Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack | |
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Dorpat, Kreis Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (present-day Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia) | |
Died | 10 June 1930 | (aged 79)
Other names | Adolf Harnack |
Education |
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Occupation(s) | theologian and church historian |
Notable work |
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Spouse | Amalie Thiersch (1858–1937) |
Children | 7, including Agnus and Ernst |
Relatives |
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Institutions |
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Notable students |
Carl Gustav Adolf von
Harnack traced the influence of
In the 19th century,
Besides his theological activities, Harnack was a distinguished organizer of sciences. He played an important role in the foundation of the
Biography
He was born at Dorpat (today Tartu) in Livonia (then a province of Russia, now in Estonia) where his father, Theodosius Harnack, held a professorship of pastoral theology.[2]
He married Amalie Thiersch on 27 December 1879. Their daughter
Harnack studied at the local
In 1879 he was called to the
In 1885 he published the first volume of his Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed. in three volumes, 1894–1898; English translation in seven volumes, 1894–1899). In this work Harnack traced the rise of
In 1886 Harnack was called to the
In Berlin, Harnack continued writing. In 1893 he published a history of
Harnack was one of the most prolific and stimulating of modern critical scholars, and brought up in his "Seminar" a whole generation of teachers who carried his ideas and methods throughout the whole of Germany and beyond.[2]
From 1905 to 1921, Harnack was the General Director of the
Like many liberal professors in Germany, Harnack welcomed World War I in 1914, and signed a public statement endorsing Germany's war-aims (the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three). It was this statement, with his teacher Harnack's signature on it, that Karl Barth cited as a major impetus for his rejection of liberal theology.
Harnack was one of the moving spirits in the foundation, in 1911, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG), and became its first President. The Society's activities were much constrained by the First World War, but in the
Biblical Criticism and Theology
Among the distinctive characteristics of Harnack's work were his insistence on absolute freedom in the study of church history and the New Testament (i.e. there were no taboo areas of research that could not be critically examined); his distrust of speculative theology, whether orthodox or liberal; and his interest in practical Christianity as a religious life and not a system of theology. Some of his addresses on social matters were published under the heading "Essays on the Social Gospel" (1907).
Harnack regarded all four gospels to be "not altogether useless as sources of history", but still, "not written with the simple object of giving the facts as they were; they are books composed for the work of evangelisation."[3]
Harnack's suggested view on Biblical miracles was nuanced, and distinguished between certain types thusly:
"In the fourth place, and lastly, although the order of Nature be inviolable, we are not yet by any means acquainted with all the forces working in it and acting reciprocally with other forces. Our acquaintance even with the forces inherent in matter, and with the field of their action, is incomplete; while of psychic forces we know very much less. We see that a strong will and a firm faith exert an influence upon the life of the body, and produce phenomena which strike us as marvellous. Who is there up to now that has set any sure bounds to the province of the possible and the actual? No one. Who can say how far the influence of soul upon soul and of soul upon body reaches ? No one. Who can still maintain that any extraordinary phenomenon that may appear in this domain is entifely based on error and delusion ? Miracles, it is true, do not happen; but of the marvellous and the inexplicable there is plenty. In our present state of knowledge we have become more careful, more hesitating in our judgment, in regard to the stories of the miraculous which we have received from antiquity. That the earth in its course stood still; that a she-ass spoke; that a storm was quieted by a word, we do not believe, and we shall never again believe; but that the Jame walked, the blind saw, and the deaf heard, will not be so summarily dismissed as an illusion."[4]
Bibliography
- Kurt Nowak et al., (eds.), Adolf von Harnack. Christentum, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN 3-525-35854-7is the best recent assessment of Harnack and his impact from a variety of perspectives.
Selected works
- Harnack, Adolf (1904). The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. Vol. 1. New York: Putnam's Sons.
- Harnack, Adolf (1905). The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. Vol. 2. New York: Putnam's Sons.
See also
- Harnack medal
Notes
References
- preposition which approximately means of or from and usually denotes some sort of nobility. While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by his last name, use Schiller, Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.
- ^ a b c d e f g public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Harnack, Adolf". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 10. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Harnack, Adolf; Trans. Saunders, Thomas Bailey, "What Is Christianity?", "Theological Translation Library, Vol. XIV", p. 20, Williams and Norgate, London, 1901.]
- ^ Harnack, Adolf; Trans. Saunders, Thomas Bailey, "What Is Christianity?", "Theological Translation Library, Vol. XIV", pp. 27-28, Williams and Norgate, London, 1901.]
Further reading
- Glick, G. Wayne. "Nineteenth Century Theological and Cultural Influences on Adolph Harnack. Church History (1959) 28#2 157-182
- Pauck, Wilhelm. Harnack and Troeltsch: Two historical theologians (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2015)
External links
- Works by or about Adolf von Harnack at Internet Archive
- Harnack-Forum (German Website)[permanent dead link]
- Harnack, Adolf von, Works, CCEL.
- Harnack, Adolf von (1924) [1902]. The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. U. Penn. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012.
- Adolf von Harnack in the German National Library catalogue
- Works by Adolf von Harnack at Project Gutenberg
- Adolf von Harnack at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Newspaper clippings about Adolf von Harnack in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW