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William and Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Problem of the Lord's Supper: The Influence of German ‘Historical Speculators’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Elisabeth Hurth
Elisabeth Hurth
Affiliation:
An independent scholar residing in Wiesbaden, Germany.
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Extract

The studies by Julie Ellison, Barbara Packer, and Wesley T. Mott demonstrate that Emerson's exposure to German biblical criticism worked steadily on his religious mind. While the former studies focus on the problem of the relation of faith to history and the more inclusive problem of the shift away from an evidentialist christology, the present study wants to show that the confrontation with German biblical criticism issued in the case of William and Ralph Waldo Emerson in a decisive change of profession and a break with the ministerial office. Moreover, this study also sets out to demonstrate that Ralph Waldo Emerson's appropriation of German biblical criticism presented an important anticipation of the intuitional doctrines of Transcendentalism. When William Emerson, following the example of such American Göttingen students as George Ticknor and Edward Everett, journeyed to Göttingen in 1824 he experienced a professional crisis triggered by the critical methods of the Göttingen exegetes J. G. Eichhorn and J. D. Michaelis. The biblical criticism which prevailed in Göttingen posed a threat for Unitarians not so much because of the depreciation of supernatural revelation as because of the very method with which this disparagement was brought about. The questioning of the historicity of the biblical narratives characteristic of the so-called “higher criticism” practiced at Göttingen cut against the grain of the Unitarian biblical tradition which regarded the biblical narratives as a factually reliable repository of “the history of Christ.” “There is no other theory,” Andrews Norton observed with regard to higher criticism, “in which propositions ready to weaken man's faith in the genuineness of the Gospels, are so elaborately and plausibly introduced.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 190 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1993

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References

1. Ellison, Julie, Emerson's Romantic Style (Princeton, 1984);Google ScholarPacker, Barbara, “Origin and Authority: Emerson and the Higher Criticism,” in Reconstructing American Literary History, ed. Bercovitch, Sacvan (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), pp. 67–92;Google ScholarMott, Wesley T., “The Strains of Eloquence”: Emerson and His Sermons (University Park, Pa., 1989), pp. 56–78.Google Scholar

2. On the biblical studies of the Harvard-Göttingen students, see Long, Orie William, Literary Pioneers: American Explorers of European Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1935).CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor a more specialized treatment of biblical criticism at Harvard and Andover, see Brown, Jerry Wayne, The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America, 1800–1870: The New England Scholars (Middletown, Conn., 1969).Google ScholarThe influence of German biblical criticism on the Harvard-Göttingen students is discussed in Hurth, Elisabeth, “Sowing the Seeds of ‘Subversion’: Harvard's Early Göttingen Students,” in Studies of American Renaissance: 1992, ed. Myerson, Joel (Charlottesville, Va., 1992), pp. 91–106.Google ScholarFor an analysis of the Harvard-Göttingen axis in the context of the historical Jesus quest, see Hurth, Elisabeth, In His Name: Comparative Studies in the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Frankfurt, 1989), pp. 119–141.Google Scholar

3. Norton, Andrews, Evidences ofthe Genuineness ofthe Gospels, 3 vols. (Boston, 1837), 1:115.Google ScholarSee also Howe, Daniel Walker, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805–1861 (Middletown, Conn., 1988), pp. 299–303;Google Scholarand Handlin, Lilian, “Babylon est delenda—The Young Andrews Norton,” in American Unitarianism, 1805–1865, ed.Wright, Conrad Edick (Boston, 1989), pp. 53–85.Google Scholar

4. Norton, , Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, 1:96.Google Scholar

5. Emerson, William, letter of 8 08 1824, in Karelynn Kalinevitch, “Ralph Waldo Emerson's Older Brother: The Letters and Journal of William Emerson” (Ph.D. diss, University of Tennessee, 1982), p. 123.Google Scholar

6. Rusk, Ralph L., ed., The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 6 vols. (New York, 1939) (hereafter, L), 1:352, n. 37).Google ScholarOther Emerson works cited are The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Emerson, Edward Waldo and Forbes, Waldo Emerson, 10 vols., Centenary Edition (Boston, 1910–1914) (hereafter, J);Google ScholarThe Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Gilman, William et al. , 16 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1960–1982) (hereafter, JMN);Google ScholarThe Vestry Lectures and a Rare Sermon, ed. Cameron, Kenneth W. (Hartford, Conn., 1984) (hereafter, VL);Google ScholarThe Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Emerson, Edward Waldo, 12 vols., Centenary Edition (Boston, 1903–1904) (hereafter, W);Google ScholarThe Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Frank, Albert J. von, 4 vols. (Columbia, Mo., 1989–) (hereafter, S);Google Scholarand Young Emerson Speaks: Unpublished Discourses on Many Subjects, ed. McGiffert, Arthur C. (Boston, 1938) (hereafter, YES). References will be made in the text.Google Scholar

7. On the influence of higher criticism on Emerson, see also Kalinevitch, Karen, “Turning from the Orthodox: Emerson's Gospel Lectures,” in Studies in the American Renaissance:1986, ed. Myerson, Joel (Charlottesville, Va., 1986), pp. 69–112.Google Scholar

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12. Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Life of Jesus, ed. Verheyden, Jack C. (Philadelphia, 1975), p. 392.Google Scholar

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14. Emerson, William to Ripley, Ezra, 4 04 1830, HL.Google Scholar

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17. Compare Emerson's discussion of Everett in “Life and Letters in New England,” W, 10:312.Google Scholar

18. L, 1:273.Google Scholar

19. A complete list of the biblical studies which Emerson used for his vestries may be foundin Cameron's edition of the vestry lectures, The Vestry Lectures and a Rare Sermon, pp. 24–28.Google Scholar

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23. Compare Thirwall, Connop, A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke (London, 1825), introduction.Google ScholarSchleiermacher, Friedrich, “Ueber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 5 (1832): 735–768.Google Scholar

24. Compare Rusk, Ralph L., The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, 1949), pp. 105–107.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., p. 106.

26. Thirwall, , Critical Essay, p. 296;Google Scholarsee also Schleiermacher, , The Life of Jesus, p. 393.Google Scholar

27. Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Faith, ed. Mackintosh, H. R. and Stewart, J. S. (Edinburgh, 1956), p. 643.Google Scholar

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30. Compare Channing, William Ellery, “The Imitableness of Christ's Character,” in The Works of William E. Channing (Boston, 1889), pp. 310–316.Google ScholarOn the influence of Channing on Emerson's developing Christology, see Colacurcio, Michael, “Pleasing God: The Lucid Strife of Emerson's Address,” Emerson Society Quarterly 37 (1991): 141–212.Google Scholar

31. Compare Emerson, William, letter of 2 03 1825, cited in Kalinevitch, “The Letters and Journal of William Emerson,” p. 207.Google Scholar

32. Ripley, George, “Schleiermacher as a Theologian,” Christian Examiner 20 (1836), in Miller, Perry, ed. The Transcendentalists: An Anthology (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

33. Letter to Emerson, Mary Moody, 27 10 1825, cited in Rusk, The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 113.Google ScholarFor an additional account of William Emerson's visit to Goethe, see Emerson, Haven, “William Emerson Travels Abroad,” Charaka Club Proceedings 8 (1935): 76–77.Google Scholar