The Rise of the Science of Religion and Its Separation from Traditional Protestant Theology in Hungary

Abstract

Abstract This study of the works of Ödön Kovács (1844–1895) demonstrates how Western European liberal scholarship, especially the work of J. H. Scholten, C. P. Tiele, and O. Pfleiderer, impacted the emergence of the science of religion in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It addresses the issue of how the science of religion was envisioned and explicated by Kovács, a pioneer of the study of religion in Hungary. By examining his first series of articles written as early as 1869 on the science of religion, the article sheds light on the different theoretical premises and methodologies of theology and the science of religion as well as on the impact of the Tübingen and Leiden schools of theology. It further points out how the emergence of the science of religion was promoted by one of the most talented Hungarian scholars of religion. Finally, it attempts to demarcate the lines of divergence and convergence between the two interconnected academic fields.