1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Harnack, Adolf

HARNACK, ADOLF (1851–  ), German theologian, was born on the 7th of May 1851 at Dorpat, in Russia, where his father, Theodosius Harnack (1817–1889), held a professorship of pastoral theology.

Theodosius Harnack was a staunch Lutheran and a prolific writer on theological subjects; his chief field of work was practical theology, and his important book on that subject, summing up his long experience and teaching, appeared at Erlangen (1877–1878, 2 vols.). The liturgy of the Lutheran church of Russia has, since 1898, been based on his Liturgische Formulare (1872).

The son pursued his studies at Dorpat (1869–1872) and at Leipzig, where he took his degree; and soon afterwards (1874) began lecturing as a Privatdozent. These lectures, which dealt with such special subjects as Gnosticism and the Apocalypse, attracted considerable attention, and in 1876 he was appointed professor extraordinarius. In the same year he began the publication, in conjunction with O. L. von Gebhardt and T. Zahn, of an edition of the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Patrum apostolicorum opera, a smaller edition of which appeared in 1877. Three years later he was called to Giessen as professor ordinarius of church history. There he collaborated with Oscar Leopold von Gebhardt in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur (1882 sqq.), an irregular periodical, containing only essays in New Testament and patristic fields. In 1881 he published a work on monasticism, Das Mönchtum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte (5th ed., 1900; English translation, 1901), and became joint-editor with Emil Schürer of the Theologische Literaturzeitung. In 1885 he published the first volume of his epoch-making work, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed. in three volumes, 1894–1898; English translation in seven volumes, 1894–1899). In this work Harnack traces the rise of dogma, by which he understands the authoritative doctrinal system of the 4th century and its development down to the Reformation. He considers that in its earliest origins Christian faith and the methods of Greek thought were so closely intermingled that much that is not essential to Christianity found its way into the resultant system. Therefore Protestants are not only free, but bound, to criticize it; indeed, for a Protestant Christian, dogma cannot be said to exist. An abridgment of this appeared in 1889 with the title Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed., 1898). In 1886 Harnack was called to Marburg; and in 1888, in spite of violent opposition from the conservative section of the church authorities, to Berlin. In 1890 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. At Berlin, somewhat against his will, he was drawn into a controversy on the Apostles’ Creed, in which the party antagonisms within the Prussian Church had found expression. Harnack’s view is that the creed contains both too much and too little to be a satisfactory test for candidates for ordination, and he would prefer a briefer symbol which could be rigorously exacted from all (cf. his Das apostolische Glaubensbekenntnis. Ein geschichtlicher Bericht nebst einem Nachworte, 1892; 27th ed., 1896). At Berlin Harnack continued his literary labours. In 1893 he published a history of early Christian literature down to Eusebius, Geschichte der altchristl. Litteratur bis Eusebius (part 2 of vol. i., 1897); and in 1900 appeared his popular lectures, Das Wesen des Christentums (5th ed., 1901; English translation, What is Christianity? 1901; 3rd ed., 1904). One of his more recent historical works is Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (1902; English translation in two volumes, 1904–1905). It has been followed by some very interesting and important New Testament studies (Beiträge zur Einleitung in das neue Testament, 1906 sqq.; Engl. trans.: Luke the Physician, 1907; The Sayings of Jesus, 1908). Harnack, both as lecturer and writer, was one of the most prolific and most stimulating of modern critical scholars, and trained up in his “Seminar” a whole generation of teachers, who carried his ideas and methods throughout the whole of Germany and even beyond its borders. His distinctive characteristics are his claim for absolute freedom in the study of church history and the New Testament; his distrust of speculative theology, whether orthodox or liberal; his interest in practical Christianity as a religious life and not a system of theology. Some of his addresses on social matters have been published under the heading “Essays on the Social Gospel” (1907).