Protestant Church historian and theologian, born in Tartu (formerly Dorpat), E Estonia. He was professor at Leipzig (1876), Giessen (1879), Marburg (1886), and Berlin (1889), where he also became keeper of the Royal (later State) Library (190421). His major writings include works on the history of dogma, on early Gospel traditions, and on a reconstruction of the essence of Jesus's teachings.
Adolf von Harnack (May 7, 1851–June 10, 1930), was a German theologian and foremost church historian.
Biography
He was born at Tartu (then Dorpat) in Livonia (then a province of Russia, now in Estonia) where his father, Theodosius Harnack, held a professorship of pastoral theology.
Harnack studied at the local University of Tartu (1869–1872) and at the University of Leipzig, where he took his degree; In the same year he began the publication, in conjunction with Oscar Leopold von Gebhardt and Theodor Zahn, of an edition of the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Patrum apostolicorum opera, a smaller edition of which appeared in 1877.
Three years later he was called to the University of Giessen as professor ordinarius of church history. There he collaborated with Gebhardt in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur (1882 sqq.), an irregular periodical, containing only essays in New Testament and patristic fields. In 1881 he published a work on monasticism, Das Mönchtum — seine Ideale und seine Geschichte (5th ed., 1900;
In 1885 he published the first volume of his Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed. In this work Harnack traced the rise of dogma, by which he understands the authoritative doctrinal system of the 4th century and its development down to the Protestant Reformation.
In 1886 Harnack was called to the University of Marburg; Harnack's view is that the creed contains both too much and too little to be a satisfactory test for candidates for ordination;
In Berlin, Harnack continued writing. and in 1900 appeared his popular lectures, Das Wesen des Christentums (5th ed., 1901; One of his later historical works, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (1902; English translation, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, in two volumes, 1904-1905), was followed by some important New Testament studies (Beitrage zur Einleitung in das neue Testament, 1906 sqq.;
Harnack was one of the most prolific and stimulating of modern critical scholars, and trained up in his "Seminar" a whole generation of teachers, who carried his ideas and methods throughout the whole of Germany and beyond.
Like many ostensibly liberal professors in Germany, Harnack welcomed the First World War in 1914, and signed a public statement endorsing German war-aims. It was this statement, with his teacher Harnack's signature on it, that Karl Barth cited as a major impetus for Barth's rejection of liberal theology.
User Comments Add a comment…