxi, 121, 141
Tylor, E.B. 4ff, 26, 44, 103, 118,
122, 181, 230, 243, 257
Tyrell, H. 4, 128
Uhlenbeck, C.G. 128
Underhill, E 11
Uphill, E.P. 107
Usener, H. 37f, 39, 121f, 125

INDEX OF NAMES

Vallee, G. 280
Vanggaard, J.H. 237
Veer, P. van der 42
Velde, H. te 185
Velde, P.G.E.I.J. van der 43
Vernant, J.-P. 129
Vernes, M. 46f, 205
Versnel, H.S. 122, 125, 145
Veth, P.J. 43
Vickery, J.B. 7
Vinge, L. 144
Vishtaspa, King 79
Vodskov, H.S. xxi, 141, 237ff, 250f
Volkenborn-Kristensen, G. xv, 127,
205, 220
Vries, J. de 257
Waardenburg, J. xxi, 25ff, 28f, 32, 34,
39f, 48, 115, 118, 123, 130, 185, 192,
257, 259, 261ff, 273f, 277, 280, 285
Wach,J. 28f
Wall0e, L. xv
Weber, Marianne 14
Weber, Max xvi, 3f, 14f, 47, 68, 185,
187f

301

Weinsheimer, J. 10
Weiss, J. 68
Wellhausen, J. 63, 224
Werblowsky, Z. 130
West, M. 130, 147
Whaling, F. 253, 265, 279
Widengren, G. 5, 34, 88, 91, 119
Wiebe, D. 175, 263
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von 12If
Wilhelmina, Queen 34
Wilken, G.A. 44
Winkler, R. 29
Wirth, J. 123
Wissmann, H. 118
Wissowa, G. 120
Wittgenstein, L. 135f, 138
Wobbermin, G. 29, 35
Wright, G.R.H. 215
Wundt, W. 36
Zandee, J. 111, 130
Zarathushtra xviii, 73, 76, 78ff, 92ff
Zettersten, K.V. 78
Ziolkowski, E. 40
Zola, E. 57

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20 K. Kerenyi. Zeus und Hera. Urbild des Vaters, des Gatten und der Frau.
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77 P.Schafer & M.R.Cohen (eds.). Toward the Millennium. Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco. 1998. I SBN 90 0411037 2
78 A.I.Baumgarten,withJ. Assmann & G.G.Stroumsa (eds.). Self, Soul and
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79 M. Houseman & C.Severi. Naven or the Other Self. A Relational Approach to Ritual Action. 1998. I SBN 90 0411220 0
80 A. L. Molendijk & P. Pels (eds.). Religion in the Making. The Emergence of
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81 Th. A. Idinopulos & B. C.Wilson (eds.). What is Religion ? Origins, Definitions, & Explanations. 1998. I S B N 90 0411022 4
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83 J. Assmann & G.G.Stroumsa (eds.). Transformations of the Inner Self in
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84 J.G.Platvoet & A. L. Molendijk (eds.). The Pragmatics of Defining Religion.
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85 B.J. Malkovsky (ed.). New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta. Essays in Commemoration of Professor Richard De Smet, SJ. 2000.
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