HARNACK, ADOLF (KARL GUSTAV) VON

born , May 7, 1851, Dorpat, Estonia, Russian Empire died June 10, 1930, Berlin German theologian, historian, and leading scholar on the early Church Fathers; he was recognized also for his scientific endeavours. In such seminal works as The History of Dogma, 3 vol. (188689; 4th ed. 1909) and The History of Ancient Christian Literature, 3 vol. (18931904), he sought to demonstrate that the relevance of Christianity to a modern world lay not in theological dogmatism but in the understanding of the religion as a historical development. He was ennobled (with the addition of von to his name) in 1914. Harnack was born in Dorpat, Livonia (Estonia), where his ancestors had moved from Germany. His father, Theodosius Harnack, was a professor of practical and systematic theology, first in Dorpat, then for 13 years in Erlangen, Ger., and again, until his death, in Dorpat. His chief work, dealing with the theology of Martin Luther, is still widely read. Adolf von Harnack was educated at the universities of Erlangen, Dorpat, and Leipzig. After obtaining the doctorate with a dissertation on a text of an early Christian heresy (Gnosticism), he became a lecturer at the University of Leipzig in 1874. Two years later, he was promoted to a professorship in church history. In 1879 he moved to Giessen and in 1886 to Marburg. From there he was called in 1888 to a professorship at the University of Berlin. Because of his liberal theological views, especially with respect to the validity of the historical Christian creeds, his appointment to the post at Berlin was opposed by the supreme council of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, but the opposition was overruled by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and, on his advice, by the emperor William II; the latter had become emperor in 1888, the year of Harnack's appointment at Berlin. Throughout his life, though maintaining academic appointments in theology and church history, Harnack was denied ecclesiastical posts. Nevertheless, he exercised broad influence in Protestant churches, because, through his masterful teaching and his solid learning, he won an enthusiastic following among his students, many of whom rose to positions of ecclesiastical leadership. In his voluminous writings, Harnack brought to a culmination the interpretation of the Christian religion as a historical development as it had been taught by the earlier German biblical and historical theologians Johann Salomo Semler, Ferdinand Christian Baur, and Albrecht Ritschl. Harnack sought to achieve a historical understanding of Christianity wherein its original essence could be separated from subsequent accretions of dogma. He sought to isolate this essence using a scientific historical method that abjured all metaphysical speculation and instead depended on careful critical study of primary sources; analysis of the cultural factors that help to shape historical events; assessment of historical institutions and their relation to the spirit that produces them; and faithful representation of the facts. Harnack's purpose was thus to replace theological dogmatism by historical understanding. Harnack's most famous work is Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3 vol. (188689; The History of Dogma), which is a monument of liberal Christian historiography. In this work, Christian dogma, by which Harnack meant the authoritative system of Christian doctrine that had formed by the 4th century AD, is traced in its origin and development. His thesis is that Christian dogma in its conception and development is a work of the Hellenistic Greek spirit on the ground of the gospel of Jesus in the New Testament. According to Harnack, the process begun at the Protestant Reformationi.e., the overcoming of dogma by a recovery of the essence of the gospelshould be completed, and the historical-critical approach would achieve this. Harnack defended this value-judgment in his most popular book, Das Wesen des Christentums (1900; What Is Christianity?), which was the transcript of a course of lectures he delivered at the University of Berlin. Harnack's other major works are the Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, 3 vol. (18931904; The History of Ancient Christian Literature), and Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (1902; The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries). He was the chief editor of a critical edition of The Greek-Christian Authors of the First Three Centuries (1891 ). He also published numerous monographs on the New Testament and on the doctrines and institutions of the ancient church. In all these works Harnack tried to show how the gospel of Jesus, which in his view has nothing in common with authoritarian ecclesiastical statutes and doctrines, became embodied in the doctrines of the church. He also wanted to offer support for his conviction that, if the gospel is to retain power in the modern world, it must be freed from its connection with the dogmas of God and Christ with which it became identified necessarily to survive in the Hellenistic world. Harnack was the leading historian of the Christian church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his impact on modern theological scholarship was profound. In addition to his post as professor of church history at the University of Berlin, he was a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, was the general director of the Prussian State Library and, after 1911, served as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (now the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science). Harnack secured the support of government and industry for this foundation and established research institutes in the natural and medical sciences. It was a signal honour that, although he was a theologian, Harnack was asked to write The History of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in connection with the celebration of its 200th anniversary in 1900. Harnack retired from his position at the University of Berlin in 1921. Wilhelm Pauck The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica