Strauss, David Friedrich

STRAUSS, DAVID FRIEDRICH. - Protestant theologian, loyal to the principles and presuppositions of the "rational-mythical" school ("mythisch-rationale Schule"). b. January 27, 1808 at Ludwigsburg (Württemberg), where after a turbulent life he d. February 8, 1873.

At the "minor seminary" of Blaubeuren (1821-25), his teachers were especially Kern and F. G. Baur, who was also his professor later, when S. pursued his theological studies at the Wilhelmstift (1826-39) in Tübingen (v.). Beyond the lectures, he was fascinated by the Protestant "mystic" Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), Schleiermacher (v.), Schelling (v.), the visionary pietist Justinus Kerner, whose séances he attended during the holidays, but more than anyone else by Hegel (v.). Having finished his studies he became a curate and then a teacher at the small seminary of Maulbronn. In the winter of 1831-32 he went to Berlin. Disgusted by Schleiermacher's lectures, he associated himself with the left Hegelians ("Linkshegelianer"), and attended the lectures of W. Vatke (1806-82); the following year he returned to Tübingen, as "repetent" of theology at the Wilhelmstift, which gave him the right to give lectures in philosophy at the University. The first interpreter of Hegel at Tübingen, his lectures, pervaded with enthusiasm for the master, had immense success. The professors of philosophy, however, reacted at once, disputing his right to hold lectures in that subject. He therefore resigned himself, renouncing it, and devoted himself to studying almost the whole exegesis of his time. There were then three schools of Protestant exegesis: a) the "supernatural" school (later also called "positive"), which still continued Lutheran and Calvinist orthodoxy, but was ever more constrained to greater concessions under the pressure of the rampant rationalism; b) the so-called "rational" school, led by H. E. G. Paulus (1761-1851), then in great vogue, which devised ingenious expedients, such as that of intermediary causes not mentioned in the sacred text, in order to eliminate the supernatural and miraculous element of the Bible; c) the "rational-mythical" school (already existing for about 50 years), aimed at making a more effective apology for the Bible in the face of the dominant impiety, explaining it as a complex of myths necessary to the times of immature humanity.

The mythical school, first in the exegesis of the ancient classics and then of the biblical books, is chiefly due to C. G. Heyne (1729-1812), the celebrated professor of Göttingen, who made of it a systematic hermeneutics which he applied only to Hesiod (v.), Homer and other ancient authors; according to him there exists, by a psycho-genetic necessity of the human race, a universal and necessary mythical age, to which primitive man is subject in all the regions of the earth, a man of rudimentary intelligence, joined however to vivid sensory impressions, who does not perceive the true causes of things and does not know how to reflect and meditate and uses a language incredibly poor in concepts but of the highest expressiveness; in the face of unusual and wondrous events that rude man of the mythical age does not perceive their true and causal connections, and thinks he finds himself before a supreme being, who acts always immediately in the things of that world; in everything he sees God acting and for him the course of daily life is a continuous series of miracles; he also perceives historical facts, e.g., that A is the cause of B: but for him such a simple fact is necessarily transformed into a brilliant, passionate story according to which A fell in love with a maiden and in the varied vicissitudes of that love B was begotten by A as his beloved son; in his own way he also perceives the opposition between concepts, but translates that perception into beautiful mythical language, as the story of a fierce struggle between two personified primordial powers, creating a series of theogonic or cosmogonic deeds. This theory was made to fascinate the Romantic period (v. ROMANTICISMO), which lays so much emphasis on the "irrational," whereby those mythical tales become the mysterious and profound origin of all poetry, but also of all historiography, philosophy, and the science of religion. "Popular tradition" too has a supremely irrational origin: the rude mythical man increasingly magnifies the "miraculous" in his popular tales, giving form to simple original reality. Such traditions would be found in all the sources of the most ancient ages: in Livy and in Herodotus, in China, India and also in the Bible. From such traditions everything proceeds, and they express in their own way the deepest truths of the human soul: one thus arrives at a "panmythism," upheld with enthusiasm, of which the later panbabylonism will be but an application. The "mythical movement," which had immense vogue, also anything but rational, exalts the ancient and even modern myths, which, like art and especially poetry, express in their own way even the deepest things of the human being. Once doubts have arisen, the human intellect explains the myth often as an allegory of some other reality, or else undertakes the work of "semitization" for which already C. G. Heyne found an appropriate hermeneutics in order to unravel the threads of a stitching, restoring them to their original appearance. The result is the division of myths (v. MITO E MITOLOGIA). Historical myths must not be taken as true history, but only as "apparent" history (v. SPIRITUS PARACLITUS) endowed with relative or economic truth, which must be reduced to the real primitive fact. Philosophical (and religious) myths are not based, according to this school, on any historical fact, and one must trace the inner fact of the mind, which lies at the bottom of the "mythicizing" fantasy.

The disciples of C. G. Heyne applied his "rational-mythical hermeneutics" to the biblical texts; believing that Romantic irrationalism by means of myths could rekindle the faith that had declined in the age of rationalism (v.); they maintained that those biblical myths, like those of Greece, of Rome and of the Vedanta, were not to be despised, but contained ancient facts and profound human truths, even though they were not true to the letter, and taught many truths, such as the existence and Providence of God, in a manner far more poetic and attractive. It is no wonder that certain of those exegetes, such as J. G. Eichhorn (1752-1827) and J. Ph. Gabler (1753-1826), saw in rational-mythical explanation the only hope of salvation for the Christian faith. G. L. Bauer wrote in 1799 at Leipzig a manual of rational-mythical method for the study of the Bible, and followed it with a veritable encyclopedia of "Sacred Mythology" of the Old and New Testaments (Leipzig 1902, 2 vols.). The exegetical-mythical school fascinated also the great philosophers of German idealism (v.). Schelling devoted his first books to clarifying its foundations philosophically; the most influential of the school became the Kantian philosopher J. F. Fries (v.), who elevated myth to being "the category of the religious," thus making it anthropological, that is, universal for every generation of men, holding moreover myth to be inevitable and necessary for every human thought. With Hegel the matter is a little different: myth belongs to "Anschauung," rather than to "concept," Hegel's supreme category, a thought exploited by S. In applying the ideas of German idealism to the Bible S. had as predecessor Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1840), who gave a rational-mythical explanation to the Old Testament. Already from the days of Eichhorn there had been attempts to explain certain pericopes of the New Testament mythically, and G. L. Bauer had collected all the materials for it.

S. applied that hermeneutics on a grand scale to the New Testament, that is, to the Life of Jesus (v.), and he did so more radically: admitting no historical myth but only philosophical myths, so that all the Gospels say only that there is a divine element in the humanity of Christ, taken not as concrete and singular but rather as a general idea. Such is the meaning of the Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, which came out in Tübingen in 1835 and made S. the most celebrated theologian in Germany, but forever deprived him of the possibility of holding a theological chair. Well constructed, in a admirable style, the book set out individual pericopes: a) the "supernatural" explanation, availing itself of a profound and extensive knowledge of the same "positive" authors; b) the rationalistic explanation, drawing especially on the works of N. Paulus, both expounded with such skill that they destroyed each other; and finally c) the rationalistic explanation, which triumphed by eliminating every historicity and every truth outside the general idea of the divine in the human; there was very little that was positive in a supremely destructive and subversive study. In the book people saw the collapse of Christian theology, and the scandal was immense. Refutations rained down by the hundreds. S. appears disconcerted in the Streitschriften (Tübingen 1837), and not moved by noble motives: with his terrible pen he attacks the less notable authors, neglects the greatest, and inveighs against the teacher who had denounced him to the government. In fact, as a punishment he was transferred to the gymnasium of his native city, but already in 1836 he left state service to become a free writer.

"Radical" friends (unbelievers) procured for him a chair of theology in Zurich, which he accepted. It seems that the criticisms had shaken him somewhat, and in the 3rd ed. of the Leben Jesu he softened his doubts regarding the Gospel of St. John, maintaining its genuineness only as "possible," and he wrote Zwei friedliche Blätter (Tübingen 1839). But as soon as the news spread in Zurich, the believing population of the entire Canton of Zurich rose up violently; and the cantonal government had to dismiss him before he began teaching, granting him a lifelong pension; but not even this expedient saved the "radical" government, which six months later was overthrown by the "Züriputsch." S. reacted, and in the preface to the 4th ed. of the Leben Jesu declared the softenings of the 3rd ed. to be due to weakness of spirit; he published: Die kirchliche Glaubenslehre in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung und im Kampfe mit der modernen Wissenschaft dargestellt, 2 vols. (Tübingen 1840-41), in which he treats the history of dogmas according to the same rationalistic method, and proclaims the failure of the whole history of theology, always prone to oppress reason and freedom. Although better documented and better conducted than the Leben Jesu in its attack on Christian positions, this new work of S. did not arouse as much scandal and had only one edition. After the revolution of 1848, S. tried his hand at politics; the believing people caused his candidacy for the Frankfurt Parliament to fail, but he was elected a deputy of the Württemberg diet. He did not succeed as a politician either; although elected by the revolutionaries, he defended aristocrats and conservatives, and when called to order he did not apologize but resigned his mandate. Resuming literary activity, he wrote biographies, especially of anticlericals, such as Reimarus (Leipzig 1861, 2nd ed. 1892), Ulrich von Hutten (3 vols., ibid. 1858-60, 6th ed. 1865), and later Voltaire (Mannheim 1870, 2nd ed. 1907). However, he was not a master in the art of biography; all his characters live and think like S., as happens with poets, which S. moreover shows himself to be in vol. XII of the Gesammelte Schriften. In 1866 the success in France of E. Renan's (v.) new life of Jesus induced S. to attempt a similar life of Jesus for the general public: Das Leben Jesu für das deutsche Volk bearbeitet (Leipzig 1864, 12th ed. 1902), more moderate and more positive than the "great" life, yet no less dangerous. He resumed his polemic against the theologians, condemning the "semi-rationalists" or "Vermittlungstheologen" more harshly than the orthodox themselves, as in Die Halben und die Ganzen (1865); he expresses a harsh judgment on Schleiermacher's posthumous book in Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus der Geschichte (Berlin 1865). The war of 1870 stirred his patriotic feelings, as also those of E. Renan, and so both subversive authors of "Lives of Jesus" wrote open letters about the responsibility for that war and the fate of Alsace and Lorraine. When the war ended S. came out with another book, which marked the sad epilogue of his theological evolution: materialism and Darwinism, the "cultural" enthusiasm proper to the bourgeois of that era: Der alte u. der neue Glaube (Leipzig 1872). The book, however, is pervaded by much sincerity; it poses the pressing question: are we still Christians? And it answers decisively no: we, who have abandoned the Christian faith and seek another more scientific one, we who bury the most sacred documents of Christianity in the museums of myths, are no longer Christians. The book had many refutations, but also editions (16th, 1904); with it the antisocialist S. helped to spread materialism even among the proletarians.

Of his supremely negating theology much still lives on; within Protestant neo-orthodoxy mythism is beginning to resurface, not only because of the "demythologization" promoted by R. Bultmann, who more or less follows S.'s path, though basing himself not on an anthropological mythism of a "Friesian" nature but on an existentialism (v.) according to the ideas of M. Heidegger, but also because of the ideas of Karl Barth, prince of the reformed neo-orthodox. In his little book on S., K. Barth states that he agrees with S. on no fewer than five points concerning fundamental principles: 1) if the Christian faith is conceived as an immanent relation and is made historical, this amounts to removing faith; 2) the documents of the New Testament cannot be sources for a pragmatic life of the man Jesus Christ: they are mere testimonies of some superhuman being according to the prophecies of the Old Testament and above any historical reconstruction; 3) one can reach a "historical Jesus" behind those sources, but at the cost of sacrificing Jesus' most essential predicates (messianic consciousness, consciousness of being the Son of God, preaching of the Kingdom, hope of the parousia, resurrection from the dead), and such a "historical Jesus" would be of a "sentimental characterology" that would have nothing to do with the faith of the Apostles; 4) but the person of Jesus, insofar as he appears in the Gospels, is closely bound to those predicates: a historian who wished to write a life of Jesus would therefore have to either cancel those predicates or interpret them "morally" or consider Jesus as "a noble spiritual agitator," unless one prefers to consider the primitive community as the last attainable historical datum, and everything preceding it as myth; 5) the Christ of "historical research" would be nothing other than a "relative" revealer of God, would be a fine symbol of the true Christ: the Word of God made flesh, who exercises God's decision upon us and who engages us too in decision.

The "rationalist mysticism" or "mythical movement," which reached the highest peaks of non-Catholic theology, from Heyne down to Bultmann and Barth, is thoroughly pervaded with skepticism and pessimism regarding the primitive psychology of man, in conformity with the ideology of Luther and Calvin, without proving this by natural or supernatural arguments. Certainly, man has a poetic and even "mythical" inclination, but he also has intellectual faculties capable of controlling it. Slavery to myths is explicable by admitting in men of all times more or less equal intellectual and sensitive capacities, without however denying the differences of traditions and temperament. Many myths can be explained phenomenologically, without the fatality attributed to them by panmythism following from this; panbabylonism too failed as knowledge of Babylonian civilization developed. It is above all erroneous to regard the Jewish people as primitive and subject to the slavery of myths. The same, even more, must be said of the primitive Christian community. But with rational arguments alone the panmythists will never be convinced, swept away as they are by sentimental tendencies that are anything but intellectual; one must bear witness to them of faith in the living God, in the absolute truth of Holy Scripture, excluding every doubt even about the intellectual light of which all peoples were and are capable, even if less evolved than modern ones.

Other works of S.: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. E. Zeller (12 vols., Bonn 1876-78), a collection, however, quite incomplete. Collections of letters have been added: Ausgewählte Briefe, ed. E. Zeller (Bonn 1895, 5 vols.); A. Rapp, Briefwechsel zwischen S. und Vischer, 2 vols. (Stuttgart 1952-53). In Italian, the "great" Life of Jesus or critical examination of his history by Dr. D.F.S. was translated by G. Oddo, Milan 1863-65; the text of that version, made from the fourth German edition [Tübingen 1840, unmitigated], served for a vile falsification (Rome 1886) which on the title page strives to make one believe that it would be the Life of Jesus of S. "refuted and completed" by Fr. C. M. Curci (v.), already reconciled with the Church. The Life of Jesus of S., translated by S. Gatti (Turin 1865) and incomplete, seems to be based on the 2nd edition of the "little" Life of Jesus of S. or of the Leben Jesu für das deutsche Volk bearbeitete. From "S.O.E." the last book of S. is translated, together with the Nachschrift (1873): D. F. Strauss, The Old and the New Faith (Milan 1876).

1947, pp. 490-515; E. Retzäll, D. F. S., in Swensh Teol. Tidskrift, 20 (1944), 198-210; C. Harlich - E. Sachs, Der Ursprung des Mythosbegriffes in der modernen Bibelversuch, Tübingen 1952, pp. 121-48 is fundamental for the "Mythical School"; for R. Bultmann, v. Biblica, 32 (1951), p. 92, n. 830.

Pietro Nober