The Influence of Metaphysical and Epistemological Presuppositions
on Jesus Research Then and Now:
Reconsidering the Christ-Myth Debate
Peter DE MEY (K.U.Leuven)
In this paper I will confront you with part of my research on the Wirkungsgeschichte of a
controversial book, written in 1909 by Arthur Drews, professor of philosophy at the Technische
Hochschule of Karlsruhe, in which it is argued that Jesus never existed as a historical person, but is a
fiction of the early Church. Drews’s book is entitled Die Christus-mythe, knew many reprints and was
already available in a French and English translation in 1910.1 The author is no original thinker – his
work is a compilation of arguments developed by others 2 –, and is not really convincing. But, because
his work arose vivid reactions among ordinary believers, a lot of theologians felt challenged to take
position against Drews. This even happened by means of a public debate, as the one organized by the
German monistic union. The Berliner Religionsgespräch: Hat Jesus gelebt? took place in the Berlin
zoo and was attended by 5000 persons. In our library we dispose of a French translation of the
proceedings.3 Moreover, critical articles were published in major theological journals like the
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Theologie und Glaube, Die Christliche Welt, Zeitschrift für
wissenschaftliche Theologie and the Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift. Protestant theologians such as
Wilhelm Herrmann, Friedrich Loofs, Ernst Troeltsch, Johannes Weiss and Georg Wobbermin, but also
the Catholic dogmatician Franz Xaver Kiefl4 found it useful to publish a smaller or larger monograph
in reaction to this attack on the basis of the Christian faith.
I made use of the ‘Verbesserte und erweiterte Ausgabe’ of A. D REWS, Die Christusmythe, Jena, Eugen
Diederichs, 1910.
2
In the introduction Drews situates himself in the footprints of David Friedrich Strauss who in his Leben Jesu
“attempted for the first time to reduce the miraculous stories in the Gospels to myths and pious fictions” (p. VI)
and of Bruno Bauer who denied the historical existence of Jesus. Among the more recent sources of inspiration
he refers to the British scholar John M. Robertson who published a book on Christianity and Mythology in 1900
and to the American William Benjamin Smith who published a monograph on the pre-Christian Jesus in 1906.
3
Jésus a-t-il vécu? Controverse religieuse sur «Le mythe du Christ» ayant lieu à Berlin, au Jardin zoologique,
les 31 Janvier et 1er février 1910, par les soins de l’Union moniste allemande, Paris, Albert Messein, 1912.
4
Even if the constraints of this paper don’t allow me to deal with this author in much detail, I prefer to introduce
his thought at least briefly. Kiefl (1869-1928) was between 1905 and 1911 professor of dogmatics at the faculty
of theology of Würzburg university. He polemicized against the ideas of liberal Protestant theologians, but he
found it important to take their work seriously. Therefore he became suspect of representing modernistic ideas.
In his inaugural lecture he had already criticized the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule for they made no longer a
distinction between Christianity and other historical realities. His main target, however, was Loisy, who in his
L’Évangile et l’Église had denied that the core of Christian dogmatics had been proclaimed by Jesus himself.
The Catholic faith must hold on to the insight that the Christ of faith is at the same time the Jesus of history.
Kiefl’s point of departure was his belief in the harmony between science and faith. In the journal Hochland this
dogmatician published in 1910 a first review of A. DREWS, Der Monismus, dargestellt in Beiträgen seiner
Vertreter, Jena, 1908, entitled Der Monismus in der Gegenwart. He criticized the eclectism of this movement,
but he invited Christian apologetics no longer to neglect the mystical components of Christianity and only
highlighting its intellectual components. The monistic emphasis on God’s immanence is not foreign to trinitarian
theology. After the appearance of Die Christusmythe, Kiefl was the only scholar to explore the philosophical
presuppositions of Drews’s position, in his book Der geschichtliche Christus und die moderne Philosophie: eine
genetische Darlegung der philosophischen Voraussetzungen im Streit um die Christusmythe, Mainz, 1911. The
major philosophical source for Drews’s ideas is, in his opinion, Hegel, who considered ideas, and not
personalities as the leading forces of the historical process. In a book written in reaction to his opponents – A.
DREWS, Die Christusmythe. Zweiter Teil: Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu. Eine Antwort an die
Schriftgelehrten mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der theologischen Methode, Jena, 1911 – even Drews praised
1
Interestingly this debate was not limited to the German-speaking world only. The debate on the
English translation of Drews’s book was especially carried on in The American Journal of Theology,
the precursor of The Journal of Religion. At least one extensive apologetical reaction was published in
France by a priest of Saint Sulpice.5 Within the limits of this presentation I have to restrict myself to
the study of a selection of some German reactions.6 Another limitation pertains to the fact that I will
only discuss reactions by fundamental theologians, and will not take into account the exclusively
exegetical objections to his work.7 I will especially pay attention to the position of Ernst Troeltsch in
the debate. His essay on Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben receives still much
attention in scholarly literature. This is, however, not true for the Christ-Myth debate as such. Brian
Gerrish’s Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch’s Stand in the “Christ-Myth” Debate, a chapter of a
book published in 1982, is to my opinion the last major publication on this debate.8 I hope that my
paper, which will especially focus on the metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions of the
authors I discuss, will justify why this debate remains an important one. In the third part I make a link
with the monistic worldview of Gerd Lüdemann, a contemporary partaker in the Quest for the
Historical Jesus and a member of the Jesus Seminar.
the work of this theologian, while at the same time once more ridiculizing the apparent impotence of the liberal
Protestant theologians: “Es ist charakteristisch und beschämend, daß ein römischer Theologe, Kiefl, es sein
mußte, de in seiner soeben erschienenen, sehr lesenswerten Schrift diesen Zusammenhang mit Entschiedenheit
herausgearbeitet und das ganze Problem damit auf ein höheres Niveau gehoben hat.” See about this stage in
Kiefl’s career K. HAUSBERGER, Franz Xaver Kiefl (1869-1928): Schellverteidiger, Antimodernist und
Rechtskatholik (Quellen und Studien zur neueren Theologiegeschichte, 6), Regensburg, Pustet, 2003, pp. 215231..
5
L. CL. FILLION, L’existence historique de Jésus et le rationalisme contemporain, Paris, 1909.
6
In her lecture Sheila Davaney will deal in part with Shirley Jackson Case (1872-1947). He formed part of the
so-called Chicago School of Theology, a school characterized by its preference for the “sociohistorical method”.
The two articles which Case wrote in reaction to Drews’s book, had in 1912 been expanded into a monograph.
See about this school, a.o., W. CREIGHTON PEDEN, W., The Chicago School (1906-1926) in American Religious
Thought, in Ultimate Reality and Meaning 6 (1983) 51-79.
7
The following monographs in English belong to this kind of reactions: F.C. CONYBEARE, The Historical Christ,
or an investigation of the views of J.M. Robertson, A. Drews and W.B. Smith, London, 1914; H.J. ROSSINGTON,
Did Jesus Really Live? A Reply to ‘the Christ Myth’, London, Philip Green, 1911; T.J. THORBURN, Jesus the
Christ: Historical or Mythical?: A Reply to Professor Drews’ Die Christusmythe, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1912.
In 1922 the German Catholic scholar Karl Staab published Der Kampf von Arthur Drews gegen die
Geschichtlichkeit Jesu. Eine kritische Betrachtung der neuesten Phase in der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. He
considers his book as a sequel to the one by Kiefl, who had discussed the philosophical background of Drews’s
insights. He focuses for his part on the historical arguments. In the opening chapter the author distinguishes his
approach from the liberal Protestant theology – reference is made to Troeltsch, Bousset, Wobbermin and Weiss –
which was at first co-responsible for Drews’s method, and which now seems to capitulate before this denial of
the historicity of Christ. An appropriate Catholic rejection of this sort of attacks must defend the historical basis
of the Christian faith, without denying the need of an investment of faith. Compare the final lines of his work.
“Und doch ist seinen, mit dem Aufgebot von so viel Gelehrsamkeit und ermüdender Kleinarbeit geschriebenen
Werken auch eine positive Frucht nicht versagt: Es ist die eine Erkenntnis, daß die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu
unerschütterlich feststeht im Mittelpunkt der Weltgeschichte; und die andere Erkenntnis, daß vom Bilde der
geschichtlichen Christus die Kritik weder das Gewand der Gottheit noch das der Menschheit abzustreifen
imstande ist. Nur dem wird sich das Geheimnis der Person Jesu Christi ganz erschließen, der ihm im Glauben
naht.” In another reaction by a catholic apologist, K. GRÖBER, Christus lebte: eine Kritik der “Christusmythe”
Arthur Drews’, Konstanz, Oberbadischer Verlag, 1923, in which counterevidence is given for the historicity of
Jesus, the responsibility of liberal protestant theology has equally been underlined. “Die protestantische liberale
Theologie kam und riß von den wunden Schultern des Herrn den sternenbesäten Königsmantel der Ewigkeit und
von seinem dornenumflochtenen Haupt den strahlenden Nimbus des göttlichen Lebens und erfuhr in Drews die
wohlverdiente rute und die klarste Antwort, in welchen Abgrund ihr Weg in gerader Linie führe.”
8
Cf. B.A. GERRISH, Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch’s Stand in the “Christ-Myth” Debate, in ID., The Old
Protestantism and the New. Essays on the Reformation Heritage, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982,
230-247.
1. Arhur Drews
In the first part of his book, dealing with Der vorchristliche Jesus (1-117), Drews argues that the
Christian belief that Jesus is the divine Word become flesh, goes back to an older myth. In some
Jewish circles the cult of a dying and rising saviour carrying the name of Jehoshua or Jesus was
practiced. Drews also discusses the pre-Christian origin or some central dimensions of the New
Testament portrayal of Jesus, namely his birth, baptism, sacrifice, supper, and also the symbolism of
the lamb and the cross. In the second part, Der christliche Jesus (117-230), Drews first discusses Der
paulinische Jesus (117-159). In his opinion Paul made “the first genial framework of a new religion,
built upon Jesus as central concept.” (117) For him it is important to realize that Paul never inquired
much about the personality of Jesus and about his teaching. The only explanation is, in his opinion,
that “he absolutely knew nothing of a human person with this name.”.9 (150) In Tarsus, however, he
had heard about a God with this name, who was venerated in some Jewish sects. (132) Paul made him
the symbol of the ideal human person. (140, 143)
In the second chapter of part II, Der evangelische Jesus (159-216), Drews departs from a rare
consensus between all specialists of the Gospels. “The Gospels are no historical sources in the
ordinary sense of the word, but writings of believers, edifying books, literary sources of the
communty’s Christian consciousness.”10 The critique of the historical character of the Gospels he
borrows from Wrede’s Das Messiasgeheimnis (1901). This liberal theologian retrieves in the Gospel
of Mark, which he situates at the beginning of the Dogmengeschichte, nothing but “poor remains” of
the historical life of Jesus. (161-164) In the work of all liberal theologians Drews has encountered “the
same half comical, half tragical play. On the one hand the Gospels are devaluated and the available
stories are criticized until almost nothing positive remains. On the other hand these scholars are
standing with awe before the historical kernel which is the result of their criticism.”11 Thanks to the
ulgarizing publications by these theologians in the series Religionsgeschichtlicher Volksbücher the
majority of believers have been convinced of these insights, Drews ironically states. (169) Even
orthodox protestantism argues in the same line.12 Only Roman Catholic theology has thoroughly
criticized their method.13 The attempts of liberal Protestantism to situate the remaining significance of
A. DREWS, op. cit., p. 150: “Nicht also weil er Jesus als geschichtliche Persönlichkeit so hoch schätzte und
verehrte, hat Paulus Christus zum Träger und Vermittler der Erlösung gemacht, sondern weil er von einem
geschichtlichen Jesus, von einem menschlichen Individuum dieses Namens, auf den er das Erlösungswerk hätte
übertragen können, überhaupt nichts wußte.” This statement is followed by a quotation from Wilhelm Wrede’s
book on Paul: “Vertraute Jünger konnten nicht so leicht glauben, der Mann, der mit ihnen in Kapernaum zu
Tisch gesessen oder auf dem galiläischen See gefahren war, sei der Schöpfer der Welt (!). Für Paulus fiel dies
Hindernis fort.” On p. 150 he speaks of two possibilities to understand the relationship between Paul and the
historical Jesus: “Die Tatsache steht also fest, daß Paulus von einem geschichtlichen Jesus nichts gewußt hat,
und, wenn er etwas von ihm gewußt haben sollte, dieser Jesus bei ihm doch jedenfalls keine Rolle spielt und
keinen Einfluß auf die Entwicklung seiner religiösen Weltanschauung ausgeübt hat.”
10
Ibid.,p. 159: “Wie weit auch die Ansichten auf dem Gebiete der Evangelienkritik noch immer
auseinandergehen mögen: in einem stimmen doch gegenwärtig alle wirklich kompetenten Beurteiler mit seltener
Einmütigkeit überein: die Evangelien sind keine Geschichtsurkunden im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes,
sondern Glaubensschriften, Erbauungsbücher, literarische Urkunden des christlichen Gemeindebewußtseins.”
11
Ibid., p. 170: “Man greift zu Beyschlag, Harnack, Bernhard Weiß, zu Pfleiderer, Jülicher und Holtzmann. Man
schlägt Bousset nach, der die Existenz eines historischen Jezus mit so großer Entschiedenheit und Wärme gegen
einen Kalthoff verteidigt hat – überall das gleiche halb komische, halb traurige Schauspiel: auf der einen Seite
entwertet man die evangelischen Quellen und zersetzt die vorhandenen Berichte mit seiner Kritik bis zu einem
solchen Grade, daß kaum noch etwas Positives übrig bleibt, auf der andern versetzt man sich in pathetische
Begeisterung für den so erhaltenen “historischen Kern”.”
12
Ibid., p. 188: “Ja sogar einer der Führer der protestantischen Orthodoxie, Professor Kähler in Halle, hat, wie
das kirchliche Montasblatt für Rheinland und Westfalen meldete, auf einem in Dortmund gehaltenen
theologischen Diskussionsabend zugestanden, daß wir “kein einziges authentisches Wort Jesu” besitzen.”
13
Ibid., p. 170: “Kann man es der katholischen Theologie unter solchen Umständen verdenken, wenn sie auf
diese ganze protestantische “Kritik” mit unverhohlenem Mitleid, ja – Verachtung blickt und nicht müde wird, ihr
9
the historical Jesus especially in his unique personality, have been undermined by partakers of this
movement. Whereas Holtzmann and Harnack were laying emphasis on the uniqueness of Jesus
relationship with the father, Wrede has shown that such a relationship was already practiced in
Judaism.14 Thanks God, Drews can quote from the conclusion of Schweitzer’s Von Reimarus zu
Wrede, because this theologian is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth, as he has been portrayed by his
colleagues, “has never existed.”15 Drews is convinced that we are confronted in the Gospels not with a
divinized human person, but with a humanized God. (203)
In the final section of his book, entitled Das religiöse Problem der Gegenwart (216-230), Drews
defends an alternative for liberal protestantism. His book hurts them so much, because they had
reduced the Christian faith to the historical personality of the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and had
considered, following the anti-metaphysical spirit of post-Kantianism, the Christian soteriology as a
secundary addition to the original faith. Drews for his part is convinced that “the idea of divinohumanity” constitutes the basis of the Christian soteriology. This idea, however, had been projected
into “the mythical personality of the Logos”. Once this fundamental insight is clear, the human person
can discover that (s)he is been called to become god, that “(s)he can be reborn as a true God and, as a
result, really become one with God.” (226) Thus, Drews hopes to maintain the core of the Christian
soteriology. Liberal Protestantism still believes in the fiction of a historical mediator, because it starts
from the dualistic separation of God and world. One better gives up one’s prejudices against the
immanent God of pantheism.16 Together with Eduard von Hartmann Drews is, however, in favour of
substituting “an idealistic monism which does not exclude, but include the existence of God” for the
die Inkonsequenz, Halbheit und Ergebnisloskgkeit aller ihrer Bemühungen um die Aufhellung der Ursprünge des
Christentumes vorzuhalten?” Ook verder in zijn boek contrasteert hij de vergeefse poging van het protestantisme
om de evangelies als de historische basis van het christelijk geloof voor te stellen, met het katholieke bewustzijn
dat we hier met een door de christelijke gemeenschappen ontwikkelde traditie te maken hebben. Ibid., p. 219:
“Man kann der ‘katholischen’ Kirche, sowohl der römischen wie der griechischen, das Zugeständnis nicht
versagen, daß sie auch in dieser Beziehung den Geist des ursprünglichen Christentums noch am getreuesten
bewahrt hat. Sie allein ist auch heute noch, was das Christentum seinem Wesen nach einmal war:
Gemeinschaftsreligion in dem angeführten Sinne. Sie beruft sich hierbei mit Recht für die Wahrheit ihrer
religiösen Weltanschauung und die Berechtigung ihrer hierarchischen Ansprüche auf die ‘Tradition’, nur daß sie
freilich selbst diese ‘Tradition’ im eigenen Interesse erst gemacht hat, sie also zwar einen ‘geschichtlichen’ Jesus
lehrt, aber freilich nur einen traditionell geschichtlichen, womit über dessen wirkliche geschichtliche Existenz
noch nicht das geringste ausgemacht ist. Der Protestantismus hingegen ist ganz unhistorisch, wenn er die
Evangelien für das Ursprüngliche, für die ‘geoffenbarte’ Unterlage des Glaubens an Christus ausgibt, als ob sie
unabhängig von der Kirche entstanden wären und die wahren Anfänge des Christentums darstellten. (…)
Christentum im ursprünglichen Sinne ist nur – ‘katholisches’ Christentum, und dieses ist der Glaube der Kirche
an das Erlösungswerk des Gottmenschen Christus in seiner Kirche und durch den von seinem ‘Geist’ beseelten
Gemeindeorganismus.”
14
Drews concludeert hieruit: “In Wahrheit ist dasjenige, was and dem überlieferten Jesus wirklich “einzigartig”
ist, sein Glaube an die unmittelbare Nähe des messianischen Gottesreiches und die hierauf gegründete Forderung
der Sinnesumwandlung für uns ohne alle religiöse und ethische Bedeutung und höchstens nur noch von
kulturhistorischem Interesse.” (ibid., p. 193)
15
Ibid., p. 197, onder verwijzing naar A. SCHWEITZER, Von Reimarus bis Wrede, p. 396: “‘Es gibt nichts
Negativeres als das Ergebnis der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. Der Jesus von Nazareth, der als Messias auftrat, die
Sittlichkeit des Gottesreiches verkündete, das Himmelreich auf Erden gründete und starb, um seinem Werke die
Weihe zu geben, hat nie existiert. Er ist eine Gestalt, die vom Rationalismus entworfen, vom Liberalismus belebt
und von der modernen Theologie mit geschichtlicher Wissenschaft überkleistert worden.’ Mit diesen Worten des
Theologen Schweitzer kann sich auch die vorliegende Untersuchung einverstanden erklären.” De cursivering
werd door Drey aangebracht.
16
Vgl. voor een poëtische verwoording van zijn godsbeeld, ibid., p. 227-228: “Das Leben der Welt als Gottes
Leben; die kampferfüllte und leidvolle Entwicklung der Menschheit als göttliche Kampfes- und
Passionsgeschichte; der Weltprozeß als der Prozeß eines Gottes, der in jedem einzelnen Geschöpfe ringt, leidet,
siegt und stirbt, um im religiössen Bewußtsein des Menschen die Schranken der Endlichkeit zu überwinden und
seinen dereinstigen Triumph über das gesamte Weltleid vorwegzunehmen: das ist die Wahrheit der christlichen
Erlösungslehre.”
naturalistic monism, defended by Darwin and Haeckel, among others.17 His idealistic monism
symbolises the reconciliation of a form of Christianity which has given up its dualistic worldview and
its superstitional belief in a historical Jesus with a form of monism which has given up the “equally
fatal superstitional belief in the unique reality of matter.”18
2. The Variety of Reactions to Drews’s Position by (Former) Ritschlians
Ernst Troeltsch: Mediating between History and Community
Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) wrote his essay on Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den
Glauben in 1911. At that moment he was already for more than 15 years professor of systematic
theology at the University of Heidelberg. Some years later, tired of the opposition of more
conservative Lutheran theologians in his own faculty, he was glad to be able to accept the chair of
philosophy at the University of Berlin. In an autobiographical essay which he wrote shortly before his
untimely death, Troeltsch himself pointed out that the major work of his Berlin period, Der
Historismus und seine Probleme (1922), had been written in continuity with his earlier research on Die
Absolutheit des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte (1902). In the older book, he had reacted
against philosophers and theologians who defend the absoluteness of Christianity on the basis of
norms external to history. Troeltsch, for his part, was convinced that the norms to evaluate historical
religions must be derived from history. In Der Historismus und seine Probleme he wanted to analyse
and assess the values of Western culture throughout its history. Here also, Troeltsch is convinced that
these norms have not to be imposed on culture from the standpoint of an all-knowing observer. Both
works are, however, not only characterized by the methodological option to study religion and culture
as historical realities, but Troeltsch also deems it possible to develop a metaphysical view on the
totality of religion and culture. He believes that God guides both realities towards their eternal goal,
which remains, however, unknown to us.19 Thus, throughout his career, Troeltsch kept his
Ibid., p. 228: “… wenn sie dahin gelangt sein warden, einzusehen, daß die wahre Einheitslehre nur
Alleinheitslehre, ein idealistischer Monismus im Gegensatze zu dem heute noch überwiegenden naturalistischen
Monismus im Sinne eines Haeckel sein kann, ein Monismus, der die Existenz eines Gottes nicht aus-, sondern
einschließt. (…)”
18
Ibid., p. 229: “Je früher die Christen durch Verzicht auf ihren Aberglauben an einen historischen Jesus und die
Monisten durch die Preisgabe ihres ebenso verhängnisvollen Aberglaubens an die alleinige Realität des Stoffes
und die alleinseligmachende Wahrheit des naturwissenschaftlichen Mechanismus zu einer gegenseitigen
Versöhnung reif sein werden, desto besser wird es für beide sein. (…)”
19
Compare the following quotations: E. TROELTSCH, The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of
Religions, London, 1972 (a translation of the 3d German edition of 1929), p. 100: “As applied to religion, what
is suggested is not a ‘principle’ of religion as a humanly realisable and exhaustible idea, but the concept of a goal
discernible in outline and general direction. What is suggested is the concept of a goal that always remains
transcendent as far as the sum total of its content is concerned, a goal that can be apprehended within history
only in individually conditioned ways. In psychological and epistemological perspective, what is normative and
universally valid thus appears as the concept of a goal toward which mankind is directed. The goal itself,
however, is simply set before man as a higher reality, a creative personal reality that breaks forth out of the
human spirit and has its basis in the unconditioned worth of the inner man. It is this reality that provides the
creative force at work in man’s conception of a goal, his forward-driving restlessness and yearning, his
resistance to the merely natural world. This idea requires a turn to the metaphysical (die metaphysische
Wendung), a retracing of all man’s goals and orientations to a transcendent force that actuates our deepest
strivings and is connected with the creative core of reality”; Der Historismus und seine Probleme. I: das logische
Problem der Geschichtsphilosophie (GS III), Tübingen, 1922, p. 199 (my translation): “This points to a common
spiritual ground, from which everything comes forth, and to an ever renewed tendency towards the higher and
noble. Whether this common ground and common goal can ever become visible on earth, is admittedly beyond
all question. It can only be suspected and believed, it can only surround each individual cultural construction
with the atmosphere of a relation with the supra-individual and the ultimate, it can only break down every
exclusivistic pride and set spurs to an ever repeated gathering up of powers. But it can never be conceived as an
17
methodological preference for the historical method in balance by his interest in the development of a
metaphysics of history. His 1898 article Metaphysik und Geschichte contains in its title the programme
for his whole career. Troeltsch knows that apparently the only alternative for the supernaturalistic
position is that of historicism, which considers “the ideals of all times and of its own time as
historically conditioned and would accept no belief as normative”20. But it needs to be corrected by a
“metaphysics of history” (eine Metaphysik der Geschichte), a belief in the rationality of history which
leads to the recognition that “the Christian truth constitutes the kernel and goal of this history”21.
Troeltsch’s famous essay Über historische und dogmatische Methode der Theologie (1900) has to
be interpreted in the same sense. For many commentators it contains the historicist creed, because of
its classic summary of the historical method in “three essential aspects: the habituation on principle to
historical criticism (historische Kritik); the importance of analogy (Analogie); and the mutual
interrelation of all historical developments (Correlation)”22. The fundamental presupposition of this
method is “the similarity in principle of all historical events” (die prinzipielle Gleichartigkeit alles
historischen Geschehens). Much attention has been paid to the following passage: “Actually, fewer
and fewer historical ‘facts’ are regarded as exempt from the exigencies of the analogical principle;
many would content themselves with placing Jesus’ moral character and the resurrection in this
category.”23 In my opinion Troeltsch is not denying the resurrection of Jesus, but he does not
understand why the application of the historical method can not be useful in this case as well. 24 Many
commentators, however, forget to take into account the final part of his 1900 article as well, in which
he has to answer to some objections of Pfarrer Niebergall, There, Troeltsch has the occasion to clarify
once more how he is able to reconcile the historical method with a metaphysics of history. The
metaphysical belief “that history is not a chaos but issues from unitary forces and aspires towards a
unitary goal” is a necessary presupposition for the deduction of “a scale of values” (eine Werthscala)
out of the same history25.
In his article on Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu Troeltsch mentions Drews only in a
footnote, as an illustration of “the silly question that is just now occupying many people, whether
Jesus ever existed.”26 We know, however, from the revised edition of his 1903 essay Was heißt ‘Wesen
des Christentums’? – that he does not share the worldview which Eduard von Hartmann had
developed, and which implied a strong criticism of neo-protestantism.27 Whereas liberal Protestantism
clings to the personality of Jesus, and neglects the christological dogma, the latter precisely constitutes
the essence of Christianity, according to Hartmann. Troeltsch believes, however, that the dogma has
accomplished goal on earth; and how the universal and the individual will be reconciled so to speak in a life
beyond death, is as dark as everything which lies beyond death. Not the final stage of humankind on earth, but
the individual’s death constitutes the boundary of each philosophy of history.”
20
ZTK 8 (1898), p. 68. Troeltsch’s description of some of the advantages – “a (...) sympathetic co-understanding
of the most different, a sinister skill to dissolute everything which is apparently solid in something fluid and
becoming” – and disadvantages – “the frivolous relativism, for whom everything is something becoming and
disappearing, conditional and relative” – of this ‘modern’ phenomenon has astonishing parallels in contemporary
analyses of the postmodern mood. His remark that in his time theologians are respected only as long as they
restrict themselves to historical studies, seems still to be true today.
21
ZTK 8 (1898), p. 69
22
We will refer mainly to the English translation Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology, in TROELTSCH,
Religion in History (eds. J.L. ADAMS & W.F. BENSE), Minneapolis, 1991, 11-32, p. 13.
23
Ibid., p. 14.
24
That he does not deny the resurrection of Jesus is also clear from the following quotation in Die Bedeutung der
Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben. We use the English translation The Significance of the Historical
Existence of Jesus for Faith, in R. MORGAN & M. PYE (eds.), E. Troeltsch. Writings on Theology and Religion,
1977, 182-207, p. 195: “The Christian believers’ faith in God had at first no dogma and no doctrine but only the
concentration of all religious content in a Jesus transfigured by belief in the resurrection.”
25
E. TROELTSCH, Historical and Dogmatic Method, p. 27.
26
ID., The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus for Faith, in R. MORGAN & M. PYE (eds.), E.
Troeltsch. Writings on Theology and Religion, 1977, 182-207, p. 182.
27
ID., What Does ‘Essence of Christianity’ Mean?, op. cit., 124-181, pp. 170-175.
been interpreted by this philosopher in “a completely new alien sense. For him it is the doctrine of a
continuous unity between the finite and the infinite Spirit, a short formulation of pantheism expressed
mythically in the doctrine of the God-man. The person of Jesus himself is a completely irrelevant
matter and he might just as well never have existed at all. The essence of Christianity is for him the
mythical expression given in Christology to the sameness of God and man, that is, to the sameness of
God and world.”28 In his “pessismistic pantheism”, as Troeltsch qualifies Hartmann’s worldview in a
more precise way, Jesus Christ is the personification of a suffering God, a God who is in turn identical
with “a painful world process”. Troeltsch can only characterize this construction of the essence of
Christianity as “pure fantasy”. It has more affinity “with Brahmanism and Buddhism, and not with
Christianity.” Other than the unity of the person with God, the christological dogma defends “the unity
of the redeemer with God.” In Christ we recognize “the living, sin-forgiving and sanctifying Father.”
As a result of this he has become “an object of devotion in the cult.” It is clear that Troeltsch wants to
substitute a dualistic worldview for the monistic one of von Hartmann en Drews.
With this background we are able to study Troeltsch’s position in the debate in more detail. His
main opponent in Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu seems to be the school of Ritschl, and
particularly Wilhelm Herrmann. He realizes that many modern Christians do no longer believe that the
forgiveness of sins has been brought about by the saving death of one single person in the past. They
rather experience the unity of God and humankind in their soul.29 In such an approach the historical
existence of Christ is no longer a necessity. Compared to this position, Troeltsch considers the
approach to the historical Jesus of the school of Ritschl a “half-way house”. In their opinion,
Christians do no longer have to worry about the historicity of the details of Jesus’ life. What matters
for our redemption is that we are able to appropriate the “religious personality” of Jesus, as he is
mediated by the proclamation of the Christian faith in the community.30 Troeltsch wonders how this
proclamation, if unaccompanied with painstaking historical research, can be effective in his time: “It is
anything but obvious that the religious personality of the historical Jesus can be fully and clearly
known and made directly and personally effective, just like the immediately operative influence of one
man upon another. Even if this way of grasping Jesus ever was a possibility it has in fact certainly
been rendered impossible by modern criticism. If instead one stresses the mediation through the
community and the living effect by means of subsequent Christian personalities, one is then dealing
not with the historical fact but with its infinitely modified and enriched continuing effects, and it is
impossible to say for certain what comes from Jesus and what from the later period and the present.”31
From “Herrmann’s talk about ‘the fact of Christ’ which, however, cannot be established like other
facts buy only seen by faith”32, it is only one step before each reference to the historical Jesus is
abandoned, and before it is assumed that God operates immediately on the human soul. Troeltsch
finally criticizes a last presumption from the Ritschlians, namely that human culture is meaningless
“without the elevating or suggestive impression of the person of Jesus.”33 Confronted with this
“remnant of the ancient doctrine of original sin”, Troeltsch rather believes that the plurality of cultural
expressions arise “from the depth of the divine life”, and that human beings are also free to develop
the future, under the guidance of the same Spirit.34 If Troeltsch is no monistic thinker, as I have argued
on the basis of his reaction to Hartmann and Drews, it now becomes also clear that his dualism will
not have the form of a supernaturalistic divine intervention, but rather that of an immanent divine
agency.
28
Ibid., p. 172.
E. TROELTSCH, The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus for Faith, p. 185.
30
Ibid., p. 187.
31
Ibid., pp. 188-189.
32
Ibid., p. 192.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., p. 193.
29
Troeltsch, for his part, believes to have other reasons for the necessity of the historical existence of
Jesus for faith. The Ritschlians are focussing too much on the individual believer. According to
Troeltsch, the “lack of community and cult is the real sickness of modern Christianity and
contemporary religious practice generally.”35 Prior to all doctrinal developments, the first Christians
first of all gathered to worship Christ. Relying on “the laws of social psychology” Troeltsch argues
that the founder of the Christian religion remained the necessary “archetype” of generations of
Christian communities since then.36 Troeltsch deems it not very likely that a time will come in which
this will no longer be the case.37. Even if “ordinary piety” does not absolutely require the person of
Jesus”, organized Christianity will stand or fall with his existence.38 First of all against Drews, but
most probably also against the reply to Drews of his friend Bousset, and, to a lesser extent, also
against Herrmann and the Ritschlians, he states that “all hope of a non-cultic purely personal and
individual religion of conviction and knowledge is mere illusion.”39 He does not know yet, however,
whether the necessary rediscovery of the importance of community and cult “will take place inside or
outside of our present churches.”40
At the same time, Troeltsch remains an adept of the historical method in theology. A group of
believing Christians gathered around the symbol of the risen Christ. But they had good reasons to do
so.
It is not a question of individual details but of the factuality of the total historical phenomenon of Jesus
and the basic outline of his teaching and his religious personality. This must be capable of being
established by means of historical criticism as historical reality if the ‘symbol of Christ’ is to have a firm
and strong inner basis in the ‘fact’ of Jesus. 41
The verification of the basic historical facts concerning Jesus, even if sometimes denied or
neglected by those who consider belief in Christ’s salvific work the only remedy against original sin42,
35
Ibid., p. 194.
At this point of his argumentation Troeltsch makes a qualitative distinction between “nature religions” and
“religions of spirit”. That he does so, is understandable, given the lack of anthropological field work in his time,
but such an approach is nowadays seldom followed among anthropologists of religion. Cf. ibid., p. 195: “In
nature religions the structures are provided by nature or society. Here the old cultic tradition provides the focal
point. In the religions of spirit it is the prophets and founder personalities who serve as archetypes, authorities,
sources of power and rallying-points.” In Die Absolutheit des Christentums the “lower stages of religion” are
also treated in a prejudiced way. Cf. The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions, London:
SCM Press, 1972, pp. 108-109 and 140-141.
37
Ibid., p. 196: “The third kingdom in which everyone is to be independent as regards religion, and the spirit
fully free to develop in each individual in isolation, will probably never arrive.” On p. 194 he had already cried
out whether Lessing’s “third Gospel” had arrived – something which Lessing himself had thought unlikely in his
time – , given the lack of attention for the historical Jesus among many participants in the debate: “So there
remained nothing but a purely historical factual and a pedagogical and symbolical significance of the person of
Jesus for the Christian idea! We were back with Lessing’s saying about a third Gospel.”
38
Ibid., p. 196-197: “So long as Christianity survives in any form it will always be connected with the central
position of Christ in the cult. It will either exist in this form or not at all.” (…) “For social psychological reasons
he is indispensable for cult, power, efficacy and expansion, and that should be sufficient to justify and assert the
connexion.”
39
Ibid., p. 197. Even if he is not mentioned by name, Bousset seems to be reckoned among “those who think that
it does not matter whether such a symbol is rooted in historical factuality and that the great achievement of
religion in history is precisely the embodiment of ideas in myth”.
40
Ibid., p. 204.
41
Ibid., p. 198. When he repeats this idea on p. 200, the list of things essential to the Christian faith is extended a
little: “Not all the minor details of historical research in theology are at issue here, but the basic facts – the
decisive significance of Jesus’ personality for the origin and formation of faith in Christ, the basic religious and
ethical character of Jesus’ teaching and the transformation of his teaching in the earliest Christian congregations
with their Christ cult.” Contrary to Harnack, Troeltsch does not identify the essence of Christianity with Jesus’
proclamation of the kingdom of God.
42
Troeltsch keeps returning on this. Cf. ibid., p. 200: “Where the historical existence of Jesus is looked at in its
social-psychological significance and not as the only authority and source of power opposed to original sin
36
thus, is believed by Troeltsch to be equally indispensable for the continued existence of Christianity.43
The ‘dogmatician of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule’ also does not want to refuse a Christian
community to be inspired as well by another religious personality.44 Moreover, he becomes more and
more aware of the fact that Christ remains only the indispensable rallying-point of the Christian
religion in a “West Asian, European and American” intellectual context.45 He does not want to make
judgments which are valid for eternity. As far as his period and his cultural environment is concerned,
this is no relativistic position. Once the doubts on the historical person of Jesus are removed, we
cannot but venerate in him “the highest revelation of God accessible to us.”46
Near the end of his article Troeltsch realizes that he has maybe been too much critical against the
Ritschlians, who could be considered as valuable partners in the struggle against those who deny the
existence of Jesus, since they are also convinced of the centrality of Jesus in the cult, and are not
opposed in principle against the application of the historical method in theology.47 I also believe that
Troeltsch is focusing so much on the most appropriate way of countering Drews’s criticism – by
substituting the communautarian relationship to Christ to an individualistic one –, that he forgets that
at other places he has argued in favour of a spiritual-mystical form of Christianity as well, be it never
in isolation of a more cultic and historical approach. This becomes especially clear in the following
quote from his 1912 masterpiece Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen:
(…)”; ibid., p. 202: “It is not a matter of original sin making any divine certainty and power outside Christianity
impossible.”; ibid., p. 205: “If Jesus’ central position is based on the miracle of a strength and certainty which
overcomes all original sin’s weakness and incapacity for faith, then the religion of humanity will always have to
remain Christianity; all religious community for all eternity will have to centre on the person of Jesus.”
43
Ibid., p. 201: “So we must in the academic arguments use the weapons of historical science to secure the
factuality and knowability of Jesus, otherwise Christianity will not go on.”
44
Ibid.: “Neither will it concentrate everything in Jesus. Jesus will not be the only historical fact that is
significant for our faith. Other historical personalities too can receive their dure and be seen in some sense as
visitble symbols and guarantees of faith that sustain our strength. There is no need either to stop at the
Reformation. Such historical facts can be found right down to the present.”
45
Ibid., pp. 204-205: “Within our cultural sphere it would be impossible and wrong to expect some other
religiosity than the Christian one which is the result and the foundation of West Asian, European and American
intellectual history. If within our culture religious life is to re-emerge at all, it will in all essentials stream from
Christianity and find its symbol in the person of Jesus.” (…) “For as long as our culture which has in essence
arisen around the Mediterranean lasts it is highly improbable that a new religion will emerge which will compare
with Christianity in versatility, profundity and grandeur. Our religious life has probably gained for all time its
base and driving force from here. (…) But whether this culture itself will last for ever and extend to the whole
world is a question which no one can answer. It is therefore impossible either to affirm or to deny that
Christianity will last for ever and community and cult remain bound to the historical personality of Jesus.”
Incorrectly observing such ideas only in his 1923 lecture on Die Stellung des Christentums unter den Weltreligionen, John Hick presents Troeltsch in the final stage of his academic career as a proto-pluralist. Cf. P. DE
MEY, Ernst Troeltsch: A Moderate Pluralist? An Evaluation of His Reflections on the Place of Christianity
among the Other Religions, in T. MERRIGAN & J. HAERS (eds.), The Myriad Christ, Plurality and the Quest for
Unity in Contemporary Christology (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 152), Leuven,
Peeters, 2000, 349-380.
46
Ibid., p. 206: “This haunting anxiety of a relativism that plays with big numbers must be driven from our
heads. We have resolutely to grasp the divine as it presents itself to us in our time. In our time it presents itself in
history and in the connexion of the individual’s subjectivity with the substance of an overarching totality of
historical life. This in turn receives its most important strength and certainty from the historical person of Jesus.
For us ‘God in Christ’ can only mean that in Jesus we reverence the highest revelation of God accessible to us
and that we make the picture of Jesus the rallying-point of all God’s testimonies to himself found in our sphere
of life.” To speak about Jesus as “the highest revelation of God” is very similar to the outcome of his
investigation of the great religions of the world in Die Absolutheit des Christentums. Cf. The Absoluteness of
Christianity, p. 111: “Among the great religions, Christianity is in actuality the strongest and most concentrated
revelation of personalistic religious apprehension.”
47
Ibid., p. 201: “It might seem as though this solution is basically very similar to the Schleiermacher-RitschlHerrmann school type of mediation described earlier. That is more than just appearance. It really is the case.”
Ibid., p. 204: “Few have stressed the significance of faith in Christ for church, cult and kingdom of God as
strongly as Ritschl and Herrmann.”
My own theology is certainly “spiritual”, but for that very reason it seeks to make room for the historical
element, and for the ritual and sociological factor which is bound up wit hit.48
Brian Gerrish, who pays most attention to the position of Troeltsch in the Christ-myth debate, asks
whether the Christian faith is not sufficiently justified by the attachment of a community to the symbol
of Christ.49 Therefore, he considers the position of Ritschlians like Wobbermin and Harnack “an
improvement on Troeltsch’s stand in the Christ-myth debate.”
The sole alternatives are not either to demonstrate the truth of religion by historical research [Troeltsch]
or to show it by rational deduction [Bousset]. There is a third alternative, which Wobbermin called
“discovering” or “reaching” the truth (Auffindung, Erlangung) as it presents itself in actual historical
experience (Geschichte).50
In my opinion, Gerrish is not doing justice to the position of Troeltsch here, as if he were only
interested in a justification of faith on historical grounds. Let’s, however, have a look at some
alternative answers to the problem of Drews, which this scholar briefly indicated.
Wilhelm Bousset: History as Mere Vehicle for Rationalistic Ideas
The reaction to Drews’s book by Wilhelm Bousset and his subsequent systematic reflection on the
relationship between religion and history, are characterized by his sympathy for the neo-Kantian
philosophy of Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773-1843).51 In 1904 the Göttingen philosopher Leonard Nelson
reedited Fries’s most elementary book, Wissen, Glaube und Ahndung and tried to establish a
neufriessche Schule which was joined by Rudolf Otto and Wilhelm Bousset. Fries distinguished
between three epistemological categories.52 Science helps us to understand the world of appearances,
which is structured by means of the Kantian categories of space and time. Faith helps us to understand
the eternal ideas. It is not a matter of religion or piety but of metaphysics. Living religion comes to
existence when these ideas are practically lived or divined. (Ahndung) For Bousset this third type of
knowledge constitutes the core of Fries’s philosophy of religion. In fact it is rather a kind of religious
feeling which helps us to experience the eternal in time. In fact it are the religious symbols of the
history of religions that are experienced in first instance.
According to Bousset the eternal form of reason is revealing itself progressively in the course of
history. Therefore it is necessary that the concrete and the individual are overcome and that the
48
E. TROELTSCH, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, San Francisco, Harper, 1960, p. 985 n. 504.
Commenting on this text, Johann Hinrich Claussen argues that the spiritualistic attitude in Troeltsch’s religiosity
is balanced by his relation to Jesus. Cf. J.H. CLAUSSEN, Die Jesus-Deutung von Ernst Troeltsch im Kontext der
liberalen Theologie (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 99), Tübingen: Mohr, 1997, p. 282.
49
B. GERRISH, op. cit., p. 242: “Here, it seems, Troeltsch makes an unwarranted move. He insists that a religious
symbol must be rooted in history, and from this he infers – invalidly, I think – that faith therefore needs
assurance about the historical Jesus. In so doing, he identifies the historical anchorage of the symbol with its
(putative) historical origins. But, surefly, the very fact that the symbol is embedded in the life of a community
gives it the concreteness and factual givenness which Troeltsch desires. (…) If the symbol belongs to the
community, and maintains the community in being, it has an objectivity which places it over against the
individual. Why may not this, of itself, constitute the required historical roots?”
50
Ibid., pp. 246-247. Cf. the final lines of Gerrish’s article: “Whatever may be said about it, there surely cannot
be any need for faith to await the latest results [of historical inquiry, Historie] with anxiety. Explication of the
life of faith and the Christian symbol will always vary. But the symbol survives them all, and it has the
surprising power to speak for itself. It is not the task of the historical theologian to prove anything, but only to
understand what is undubitably there. He can never be more, and should be no less, than a hearer of the Word.”
51
W. BOUSSET, Die Bedeutung der Person Jesu für den Glauben: Historische und rationale Grundlagen des
Glaubens, in M. FISCHER & M. SCHIELE (eds.), Fünfter Weltkongress für Freies Christentum und Religiösen
Fortschritt, Berlin 5. Bis 10. August 1910: Protokoll der Verhandlungen, Berlin-Schöneberg, Protestantischer
Schriftenvertrieb, 1911, 291-305; ID., Religion und Geschichte, in Bijlage tot het jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit
te Groningen 1911/1912, Groningen, Wolters, 1912.
52
See also W. BOUSSET, Kantisch-Friessche Religionsphilosophy und ihre Anwendung auf die Theologie, in
Theologische Rundschau 12 (1909) 419-436, 471-488.
universal and the eternal shines through the historical and contingent. In history, however, we can only
approach the eternal truth. We will always be in need of images and symbols. The historical, however,
can never be the ground of faith, but only an illustration, an image of faith. The history of religions
constitutes a process of enlightenment. What is concrete and individual becomes less and less
important. Jesus’ significance lies in the fact that he has created the foundational symbols of our faith,
which reflect the eternal, and has become in his own person the most effective symbol of our faith.53 If
it would once be proven, however, that Jesus never existed, the eternal truths would still be a sufficient
ground for faith.54 In his article on Religion und Geschichte Bousset objects to the reaction of
Troeltsch to Drews. The cult of Christ does not belong to the eternal necessities of religious life.55
Herrmann and Wobbermin: Experiencing the Historic Portrayal of Christ
Wilhelm Herrmann and Georg Wobbermin can be considered as the heirs of Martin Kähler. In his
programmatic essay Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus
(1892), the latter had called historical-critical research into the person of Jesus irrelevant, because the
Christian faith is founded on the image of Christ provided in the gospels. In Der historische Christus
der Grund unseres Glaubens (1892) Herrmann had also criticized the attempts to reconstruct the
biography of Jesus in an objective way, but he considered the religious personality of Jesus as the
ground of faith.56 The certainty of faith, so he now argues against Drews, does not rely on an external
source, legitimated by historical research, but upon the reality of Jesus’ life which we experience.57
We know that Troeltsch had distinguished his position especially from the one of Herrmann in Die
Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben, Herrmann, therefore, published a rather bitter
book review on Troeltsch’s work.58 In this review Herrmann repeats the epistemological distinction
W. BOUSSET, Die Bedeutung, p. 17: “Wir dürfen Jesu von Nazareth als den schöpferischen Genius verehren,
der uns die grundlegenden Symbole unseres Glaubens schuf und selbst in seiner Person (…) das andauernd
wirkungskräftigen Symbol unseres Glaubens wird.”
54
Ibid.: “… wenn die Wissenschaft das äuβerste Verdikt spräche, daβ Jesus nicht existiert habe, der Glaube kann
nicht verloren gehen, denn er ruht auf seinen eigenen ewigen Fundamenten.”
55
Compare K. LEHMKÜHLER, Die Bedeutung des Kults für das Christentum der Moderne: eine Diskussion
zwischen Wilhelm Bousset und Ernst Troeltsch, in LÜDEMANN, G., Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule: Facetten
eines theologiegeschichtlichen Umbruchs (Studien und Texte zur religionsgeschichtlichen Schule, 1), Frankfurt
am Main, Lang, 1996, 207-227. Among the American reactions to Drews’s book, the position of Douglas C.
Macintosh seems comparable to the one of Bousset. Trying to answer the question whether belief in the
historicity of Jesus is indispensable to Christian faith, Macintosh argues that the Jesus has shown in an
exemplary way how humans can relate to God. The divine-human relationship, which is the essence of
Christianity, would, however, also have become clear in another way in human history, if Jesus had not existed.
See D.C. MACINTOSH, Is Belief in the Historicity of Jesus Indispensable to Christian Faith?, in The American
Journal of Theology 15 (1911) 362-372; 16 (1912) 106-110. Macintosh defended an “epistemological monism”,
especially in the following article: Is “Realistic Epistemological Monism Inadmissible”?, in Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method 10 (1913) 701-710. Macintosh also published on Troeltsch. See
ID., Troeltsch’s Theory of Religious Knowledge, in American Journal of Theology 23 (1919) 274-289. At the end
of his article, he makes the suggestion to substitute “a scientific empirical theology on the basis of successful
experimental religion with its experienced revelation of the divine reality” for “Troeltsch’s still essentially
eclectic dogmatics.”
56
See W. HERRMANN, Der geschichtliche Christus der Grund unseres Glaubens, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und
Kirche 2 (1892) 232-273.
57
ID., Die mit der Theologie verknüpfte Not der evangelischen Kirche und ihre Überwindung
(Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart, IV/21), Tübingen, Mohr, 1913, p.
26: “… ein von uns erlebte Tatsache”.
58
W. HERRMANN, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben: Eine Besprechung des
gleichnamigen Vortrags von Ernst Troeltsch, in ID., Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie (Theologische
Bücherei, 36), München, Kaiser, 1967, 2:282-289. See also B.W. SOCKNESS, Against False Apologetics:
Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 105), Tübingen: Mohr,
1998.
53
between history known by science (Historie) and history presently experienced by the individual
(Geschichte). Faith must maintain a link with history, but only in so far as “historical events”
(geschichtliche Ereignisse) are experienced by the believer. He reproaches Troeltsch to be an
intellectualist who does not understand that religion is an experience (ein Erleben). However, he can
only agree with Troeltsch’s statement that, “what is essential in all religion is not dogma and idea but
cult and community, living communion with the deity.” He is only surprised about this sudden change
in Troeltsch’s habitual way to speak about Christianity, and does not agree with the reason for
Troeltsch’s statement. “Religion does not arise out of wishes, but rather from obedience to inevitable
truth.”59 As Brent Sockness explains, “Christ’s significance for the Christian community is a function
of his Lordship over the lives of Christians, not their need for a central ‘rallying point’.”60
Wobbermin, for his part, equally borrowed the terms historisch and geschichtlich from Kähler.61
The results of the historical investigation of the life of Jesus are of secondary importance. Every
believer can experience the historic (geschichtlich) image of Christ, and this experience is not hindered
by the results of historical criticism. These theologians, however, are not always consistent in their
epistemology. Sometimes they express their confidence in the historicity of the portrayal of Jesus in
the synoptic gospels.
Friedrich Loofs: Relying on the Supernaturalistic Portrayal of Christ in the Gospels
Another German theologian, Friedrich Loofs, is described by Brian Gerrish as a conservative
Ritschlian or a “right-wing liberal.”62 In his reaction to Drews it becomes clear that conservative
protestants were not bothered by any form of radical criticism of the historical Jesus, since their
doctrinal tradition teaches that salvation only depends upon Christ’s salvific death.63 Whereas liberal
theologians argued that the biblical sources confront us with a human Jesus, the orthodox emphasize
that the gospels portray a supernatural Christ, whose teachings transcend human categories. Historical
science, operating with the laws of analogy, is not able to interpret these teachings in an adequate
way.64
3. Drews redivivus? The Monistic Worldview of Gerd Lüdemann65
The publication of an extremely critical monograph on the resurrection of Jesus now ten years ago
by Gerd Lüdemann, at that time professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, caused a
great shock in theological and ecclesiastical Germany, even if the publications that were written in
reaction to Drews still outheighed the critiques of Lüdemann’s book. Lüdemann claims to be only
59
Ibid., p. 288.
B.W. SOCKNESS, Against False Apologetics, p. 83.
61
See for his reaction to Drews, G. WOBBERMIN, Geschichte und Historie in der Religionswissenschaft: Über
die Notwendigkeit, in der Religionswissenschaft zwischen Geschichte und Historie strenger zu unterscheiden, als
gewöhnlich geschieht, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Sonderheft 2, Tübingen, Mohr, 1911.
62
B.A. GERRISH, Jesus, Myth, and History, p. 393 n. 29.
63
F. LOOFS, What is the Truth about Jesus Christ? Problems of Christology, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1913.
64
According to the same author, Princeton theologian Benjamin B. Warfield defends a similar position. A few
quotations from his reply to Drews may illustrate this. See B. B. WARFIELD, Christless Christianity, in Harvard
Theological Review 5 (1912) 423-473, p. 464: “A Christianity without redemption – redemption in the blood of
Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sin – is nothing less than a contradiction in terms. Precisely what Christianity
means is redemption in the blood of Jesus. No one need wonder therefore that, when redemption is no longer
sought and found in Jesus, men should begin to ask whether there remains any real necessity for Jesus.” See also
ibid., p. 473: “What is, after all, the fundamental difference between Christianity and other “positive” religions?
Does it not turn just on this – that the founders of the other religions point out the way to God while Christ
presents Himself as that Way?”
65
See for a longer treatment of this issue, P. DE MEY, Historical Criticism and the Resurrection of Jesus: A New
Tendency in Recent Scholarship, in Louvain Studies 23 (1998) 246-273.
60
interested in retrieving the historical truth of this event.66 He offers a classical historical-critical
investigation of the gospel accounts of the burial, the empty tomb, and the appearances. After
elimination of all redactional elements, the historical probability of those verses which transmit an
older tradition is discussed. The verdict, however, is a negative one. Jesus’ resurrection did not happen
and the appearances are the result of merely human projection.
In my opinion, however, Lüdemann does not succeed in applying the historical critical method in
an unbiased way. This becomes especially clear when he, after having argued that the foundational
appearances of the Risen Lord to Peter and Paul have to be understood as mere visions, tries to give an
explanation of these visions. “What have we achieved? We now know that Paul often had visions. We
must assume that his conversion experience before Damascus, in which the risen Christ appeared to
him, was also a vision. But the question continues to remain open who or what evoked these visions.
Certainly we can now simply claim that God himself was the author of this vision and to that degree it
was an original revelation. But a historical investigation of events cannot make things as easy as that
for itself. For that would be to abandon scholarship and return to a speculative theological approach
which needs to be avoided. (...) This means that God must no longer be assumed to be the author of
these visions, as is still argued frequently, but inconsistently, even by advocates of the vision
hypothesis. Rather, these were psychological processes which ran their course with a degree of
regularity - completely without divine intervention. At the same time this means that the assumption of
a resurrection of Jesus is completely unnecessary as a presupposition to explain these phenomena. A
consistent modern view must say farewell to the resurrection of Jesus as a historical event.”67
After having read this long quote it becomes clear that the results of Lüdemann’s apparently
historical research, rest on prior assumptions. These were determined by his modern worldview which
does not admit irruptions of God in human history in whatever form.
It is not necessary to pay much attention to the strange transition of historical-critical analysis to
confessionary language in the last pages of his book: “However, I believe that this Jesus was not given
over to annihilation through death. (...) We must stop at the historical Jesus, but we may believe that
he is also with us as one who is alive now. (...) I believe that the unity with God experienced in faith
continues beyond death.”68 Did the author deceive his audience by his plea for the mortality of Jesus’
body and for the subjectivity of the appearances, to confess afterwards that for a believer, “the deepest,
most mysterious ‘Yes’ of God”69 is revealed on the cross?
In a prepublication of his Letter to Jesus,70 Lüdemann recognized that in his attempt to consider
Jesus as the foundation of his life, “in secret he continued to hold to a form of Easter belief.” He
realizes, however, that his reinterpretation of the Easter message in terms of an experience of
forgiveness, of eternity and life, is also possible without the person of Jesus and his resurrection.
Belief in Jesus’ resurrection and his second coming was a fictitious creation of the disciples to cope
with the tragedy of Jesus’ godforsaken sacrifice: “You proclaimed the future reign of God, but it is the
Church that has come. You made a mistake and your message has been falsified by your disciples for
their own profit and against historical truth.”71 This Drews redivivus will be satisfied in the future by
66
G. LÜDEMANN, Die Auferstehung Jesu: Historie, Erfahrung, Theologie (Stuttgart: Radius Verlag, 1994). This
book was translated by John Bowden as The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1994). His insights were made accessible to a larger public by Alf Özen. See G. LÜDEMANN & A.
ÖZEN, Was mit Jesus wirklich geschah: Die Auferstehung historisch betrachtet, Stuttgart, Radius Verlag, 1995,
translated by John Bowden as What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection ,
London, SCM Press, 1995.
67
Ibid., 126 & 130.
68
Ibid., 137.
69
Ibid., 136.
70
G. LÜDEMANN, Ein Brief an Jesus, in Publik-Forum 1998/6, 26-28, first chapter from Der große Betrug - Und
was Jesus wirklich sagte und tat, Lüneburg, Klampen Verlag, 1998.
71
Ibid., 27 (my translation).
proclaiming a “purely human view on religion,” which keeps the memory of Jesus alive, as it happens
with the memory of other great historical figures, such as Buddha, Confucius and Socrates.
Many commentators on the book by Lüdemann are also of the opinion, that it is ultimately his
closed world view which is responsible for his conclusions, and not his so-called objective, scientific,
and historical-critical analysis of the relevant New Testament texts. As Ingo Broer states, “the
problematic state of contemporary discussions about Jesus’ resurrection is not in the end caused by the
fact that the principal arguments have been exchanged, and that new arguments are only exceptionally
brought to the fore. Apparently, which conclusion someone’s research leads to depends on other
factors, such as the idea one has about God’s intervening in history and in the life of the first
community.”72
Wolfhart Pannenberg equally deplores the fact that Lüdemann’s research is guided by “the dogma
of the secularistic worldview that the conceivability of a divine act has to be excluded in principle.” 73
Hans Kessler comes to the same conclusion: “Because Lüdemann has taken a preliminary dogmatic
decision at the level of the dominating worldview, before analysing the historical data, only a
psychological reconstruction of the Easter experiences comes into consideration, and certainly no
appeal to divine agency.”74 For Gerhard Noller, Lüdemann’s book, which restricts itself even in its
title to the question “What Really Happened to Jesus,” is the occasion for a “systematic reflection on
the experience of reality.”75 In the Bible, reality is interpretated as “theological reality.” Examples are
the short Easter formulas in the Acts and in the Pauline Epistles which emphasize that God raised
Jesus from the dead. “Consistent historical-critical research,” on the contrary, “negates the theological
interpretation of the resurrection.” Lüdemann seeks alliance with the deterministic, monistic and
closed world view that reached its climax in the mid-19th century in the writings of Darwin and
Haeckel. He does not seem to realize that, in the meantime, quantum physics no longer regards the
universe as a self-regulating organism, which relies solely on itself for its existence and conservation.
Some scientists now dare to relate the intelligent leaps of elementary particles with God’s creation.
Perhaps, so Noller dreams, in some future, God’s creating activity with regard to dead matter will also
be acceptable in scientific discussion.
I hope that it has become obvious that it is especially the adherence to a monistic world view which
renders it difficult for this scholar to accept the reality of Jesus’ resurrection,. I leave the last word of
this section to a reviewer of Lüdemann’s book: “Most probably, a person can only be receptive to the
Easter message, if (s)he is able to take into account the reality of a God, who on the one hand relates
freely to the world and is absolutely distinguished from it, and on the other hand is deeply involved
with it. But the message that God raised Jesus from the dead, requires belief also. Its truth cannot be
demonstrated as the result of historical and anthropological argumentation, though it is still important
to examine the original context of Easter faith by historical research, and to point to anthropological
evidence for this belief.76
72
I. BROER, Der Glaube an die Auferstehung Jesu und das geschichtliche Verständnis des Glaubens in der
Neuzeit, in H. VERWEYEN (ed.), Osterglaube ohne Auferstehung? Diskussion mit Gerd Lüdemann (Quaestiones
disputatae, 155), Freiburg, Herder, 1995, p. 51 (my translation).
73
W. PANNENBERG, Die Auferstehung Jesu: Historie und Theologie, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 91
(1994) 318-328, p. 323.
74
H. KESSLER, Sucht den Lebenden nicht bei den Toten: Die Auferstehung Jesu Christi in biblischer,
fundamentaltheologischer und systematischer Sicht, Würzburg, Echter, 19952, p. 439.
75
G. NOLLER, Nachzügler des 19. Jahrhunderts: Exemplarische Überlegungen zum Wirklichkeitsbegriff im
Gespräch mit Gerd Lüdemann, in Evangelische Theologie 57 (1997) 259-272, 260.
76
U. RUH, Umstrittene Auferstehung, in Herder-Korrespondenz 48 (1994) 217-219, p. 219 (my translation).
Appendix: Overview of Contemporary Reactions on Arthur Drews’s Book
DREWS, CHRISTIAN HEINRICH ARTHUR, Die Christus-mythe, Jena, E. Diedrichs, 1909, 19103. (English
translation: London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
German reactions
BAUMBARTEN, OTTO, Jesus Christus in der Gegenwart, in Religion in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, vol. III,
Tübingen, 1912, 411-443.
Berliner Religionsgespräch: Hat Jesus gelebt?, Berlin, Leipzig, 1910. (French translation: Jésus a-t-il vécu?
Controverse religieuse sur “Le mythe du Christ” ayant eu lieu à Berlin, au Jardin zoologique, les 31 Janvier
et 1er février 1910, par les soins de l’Union moniste allemande, Paris, Messein, 1912.
BETH, KARL, Hat Jesus gelebt?, Berlin, Borussia, 1910.
BORNEMANN, D., Jesus als Problem: zugleich eine Kritik der “Christusmythe” des Herrn Professors Arthur
Drews, Frankfurt, 1909.
BOUSSET, WILHELM, Die Bedeutung der Person Jesu für den Glauben: Historische und rationale Grundlagen
des Glaubens, in M. FISCHER & M. SCHIELE (eds.), Fünfter Weltkongress für Freies Christentum und
Religiösen Fortschritt, Berlin 5. Bis 10. August 1910: Protokoll der Verhandlungen, Berlin-Schöneberg,
Protestantischer Schriftenvertrieb, 1911, 291-305.
BOUSSET, WILHELM, Religion und Geschichte, in Bijlage tot het jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen
1911/1912, Groningen, Wolters, 1912.
BREPOHL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM, Die Wahrheit über Jesus von Nazareth: Gedanken zu Herrn Professor Arthur
Drews “Christusmythe”, Berlin, Gerdes & Hödel, 1911, 72 p.
CHWOLSON, D., Über die Frage, ob Jesus gelebt hat, Leipzig, 1910.
CLEMEN, CARL, Der geschichtliche Jesus: Eine allgemeinverständliche Untersuchung der Frage: Hat Jesus
gelebt, und was wollte er?, Gießen, Töpelmann, 1911.
DELBRÜCK, C., Hat Jesus gelebt?, Berlin, 1910.
DENESSE, AUGUSTE S.J., Der atheistische Monismus, in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach 81 (1911) 21-29.
DIBELIUS, M., Drews-Debatte, in Theologische Literaturzeitung 35 (1910) 1545-1552; 36 (1911) 135-140..
DIETZE, K.A., Kritische Bemerkungen zur neuesten Auflage von A. Drews Christusmythe, Bremen, 1910.
DUNKMANN, K., Der historische Jesus, der mythologische Christus, und Jesus der Christus: Ein kritischer Gang
durch die moderne Jesus-Forschung, Leipzig, Deichert, 1911.
ESPENBERGER, JOHANNES NEPOMUK, Jesus, ein vorchristlicher Kultgott?, in Theologie und Glaube 3 (1911)
466-477.
FELDER, H., Jesus Christus. Apologie seiner Messianität und Gottheit gegenüber der neuesten ungläubigen
Jesus_Forschung. Erster Band. Das Bewusstsein Jesu, Paderborn, 1911.
FRESENIUS, WILHELM, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben, in Zeitschrift für Theologie
und Kirche 22 (1912) 244-268.
FREY, J., Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Überlieferung über Jesus, Reval, 1911.
GOETZ, K.G., Genügt der geschichtliche Jesus für die praktische Theologie und Frömmigkeit oder nicht?, in
Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 55 (1914) 193-230.
GRABER, OSKAR, Im Kampfe um Christus: eine Überprüfung der Angriffe des Professors Arthur Drews gegen
die geschichtliche Existenz Jesu, Graz, Moser, 1927.
GRÖBER, KONRAD, Christus lebte: eine Kritik der “Christusmythe” Arthur Drews’, Konstanz, Oberbadischer
Verlag, 1923.
HAUCK, ALBERT, Hat Jesus gelebt?, Fehlendorf (Berlin), 1910.
HERRMANN, WILHELM, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben: Eine Besprechung des
gleichnamigen Vortrags von Ernst Troeltsch, in ID., Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie (Theologische
Bücherei, 36), München, Kaiser, 1967, 2:282-289.
HERRMANN, WILHELM, Die mit der Theologie verknüpfte Not der evangelischen Kirche und ihre Überwindung
(Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart, IV/21), Tübingen, Mohr, 1913.
HERRMANN, WILHELM, Der geschichtliche Christus der Grund unseres Glaubens, in Zeitschrift für Theologie
und Kirche 2 (1892) 232-273.
HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH J., Paulus als Zeuge wider die Christusmythe von Arthur Drews, in Die Christliche Welt
24 (1910) 151-160.
HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH J., Neueste Literatur zur Frage nach der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, in Deutsche
Literaturzeitung 31 (1910) 1797-1803, 1861-1865.
JAHN, G., Über die Person Jesu und über die Entstehung des Christentums, Leiden, 1911.
JEREMIAS, ALFRED, Hat Jesus Christus gelebt?, in Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 22 (1911) 143-188.
JORDAN, HERMANN, Jesus und die modernen Jesusbilder, 1909.
JÜLICHER, ADOLF, Hat Jesus gelebt?, Marburg, 1910.
JUNCKER, D., Drews’ Abrechnung mit den Theologen: Ein kritisches Referat, in Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 24
(1913) 371-390.
KIEFL, FRANZ XAVER, Der geschichtliche Christus und die moderne Philosophie: eine genetische Darlegung der
philosophischen Voraussetzungen im Streit um die Christusmythe, Mainz, 1911.
KIEFL, FRANZ XAVER, Der Christusmythe zweiter Teil, in Hochland 9 (1911-12) 77-88.
KLEIN, G., Ist Jesus eine historische Persönlichkeit?, Tübingen, 1910.
KLOSTERMANN, E.RICH, Die neuesten Angriffe auf die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu (Sammlung gemeinverständlicher
Vorträge und Schriften aus dem Gebiet der Theologie und Religionsgeschichte, 68), Tübingen, Mohr, 1912.
LAIBLE, H., Lebte Jesus?, Berlin, 1910.
LEIPOLDT, JOHANNES, Hat Jesus gelebt?, Leipzig, 1920.
LEIPOLDT, JOHANNES, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter: ein Beitrag zum Streite um Arthur Drews’
Christusmythe, Leipzig, Deichert, 1923.
LOOFS, FRIEDRICH, What is the Truth about Jesus Christ? Problems of Christology, Edinburgh, T&T Clark,
1913. German edition: Wer war Jesus Christus? (Deutsche Neubearbeitung), Halle a.d.S., 1922..
MEINERTZ, MAX, Die Existenz Jesu, in Theologie und Glaube 3 (1911) 529-544, 617-633.
MUNDLE, W., Der Christus des Glaubens und der historische Jesus, inZeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 2
(1921) 192-212, 247-273.
R, Der “einfältige Laie” und die Hypothese von der Nichtexistenz Jesu, in Die christliche Welt 24 (1910) 160163.
ROTUS, J.P.H., Die Geschichtlichkeit der Person Jesu, Frankfurt, s.d..
SCHEFTELOWITZ, Die Christusmythe des Prof. A. Drews im Lichte der Wissenschaft, in Monatsschrift für
Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, 1911, 1-36.
SCHMIDT, F.W., Das Verhältnis der Christologie zur historischen Leben-Jesu-Forschung, in Zeitschrift für
Theologie und Kirche 1 (1921) 249-276, 323-353.
SCHMIEDEL, PAUL WILHELM, Die Person Jesu im Streite der Meinungen der Gegenwart, Leipzig, 1906.
SCHNEIDER, TH., Vom Ursprung des Christentums, Wiesbaden, 1910.
SCHNEIDEWIN, M., Arthur Drews’ “Christusmythe” und die religiöse Krise überhaupt, in Preussischer
Jahrbücher 1910, 393-453.
SCHWEITZER, A., Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, Tübingen, Mohr, 19132, ch. 23: ‘Die Diskussion über
die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu’.
SEITZ, ANTON, Arthur Drews’ “Christusmythe”, in Apologetische Rundschau 5 (1910) 223-231.
STAAB, K., Wege zur “Christusmythe” von A. Drews, in Biblica 5 (1924) 26-38.
STAAB, K., Der Kampf von Arthur Drews gegen die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu: eine kritische Betrachtung der
neuesten Phase in der Leben-Jesu-Forschung: eine Bearbeitung der von der Theologischen Fakultät der
Universität Würzburg für das Jahr 1913/14 gestellten Preisaufgabe, Würzburg, Univ. Diss., 1922.
TILLICH, PAUL, Die christliche Gewißheit und der historische Jesus, in ID., Theological Writings - Theologische
Schriften (Main Works/Hauptwerke, 6), Berlin/New York, De Gruyter, 1992, 21-34.
TROELTSCH, ERNST, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben, Tübingen, Mohr, 1911.
Opgenomen in: ID., Die Absolutheit des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte und zwei Schriften zur
Theologie, München & Hamburg, Siebenstern Taschenbuch Verlag, 1969, 132-162.
TROELTSCH, ERNST, Über die Möglichkeit eines freinen Christentums, in M. FISCHER & M. SCHIELE (eds.),
Fünfter Weltkongress für Freies Christentum und Religiösen Fortschritt, Berlin 5. Bis 10. August 1910:
Protokoll der Verhandlungen, Berlin-Schöneberg, Protestantischer Schriftenvertrieb, 1911, 332-349.
VON SODEN, HERMANN, Hat Jesus gelebt? Aus dem geschichtlichen Urkunden beantwortet, Berlin, 1910.
WEINEL, HEINRICH, Ist das ‘liberale’ Jesusbild widerlegt? Eine Antwort an seine ‘positiven’ und seine radikalen
Gegner mit besonderer Rücksicht auf A. Drews’ ‘Die Christusmythe’, Tübingen, 1910.
WEINEL, HEINRICH, Ist unsere Verkündigung von Jesus unhaltbar geworden?, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und
Kirche 20 (1910) 1-38, 89-129.
WEISS, JOHANNES, Jesus von Nazareth: Mythus oder Geschichte? Eine Ausandersetzung mit Kalthoff, Drews,
Jensen, Tübingen, Mohr, 1910, 171 p.
WERNER, HERRMANN, Der historische Jesus der liberalen Theologie – ein Geisteskranker, in Neue kirchliche
Zeitschrift 22 (1911) 347-390.
WERNLE, PAUL, Wider moderne Skepsis für den Glauben an Jesus; in Die Christliche Welt 24 (1910) 145-151.
WINDISCH, HANS, Der geschichtliche Jesus, in Theologische Rundschau 13 (1910) 163-182, 199-220.
WINDISCH, HANS, Der Streit um die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, in Theologische Rundschau 14 (1911) 114-137.
WOBBERMIN, GEORG, Geschichte und Historie in der Religionswissenschaft: Über die Notwendigkeit, in der
Religionswissenschaft zwischen Geschichte und Historie strenger zu unterscheiden, als gewöhnlich
geschieht, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Sonderheft 2, Tübingen, Mohr, 1911
WOBBERMIN, GEORG, Monismus und Monotheismus: Vorträge und Abhandlungen zum Kampf um die
monistische Weltanschauung, Tübingen, Mohr, 1911.
English reactions
Arthur Drews, The Christ Myth, in The Philosophical Review 22 (1913) 564.
BROWN, WILLIAM ADAMS, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, in The American Journal of Theology 16
(1912) 31-50.
CASE, SHIRLEY JACKSON, Is Jesus a Historical Character? Evidence for an Affirmative Opinion, in The
American Journal of Theology 15 (1911) 205-227.
CASE, SHIRLEY JACKSON, The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument, in The American
Journal of Theology 15 (1911) 20-42.
CASE, SHIRLEY JACKSON, The Historicity of Jesus: A Criticism of the Contention That Jesus NeverLived, a
Statement of the Evidence for His Existence, an Estimate of His Relation to Christianity, Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1912.
CHEYNE, T.K., Book Review, in The Hibbert Journal 9 (1910-1911) 657.
CONYBEARE, FREDERICK CORNWALLIS, The Historical Christ, or an investigation of the views of J.M. Robertson,
A. Drews and W.B. Smith, London, 1914. (Leiden)
KAMPMEIER, A., The Christ Myth of Drews, in The Monist 21 (1911) 412.
MACINTOSH, DOUGLAS C., Is Belief in the Historicity of Jesus Indispensable to Christian Faith?, in The
American Journal of Theology 15 (1911) 362-372.
MACINTOSH, DOUGLAS C., Is Belief in the Historicity of Jesus Indispensable to Christian Faith?, in The
American Journal of Theology 16 (1912) 106-110.
MACKINTOSH, HUGH R., The Liberal Conception of Jesus in Its Strength and Weakness, in The American
Journal of Theology 16 (1912) 410-425.
MATHEWS, SHAILER, Is Belief in the Historicity of Jesus Indispensable to Christian Faith?, The American
Journal of Theology 15 (1911) 614-617.
ROSSINGTON, H.J., Did Jesus Really Live? A Reply to ‘the Christ Myth’, London, Philip Green, 1911.
SCOTT, E.F. The Significance of Jesus for Modern Religion in View of His Eschatological Thinking, in The
American Journal of Theology 28 (1914) 225-240.
SMITH, GERALD BIRNEY, The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History, in The American Journal of Theology 28
(1914) 521-544.
SMITH, GERALD BIRNEY, The Religious Significance of the Humanity of Jesus, in The American Journal of
Theology 24 (1920) 191-208.
THORBURN, THOMAS JAMES, Jesus the Christ: Historical or Mythical?: A Reply to Professor Drews’ Die
Christusmythe, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1912.
VERNON, AMBROSE WHITE, Can an Efficient Theology be Dependent upon Historical Facts?, in The American
Journal of Theology 17 (1913) 161-172.
WARFIELD, BENJAMIN B., Christless Christianity, in Harvard Theological Review 5 (1912) 423-473.
WOLFE, GEORGE EDGAR, Troeltsch’s Conception of the Significance of Jesus, in The American Journal of
Theology 20 (1916) 179-204.
French reactions
FILLION, L. CL., L’existence historique de Jésus et le rationalisme contemporain, Paris, 1909.
NICOLARDOT, F., Book Review, in Revue de l’histoire des religions 61 (1910) 377-379.