FORME, STORIA delle (Formgeschichtliche Methode). - An exegetical current, established between 1919 and 1922 especially in Germany. In English it is called form-criticism; in Italian some use the periphrasis "method of the history of forms," others that of "morphological method." This system is in a certain sense the application to the New Testament, particularly to the Synoptic Gospels, of the theory of "literary genres" (v.), formulated in a special way for the Old Testament. Its aim is to establish the formation of the Gospel texts, conceived as the fruit not of particular writers or of determinate literary sources, but of a slow anonymous elaboration.
With different nuances, the proponents of the history of forms presuppose an intense labor within the community before the various accounts thus elaborated were collected in particular writings by redactors (= Evangelists). At the origin there would be the work of anonymous preachers or missionaries, who repeated, adapted and completed the "sayings" (v. LOGIA) of Jesus, or else expanded, for parenetic purposes, into detailed accounts of miracles. Considered from the literary aspect, these two genres are called "paradigms" and "novellas" by Dibelius, "apophthegms" and "miracle stories" by Bultmann. To a broader narrative, which embraces a period of Jesus' life or an episode of primary importance, the name "legend" is given in the primitive sense of the word, without an implicit judgment regarding its historical reliability.
In this system a primary part is occupied by the study of the setting (Sitz im Leben), in which the various forms developed and were transmitted. While Dibelius proceeds from the reconstruction of the setting to the delimitation of the literary genres or forms most connatural to it, Bultmann starts from the examination of the various forms discernible in the Gospels in order to discover therein the intimate history of the primitive Christian communities. Only indirectly in constructive criticism do these authors attempt a more or less rationalistic explanation of the life of Jesus Christ and of Christian dogma. Their interest is directed first of all to a literary study of the short accounts, which would constitute the substratum of the Gospels.
The incontestable merit of this school is to have drawn attention to the various forms of popular literature and to the importance of the primitive oral catechesis. Sometimes it offers advantageous solutions to individual literary difficulties. Finally, although claiming to explain the life of Jesus in a rationalistic manner, the method of the history of forms fully recognizes faith in the divinity of Christ in the apostolic era. Other principles, however, are less acceptable or certainly erroneous, such as the clear distinction of literary forms, which usually appear much more complex, the exceptional role assigned to the community not only in the transmission of the accounts but also in their formulation, the claim to break the Gospels into fragments, even minimal ones, the possibility that such work could be carried out in a short time by an amorphous crowd. This last postulate imposes a dating of the Gospels later than that affirmed by tradition and disregards the importance of certain predominant personalities. Also the continual comparison with pagan mythological literature and with apocryphal and rabbinic literature is often based on secondary or at any rate highly debatable elements.
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Among the critics of the method the most notable are: E. Fischer, Die Formgeschichtliche Methode, Giessen 1924; O. Cullmann, Les récentes études sur la formation évangélique, in Revue d'histoire et philosophie religieuse, 5 (1925), pp. 450-77, 564-79; F. Fiebig, Radioinische Formgeschichte und Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, Leipzig 1926; E. Florit, La «storia delle f.» nei Vangeli in rapporto alla dottrina cattolica, in Biblica, 14 (1933), pp. 312-48; id., Il metodo della «storia delle f.» e la sua applicazione al racconto della Passione, Rome 1933; M. Braun, a. v. in DBs, III, coll. 312-17; A. Richardson, The Gospels in the making. An introduction to the recent criticism on the Synoptic Gospels, London 1938; P. Benoit, Réflexions sur la «Formgeschichtliche Methode», in Revue biblique, 53 (1948), pp. 481-512; F. Sava, Studio sul Vangelo. Un saggio sul metodo morfologico. Esposizione e critica del Paradigma di Martino Dibelius, Rome 1940.
Angelo Penna