Essays in the History of Religions return to religion-online Essays in the History of Religions by Joachim Wach Joachim Wach was born in 1898 in Chemnitz, Saxony and died in 1955. Wach insisted there was a definite distinction between the history of religion and the philosophy of religion. He felt an inquiry into the difference must be carried out by employing the religo-scientific method (Religionswissenschaft). Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, in 1988. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock. This book is a collection of essays by Joachim Wach representing each major phase of his scholarly career. Wach emphasizes that both historical and systematic dimensions are necessary to its task, and he argues that the discipline’s goal is "understanding." Introduction by Joseph M. Kitagawa This introduction by Kitagawa is a biography of Wach. He began his teaching career in Germany which ended in 1935 under pressure of the Nazis because of his Jewish lineage, even though the family had been Christian for four generations. Thereafter he taught in the U.S. at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and later at the University of Chicago. Master and Disciple: Two Religio-Sociological Studies The student admires in the teacher the greatness and significance of his learning; and his merit consists in his willingness to give freely of this treasure. The student is dear to the teacher to the extent that he is willing to open himself to the teacher’s communication; the student’s value depends on his individual success or failure to appropriate the subject matter. This entire relationship is born and lives by means of the common interest in the object of study. A diversion from it results in the disintegration of the relationship between them. Mahayana Buddhism Mahayana Buddism’s philosophy and its way of looking at the world along with its attitudes toward God, toward mankind, and toward the world are discussed along with how its piety determines its ethic. Wilhelm Von Humboldt Wilhelm Von Humboldt was a Protestant in whose worldview Hellenism strongly colored Christianity. He looked to metaphysics or philosophy for justification. Language, to him was the medium in which he followed the growth and articulation of human freedom. He devoted file:///D:/rb/relsearchd.dll-action=showitem&id=588.htm (1 of 2) [2/2/03 9:12:26 PM] Essays in the History of Religions profound and penetrating thought to the nature of speech, to the structure of language, to its psychological and sociological problems, to its typology and its function in the development of human civilization. Sociology Of Religion Sociology of religion shares with the sociology of other activities of man certain problems and, in addition, has its own problems due to the peculiar nature of religious experience and its expression. The greatest differences and varieties can be found in the structures of religious groups. The French School of Sociology of Religion, the German, the English, the North American, are discussed, along with expressions of concern to those interested in the systematic development of the temporal, the spatial, the ethnic and cultural, and the religious viewpoint. Radhakrishnan and the Comparative Study of Religion The challenge by Christian critics of Hinduism -- Radhakrishnan’s own faith -- impelled him at the time of his student-days at Madras to "make a study of Hinduism and find out what is living and what is dead in it." Again and again in writings, he has traced historically phases of development in Western (Greek and Christian) and Indian (Brahmanic, Hindu and Buddhist) religious thought, and has analyzed in systematic fashion basic notions in Hinduism and Christianity. Religion In America: The Sociological Approach to Religion and its Limits Wach divides American religious groups into a trichotomy -- ecclesiastical bodies, denominations, and sects. The nature of American religion is discussed as a function of these divisions. On Teaching History of Religions Whatever the teachers approach, it will have to be adapted to the special needs and demands of each successive generation. However there are certain requirements for teaching the History of Religions: Instruction in the field must be 1. integral; 2. competent; 3. existentially concerned; 4. selective; 5. balanced; 6. imaginative. On Understanding All theories of understanding which try to analyze its nature and the stages of its development will have to begin with a concept of existence, and this means, implicitly if not explicitly, with a metaphysical decision. As I see it, there exist three possibilities which I should like to call the materialistic, the psychophysical and the spiritual interpretations of existence. 31 file:///D:/rb/relsearchd.dll-action=showitem&id=588.htm (2 of 2) [2/2/03 9:12:26 PM] Religion-Online religion-online.org Full texts by recognized religious scholars More than 1,500 articles and chapters. 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Wach insisted there was a definite distinction between the history of religion and the philosophy of religion. He felt an inquiry into the difference must be carried out by employing the religo-scientific method (Religionswissenschaft). Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, in 1988. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock. Introduction by Joseph M. Kitagawa Shortly after Joachim Wach’s death in the summer of 1955, I wrote "Joachim Wach, Teacher and Colleague" (The Divinity School News 22, no. 25 [Autumn 1955] [University of Chicago]); "A Glimpse of Professor Wach" (Register 45, no. 4 [November 1955] [Chicago Theological Seminary]); and "Joachim Wach et la Sociologie de la Religion" (Archives de Sociologie des Religions 1, no. I [Janvier-Juin 1956] [Paris]). I have also written about Wach in my introductions to three posthumous works: The Comparative Study of Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958); Understanding and Believing (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); and Introduction to the History of Religions (New York: Macmillan, 1987). Readers may also consult the account of Wach’s life and thought in Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, 2 vols. (The Hague: Mouton, 1973) by Jacques Waardenburg. Joachim Wach was born in 1898 in Chemnitz, Saxony, and died in 1955 while vacationing in Orselina, Switzerland. He was a descendant of Moses Mendelssohn, a lineage that affected his life and career both positively and negatively. His paternal grandfather, the noted jurisconsult Adolph Wach, married Lily, the daughter of Felix Mendelssohn, the composer. His father, Felix, married Kathe, granddaughter of the composer’s brother, Paul. Young Wach was early exposed to music, literature, poetry, and both classical and modern languages. After attending the Vitzshumsche Gymnasium in Dresden and spending two years in military service (1916-1918), Wach enrolled at the University of Leipzig, but in 1919 and early 1920 he studied with Friedrich Heiler at Munich and with Ernst Troeltsch at Berlin. He then returned to Leipzig to study Oriental languages and the history and philosophy of religion. For a time he came under the spell of the enigmatic poet Stefan George, whose writings spoke of a heightened sense of "experience," through which one perceives the multiple threads of the tapestry of life as a transparent whole. Wach received his Ph.D. degree in 1922 from Leipzig with a thesis entitled "The Foundations of a Phenomenology of the Concept of Salvation," published as Der Erlösungsgedanke und seine Deutung (1922). file:///D:/rb/relsearchd.dll-action=showitem&gotochapter=1&id=588.htm (1 of 10) [2/2/03 9:12:32 PM] Essays in the History of Religions When Wach started teaching at Leipzig in 1924, the discipline of the history of religions (Religionswissenschaft), still in its infancy, faced serious dangers. On the one side, its right to exist was questioned by those who insisted that whoever knows one religion (i.e., Christianity) knows all religions; on the other, its religio-scientific methodology was challenged by reductionist psychological and social-scientific approaches. Thus in his habilitation thesis, Religionswissenschaft: Prolegomena zu ibrer wissenschaftstheoretischen Grundlegung (1924), Wach insisted on the integrity and autonomy of the history of religions, liberated from theology and the philosophy of religion. He emphasized that both historical and systematic dimensions are necessary to its task, and he argued that the discipline’s goal was "understanding" (Verstehen): "The task of Religionsruissenschaft is to study and to describe the empirical religions. It seeks descriptive understanding; it is not a normative discipline. When it has understood the historical and systematic aspects of the concrete religious configurations, it has fulfilled its task" (p. 68). His Religionswissenschaft is still regarded as a small classic in the field.