Adolf Harnacks Vorlesung über ‚Encyklopädie der Theologie‘ (1884)

Abstract

Abstract In the course of his active teaching career of over fifty years, Adolf von Harnack only once lectured on the „Encyclopaedia of Theology“. This occured in the summer of 1884 when he was a young university professor in Gießen, lecturing twice a week from 9 to 10 in the morning. The handwritten script of the dictation booklet (36 pp.) has so far gone unnoticed in the literature. It is documented here for the first time and in a full reproduction. These lecture notes present a condensed, overall impression of Harnack's concept of theology, probably unlike any other his texts. Of particular interest is the detailed outline of a concept of religion that Harnack developed through an intense examination of drafts on this topic by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl as well as Ritschl's prominent students, Julius Kaftan and Wilhelm Herrmann. Within the history of Harnack's opus, the lecture for the Encyclopaedia was done in close working relationship with the great literary project of the Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (1885–89).