Tübingen

TÜBINGEN. - City in Germany in Württemberg; famous for its university, which made it one of the principal beacons of the sciences from the humanistic period onward.

I. THE UNIVERSITY

It was founded on July 13, 1477, by virtue of the full powers granted by Sixtus IV with the bull of Nov. 13, 1476, by the Duke of Württemberg, Eberhard im Bart, on the advice of his old friend and teacher Joh. Nauclerus, and it obtained imperial confirmation from Frederick III in 1484. Its first rector was (1482-1509) Nauclerus himself; the papal commissioner was Henry Fabri, abbot of Blaubeuren. There were 4 Faculties: theology, law, medicine and philosophy, staffed by 14 select professors (among whom, besides Nauclerus, were J. Heylin, J. Stöffler, J. Reuchlin, E. Bebel, F. Melanchthon) who soon brought it to splendid flowering.

In 1534 the whole region had to pass over to the Reformation by the will of Duke Ulrich; therefore the University too changed its orientation and became merely a state institution; many professors were dismissed, and others took their place, favorable to the new ideas (J. Camerarius, P. Phrygius, S. Schnepf, A. and L. Osiander) who transformed it into a stronghold of Lutheran orthodoxy. The erection, in 1536, of the so-called "Stipendium" (later called "Stift" and today the evangelical seminary) contributed to giving it fame and students. In the 18th century the rigid orthodoxy gave way to a broader freedom of thought in the theological Faculty, until toward the end of the century the profound influence of Christian Gottlieb Storr made itself felt, giving rise to what is called the "School of T."

Celestino Testore

II. THE "SCHOOL OF T.". - The "School of T." had two periods: the first (old school), begun by G. Ch. Storr (1777-97) with the abandonment of the rigid orthodox position that had characterized the Faculty of T. in the 16th-17th centuries during the internal controversies of Lutheranism (v.) and with the acceptance of Enlightenment viewpoints and of Kantian criticism, but keeping firm the biblical foundation of the dogmatic system, so that its orientation can be defined as a rational supernaturalism; it was in this atmosphere that Hegel and Schelling, among others, were formed, students of the celebrated university college (Stift), reserved for aspirants to the profession of Lutheran pastors.

The second period (the "New school") began with the revival of the theological Faculty, after the crisis of the Napoleonic era, within the framework of the reorganization of the universities, which took place around 1830 with a new redistribution of the teaching among the various chairs, increased in number. Its founder and head is to be considered F. C. Baur (v.), who, along the line of the Hegelian left, gave the maximum development to the critical-rationalistic revision of the dogmatic system and of its historical-biblical bases. But the one who gave greater resonance to the school of T. was D. F. Strauss (v.), who denied the historical value of the New Testament texts, affirming them to be an expression of the faith of the primitive communities in Christ and a history of the "myth of Christ." Strauss thus justified the shifting of the center of the history of Christianity from Jesus to Paul, as formulator and witness of the faith of the primitive communities.

These positions, which created the renown of the school, did not however remain without contestation even within the Faculty of T.; Strauss himself failed to obtain the chair and remained a "repetiteur" in the theological college; from the middle of the 19th century the Faculty thus had an eclectic orientation, inasmuch as all theological tendencies were represented in the teaching body. However, the teachers who had the most fame were those of the radical historical-critical tendency, with greater or lesser efforts to find a compromise with the official theology of the church, for which the faculty was supposed to supply the pastors. Such was the case of the historian of religions A. Bertholet (1913-14), holder of the chair of Old Testament; of the Church historian G. Weizsäcker (1861-99); of the professors of New Testament exegesis A. Schlatter (1898-1922) and W. Heitmüller (1923-25); the call of the latter aroused polemics analogous to those around the name of D. F. Strauss, because of the radicalism of his historical-critical position. The organ of the new school of T., representative of the period of its most pronounced theological liberalism, was the Theologische Jahrbücher (1842-57).

III. THE "CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF T.". - It arose in 1817, when King William I of Württemberg transferred to T. the "Theological Academy" founded in 1812 by his father, Frederick I, at Ellwangen and incorporated it into the University as a Catholic theological Faculty, also founding a college or seminary for Catholic students to match the seminary for Protestant ones. The characteristic orientation of the new Faculty (which is often called the "Catholic School of T.") consists, as regards theology, in the harmonious fusion of the historical-positive method with the speculative method; as regards philosophy, in the in-depth study of modern spiritual currents and in the exploitation of modern philosophy, duly corrected and watched over by Catholic thought, in favor of theology. The influence exercised on all of Germany by select professors (among whom it is well to mention: J. S. Drey, J. B. Hirscher, J. A. Möhler, J. G. Herbst, J. Kuhn, C. J. Hefele) and by numerous students, among them F. A. Staudenmayer, F. Probst, P. B. Gams, F. X. Funk, P. Schanz, etc., has always been very notable. The Catholic Faculty has as its organ the journal: Theologische Quartalschrift (v.).

Mario Bendiscioli