Biography
Drews became a professor of philosophy and German language at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. During his career he wrote widely on the histories of philosophy, religions and mythology. He was a disciple of Eduard von Hartmann who claimed that reality is the " unconscious World Spirit", also expressed in history through religions and the formation ofInfluences
During Drews's life, Germany was going through turbulent times, both politically and culturally.One finds in Nietzsche ''neither national sympathy nor social awareness'', rews claimed Nietzsche is, on the contrary, and particularly after his break with Richard Wagner, ''an enemy of everything German''; he supports the creation of a "good European," and goes so far as to ''accord the Jews a leading role in the dissolution of all nations.'' Finally, he is an ''individualist'', with no notion of "the National Socialist credo: 'collective over individual utility'...After all this, it must seem unbelievable that Nietzsche has been honored as the Philosopher of National Socialism, … for he preaches in all things ''the opposite of National Socialism''", setting aside a few scattered utterances. The fact that such honors have repeatedly been bestowed on him has as its main reason, that most people who talk about Nietzsche tend only to ''pick the 'raisins' from the cake of his philosophy'' and, because of his aphoristic style, ''lack any clear understanding of the way his entire thought coheres''. mphasis addedref name="Heidegger
Rüdiger Safranski, ''Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil'', 1999 (Harvard UP) p. 277, 300
/ref>
Drews's views on religion
Eduard von Hartmann
Drews, unsatisfied by the abstract rationality of Kantian philosophy, was attracted to religion, but was put off by what he regarded as the spiritual dryness (geistige Dürre) of Christianity. Drews found his anchor in theInfluence of Albert Kalthoff and Bauer
Drews derived additional key ideas from Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906). Kalthoff was an active minister who managed to marry three times in his short life, and revived Bruno Bauer's Christ Myth thesis in his ''Das Christus-Problem. Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie'' (''The Problem of Christ: Principles of a Social Theology'', 1902) and ''Die Entstehung des Christentums, Neue Beiträge zum Christusproblem'' (''The Rise of Christianity'', 1907). Kalthoff criticized what he regarded as the romanticist and sentimental image of Jesus as a "great personality" of history developed by German liberal theologians (including Albert Schweitzer). In Kalthoff's views, it was the early church that created the New Testament, not the reverse; the early Jesus movement wasCritique of liberal theology
Drews did become an acerbic critic of what he called the "faultyirst, quoting DupuisEach man fights for his own chimera, not for history...in matters of religion ''the belief of many generations proves nothing but their own credulity''... ''A great error is propagated more easily than a great truth'', because it is ''easier to believe than to reflect'', and men ''prefer the wonders of romance'' to the plain facts of history... we might urge against Christians that the faith of any people in the miracles and oracles of its religion proved its truth; I doubt if they would admit the argument, and we will do the same with theirs. I know that they will say that they alone have the truth; but the other people say the same.
he_Christ_cult_replaced_the_Mithras_cult_for_reasons_other_than_the_force_of_personality.html" ;"title="Mithras.html" ;"title="he Christ cult replaced the Mithras">he Christ cult replaced the Mithras cult for reasons other than the force of personality">Mithras.html" ;"title="he Christ cult replaced the Mithras">he Christ cult replaced the Mithras cult for reasons other than the force of personality..the Persian Mithra was a very shadowy form beside Jesus, who ''came nearer to the heart'', especially of ''women, invalids, and the weak'', in his human features and on account of the ''touching description of his death''. But that shows at the most that the ''more concrete idea'' has the better prospect of triumphing in a spiritual struggle than ''the more abstract''; it proves nothing as regards the historical reality of the idea. Moreover, history teaches us that it was quite different causes—partly external and ''accidental causes'' of a political nature, such as the ''death in the Persian war of the Emperor Julian'', one of the most zealous followers of Mithra—that gave Christianity the victory over Mithraism. mphasis added/blockquote> He had been outspoken in presenting his views on religion with extreme clarity in ''Idea and Personality: Settlement of the Religious Crisis'', Ch. 14 of ''The Witness of the Gospels'', and Part IV of ''Christ Myth II''. Drews asserted that mankind cannot let the present be still shackled by what he called "pastsuperstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs ...s of ancient times". He outlined what he called the religion of the future, which he said must acknowledge the World-Spirit (geist) proclaimed by Hegel as God-mankind, which is God manifesting himself through history with human actors and oracles who are merely major agents. The cult of "great personalities" he dismissed as an illusion; individuals could no longer be seen as ''godmen'', just as revealers and oracles of the divinity.''The purely historical conception of Jesus cannot satisfy the religious consciousness of our age. [It is] obsolete''. [Humanity] has not merely broken with the geocentric and anthropocentric view of the origin of Christianity, but has seen through the superstitious nature of ecclesiastical Christology. Modern humanity has, therefore, the task of again universalising the idea of divine redemption, or enlarging the idea of a god-''man''...to the idea of a ''god-''humanity...
treturns in a certain sense to pre-Christian religion and its numerous "god-men,"... filled with the idea of the one reality and its spiritual nature, to which the various individuals are related only as ''modi'', phenomena, or'revelations, confiding in the divine control of the world, and therefore in its rationality and goodness...Thus man secures a faith in himself, in the divine nature of his being, in the rationality of existence; thus he is placed in a position to save himself, without a mediator, simply on account of his own divine nature... The religion of the future will either be a belief in the divine nature of the self, or will be nothing... no Christ is needed for it, and there is no ground for concern that religion may perish with the denial of the historicity of Jesus...
he belief in Christ"is not only superfluous, but mischievous. It loads the religious consciousness with doubtful historical ballast; it grants the past an authority over the religious life of the present, and it prevents men from deducing the real consequences of their Monistic religious principles. Hence I insist that the belief in the historical reality of Jesus is the chief obstacle to religious progress... o need to appeal to Hegelto whom this high appreciation of the present above history may be traced, as well as this vindication of "personalities of world-history." The great personality has clearly a value even in our own view: in it the unity of God and man, the God-mankind, attains a clearer expression. It serves as proof to the religious consciousness that God raises up the right man at the right time. It reveals the living connection of the common individual life with the universal spiritual life. The divinity lives in history, and reveals itself therein. History is, in union with nature, the sole place of divine activity... one continuous stream of divine activity flows through time... To bind up religion with history, as modern theologians do, and to represent an historical religion as the need of modern man, is no proof of insight, but of a determination... to recognise the Christian religion alone.
Studies of monism
Drews believed that religion was intimately linked to the prevalent beliefs of the social group and not just the expression of individual beliefs and faith. He reflected on the history of the great faiths of the world, the European history of the 19th century, andnationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo .... His own mysticism, as a modern form of monism, glamorized the German idealism of the great German thinkers and poets as the superior form of future religion for mankind. It also was related to Spinoza'spantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ..., which also rejected Judaism and Christianity as ancient superstition no longer valid for the rationalism of our modern times. Drews was especially drawn toPlotinus Plotinus (; grc-gre, Πλωτῖνος, ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a philosopher in the Hellenistic tradition, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher wa ..., who foundedNeoplatonism Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ...600 years after the time of Plato. A year later, Drews edited ''Der Monismus: dargestellt in Beiträgen seiner Vertreter'', where he analyzes the major philosophers of monism. In 1913, he published ''History of Monism in Antiquity'' (1912) throughout the various schools ofhellenistic philosophy Hellenistic philosophy is a time-frame for Western philosophy and Ancient Greek philosophy corresponding to the Hellenistic period. It is purely external and encompasses disparate intellectual content. There is no single philosophical school or c .... Drews thus managed to produce a modern system of philosophy joining the ancient idealism and monism of Plotinus's Neoplatonism and the modern historical idealism of Hegel, for whom the World-Spirit manifests itself in History. Towards the end of his life, Drews started writing more explicitly on what the idea of a monist God means in the context of modern Germany in the 1930s. ''God'' (1930) and ''The Word of God'' (1933) demonstrated his trend towards a German-inspired form of religion.
Astromythical views related to early Christianity
Drews was intrigued by the alleged influence of ancientastronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...on the origins of religion, developed by the French Volney and Dupuis and promoted throughout the 19th century. He included modern considerations on astromythical topics in some pages of his major books. The ''Appendix'' to his 1912 book ''The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus'' was an essay on the astral speculations of the Ancients in relation to Psalm 22. Hoffers notes that, in the 1921 book on ''TheGospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...as a Witness against the Historicity of Jesus'', Drews demonstrates "how Mark reflects an astromythical triple journey along thezodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...". In 1923 Drews published a general introduction into astral mythology, ''Der sternhimmel in der Dichtung und Religion der Alten Völker und des Christentums, eine Einführung in die Astralmythologie'' (''The Celestial Sky in the Poetry and Religion of the Ancients and Christianity: an Introduction to Astral Mythology''), and its special influence on early Christianity. His interest remained a professional expression of curiosity and admitted speculations on relations detected by intuition and finesse, and never replaced rigorous text and historical criticism.
Other books on early Christianity
Drews also wrote a few more books on various aspects of Christianity where he systematically analyzes what he regarded as the mythical nature of the personages involved with Jesus Christ. Klaus Schilling wrote in his "English summary" to ''The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present'':Drews was involved too deep into the subject to stop there, and went boldly further, exploring how Christianity could ''become a world religion without a historical founder'' or core group described in scripture... During the irst Worldwar, Schweitzer published more essays in a weak attempt to justify theology, which strengthened Drews' attitude and endeavor. mphasis added/blockquote> In ''The Legend of Peter'' (1910, translated into English in 1997 by Frank Zindler), Drews complains that "the confusion in educated circles...is so great and the posture of Rome so impudent", and exposes the completely legendary character of the figure of Peter, both in the Gospels and the fantastical history of Peter in Rome. According to Drews (in Klaus Schilling's "English Summary" of ''The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus''):The Gospel is a poetic retelling of the astral mythical journey of the sun god, dressed in Tanakh pictures... The order of the tales follows almost strictly the astral mythical cycle. Mark's gospel is of astral magical, ''Gnostic origin from the middle of the second century''... Drews had published an introduction to astral mythology in the cultures of the Mediterranean and Iranian region up to imperial times, in order to decrease the above ignorance. But theologians continued to indulge in their self-induced ignorance. mphasis added/blockquote> In his 1924 book ''The Origin of Christianity in Gnosticism'', Drews developed the hypothesis of the ''derivation of Christianity from agnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...environment''. In Drews's own words (in Klaus Schilling's "English Summary" of ''The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus''):''Gnosticism is undeniably pre-Christian'', with both Jewish and gentile roots. The wisdom of Solomon already contained Gnostic elements and prototypes for the Jesus of the Gospels...God stops being the Lord of righteous deed and becomes the Good One...A clear pre-Christian Gnosticism can be distilled from the epistles of Paul. ''Paul is recklessly misunderstood by those who try to read anything Historical Jesus-ish into it''. The conversion of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles is a ''mere forgery from various Tanakh passages.''.. he epistlesare from Christian mystics of the middle of the second century. ''Paul is thus the strongest witness against the Historical Jesus'' hypothesis...John's Gnostic origin is more evident than that of the synoptics. Its acceptance proves that even the Church wasn't concerned with historical facts at all. mphasis added/blockquote> In ''The Myth of Mary'' (1928), which reads as ''Jesus's Family and Entourage Exposed'', Drews asserted that all the characters around Jesus were as imaginary and fantastic as Jesus himself.
Drews's activism for free religion and monism
The need for a modern reform of religion
One consequence of the success of the German school of historical criticism had been to instill an overt skepticism towards the Christian religion among the German population. A search for a German, non-Christian religion dated to pre-World War I times. Arthur Drews himself was a product of this emerging opposition to Christianity, expressed in his lifelong concern about the state of the Christian churches. After World War I, Germany became ''radicalized'', the skepticism towards the two established Christian churches and the search for a new kind of worship attuned to the national culture became a latent national preoccupation, as alluded to by Leonard Foster in his 1938 article on "The New Paganism and the Old Teutonic Religion". One of Drews's concerns was about restoring the authenticity of religion in mankind. Both William Benjamin Smith and Arthur Drews denied the historicity of Jesus Christ, but, unlike most exponents of the myth thesis, they were dedicated theists who thought that by purging religion of all its legendary accretions, they were providing an important cleanup service and equipping it with the tools to efficiently withstand the onslaught of modern materialism. Drews felt an urgent need to reform the structure of established religion, free it from its attachment to the primitive features of the early mythical Christianity. In ''Christ Myth II'' he glorifies the greatness of the German mind and complains: "How, then, can we be asked to admit that the salvation of modern times depends on a belief that has, in the Churches, degenerated into a stupid superstition?...Why, then, should we be compelled to take our religious possessions from the past? ...Are the ideas of a remote age and a degenerate culture to keep us under their power for ever?" Drews's books were released during a phase of profound turmoil in Germany and a restructuring of its religious scene. Repeatedly, Drews came back to the same theme of reform and started thinking about the nature of religion in the future.
The Free Religion movement
Drews was one of those scholars and intellectuals who were not averse to bringing their ideas to the public, especially, in his case, if it was for the cause of countering the influence of Christian churches. He was a religious activist, willing to descend into the public forum, stand up for his views, and harangue the crowds. The concern about a renewal of religion had been Drews's preoccupation all his life, along with many other Germans. Germany was going through a craze of forming all kinds of associations for matters of public concern, including religion. Alongside the established churches, Germany had seen a few important movements emerge with a liberated attitude towards religion. In 1859 the German Association of Free Religion Societies (''Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands'') was founded. This was followed in 1881 by the ''German Association of Freethinkers'' (''Deutscher Freidenkerbund''), and in 1906 the ''German Association of Monists'' ( ''Deutscher Monistenbund''). Drews threw in his lot with both the Free Religion Association and the Monist Association, which were part of the Free Religion Movement ( ''Freireligiöse Bewegung''). In addition, Drews was a member of the new No-Confession Committee (''Komitee Konfessionslos''), formed in 1909, becoming president in 1912. The Komitee supported the Church Exist Movement 'Kirchenaustrittsbewegung'' which became very successful since its inception in 1905 for attracting lapsed members of other churches as well as scientists, academic personalities, and cultural celebrities. In 1924 Drews, who was the leader of the ''Free Religion Society of Karlsruhe'', joined a few other Societies of the Southwest to form a new Association of Free Religion for the Southwest(''Verband Freireligiöser Gemeinden Süd- und Westdeutschlands''), with a more religious and less political orientation than the other movements.
The Völkish movement
In opposition to the religious movements, a non-religious cultural current had gained some impetus: the so-called '' Völkische Bewegung'' (Völkish movement), which dated back to the Romanticist movement of the 1850s, when the German revolutionary drives had been crushed by the arrival of Bismarck. Uwe Puschner is a well-known historian of this movement. This movement had a popular base and combined various elements: extreme nationalism, anti-Christianity, a reverence for the mythical Teutonic past, racism, anti-semitism, and a revival of Germanic paganism. This trend is described in the books by Hubert Cancik & Uwe Puschner, ''Antisemitismus, Paganismus, Völkische Religion'' (''Anti-semitism, Paganism, and Völkish Religion'', 2004), and byStefan Breuer Stefan Breuer (born 9 December 1948) is a German sociologist who specializes in the writings of Max Weber and the German political right between 1871 and 1945. Life and career Born in 1948, Breuer studied political science, history and philoso ..., ''Die Völkischen in Deutschland'' (''The Popular Societies in Germany,'' 2008). Although the Völkish Movement was different in ideology from National Socialism, Uwe Puschner has stressed that the two movements had great similarities and that the Völkish significantly contributed to the eventual success of theNazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ....
The new popular myth of the superior German race
Drews had been a philosopher and an historian of philosophy, with a proselytizing drive for promoting his brand of idealistic monism. His interest in religion and mythology made him sensitive to the religious "essence" of social cultural beliefs. Romantic Nordic mysticism had become a prevalent fascination among the 19th-century German elite, such as Richard Wagner and contemporary artists, historians, and writers. It had unavoidably aroused Drews' attention for the old Teutonic beliefs that were much in vogue in Northern Europe. Drews had seen in early Christianity a religion of promise of rebirth and transfiguration for a defeated and oppressed country (announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God), and the creation of a national myth giving hope to ancient occupied Palestinian Jews (an expectation of a messianic leader and liberator). Jews were expecting that Palestine was going to go through its own course of death and rebirth. During its rise in Germany, the Nazi Party included in its ideology the old Teutonic mysticism of the highly educated artistic and literary elite, and its propaganda vulgarized it into a crude, popular mass mythology of GermanicAryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...superiority with quasi-religious overtones, encouraging the fringe development of what came to be calledGermanic neopaganism Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th cent .... Aging and close to death, Drews was struck by the theoretical parallel of early Christianity with modern National Socialist mysticism, a promise of national rebirth and transfiguration from an oppressed state and ofrenewed hope for a defeated country under the leadership of a new charismatic liberator, which resonated with his own concept of a future religion based on German monist idealism.
German nationalism and repudiation of Christianity
With the National Socialist Party's propaganda overwhelming the country, Drews's language in his last theological writings became increasingly focused on the concepts of glorified Germanness by opposition to the people of theAncient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ..., whose cultures had given rise to Greco-Roman classicism (including Drews' belovedPlotinus Plotinus (; grc-gre, Πλωτῖνος, ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a philosopher in the Hellenistic tradition, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher wa ...), but also Christianity — now all devalued and labeled as foreign races. Drews thus seemed convinced that the unconscious World Spirit had moved from the Mediterranean to Germany, and the philosopher had to go along. Feeling in touch with the new cultural spirit of national rebirth and exalted hope in the future then prevailing in Germany, Drews started evangelizing on the theme of German nationalism, using it as another argument against Christianity. Thus, he wrote in ''Das Wort Gottes'' (''The Word of God'', 1933, p. 11):ree Religion believersare "German and not Romans… nd must rejecta determination of our faith on the Bible and its knowledge...Christendom is the expression of sunken times and of ''the mindset of a race foreign to us''…''Christendom has absolutely nothing to do with Germanness'' eutschtum..and a German Christendom ould be''nonsense'' ... s for Protestantismwith the blows it delivers on the Gospels, it is straight on its way to Rome... Jesus the Aryan s''a pure ideal''. here isno reason o assumea Nordic origin of Jesus. ut the question of the origin of Jesus is secondary for Drews.. ontrary tobelievers in the Bible for whom Palestine is the 'Holy Land', for devotees of Free Religion, ''Germany is the Holy Land''. he German is as an Aryan, fundamentally Monist, (Pantheist), ontrary to dualist Christians. Free Religion isthe manifestation of the essence 'Wesensausdruck''of our German people. mphasis added/blockquote> Drews systematically used monism in his battle against Christianity. Drews concluded that free religion was "the very expression of the being of our German people". Using the accoutrements of the rampant nationalistic fervor for his own agenda, Drews was still upholding his lofty ideals, but now in the form of a German monist idealism.
Berdyaev's critique
Nikolai Berdyaev Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (; russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; – 24 March 1948) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, and Christian existentialist who emphasized the existential spiritual sig ...(1874–1948) was a Russian philosopher of religion and politics. Writing in 1927 as a refugee from the Bolsheviks in a Paris threatened by Germany, he contends that Drews, as a religious anti-Semite, argues against the historical existence of Jesus for the religious life of Aryanism.Drews -- is a philosopher of the Hartmann school. In his capacity as an Hartmannist, he preaches a ''religion of pure spirit''. And he fights against the historicity of Jesus Christ in the name of a religion of spirit, he contends ''against the religious materialism'' which he detests. He is prepared to admit the existence of Christ, as the Logos. But for him ''the Logos never could have been incarnated into a man'' upon the earth, within earthly history. The ''religious materialism of Christianity is a legacy inherited from Judaism'', it is a Semitic graft, and Drews in his capacity ''as a religious anti-Semite'', struggles against this materialistic Semitic graft ''for the religious life of Aryanism'', expressing itself in its purest guise in India. Drews, just like E. Hartmann, is a resolute ''antagonist against Protestantism'' and the religion of Jesus. For him Jesus was not real, in the metaphysical sense that Christ is real. He is the ''antipode to Harnack'', a result of the splitting apart of the God-Man -- the polar opposite to the Jesusism of the Protestants. (With the Christian Myth was connected the teaching of Drews and E. Hartmann about the unconscious Divinity, which in a fit of madness created the vale of being and ''comes to consciousness through man''. cf. Drews, ''Die Religion als Selbstbewustsein Gottes''.) mphasis added/blockquote> Drews was opposed to the theology of ancient Hebraism as much as he is ''opposed to Christianity'', and even more opposed to liberal Protestantism. This cannot be construed as a claim that Drews was a social anti-semite, as he was firmly opposed to social anti-semitism. Drews shared the intense belief with the German elite of the sublimity of German consciousness (in art, literature, philosophy, and science), again re-iterated in his book ''Das Wort Gottes''. However, he saw religion as an expression of the unconscious World-Spirit anchored in a community tightly rooted on an ancestral territory. In the late 1920s and '30s, hoping to see Germany pull away from Christianity, his writings took on an even stronger German nationalist fervor left in the wake of the Nazis.
The German Faith movement
A thorough description of this religious movement was presented by Ulrich Nanko in his 1993 book on the movement. Many adventurers were trying to ride the coattails of the Nazi success to establish new spiritual/religious movements. Among them were the founders of the new German Faith Movement (''Deutsche Glaubensbewegung The German Faith Movement (''Deutsche Glaubensbewegung'') was a religious movement in Nazi Germany (1933–1945), closely associated with University of Tübingen professor Jakob Wilhelm Hauer. The movement sought to move Germany away from C ...''), founded by Jakob W. Hauer (1881–1962), and Ernst Graf zu Reventlow (1869–1943). Hauer had been a Protestant missionary in India, who had turned into a Sanskrit scholar imbued with the spirituality ofHinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...and a professor at theUniversity of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-W� .... His friend Ernst Graf zu Reventlow had been a navy officer, a journalist, and a Reichstag deputy who had joined the NSDAP in 1927. He was an influential Nazi party member, but one who never gained the trust of Hitler and never received a position from the Nazi government. The movement adopted as its official emblem the "Sun Cross", an image of the sun forming a rounded shape with the Nazi swastika. Hauer had started a religious movement that he wanted to expand with a larger group from the Völkish movement. Reventlow's cultural (but not racial) antisemitism led him to accept an alliance with Hauer in organizing a conference in July 1933 that would create another entity, the German Faith Movement. This new religious group became active in 1934. Hauer's ambition was to use Reventlow's NSDAP connections to engineer a unification of the Free Religion movement with the Völkish movement. As the movement developed, its objectives were revealed as follows: A state religion, anti-Christian with a Hinduism coloration, veneration of the sun, and pursuing a "species-true faith" for Germany, (a goal that resonated with Drews' hopes to see the emergence of a German religion). Also included were '' Blood and Soil'' (''Blut und Boden''), racist values (blood descent), nationalism (ancestral land occupation), Völkish populism (fusion with the racist/antisemitic Völkish movement), and German neopaganism. The Southwest Association for Free Religion, including Drews' Karlsruhe Society, had formed and Drews was invited to sit on the Working Committee of this new movement. The collaboration was short-lived, however. The new group's political objectives (dreams of becoming a state religion) clashed with the basic program of the Free Religion Societies, which were pursuing more limited interests of freer religion. In addition, racism and antisemitism, which had become more overt in the NSDAP's national policy after it had reached political power, became also quickly apparent as a major goal of Hauer and Reventlow. As a result, the Southwest Association of Free Religion, in which Drews' Karlsruhe Free Religion Society was a member, soon withdrew from the German Faith Movement. The two leaders of the new group proved that they didn't have enough political pull. Hauer could not implement the planned fusion with the Völkish movement. Reventlow's connections did not bring any benefits from the Nazi government. Contrary to their hopes, the German Faith movement never became endorsed as a Nazi party organization, never obtained the privileges Hauer was seeking, and never achieved its latent goal of becoming legitimized as the state religion by the NSDAP, in a vain hope to duplicate the endorsement of the Catholic Church by the Roman EmperorTheodosius I Theodosius I ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also called Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, as well as in two ...in 380 AD. Disillusioned, Hauer left in 1936, and joined the Party in 1937; Reventlow also left the movement early to resume the practice of Christianity and was still unable to gain Hitler's favor. The anthropologistKarla Poewe Karla Poewe (born 1941) is an anthropologist and historian. She is the author of ten academic books and fifty peer reviewed articles in international journals. Currently Poewe is Professor Emeritus in Anthropology at the University of Calgary, Ca ...has devoted her book ''New Religions and the Nazis'' (2005) to Hauer's attempt at founding a national religion. Richard Steigmann-Gall, author of ''The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945'' (2004), is another expert on this period. He contends that Poewe, sharing "Hauer's sense of grandiosity", portrays Hauer as more significant than he was, making of "Hauer a 'truer' exemplar of Nazism than its own institutional incarnation". Whereas Hauer was at most a fellow traveler of the Nazis, a hanger-on with big ambition, "intent to appear relevant but ultimately rejected..." The movement never achieved more than the status of a small esoteric fringe group. It never managed to dent, let alone replace, Christianity in the land of Martin Luther. It turned out to be merely a cultural flash-in-the-pan, a curiosity in the complex landscape of Germany's religious life in the mid '30s. The NSDAP government changed its name in 1938 and jettisoned it as a nuisance that was incapable of displacing the two strong Christian churches in Germany, and only risked to alienate them against the new regime. So, in spite of Drews' hope to promote a new religion based on idealistic monism and pantheism of a distinct German character, the participation of the Karlsruhe Free Religion Society in Hauer's effort to unify the provincial Free Religion associations with the Völkish movement was short-lived and produced no results. Drews, an elitist thinker in theHegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...and Hartmann tradition, had been an advocate of the unconscious World Spirit as being the fundamental engine of religion acting in history through agents and oracles. He remained hostile to any religion based on a historic personality cult and, late in life, was confronted with the practical difficulty of translating his lofty ambitions to the simpler drives and requirements of a mass movement.
Against anti-Semitism
Among the many reservations about the German Faith Movement, one reason for abandoning it was what Drews and others perceived as blatant antisemitism. Drews objected to the racist assumption in antisemitism in an article, Jesus the Aryan (''Jesus der Arier,'' 1934) where he paid homage to the courage and moral fiber of the Jews through history and to the ancient Hebrew prophets who transformed the primitive god of wrath into a god of mercy in the ''Psalms'', ''Proverbs'', and ''Wisdom'' books:rews denies thata Jew cannot be driven by liberty and courage... rews mentioned thefights for freedom of the ''Maccabees'', the fatal defense of Jerusalem against the Romans and the last desperate fight of the Jews in the ''Bar Kokhba wars'' he third and last Jewish war against the Roman army, that led to the final destruction of the Jewish state in Palestine n the same vein, Drews referred to the courage of thosepoor Jews of the ''medieval Ghetto'' who preferred to endure a thousand dead rather than renounce their faith, and climbed, still self-controlled, to the stakes... he Jewish prophetsimpassioned by freedom and courage... honever feared jail, exile, or death... n the course of the progress of the Jewish religionthe desert god Yahweh of the Old Testament has ''become larger, more tolerant, more humane, more friendly''... o thatfrom an angry and authoritarian god he changed ''into a merciful god'', who is all goodness and love, ''the god from the Psalms, the Proverbs and the Wisdom writings''. mphasis added/blockquote> Contrary to other Free Religion devotees who parroted the slogans of the NSDAP propaganda, Drews engaged in a real discussion with Jewish intellectuals and scholars. He was able to deliver a tribute to the Jewish faith, which, on one hand, brought to light its differences with Free Religion, but also showed respect to people who had other thoughts.
Late theological writings and racism
Late in his life, with the rise of the Nazi Party and Nazi propaganda, Arthur Drews appears to have taken up more nationalistic and racist theological positions, which once again centered "true" theological experience in German pride. Drews would write in one of his final writings: "Christianity is the expression of sunken times and of the mindset of a race foreign to us ..Christianity has nothing to do with Germanness." According to Bernhard Hoffers, his affinities for the German Faith movement bordered on that of J. Goebbels' own views. Drews likewise served as the primary advisor for Eugen Diederichs Verlag, which was a focal point for the rise of extreme conservatism, nationalism, and antisemitism. As such, while Drews may have been against antisemitism earlier in his life and even later, he still voiced a German superiority and had a spiritual opposition to the religion of a "foreign race" by his later life.
Death
Drews died on 19 July 1935 in Illenau,Achern Achern (; gsw, label= Low Alemannic, Achre) is a town in Western Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located approximately 18 km southwest of Baden-Baden and 19 km northeast of Offenburg. Achern is the fourth largest town in the distri ...(near Bühl),Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...at the age of 70.
Re-evaluation of Drews by Bernhard Hoffers
Germany has been struggling with the legacy of the Nazi era and is still in the process of rehabilitating its exceptional scholars. Bernhardt Hoffers, in his 2003 biographical eulogy, took up the challenge of restoring Drews's reputation that he felt had been unfairly tarnished. He stressed the following facts: He highlighted that Drews, during his life, had been an irritant, continually encroaching on the turf of many specialists in German universities: in theology, philology, astronomy, mythology, music criticism, and psychology. Specialists didn't welcome his interference and even resented him as an outsider. Drews had been regarded as a maverick; his philosophy stood outside of academia, which didn't accept his dilettantism (''Abweichungen von der communis opinio''). Hartmann was not in vogue, either, and Drews' dependence on this old professor was another hindrance. Drews created no school and had no followers in Germany. He had to remain a teacher in his Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe for the rest of his life. Drews' support of Wagner and opposition to Nietzsche did nothing to improve his standing. He met with the studied indifference 'das Ignorieren''and the silence 'das Totschweigen''of the academic pundits, while his international public popularity and press coverage were increasing. Even the University of Karlsruhe, in the very town where he lived and taught, didn't want to mention his name. His treatment at the hands of academics was similar to those of William B. Smith in the US, John M. Robertson and later George A. Wells in England, and Paul-Louis Couchoud in France. After his death his name was largely forgotten. He was mentioned in the German media mostly for having advocated the need for a religion renewal, and in the literature about Wagner and Nietzsche. His work was omitted or grossly misrepresented and discredited in major German reference books. His books in Germany are now hard to find. However, his book on Plotinus is still in demand, the ''Christ Myth'' is widely available in the English-speaking world, and Hermann Detering of ''Radikalkritik'' continues to make the ''Denial of the Historicity of Jesus'' still available.. Drews had been fighting all his life for acceptance and recognition in Germany and for tenure at a university. In spite of his enormous scholarly output, and his popularity, he never was able to obtain a university position. One has to understand why, at the end of his life, Drews was expressing a hope for a renewal of Germany. Hoffers, for the sake of fairness, remarked that Drews never was a member of the Nazi party, and spoke out early against growing antisemitism in the 1920s . He never was involved in any action against Jewish intellectuals, artists, and academics. Whereas, for instance, a philosopher likeHeidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...was more visibly active in the Nazi movement, as Rüdiger Safranski has described in detail in ''Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil'' (1999). Hoffers emphasized that "As a scholar, Drews had always been objective and honest." In spite of scholarly differences, he maintained a friendship with Schweitzer for a while. He was a polyglot and collected Japanese art prints. He was a gifted, energetic man, with a tremendous capacity for work. He gained the esteem of van den Bergh van Eysinga, the leader of the Dutch Radical school, who viewed him as a" good guy" (''ein netter Kerl''). In conclusion, Hoffers urged scholars to renew an acquaintance with Drews' books. Claiming that the arguments developed in his work were outmoded or refuted 'überholt''is unjustified. As a parting shot, Hoffers asks a pertinent question: "Is it really true that the question of Jesus's historicity has been absolutely clarified and is moreover uninteresting, as can be heard in discussions with theologians? (''Ist es wirklich so, dass die Frage nach der Historizität Jesu absolut geklärt und obendrein noch so nebensächlich ist, wie man in Gesprächen mit Theologen zu hören bekommt?'')." Hoffers concludes that Drews's life was a fascinating chapter of the ''zeitgeschichte'' (history of our times).
Works
* ''Die Lehre von Raum und Zeit in der nachkantischen Philosophie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bekenntnistheorie und Apologetik der Metaphysik'', Dec. 1889, 73 p. Ph.D. thesis, Halle-Wittemberg University * ''Die deutsche Spekulation seit Kant'', 2 vols., 1893 * ''Der Ideengehalt von Richard WagnersRing des Nibelungen (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the ''Nibel ...in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Philosophie'', 1898 * ''Giordano Bruno'', München, 1900 * ''Die moderne Psychologie'', 1901 * ''Eduard von Hartmanns philosophisches System im Grundriss'', 1902/1906 * ''Der transscendentale Idealismus der Gegenwart'', 1904 * ''Nietzsches Philosophie'', Heidelberg 1904 * ''Hegels Religionsphilosophie : in gekürzter Form'', Jena, 1905 * ''Die Religion als Selbst-bewusstsein Gottes : eine philosophische Untersuchung über das Wesen der Religion'', Jena 1906, 2d ed. 1925 * ''Plotin und der Untergang der Antiken Weltanschauung'', Jena, 1907 * ''Der Monismus : dargestellt in Beiträgen seiner Vertreter'', (edited by Drews, with opening article by him), Jena, 1908 * ''Die Christusmythe'' 1909 (Transl. C. Delisle Burns, ''The Christ Myth'', London 1910) 4th ed. 1924 * ''Hat Jesus gelebt? Reden gehalten auf dem Berliner Religionsgespräch des Deutschen Monistenbundes am 31. Januar und l. Februar 1910 im Zoologischen Garten über "Die Christusmythe" von Arthur Drews'', 1910, Verlag des Deutschen Monistenbundes, Berlin * ''Die Petruslegende, ein Beitrag zur Mythologie des Christentums'', 1910 (Transl. Frank Zindler, ''The Legend of St Peter, A Contribution to the Mythology of Christianity'', 1997) 2d ed. 1924 * ''Die Christusmythe II: Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, eine Antwort an die Schriftgelehrten mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der theologischen Methode'', Jena, 1911 (Transl. Joseph McCabe ''The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus'', 1912, London & Chicago) * ''Lebt Jesus ? Reden über den 'historischen Jesus und die Religion', gehalten am 12. März 1911, von Prof. Dr. Arthur Drews — Kernprobleme der Gegenwart. Berliner Religionsgespräch'' herausgegeben von Alfred Dieterich, Berlin, 1911 * ''Die Philosophie im ersten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'', Leipzig, 1912 * ''Geschichte des Monismus im Alterturm'', Heidelberg, 1913 * ''Die Hypothese des Unbewußten'', 1914 * ''Freie Religion. Vorschläge zur Weiterführung des Reformationsgedankens'' 1st ed. 1917, ''Freie Religion : Gedanken zur Weiterbildung und Vertiefung der Religion für die Gottsucher unserer Tage'', 3d ed. 1921 * ''Der deutsche Gott'', 1918 * ''Nietzsche als Antipode Wagners'', 1919 * ''Das Markusevangelium als Zeugnis gegen die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu (The Gospel of Mark as a testimony against the historicity of Jesus)'', Jena, 1921, 2d. ed. 1928 Image o
p. 330
at Google Books * ''Einfuehrung in die Philosophie'', 1922 * ''Der sternhimmel in der Dichtung und Religion der Alten Völker und des Christentums, eine Einführung in die Astralmythologie'', Jena 1923 * ''Psychologie des Unbewussten'', Berlin, 1924 * ''Die Entstehung des Christentums aus dem Gnostizismus'', Jena, 1924 n syncretism* ''Selbstdarstellung'', 1924 'Autobiography''* ''Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart'', Karlsruhe, 1926 (English summary by Klaus Schilling, ''The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present'', Radikal Kritik) * ''Die Marienmythe'', Jena, 1928 * ''Hat Jesus gelebt?'', Mainz, 1928 * ''Gott'', Mainz 1930 * ''Der Ideengehalt von Richard Wagners dramatischen Dichtungen in Zusammenhang mit seinem Leben und seiner Weltanschauung. Mit einem Anhang: Nietzsche und Wagner'', Leipzig 1931 * ''Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" und das Christentum'', Mainz 1933 * ''Das "Wort Gottes" : zur religiösen Lage der Gegenwart'', Mainz, 1933 * ''Deutsche Religion; Grundzüge eines Gottesglaubens im Geiste des deutschen Idealismus'', München, 1935 'German Religion: Principles of a Belief in God in the Spirit of German Idealism''* ''Briefwechsels mit Eduard von Hartmann 1888-1906'', ed. Rudolf Mutter; Eckhart Pilick, 1996 * ''Die Ethik Jesu'', Rohrbach/Pfalz Guhl 2008
Notes and references
External links
''The Christ Myth''
— Burns translation of the 3d edition (1910) at Internet Archive. Also available as
PDF version
digitalized in 2010.
Full German text at ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070927031018/http://radikalkritik.de/Petruslegende.htm ''Die Petruslegende''
Albert Schweitzer, ''The Quest of the Historical Jesus'', (1906)
in 20 chapters (Transl. W. Montgomery, 1910, London.
A new translation
is based on the 9th German edition (1984) in 25 chapters, (2001, Fortress Press).
is on Bruno Bauer. * ''The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus'', (1912) — Transl. Joseph McCabe
Isaiah 53
- ESV
Psalm 22
- "Why Have You Forsaken Me?" - ESV
Wisdom of Solomon
- Oremus
- New Advent
Full German original ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120721231515/http://www.radikalkritik.de/leugnung.htm ''Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart'', Karlsruhe (1926)
Edwin Johnson, ''The Pauline Epistles'', 1894
Albert Kalthoff, ''The Rise of Christianity'', (1904)
— 1907 translation at Internet Archive.
William B. Smith, ''Ecce Deus - Studies of Primitive Christianity'' (1913)
John Mackinnon Robertson, ''Christianity & Mythology'', (1900-10)
John Mackinnon Robertson, ''Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology'', (1903-11)
* Van Manen's views on Paul are presented as Part II o
Thomas Whittaker's ''The Origins of Christianity, with an Outline of Van Manen's Analysis of the Pauline Literature''
(1904-1933), p. 65-216. Includes Van Manen's analysis of Acts, Romans, and 1 & 2 Corinthians.
See also
providing references for Van Manen's 15 articles in ''Encyclopaedia Biblica'', including "Old-Christian Literature", 1914, "Paul & Paulinism", Romans,Philippians The Epistle to the Philippians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and Timothy is named with him as co-author or co-sender. The letter is addressed to the Christian ..., Philemon,Shepherd of Hermas A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ..., and Rome (Church) (all signed "w. c. v. M.")
Robert M. Price, "The Evolution of the Pauline Canon", 1997
Shirley Jackson Case, ''The Historicity of Jesus: a Criticism of the Contention that Jesus Never Lived, a Statement of the Evidence for His Existence, an Estimate of His Relation to Christianity'' (1912)
Frederick C. Conybeare, ''The historical Christ, or, An investigation of the views of Mr. J.M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W.B. Smith'', (1914)
Maurice Goguel, ''Jesus The Nazarene, Myth Or History?''
(1926). Also available i
* A. D. Howell Smith, ''Jesus Not A Myth'' (1942)]. Not easy to find. An analysis of Howell Smith's arguments is presented in Archibald Robertson (atheist), Archibald Robertson's ''Jesus: Myth or History?'' See als
a series of five posts on ''Vridar''
Archibald Robertson, ''Jesus: Myth or History?'' (1946)
- A review of the major scholars involved in the public debate from 1890 to 1940.
(1999) * ttps://www.amazon.com/Christ-Myth-Theory-Its-Problems/dp/1578840171/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329487626&sr=1-1 Robert M. Price, ''The Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems'' (2011)- Amazon listing and reviews
"Plotinus", by Lloyd Gerson, (2008)
- ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
Rüdiger Safranski, ''Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil''
(1999, Harvard UP) - Amazon listing & reviews {{DEFAULTSORT:Drews Arthur 1865 births 1935 deaths German philosophers People from Uetersen Christ myth theory proponents German male writers German modern pagans Modern pagan philosophers