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Transatlantic Textbooks: Karl Hagenbach, Shared Interests, and German Academic Theology in Nineteenth-Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2014

Abstract

The rise of German academic institutions in the nineteenth century considerably altered the landscape of American higher education. American students of theology looked to Germany to develop their discipline, where they found model textbooks that gave directives in learning and piety, transforming academic and theological practice. With sensitivity to the history of the book and the history of the rich cultural traffic across the Atlantic, this article focuses on the reception in English translation of the important and widely read Swiss-German church historian Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, whose textbooks enjoyed a considerable audience in the United States by crossing ideological boundaries and unseating obdurate assumptions. By examining this reception in the United States and Britain and investigating those “transatlantic personalities” who played pivotal roles in bringing his ideas from the “Old World” to the “New,” this article demonstrates Hagenbach's lasting influence on the changing fields of history, church history, and academic theology in America. An “Atlantic” perspective on these themes offers new insights for our understanding of religion in the modern academy, the movement and translation of theological ideas in an age of steamship travel, and the surfacing of commonalities among ostensibly mismatched, if not outright conflicting, Protestant religious cultures.

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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2014 

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25 Philip Schaff to A. C. McGiffert, December 18, 1889, in McGiffert, A. C. Jr., “The Making of an American Scholar: Biography in Letters,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 24, no. 1 (Fall 1986): 40Google Scholar. The American Society of Church History (ASCH) was founded, largely by Schaff, in 1888; in comparison, the American Historical Association (AHA) was founded in 1884. Of theology's other major learned societies and professional bodies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) originated in 1909 as the Association of Biblical Instructors in American Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis (SBL), in 1880.

26 Blaschke, Olaf, “Das 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Zweites Konfessionelles Zeitalter?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 26 (2000): 3875Google Scholar. Cf. Steinhoff, Anthony, “Ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter? Nachdenken über die Religion im langen 19. Jahrhundert,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 30 (2004): 549570Google Scholar; Smith, Helmut Walser, ed., Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914 (Oxford: Berg, 2001)Google Scholar; and Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, “The Limits of Secularization: On the Problem of Catholic Revival in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” The Historical Journal 38 (September 1995): 647690Google Scholar.

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28 The role of Methodists in his reception is striking when considered in light of recent investigations of German theological scholarship in America. Cf. Clark, Founding the Fathers, 6, 356n16, with Hudson, Winthrop, “The Methodist Age in America,” Methodist History 12 (1974): 315Google Scholar; Andrews, Dee E., The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Webb, Todd, Transatlantic Methodists: British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013)Google Scholar. See also Hurst, John F., “Hagenbach on the Later History of the Church,” Methodist Review 46 (April 1864): 195215Google Scholar. I focus here more on the ways in which Hagenbach's American audience received and responded to selections from his works, than on the contents and details of the works themselves.

29 The emphasis on pedagogy is clear from the extant student notes for Hagenbach's courses on church history (Kirchengeschichte) at the Pädagogium, which date from the winter semester of 1823; as well as by comparison with the notes from his predecessor Daniel Krauss. See the notes in Basel Universitätsbibliothek, Handschriften, Frey-Gryn Mscr VIII 1.

30 See Staehelin, Andreas, Geschichte der Universität Basel 1818–1835 (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1959), 2741Google Scholar; and Howard, Thomas Albert, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W. M. L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 110136Google Scholar.

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34 On Basel's place in the “age of revolutions” from the Helvetic Republic (1798–1803) onward, see, for example, Palmer, R. R., The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), 1:395423Google Scholar; and Bonjour, Edgar, Offler, Hilary Seton, and Potter, George Richard, A Short History of Switzerland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 211256Google Scholar. Cf. Lerner, Marc H., “The Helvetic Republic: An Ambivalent Reception of French Revolutionary Liberty,” French History 18 (2004): 5075Google Scholar.

35 Gossman, Basel in the Age of Burckhardt, 439.

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37 Clark, Founding the Fathers, 75–83.

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39 A. G. Roeber, “The von Mosheim Society and the Preservation of German Education and Culture in the New Republic, 1789–1813,” in German Influences on Education, 157–176; Roeber, A. G., “Citizens or Subjects? German-Lutherans and the Federal Constitution in Pennsylvania, 1789–1800,” Amerikastudien / America Studies 34 (1989): 4968Google Scholar.

40 See, for example, the frequently reprinted, Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, from the Birth of Christ to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century: In which the Rise, Progress, and Variations of Church Power are Considered in their Connexion with the State of Learning and Philosophy and the Political History of Europe during that Period. By the Late Learned John Lawrence Mosheim, trans. Maclaine, Archibald, 5 vols. (Dublin, n.p., 1767–68)Google Scholar; Collines, Charles Trelawney, ed., A Summary of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, . . . to which is Added, A Continuation of the Particular History of the Church, from the Middle of the Eighteenth Century to the Year MDCCCXIX, 2 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1822)Google Scholar; or Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, trans. Murdock, J., rev. ed. Seaton, J. S., 11th ed. (London: W. Tegg, 1880)Google Scholar.

41 Clark, Founding the Fathers, 76–77; Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church: From the Birth of Christ to the Reign of Constantine, A. D. 1–311 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1859), 22Google Scholar.

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44 The “general” and “special” histories of the first period, the “Age of Apologetics,” are treated in Hagenbach, Compendium of the History of Doctrines, 1:31–61, and 62–223, respectively.

45 For more on the patterns used for representing the history of doctrine, see, for example, Bradley, James E. and Muller, Richard A., Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Method (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), 2732Google Scholar. That analysis bears a close resemblance to Philip Schaff's remarks on the method and organization of Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, advanced just shy of 150 years earlier. See Schaff, “What is Church History? A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development,” The Princeton Review 19 (January 1847): 91113Google Scholar, especially 100–101. Martin Wallraff has rehearsed some of the early history of Dogmengeschichte as a distinct line of inquiry in Wallraff, Evangelium und Dogma. Zu den Anfängen der Gattung Dogmengeschichte (bis 1850),” in Biblische Theologie und historisches Denken. Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Studien. Aus Anlass der 50. Wiederkehr der Basler Promotion von Rudolf Smend, ed. Kessler, Martin and Wallraff, Martin (Basel: Schwabe, 2008), 256278Google Scholar.

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47 I borrow this notion of “dialectical objectivity” from Allan Megill. In Megill's view, dialectical objectivity differs from other types of objectivity in that it “involves a positive view of subjectivity. The defining feature of dialectical objectivity is the claim that subjectivity is indispensable to the constituting of objects.” See Megill, Allan, “Objectivity for Historians,” Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A Contemporary Guide to Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 107124Google Scholar. Cf. Megill, “Four Senses of Objectivity,” in Rethinking Objectivity, ed. Megill, Allan (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 120Google Scholar. In comparison to the other examples of this view suggested in Megill's typology, Hagenbach's work is conspicuously moderate.

48 This theoretical underpinning would come to fuller expression in Hagenbach, K. R., “Neanders Verdienste um die Kirchengeschichte: Eine akademische Gedächtnißrede gehalten am 4. November 1850,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 24 (1851): 543594Google Scholar. See also the English-language version of the essay, produced by Henry B. Smith, in Hagenbach, “Neander's Service as a Church Historian, translated by Prof. H. B. Smith,” Bibliotheca Sacra 8 (October 1851): 822–857.

49 The anonymous essay appeared under the section, “Criticisms on Books,” Review of Compendium of the History of Doctrines, vol. 1, by K. R. Hagenbach, trans. Carl W. Buch, British Quarterly Review 5, no. 9 (February 1847): 283–284 (hereafter “Criticism of Books”). On the character of the periodical, see Osbourn, R. V., “The British Quarterly Review,” The Review of English Studies 1 (April 1950): 147152Google Scholar.

50 Criticism of Books,” 283–284. Cf. Hurst, “Hagenbach on the Later History of the Church,” 212–215.

51 “The Life of Jesus, critically examined. By Dr. David Friedrich Strauss,” British Quarterly Review 5, no. 9 (February 1847): 206–264, here 251, 252, 257, 258, 261. Cf. Strauss, David Friedrich, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, trans. Eliot, George, 3 vols. (London: Chapman Bros., 1846)Google Scholar; originally published in German as Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, kritische bearbeitet, 2 vols. (Tübingen: C. F. Osiander, 1835–1836)Google Scholar.

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53 Hagenbach, Compendium of the History of Doctrines, 2:431–438.

54 Hagenbach, Compendium of the History of Doctrines, 2:432.

55 See, for example, Hagenbach, Compendium of the History of Doctrines, 2:434n8, 436n9, and 438n10.

56 “Criticism of Books,” 284.

57 Review of Die Kirchengeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, aus dem Standpunkte des evangelischen Protestantismus betrachtet, in einer Reihe Vorlesungen, by Hagenbach, K. R., The Princeton Review 22, no. 3 (July 1850): 347Google Scholar.

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59 Schaff, Philip, History of the Apostolic Church, with a General Introduction to Church History (New York: Charles Scribner, 1853), 107Google Scholar; Schaff, “The Evangelical Catholic Period of Organic Development in German Protestant Historiography,” in Philip Schaff, 50n41.

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62 Theodore Parker to Ellen Grover, November 1, 1853, in The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, ed. Weiss, John, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864), 1:342Google Scholar. See also Puknat, Siegfried B., “De Wette in New England,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 102 (1958): 376–95Google Scholar.

63 Hurst, “Hagenbach on the Later History of the Church,” 215.

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72 Smith to Horatio Southgate, May 15, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 67; Smith to his parents, June 12, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 69.

73 See, for example, the letters sent from Smith to his parents, April 30, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 64–66; Smith to Southgate, May 15, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 66–69; Smith to his parents, June 12, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 69; and Smith to a friend, June 30, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 69–72.

74 Smith to his parents, August 15, 1839, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 74–75.

75 Henry B. Smith, “Introductory Note,” in Gieseler, Text-book, 1:iii–iv.

76 Smith to his wife Elizabeth L. Smith, August 31, 1859, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 218–219. Cf. Smith to Hagenbach, March 10, 1862, in StaBS, PA 838a D 407.

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83 Henry B. Smith to K. R. Hagenbach, March 10, 1862, in StaBS, PA 838a D 407. In April of the same year, Smith wrote to Tholuck in Halle: “Our dear country is now passing through a terrible conflict, but it never was so strong, it never was so united, as it is now. We look forward with faith and hope to the issue. We believe that the slave-power has received its death-blow. And we never had so much faith in the republic as we have now” (Smith to Tholuck, April 1862, in E. L. Smith, Henry Boynton Smith, 230). On Smith's role supporting the North in the Civil War, see Smith, “Moral Aspects of the Present Struggle,” American Theological Review 3 (October 1861): 710733Google Scholar; and Smith, “British Sympathy with America,” American Theological Review 4 (July 1862): 487544Google Scholar, subsequently reissued as British Sympathy with America: A Review of the Course of the Leading Periodicals of Great Britain upon the Rebellion in America (New York: W. H. Bidwell, 1862)Google Scholar; and the sermon he delivered after Lincoln's assassination, Smith, “Sermon XXI,” in Our Martyr President, Abraham Lincoln: Voices from the Pulpit of New York and Brooklyn (New York: Tibbals and Whiting, 1865), 359–81Google Scholar. On the broader context of his views, see Noll, Mark A., The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006)Google Scholar; and Miller, Randall M., Stout, Harry S., and Wilson, Charles Reagan, eds., Religion and the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

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97 Smith to Hagenbach, April 6, 1867, in StaBS, PA 838a D 407.

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99 See Farley, Edward, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Robert Lynn, Wood, “Notes toward a History: Theological Encyclopedia and the Evolution of Protestant Seminary Curriculum, 1808–1868,” Theological Education 17, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 118141Google Scholar; and Miller, Glenn T., Piety and Profession: American Protestant Theological Education, 1870–1970 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007), 4850, 145Google Scholar.

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121 Hurst to Hagenbach, February 18, 1866, in StaBS, PA 838 D 191.

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