Religion in the Making: The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion 9004112391, 9789004112391

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RELIGION IN THE MAKING

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS (NUMENBOOK SERIES) EDITED BY

H.G. KIPPENBERG • E.T. LAWSON

VOLUME LXXX

RELIGION IN THE MAKING THE EMERGENCE OF THE SCIENCES OF RELIGION

EDITED BY

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K AND

PETER PELS

BRILL LEIDEN . BOSTON· KOLN 1998

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religion in the making / edited by Arie L. Molendijk and Peter Pels. p. cm. - (Studies in the history of religions, ISSN 0169-8834; v. 80) Proceedings of a conference held May 22-24, 1997 at the University of Amsterdam. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004112391 (hardcover: alk. paper) I. Religion-Philosophy-History-19th century. 2. ReligionStudy and teaching-History-19th century. 3. ReligionPhilosophy-History-20th century. 4. Religion-Study and teaching-History-20th century. I. Molendijk, Arie L. II. Pels, Peter. III. Series: Studies in the history of religions; 80. BL5l.R3484 1998 98-34510 200' .1-dc21

eIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnalune Religion in the Inaking / ed. by Arie L. Molendijk and Peter Pels.Leiden ; Boston; Kaln : Brill, 1998 (Studies in the history of religions; Vol. 80) ISBN 90-04-11239-1

ISSN 0169-8834 ISBN 9004 11239 I © Copyright 1998l:ry Koninklijke Brill

NV,

Leiden, TIe Netherlands

All rights reseroed. No part if this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or l:ry any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted l:ry Brill provided that the appropriate fies are paid directlY to TIe Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are suf!Ject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS Preface ............................. ,....................... '" ................. ,. .. .. ..... ...... Contributors L. MOLENDIJK Introduction ................................................................................. .

Vll IX

ARIE

IX

PART ONE

INSTITUTIONALIZATION: NATIONAL SETTINGS MICHEL DESPLAND

Sciences of Religion in France During the July Monarchy (1830-1848) ....................................................

31

PETER BYRNE

The Foundations of the Study of Religion in the British Context .. ....... ..... ... ....... ....... ..... ....... ..... ......... ....... ........ ARIE L. MOLENDIJK Transforming Theology: The Institutionalization of the Science of Religion in the Netherlands ................................

45

67

PART TWO

EMERGING DISCIPLINES: BOUNDARY DISPUTES SIGURD HJELDE

The Science of Religion and Theology: The Question of Their Interrelationship ........................................................

99

ROBERT ACKERMAN

J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists and the "Scientific" Study of Religion .... .............. ................ ....... ....... 129 IVAN STRENSKI

The Ironies of Fin-de-Siecle Rebellions against Historicism and Empiricism in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Fifth Section .. ......... ..... ..... ....... ......... ..... ....... ......... ....... ..... ...... 159 DAVID M. WULFF Rethinking the Rise and Fall of the Psychology of Religion ................................................................................ 181

CONTENTS

VI

PART THREE

RETHINKING RELIGION: CONCEPTUAL INNOVATIONS ROBERT

J.

BAIRD

How Religion Became Scientific ................................................ 205 MIRIAM PESKOWITZ

Religion Posed as a Racial Category. A Reading of Emile Burnouf, Adolph Moses, and Eliza Sunderland .... ... ...... ..... 231 WOUTER

J.

HANEGRAAFF

The Emergence of the Academic Science of Magic: The Occult Philosophy in Tylor and Frazer ........................ 253 BARBARA BOUDEWIJNSE

British Roots of the Concept of Ritual.................................... 277 HANS G. KIPPENBERG Survivals: Conceiving of Religious History in an Age of Development ... ........... ......... ......... ..... ....... ......... .... ....... ........ 297 Index of Names .......................................................................... 313 Index of Subjects " ............... ... ...... ... .... ..... ........... ......... ......... ...... 317

PREFACE The present volume deals with the emergence of the scientific discourse on religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and North America. This process is examined in a broad academic context. The emphasis is on general socio-historical developments, rather than on individual biographies. Leading questions are: How and where did the institutionalization of the study of religion take place? What characterizes the new discourse on religion? How did different disciplines arrive at a comparative approach to religion? What interests were at stake in these developments? In order to cover this wide field the contributors---scholars from different backgrounds, such as anthropology, literary criticism, psychology, theology, philosophy, and science of religion-were asked to cover their topics as extensively as possible. In this way we aim at an integral, historical approach to the emergence of a scholarly study of religion. This volume springs from a conference which we convened at the Research Centre Religion and Society of the University of Amsterdam, May 22-24, 1997. The Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Cologne), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) , the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and the Research Centre Religion and Society (Amsterdam) sponsored the conference. Both the Research Centre and the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions (LISOR) supported the subsequent editorial expenses. It is our pleasure to thank each of these organizations. Furthermore, we are grateful to Petruschka Schaafsma and Tessel Jonquiere for their help in preparing the manuscript, Daniel G. Powers for linguistic advice, and the editorial staff of Brill Publishing House for their support in bringing out this book. Special mention should be made of Hans G. Kippenberg who from the very beginning showed a keen interest in our undertaking and who, with E. Thomas Lawson, accepted this collection for the Numen Book Series. Leiden-Amsterdam

Arie L. Molendijk & Peter Pels

CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Ackerman is Director of Liberal Arts at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). He is the author of the standard biography of J.G. Frazer, J.G. Frazer. His Life and Work (Cambridge 1987), and has written many books and articles on Frazer, the Cambridge Ritualists, and the history of anthropology. Robert J. Baird is an independent scholar writing in the areas of religion and culture. His book Inventing Religion in the Western Imaginary (forthcoming from Princeton University Press) analyzes the cultural forces behind the construction of the modern category of "religion". His current research is on the nineteenth century discourses of "religion" and "ethics" and their role in the formation of colonial and postcolonial societies. He is currently President of the National Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Sciences, Atlanta (USA). Barbara Boudewf,jnse studied cultural anthropology and religious studies in Amsterdam and Groningen (The Netherlands) and is presently preparing her Ph.D. thesis on ritual theory. In addition to Current Studies on Ritual. Perspectives for the Psychology if Religion, co-edited with H.G. Heimbrock (Amsterdam 1990), she has published several articles on Catholic Pentecostalism, anthropological fieldwork practices, and ritual theory. Peter Byrne studied philosophy at the universities of York and Oxford (UK). He has been Lecturer, and is currently Senior Lecturer, in the Philosophy of Religion at King's College London since 1975. He is editor of the journal Religious Studies. He has edited and authored books in ethics and in philosophy of religion. His publications include: Natural Religion and the Nature if Religion. The Legacy if Deism (LondonNew York 1989) and The Moral Interpretation if Religion (1998). He is presently engaged in a study of ethical issues arising out of mental handicap. Michel Despland FRSC is a member of the Religion Department at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec (Canada). He holds degrees from the universities of Lausanne and Harvard. He has published Kant on History and Religion (Montreal 1973); La religion en Occident.

x

CONTRIBUTORS

Evolution des idees et du vecu (Paris 1979); The Education if Desire. Plato and the Philosophy if Religion (Toronto 1985); La tradition .franyaise en sciences religieuses (1991); Reading an Erased Code. Romantic Religion and Literary Aesthetics in France (Toronto-London 1994), and, with Louis Rousseau, Les sciences religieuses au O!febec depuis 1972 (Waterloo, Ontario 1988). Wouter J. Hanegrariff studied music, cultural history, and science of religions. He is now working as Research Fellow in the Department for the Study of Religion at Utrecht University (The Netherlands), and specializes in the history of alternative and esoteric traditions in western culture. He is the author of New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror if Secular Thought (Leiden 1996; Albany 1998), and co-editor of Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions (Leiden 1995; with Ria Kloppenborg), Cnosis & Hermeticism .from Antiquity to Modern Times (Albany 1998; with Roelof van den Broek) and Western Esotericism and the Science if Religions (Lou vain 1998; with Antoine Faivre). He is presently working on a book on western conceptualizations of "magic". Sigurd lfjelde holds degrees in philosophy and theology. He is Professor of History of Religions in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Oslo (Norway). He teaches the Study of Christianity (and Judaism), and his main fields of research are the history of Protestant Theology and the history of the science of religions. His publications include: Das Eschaton und die Eschata (Munchen 1987), and Die Religionswissenschrift und das Christentum (Leiden 1994). He is co-editor of a Norwegian translation of Luther's works in 6 volumes (Oslo 1979~ 1983). Hans C. Kippenberg is Professor of Theory and History of Religions at the University of Bremen (Germany). His major fields of research and teaching are the great religions of ancient and modern Mediterranean cultures, their representations and their social effects; the sociology of religion of Max Weber; and the history of comparative religions in the 19th and 20th century. He is editor of the journals Visible Religion and Numen. International Review for the History if Religions. He is author of Die vorderasiatischen Erliisungsreligionen in iJzrem Zusammenhang mit der antiken Stadtherrschrift (Frankfurt 1991), and Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschrift und Moderne (Munchen 1997), and co-editor of Religionswissenschrift und Kulturkritik (Marburg 1991; with B. Luchesi) and Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium (Leiden 1997; with P. Schafer).

CONTRIBUTORS

Xl

Arie L. Molendijk earned degrees in philosophy and theology at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands). Currently, he holds a post-doctoral position at the Leiden Theological Faculty, and is doing research on the emergence of Dutch science of religion at the end of the nineteenth century. His main research interest concerns the history of 19th and 20th century theology and philosophy in Germany and the Netherlands. His publications include: Aus dem Dunklen ins Helle. Wissenschaft und Theologie im Denken von Heinrich Scholz (Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA 1991) and Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie. Ernst Troeltschs Typen der christlichen Gemeinschriflsbildung: Kirche, Sekte, Mystik (Gutersloh 1996). Peter Pels lectures at the Research Centre Religion and Society of the University of Amsterdam, and is a research fellow of the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research. He has edited, with Lorraine Nencel, Constructing Knowledge. Authori!J! and Critique in Social Science (London 1991), and, with Oscar Samelink, Colonial Ethnographies (a special issue of History and Anthropology, Vol. 8, 1994), and has written A Politics if Presence. Contacts between Missionaries and Waluguru in Late Colonial Tanganyika (Chur-Reading 1998). He is currently working on the anthropology and history of elections in 1950s Tanganyika, and the history of the interconnections between anthropology and occultism in nineteenth century Britain. Miriam Peskowitz is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Florida (USA). She is author of Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender, and History (Berkeley 1997) and of numerous articles, and is co-editor of Judaism Since Gender (New York 1997). Her forthcoming projects include "Travels in the Holy Land: A Study of Contemporary American Bible-based Religion", a book-length study of material and landscape replicas of Biblical scenes and characters in the United States, and a second project continuing the article in this volume, on the relations of the category constructions of race and religion. Ivan Strenski is the Holstein Family Community Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside (USA). He is North American editor of the journal Religion and is author of four books, notably, Four Theories if Myth in Twentieth-Century History (Iowa City 1988), Religion in Relation (Columbia 1992), and most recently Durkheim and the Jews if France (Chicago 1997). He has written extensively on fin-de-siecle French political and religious culture in relation to the academic studies of religions. His special focus has been the

Xll

CONTRIBUTORS

Durkheimian group and their political, social, and academic relations to religious scholars and theologians from Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Free-thinker communities and intellectual traditions.

David M. Wu!ffis Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts (USA). He is a past president of the Division on Psychology of Religion of the American Psychological Association and in 1995 was appointed book review editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study qf Religion. He has a Ph.D. in personality psychology from the University of Michigan and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Theology from the University of Lund (Sweden) in 1993. He is author of the handbook Psychology qf Religion: Classic and Contemporary (New York 1997).

INTRODUCTION l ARIE

L.

MOLENDIJK

This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of Western scholarly research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most obvious in this respect was the development of an increasingly autonomous science of religion: Religionswissenschrift. The main events in the history of its institutionalization-with the first professorships in Switzerland and the Netherlands in the l870s and the foundation of the Fifth Section of Religious Sciences at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1886 as landmarks-are wellknown. 2 However, it was also within anthropology, sociology, and psychology that religion came to be viewed as a separate entity which needed to be studied comparatively. One can trace different genealogies, depending on whether one concentrates on the science of religion ("comparative religion") in the narrow sense (with founding fathers like Max Muller and C.P. Tiele) or whether one includes developments in these other fields as well. In order to capture as wide a terrain as possible, this book considers the emergence of the discourse on religion in a broad academic context. In the second part of this introduction the question as to how this history can be best written will be treated. But, first, I will try to locate the most important intellectual and socio-historical factors that contributed to the rise of the scientific study of religion as such. Finally, in the last part of the introduction, I will make some remarks on the structure of this volume and the various contributions it contains.

1. the Rise if the Scientific Study if Religion The historian of the study of religion is well advised to begin by taking a short look at the current debate on the concept of religion. I I would like to thank Hetty Zock, Peter Pels, Jan Platvoet, Peter van Rooden, and Han Adriaanse for their comments on an earlier draft of this introduction. 2 Cf. Sharpe 1986: 119ff. On the Fifth Section, see Bauberot 1987.

2

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

If this is done, one will quickly discern that the notion is highly controversial among students of religion in recent days. Even the usefulness of the concept as such is questioned. Does the notion not presume a one-sided~Schleiermacherian~focus on the inner religious sentiment? Is it not a typical Eurocentric notion?3 Is it not true that another, more specific vocabulary is needed?4 On the other hand, it may be asked whether terminological changes are of much help. Is it not a naturalistic illusion to think that our categories fit reality as such? Jonathan Z. Smith has claimed that religion is invented by the scholar and that it "has no independent existence apart from the academy". 5 Although few scholars will agree that "there is no data for religion",6 the conviction has gained ground that the concept of religion is framed by the scholar. There is a growing awareness that categories such as religion, democracy, genocide, or the Middle Ages are not just "out there", waiting to be discovered by diligent observers, but are produced in a historical and cultural context. Besides giving rise to all sorts of methodological and hermeneutical reflections, such considerations also prompt historical research into the formation of concepts. Several studies have traced the genesis of the concept of religion. 7 In Latin Antiquity, "religion" meant scrupulous observance (especially towards the gods); the formula religio naturalis~natural knowledge of God~was first used in the seventeenth century, and the location of religion in an inner feeling was an invention of late eighteenth century Protestantism. The development of the meaning of "religion" is of great importance to the theme of this volume. One of the major issues concerns which conceptualization of religion underlies the rise of the scientific study of religion in the nineteenth century. Several studies have stressed the importance of the legacy of deism in this regard. Since religion was constructed by the deists as a natural phenomenon, it was consequently understood that it needed to be researched by natural means. Facing the mortal conflict among European religions~with mutual exclusive truth claims allegedly all based on divine revelation ~ Rudolph 1994. Feil 1986; 1992; 1995; cf. W.C. Smith 1963. 5 j.Z. Smith 1982: XI. 6 Ibid. (italicized in the original). 7 W.C. Smith 1963; Despland 1979; Feil 1986; Wagner 1986; Despland & Vallee 1992; Dierse, et al. 1992; Bremmer 1998; cf. Asad 1993; McCutcheon 1995. 3

4

INTRODUCTION

3

thinkers like Jean Bodin and Herbert of Cherbury "dared to put Christianity on the same level as the other religions, subjecting it to the same critical and rational standards". Their work represented, according to J. Samuel Preus, a "paradigm shift", because "they put reason above the alleged revelations as the norm for religious truth, and they rejected the authority of confessional groupS".8 Peter Harrison emphasizes the new secular interpretative framework which appeared in late seventeenth century England. 9 In addition, he refers to the important role of older traditions-the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Classical Age-in the process of making religion into "a natural object constituted primarily by propositional knowledge". IO Without a doubt, the aforementioned studies of Preus and Harrison document the framing of religion as a natural phenomenon. Moreover, Harrison in particular aims to show how" 'religion' entered the realm of the intelligible" and, therefore, began to be constructed "along essentially rationalistic lines".]] Harrison views this as an essential condition for the rise of the scientific study of religion, which, according to him, began at an earlier time than is usually assumed in historiography. Admittedly, an endless discussion is possible about the question when a particular intellectual endeavour started. Problematic in this account, however, is that at least one important aspect is missing. Science of religion in the nineteenth century defined itselfvis-a.-vis earlier scholarship-as a more or less radically empirical affair, informed by sound philological and historical method. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish the rationalistic construction of religion from its empiricist re-invention. From the present-day point of view, many things can and must be said against the alleged empirical character of early science of religion. These scholars did no fieldwork and they had a predilection for speculation. Yet, one cannot deny that on the basis of archaeological excavations, the deciphering of texts, the reconstruction of ancient languages, and the analysis of travel reports, the study of religion was given an empirical foundation in the nineteenth century. This leads to the following point which is unduly neglected if one focuses solely on deism and the Enlightenment; namely, the contribution

8

9 10 ii

Preus 1987: 205f. Harrison 1990: 3. Harrison 1990: 4; cf. p. 7; see also the contribution of Baird to this volume. Harrison 1990: 2.

4

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

of Romanticism to the rise of the scientific study of religion. 12 The deists and Enlightenment philosophers offered primarily a rational reconstruction of religion as such. Although they eventually turned to foreign-Oriental-religions (as a medium to criticize Christian Church authority), they were not so much interested in religious divergence per se. In contrast, the young theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who moved in the inner circle of German Romanticism, took a rather different point of view. In his addresses to the "cultured despisers of religion" (1799), he explicitly rejected the notion of "natural religion". One of his typical comments ran as follows: "The essence of natural religion consists almost entirely in denying everything positive and characteristic in religion and in violent polemics". 13 Peter Byrne in his book on deism writes with regard to Schleiermacher: "His aim is to offer an account of the essence of religion which leads to the conclusion that religion is pre-eminently to be discovered in the . . . positive religions of the world's history". 14 Schleiermacher's account of religion established a revaluation of the historical character of religion and of its positivity. Such views were of great importance to the rise of the scientific study of religion, because they awakened the awareness that religions are to be studied in their own right and not as instances of either superstition or natural (rational) religion. The above lines are not written with the belief that the question concerning the intellectual roots of the scientific study of religion can be settled once and for all in a scholarly disinterested manner. Presentday predilections and standpoints inevitably playa role here. IS To put my cards on the table: I believe that the rise of a historical orto use a more recent term-"culturalist" approach which takes into account historical and cultural differences is of great importance in this respect. This perspective, which was shaped by Romanticism, is a necessary condition for the modern study of religion. We need it in order to understand such different developments as the pillarization of Dutch society, cargo cults in Melanesia, or New Age religion in present-day California. Ahistorical explanations of religion

Cf. Kippenberg 1991: 19f. Schleiermacher 1958: 233 [quoted in Byrne 1989: 157]. 14 Byrne 1989: 157. 15 Much depends also on the disciplinary setting from which the history of the field is approached; cf. section II of this introduction. 12 13

INTRODUCTION

5

tout court, for instance, in terms of priests' deceit or infantile wish fulfilment, are mostly not very helpful due to the fact that particular religions usually have long histories, in which they have assumed widely different forms and functions in widely different social and political contexts. In my view, such general explanations playa secondary role at most. Perhaps I am a bit too sceptical in this regard, and I admit that those who prefer an explanatory approach to religion in terms of a critique of ideology will be inclined to attach greater importance to the Enlightenment tradition. 16 It is not my intention to exclude explanations from the study of religion. On the contrary, both approaches to the study of human phenomena-"one seeking to subsume a variety of them under a general law, the other seeking to penetrate the secrets of the individual phenomenon" (as George Stocking's apt formulation runs)17-have to be combined in factual research. What I oppose is the global ahistorical kind of explanation that overlooks the historical context of the phenomena which are the object of study. The historicist or culturalist approach in modern Western thought is inconceivable without Romanticism, and it is miles away from deist rationalism. It has to be viewed against the backdrop of the new concept of scientific knowledge which arose in the nineteenth century. Science was no longer conceived in Aristotelian terms as universal knowledge of necessary being, but in a procedural, dynamic way. Science turned into Forschung which is viewed as a never-ending process. The sciences were based on disciplined experience, and, as such, they emancipated themselves gradually from metaphysics and speculative philosophy in general. The empirical turn of nineteenth century science implied also that the historical character of human phenomena was taken into account. 18 So far in this introduction, our attention has been focused primarily on the shifts in the conceptual and methodological apparatus. Important as these may be, other factors contributed to the rise of the scientific study of religion as well. We already touched upon the role 16 Preus 1987; Rudolph 1978; 1985: 23: "The history of religions, like so many neighboring disciplines, is a child of the Enlightenment. Curiosity aroused by the discovery of exotic cultures and the fight against religious intolerance assisted at its birth". 17 Stocking 1987: XVI. 18 Cf. Schnadelbach 1983: chapter 3 (" Wissenschqfi").

6

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

of new discoveries. The deciphering of hieroglyphs (the word itself is a telling example of how specimens of foreign culture were framed in Western language) and the cuneiform tablets, the study of Oriental languages such as Sanskrit, and archaeological excavations opened up new horizons for the empirical study of religions. The process of ongoing European expansion and colonization had furthered the documentation of foreign cultures and religions. European concepts were tested and developed at the colonial frontier.!9 The influence of Max Muller in India, who never visited the country, but who contributed to Hindu identity through his edition of ancient Hindu texts, especially of the Rg-Veda, 20 and the role of the Dutch Islam specialist Snouck Hurgronje as an adviser of the Dutch government in the East Indies are examples of the intricate connections between scholarship and colonization. 2! The ways in which the emerging science of religion was related to the intensification of political colonization deserve further study. Before the second half of the nineteenth century, the colonies were mainly economically exploited, and it is quite conceivable that the rising wish to control the indigenous populations politically furthered the study of their religions. 22 Most important, however, seems to have been a new way of looking at religions. Information about foreign cultures and religions was collected well before the nineteenth century. The following comment by C.P. Tiele, one of the presumed founding fathers of Religionswissenschqfi, is revealing in this respect: "There were huge collections, containing descriptions of all the religions in the world, so far as they were known, laboriously compiled, but without any critical acumen, and without the least suspicion that unbiblical religions are not mere curiosities".23 The new way of looking at these "curiosities" implied that they possess value in themselves and are worthy of scientific 19 In his innovative book Savage /iystems, David Chidester (1996a) has traced this complex relationship. He argues that "the discovery of an indigenous religious system on southern African frontiers depended upon colonial conquest and domination" (19); cf. Chidester 1996b. 20 Van der Veer 1997. 21 See Van Koningsveld 1988. 22 Many authors have argued for the connection between the establishment of bureaucratic colonial administrations and the development of anthropology in general at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century; cf. Asad 1973; W.D. Smith 1991: 162-173. The question here, however, is in which way the rise of the scholarly study of religion can also be (partly) explained in these terms. 23 Tiele 1886: 358.

INTRODUCTION

7

investigation. In this way foreign religions became meaningful to Western scholars and their religious convictions. In time, all religions, including Christianity, were placed within one comprehensive framework. 24 The rise of an evolutionary approach to religion, which takes for granted that a universal pattern of religious development can be established, presupposes such a comprehensive scheme. This approach makes it possible to combine the idea of the unity of mankind with that of the diversity of human cultures. "The specific attraction of evolutionary social theories was that they offered a way of reformulating the essential unity of mankind, while avoiding the current objections to the older theories of human nature everywhere essentially the same. Mankind was one not because it was everywhere the same, but because the differences represented different stages in the same process". 25 Basic was the conviction that religion as such can and should be an object of study.26 The perception of religion as a distinct sphere of human culture is related to major developments in the modern Western world. The revolutions of the late eighteenth century eventually led to the separation of Church and State in most Western countries. The creation of the modern nation of equal and free citizens was only possible when religious difference no longer played a dominant role in the public sphere. From this point of view the disappearance of the old status quo, in which religion and political authority were intimately connected with each other, led in time to some sort of autonomization of religion, which consequently could be studied in its own right. One could argue that the creation of the modern nation state brought about-at least to some extent-a transformation of religion from the visible social and hierarchical order to "the inner selves of the members of the moral community of the nation". Friedrich Schleiermacher's concept of religion as an overwhelming inner experience of dependence upon the whole universe must be seen against this background. 27

24 On the place of the study of Christianity within science of religion, see Hjelde 1994. 25 Burrow 1966: 98; cf. the contribution of Kippenberg to this volume. 26 Cf. Kohl 1988: 218f.; Byrne 1989: Xf. 27 This paragraph owes much to an unpublished paper of Peter van Rooden, "Master-Narratives of Religion in the Modern World" (1998), which sketches this transformation on a fairly general level. To understand it in greater detail, the different national histories have to be taken into account.

8

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

The place of religion in society was destabilized to some extent. This development is much more complicated than can be oudined here. The role of dissenting and emancipating Christian groups which undermined the alleged unified religious identity of the nation should be mentioned, as well as the fact that-as the nineteenth century advanced-the plausibility of Christianity itself came under attack. The findings of geology, Darwinist biology, and German higher Biblical criticism threatened the credibility of sacred history.28 The growing uneasiness about the transition from the rural community to the modern, industrial, and urban society played a role here, too. The study of religion could be used as a means for criticizing "undesirable" effects of modernization. In addition, the old, positivist conviction that religion was a phase in history which would be overcome by science gradually waned. With respect to sociology of religion, for instance, it can be doubted whether there is a straight line from the critique of religion to the scientific study of it. There seems to be a discontinuity between Comte and Marx, on the one hand, and Durkheim and Weber, on the other. 29 Durkheim does not view religion as a product of the human imagination or as a means to oppress the labourers, but as a necessary element of social life. The persistence of religion in the modern world had to be accounted for, and this called for a different perspective. 30 To borrow Hans Kippenberg's formulation: a theory of modernity "in which past religion still had a future" was developed. 31 This view did not exclude dramatic changes in modern religious history, but the hypothesis that religion in modernity is in constant decline and will finally disappear lost much of its plausibility. In this way, religion could be seen as an object worthy of scientific treatment, and not as something that was to be exterminated by science. Religion was thought to be a phenomenon of considerable intellectual interest at the time. The work of Max Miiller, for instance, aroused quite a bit of excitement. He had to read his Hibbert Lectures twice because the auditorium did not provide enough room for all who wanted to attend. 32 Furthermore, various pirated editions of his

28 29 30

31 32

Cf. the contribution of Byrne to this volume. Krech & Tyrell 1995: 15-19; c£ Dahme & Rammstedt 1984: 461£ C£ Sharpe 1986: 30. Kippenberg 1997: 10. Cf. Muller 1878: VII.

INTRODUCTION

9

Introduction to the Science if Religion were published at the time. Muller himself was not unduly modest about what was to be achieved: "The Science of Religion may be the last of the sciences which man is destined to elaborate; but when it is elaborated, it will change the aspect of the world, and give new life to Christianity itself". 33 The narrowness of our own religious horizon will disappear, if we are willing to conduct the study of religion "in a bold, but scholar-like, careful, and reverent spirit". 34 Muller combined a romantic view of the value of religious divergences with a firm belief in the possibility of a sound scientific investigation of these phenomena. If we are willing to study "positive facts" and to "read. . . the history of the world", then we will see "that, as in geology, so in the history of human thought, theoretic uniformity does not exist, and that the past is never altogether lost". The oldest formations of thought crop out everywhere, and if we dig but deep enough, we shall find that even the sandy desert in which we are asked to live, rests everywhere on the firm foundation of that primeval, yet indestructible granite of the human soul,-religious faith. 35

The analogy with the work of the geologist who digs up old layers and materials which are the fundament of our existence is striking. The nineteenth century findings of geology and archaeology had contributed to the overthrow of the Biblical chronology of world history. This was an important step in the development of a naturalistic science, which allowed the very origin of humankind to be studied without reference to supernatural intervention. 36 What is also remarkable in the above quotation is the metaphor of the "sandy desert" which betrays a nostalgia for the religious past. Most pervasive, however, is the implied overall global view which frames unity within religious difference. The privileged way to unearth the treasure is the comparative method: "all higher knowledge is acquired by comparison, and rests on comparison".37 This insight pertains also to "our religion". "[I]n order to understand fully the position of Christianity in the history of the world, and its true place among the religions of mankind, we must compare it, not with Judaism

33 34 35 36

37

Muller 1867: XIXf. Muller 1873: IX. Muller 1867: XXXII. Cf. Stocking 1987: 69ff. Muller 1873: 12.

10

ARIE L. MOLENDUK

only, but with the religious aspirations of the whole world". 38 In the end, this endeavour, according to Muller, will be to the benefit of Christian belief. What such research would imply for Christianity and other religions as well was a contentious issue. Tylor proposed anthropology as a "reformer's science" which would do away with superstition. 39 Evans-Pritchard, in his work on the history of anthropology, has claimed that its founders were all atheists who saw religious belief as an illusion. 40 In the foregoing paragraphs, I have tried to list the factors which underlie the rise of the scientific study of religion in the nineteenth century. It is difficult to bring them all into one picture. The interplay between socio-political, intellectual, and more strictly methodological factors is encumbersome to fathom. We probably have to be content with a multi-sided approach, without being able to locate the relationships of interdependence exactly. On a general level, sociopolitical changes-the end of the confessional state and the rise of the nation state (which implied a transformation of religion from the visible social order to the inner selves of the members of the moral community of the nation) and the intensifying political colonization in the second half of the nineteenth century-were important. The own religion was no longer the only and obvious one. Religion was perceived as a more or less separate entity which could and should be studied in a global perspective. Deism, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism all proposed their own intellectual answers to the changing conditions. Was religion essentially a set of moral prescripts? And could Christianity be reduced to a minimal, but universal, religious creed? Or was religion essentially an illusion (perhaps beneficial to the masses)? Or was religious diversity good for its own sake? The reconceptualization of religion as a separate sphere of human activity, the waning of the belief that there was no place for religion in modernity, the availability of relevant materials, and the application of historical and empirical methods all contributed to the rise of the scientific study of religion. In addition, the awareness of the importance of religious diversity, on the one hand, and the rising conviction that it was meaningful to compare religions, on the other, were no doubt crucial. Comparison was

38 39 40

Muller 1867: XXVIII. Tylor 1891, Vol. II: 453. Evans-Pritchard 1965: 14f.

11

INTRODUCTION

thought to be the golden road to a scientific approach to phenomena at the time. From a methodological point of view, the rise of science of religion can be described in terms of the encounter of the comparative approach, which in a more speculative fashion had been the prerogative of philosophy of religion,41 and the historico-empirical methods of the cultural sciences of the nineteenth century. II. The Historiography

if the

Sciences

if Religion

Current paradigms, methodological issues, and different disciplinary settings influence the way in which the history of the study of religion is written. The disciplinary setting within which one is working is especially hard to overcome. It makes quite a difference, whether Max Muller and C.P. Tiele, or Wilhelm Wundt and William James, or Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung, or E.B. Tylor and Emile Durkheim, or Georg Simmel and Max Weber-to mention just these menare considered to be the key figures in the scientific study of religion. Historians are generally well aware of the danger of writing history in a teleological fashion. The recommended remedy is to contextualize. But how is this to be done in the case under discussion? In this volume we plead for a broad approach to the emerging sciences of religion, as we call them for the sake of convenience. From a historian's point of view this wide perspective is necessary because, otherwise, one cannot make sense of the highly diverse and confused landscape of the study of religion at the time. Symptomatic in this respect is the problem as to who is to be included and who is to be left out in such discipline histories. To which discipline are scholars such as William Robertson Smith or Abraham Kuenen to be reckoned? Thus, it is no coincidence that we see a key figure like Emile Durkheim appear not only in the historiography of sociology of religion, but in that of anthropology of religion and science of religion as well. 42 This is not due to some sort of carelessness on behalf of the historiographer. The underlying problem is that discipline boundaries were not yet established. Of course, in retrospect it is clear that some scholars preferred-what we would call nowadays-"social scientific" methods, and others historical-philological

41 42

On the beginnings of philosophy of religion, see Feiereis 1965. Cf. Krech & Tyrell 1995; Morris 1987; Sharpe 1986.

12

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

methods; but it would be a misrepresentation to describe these various preferences in terms of mutually exclusive paradigms. In spite of all the polemics, more or less fruitful exchanges took place in those days. Because religion was at the centre of public interest, scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds~such as history, philology, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, theology, philosophy, classical, and oriental studies~were attracted to research on this topic. The ongoing debate on what religion is about~ is it essentially a social or psychological, a moral or properly religious phenomenon?~produced different approaches in the various (emerging) disciplines. How, then, can the history of the scientific study of religion best be written? I will just give a few suggestions. First, with regard to the discipline historiography (which as such is a legitimate undertaking), one has to be aware of the danger of doing "iceberg" research, by repeating again and again the contributions and failures of the towering figures, while forgetting their less eminent colleagues and the institutional frameworks within which they worked. A drawback of much discipline history is "that it offers an account of the alleged historical development of an enterprise the identity of which is defined by the concerns of the current practitioners of a particular scientific fidd".43 Secondly, one has to acknowledge the importance of biographical work on the "great scholars" of early science of religion (like Miiller, Tide, A. Reville, O. Pfleiderer, W. James, W. Brede Kristensen, Tylor, Frazer, J. Harrison, Durkheim, or Max Weber). On the condition that it is not confined to an exposition of the influential con-

43 Collini 1988: 388. For a critique of such historiography, see also Stocking 1965 and Collini, Winch & Burrow 1983: 4: "In essence it consists in writing history backwards. The present theoretical consensus of the discipline, or possibly some polemical version of what that consensus should be, is in effect taken as definitive, and the past is then reconstituted as a teleology leading up to and fully manifested in it. Past authors are inducted into the canon of the discipline as precursors or forebears, and passed in review as though by a general distributing medals-and sometimes reprimands-at the end of a successful campaign, with the useful implied corollary that if medals can be distributed the campaign must have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion and the discipline duly established. The list of canonical precursors, arrayed in chronological order, each wearing a label conveniently summarising his 'contribution', then becomes the history of the discipline in question. As with 'offical histories' in recently established republics, rival teams of great predecessors may be assembled in this way, ostensibly to proclaim and honour a tradition of surprising antiquity, but in fact to legitimate the claims of the current protagonists in the struggle for power".

INI'RODUCTION

13

cepts and theories they developed, such research can uncover the broad ramifications of the field. Thirdly, a discussion of the emergence of the discourse of religion in a broad academic context in terms of general socio-historical developments is needed. This perspective, which is the dominant one in this volume, is important because~ as far as we can see now on the basis of our current knowledge~ the emergence of the academic study of religion can only be adequately understood if both the factors which made such study urgent at the time and the particular character of the field are taken into account. For lack of a better term, I would characterize the field as "protodisciplinary". Various disciplines were in an embryonic state (or less than that), and students from different (disciplinary) backgrounds could join~so to speak~the new field. This makes the early science of religion appear to us as a somewhat diffuse field of study. By using the term "protodisciplinary", I do not want to suggest that the formation of disciplines is a theme of secondary importance in the history of science. But the building of disciplines was a longterm process and at the time there was much uncertainty concerning whence this would lead. However, there is only one discipline which up till now defines itself by reference to the term "religion", and that is "science of religion" stricto sensu. Other disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy, possess their subdisciplines which carry the name "religion" in their title; but, apparently, these fields have other ways to justify their existence. Of course, it is noteworthy that religion played such an important role in the formative phase of some of these fields. In general terms, this indicated that religion was~again~on the agenda of the modern cultural sciences. But the identity of these other fields does not depend (solely) on the study of religion, as is the case with science of religion. This science is~ to quote Clifford Geertz when referring to cultural anthropology~ "a conflicted discipline, perpetually in search of ways to escape its condition, perpetually failing to find them".44 This is already evident in the ongoing debates about the proper name for the field. Should it be "science of religion", "history of religion", "history of religions", "comparative religion", "religious studies", or "religion studies", to mention just these English-language designations? The problem was

44

Geertz 1995: 4.

14

ARlE L. MOLENDI]K

there from the beginning. Louis Henry Jordan, one of the major early chronologists of the field, listed in 1905 the following names which had all been suggested by "representative leaders in this study": "hierology", "pistology", "the science of religions" (in the plural), "the comparative science of religion", "comparative theology", and "comparative religion".45 Other designations like "hierography" or "phenomenology of religion" could be added without difficulty. By way of contrast, it is interesting to see which disciplines are listed as "auxiliary sciences" by Jordan. He mentioned six of them: anthropology, archaeology, psychology, mythology, ethnology, and sociology.46 P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye had written almost two decades earlier, in the first edition of his famous Manual on the History of Religion(s): The science of religion owes its steady growth to the discoveries and advances that have been made in the science of language, in archaeology, philology, ethnology, psychology of nations, mythology, and folk-loreY Archaeology is not found in the German edition (also not in the later editions of the manual), and, then, the stress on the importance of the study of languages is even more striking. Chantepie de la Saussaye did not only refer to the deciphering of unknown languages in this context, as was to be expected, but he also drew the attention to the following fact: "It was the the comparative study of language which threw light on the real relationship of nations, and thus supplied the principal means for a proper classification of mankind". 48 The focus on world history is a presupposition for the rise of the new field, according to Chantepie de la Saussaye. On the one hand, science of religion apparently depended on the advances in other sciences concerned with religion, but, on the other, it claimed (and claims) to be a discipline in its own right. The struggle for academic recognition testifies to this. From the very beginning, however, there was a discussion whether science of religion was a Jordan 1905: 24~28. Jordan 1905: 256ff. Anthropology was defined here (with reference to Cassell's Encyclopaedic Dictionary) as "the Comparative study of the Arts of different races, in different degrees of culture" (258); as its outstanding representatives were mentioned E.B. Tylor, A. Lang, J.G. Frazer, and F.B. Jevons. Ethnology was in Jordan's view kindred to anthropology, and was mainly referred to because of the importance of its subdiscipline folklore (Jakob L.K. Grimm and Andrew Lang, among others). 47 Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 5. 48 Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 5. 45

46

INTRODUCTION

15

specific discipline itself or rather a term covering the field of the study of religion in all its ramifications. At the end of the nineteenth century, Abraham Kuenen, who is now famous for his studies in the Old Testament, was included among the "scientists of religion". In my view, there is no principal reason to exclude Old Testament scholarship from the field of "science/history of religion". Science of religion, therefore, is an ambiguous term, depending on whether it is seen as a special discipline or as a comprehensive designation for every kind of scholarly study of religion. In this volume we address this problem by speaking of the sciences of religion in the plural; in this way we hope to indicate, first, that there was no well-demarcated discipline science of religion and, second, that various emerging disciplines dealt with this topic. But the ambiguity remains to some extent due to the fact that the situation at that time was (and, in my view, still is) ambiguous. Most research on the history of Religionswissenschqfl takes the view that it is a discipline in its own right. Walter Capps' recent study, Religious Studies: The Making if a Discipline, seems to be a fine example. He starts by saying that "to call religious studies an intellectual discipline is to recognize that it employs established rules and methods of inquiry".49 This suggests more uniformity than there actually happens to be. Later on in his introduction, Capps gives the following diagnosis: "The large variety of interests, methods, intentions, convictions, materials, subjects, issues, and skills already referred to should indicate that religious studies is a dynamic subject-field within which selected topics are approached by means if numerous disciplines under the influence of multiple attitudes and methodological sets of interest".50 One wonders whether the book is not rather about the making of (a variety of) disciplines. No doubt, Capps is right when he states that collective intellectual endeavours only qualify as disciplines if they "exhibit a second-order tradition"-"a coordinated account of the primary schools of interpretation, methods of approach, traditions of scholarship, and, most significandy, a shared living memory of the ways in which all of these constitutive factors are related to each other".51 Still, as he has to admit, such a second-order tradition is not yet clearly identifiable in religious studies. Capps' goal is

49 50 .Ii

Capps 1995: XIV. Capps 1995: XXI (emphasis ALM) . Capps 1995: XVf.

16

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

to compose such a tradition which sets parameters for the future. This is the drift of much historiography which is motivated by the wish to establish a respectable intellectual "histoire de memo ire" for its own academic field. It is difficult to locate the beginnings of the scientific study of religion because-to make the point just one more time-so much depends upon where one stands and where the emphasis is laid. Various positions are taken in the historiography. 52 Eric Sharpe is very outspoken in this regard: "In short, comparative religion (at first a synonym for the science of religion) did not exist in 1859; by 1869 it did". The evolutionary method marks the start, according to Sharpe. 53 But studies on "science/history of religion" appeared well before that time. A famous example is Bernard Bolzano's "Manual of Science of Religion" from 1834. 54 Even earlier, the German theologian Christian Wilhelm Bugge held a course on history of religion at the University of Gottingen in 1797. 55 Bolzano tried to establish the perfection and superiority of Roman Catholic religion; an attempt which nowadays would be classified as a specimen of philosophy of religion. In Flugge's books we hardly find an evolutionary, comparative perspective. So, I would be inclined to say that such a work belongs to the "prehistory" of the field, but the distinction between "history" and "prehistory" is admittedly contestable. 56 For certain, however, is that scholars like Muller and Tiele thought of themselves as establishing a new field of research. Tiele stated: "Although in former centuries its advent was heralded by a few fore52 Cf., e.g., Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891; Hardy 1901; Jordan 1905; 1915; Lehmann 1913; 1925; Pinard de la Boullaye 1929-1931; Rudolph 1962; EvansPritchard 1965; Waardenburg 1973-1974; De Vries 1977; Whaling 1983-1985; Van Baal & Van Beek 1985; Sharpe 1986; Morris 1987; Kohl 1988; Byrne 1989; Harrison 1990; Kippenberg & Luchesi 1991; Hjelde 1994; Capps 1995; Krech & Tyrell 1995; Chidester 1996a; Bennett 1996; Wulff 1997; Kippenberg 1997; cf. Stocking 1987; 1996. 53 Sharpe 1986: 27f. (quotation from p. 28). 54 Bolzano, Lehrbuch der Religionswissemchrifi, Sulzbach, 1834; c[ Pinard de la Boullaye 1929-1931, Vol. II: 548. 55 The German title was "Allgemeine und besondere Religionsgeschichte"; c[ Merkel 1939, who discusses other late eighteenth and early nineteenth century German examples as well. 56 The opposition between "prehistory" and "history" is, of course, to be distinguished from that between "proto disciplinary" and "disciplinary". Much of the early scholarly study of religion in a comparative perspective was, seen from our presentday point of view, "protodisciplinary" in character, but is to be reckoned to the "history" of the field.

INTRODUCTION

17

runners, as Selden in 'De Diis Syriis', de Brosses in 'Le Culte des Dieux F etiches', the tasteful Herder and others, as a science it reaches back not much further than to the middle of the nineteenth century"Y For the greater part, the old books are said to have hardly any value. 58 Tiele's colleague P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye claimed that Max Muller was the founder of the new science. 59 Seen in terms of the encounter of comparativism and empiricism mentioned above, there is also much to be said for locating the beginnings of science of religion in the second half of the nineteenth century. A look at the institutional aspects points in this direction, too. The first specialized journals, lectures, congresses, and professorships go back to this period. The Hibbert (1878) and Gifford (1888~1889) Lectures,60 the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago (1893),61 the "scientific" congresses on history of religion (starting with those in Stockholm 1897 and Paris 1900),62 and the establishment of the first chairs in the field in Switzerland and Holland in the l870s are all examples of this development.

III. Outline The process of institutionalization is of great importance in wntmg history of science. In a weak sense, it concerns the "relatively dense interaction of persons who conduct [an intellectual, ALM] activity within a social arrangment which has boundaries, endurance, and a name". If the interaction is extended, this loose structure "makes place for authority which makes decisions regarding assessment, admission, promotion, allocation".63 In the strong sense the formation of academic disciplines is involved. No doubt, a history-of-ideas approach can offer valuable insights regarding the conceptual changes which underlie the rise of fields of study. But it has to be complemented by an approach that focuses on institutional aspects. Discipline formation is a matter not only of method and theory, but foremost of power and recognition. \7 53 59 60 61 62

63

Tiele 1893: 583. Tiele 1886: 358. Chantepie de la Saussaye 1891: 6. Jaki 1986. Barrows 1893; cf. Ziolkowski 1993. Sharpe 1986: chapter 7, esp. p. 140. Shi1s 1980: 168f.

18

ARIE L. MOLENDIJK

The focus on institutionalization is probably also the most appropriate way to approach the question when a field of study appeared on the scene. Affinity of ideas is not enough-to mention a rather extreme example from another branch of science-to establish Democritus as the founding father of modern atom theory. In the case of the emergence of the scientific study of religion, we face an especially complex situation because scholars from different backgrounds were involved in the project of making religion into a subject of academic research. Disciplines and protodisciplines cooperated to some extent, but there also existed animosity, because of the diverging interests in the struggle for (academic) recognition. This concerns, in particular, science of religion in the strict sense, since its identity depended on the topic it researched. In line with the above observation, the first part of this book deals with institutionalization. The contributions are not limited to the history of one well-defined discipline (although in some settings special attention must be paid to such a development). The essay of Michel Despland, for instance, deals among other things with the publication of various translations of religious key texts and with the foundation of chairs in Oriental languages in France. Research into languages was intimately connected with the study of religion. The articles in the second part of the book consider the ways in which the various disciplines tried to establish their own field of study and discussed methodological issues. The emphasis is on the disputes which arose among and between various emerging disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and science of religion. The third part of the volume examines the development of new conceptualizations of religion. The distinction between science, magic, and religion was a major concern at the time. But other terms-"ritual", "totemism", "fetishism", "taboo", "mana", "survival", "sacrifice", "witchcraft", or the "occult"-also occupied the minds of scholars. These topoi often carried an overload of assumptions about religion and the way in which it ought to be studied. The three essays in the first part of the book deal with the emergence of the study of religion in France, Britain, and the Netherlands. After a brief sketch of the institutionalization of the "sciences religieuses" in the l880s in France, Michel Despland considers the rise of public interest in the field since the beginning of the nineteenth century. He shows how the study of religion became a publicly acknowledged and supported research enterprise in the years of the July Monarchy

INTRODUCTION

19

(1830-1848). The many factors that contributed to the production of such a significant number of scholarly studies of religion, including many translations of Oriental religious texts, are examined. The essay of Peter Byrne explores the institutionalization of religious studies in Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His aim is to show how the foundations of religious studies as an interdisciplinary field of study were laid in that period, but how the subject failed to develop fully thereafter. The contributions of major scholars such as E.B. Tylor, Max Muller, W. Robertson Smith, James Frazer, and Andrew Lang are briefly examined. The existence of religious studies inside and outside the university system is described, with particular emphasis on the role of periodical and book publishing and on the Gifford and Hibbert lectureships. The flourishing of religious studies is also related to Victorian interest in religion and the future of society. The contribution of Arie L. Molendijk focuses on the process of the institutionalization of science of religion in the Netherlands. The discussions which led to the Act on Higher Education of 1876, by which the field was established within the Faculties of Theology, are examined in some detail. It is shown that the parliamentary debate was not concerned with the introduction of a new discipline, but was centred on the transformation of theology as such into science of religion. Furthermore, the views of leading Dutch scholars, such as C.P. Tiele and P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, and the study of religion outside the theological faculties are described. The contributions to the second part of the present volume examine the ways in which various emerging "sciences of religion" tried to establish their own field of study. Demarcation lines were not clear and, hence, there was ample space for boundary disputes. Sigurd Fijelde examines the complicated interplay between theology and science of religion. Although the emergence of science of religion is often interpreted as a process of emancipation from Christian theology, one should not forget the ambivalence that, right from the beginning, characterized their relationship. On the basis of a wealth of materials he gives a portrayal of the diffuse attitudes and expectations of that time. Many of the pioneers of science of religion were Protestant theologians who envisaged a close and natural cooperation with a modern type of Christian theology. But other representatives of the new discipline gave expression to clearly antitheological inclinations. On the other side, many authors within the theological community welcomed science of religion as a useful ally in their defense of

20

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

Christianity, while others met the newcomer with a rather sceptical attitude. Robert Ackerman examines the contribution of the "Cambridge Ritualists", and especially ofJ.G. Frazer (1854---1941) andJane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928), who were both trained as classical scholars, to the scientific study of religion. From the point of view of the history of ideas, their work can be seen as the confluence of long-term trends in classical studies and the triumph of evolutionary thinking. The contributions of Frazer and Harrison as "scientific" students of ancient religion are analyzed in some detail. Both scholars were deeply ambivalent about their subject. Today, Frazer seems to be essentially a propagandist for secularism. By comparison, Harrison, though lacking Frazer's erudition, stands up better because her theories, based on her own psychological acuity and an unusual tolerance for irrationalism, were more adequate to the phenomena being described. Ivan Strenski examines an important chapter in the history of the fin-de-siecle study of religion in France. He explores the polemics among the membership of the Fifth Section (Religious Sciences) of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and among the Durkheimians. The focus is on the so-called revolt against an older, established style of inquiry in the history of religions in France-"empiricism" or "historicism"-and attempts to initiate newer interpretive or theoretical styles of inquiry in the history of religions. The irony here is that the older style turned out to be more difficult to surrender than had been imagined, even as the new one was adopted. Strenski concludes by suggesting that the reasons these shifts occur may have had more to do with polemic strategies than with principled commitment. David M. Wulff questions the often-repeated account of the early history of psychology of religion in terms of a dramatic rise at the end of the nineteenth century and a precipitous fall several decades later. This is a construct chiefly of American academic psychologists of religion, which does not represent major European perspectives in the field. And even within the American context the account is misleading, for the rise was not nearly as spectacular nor the decline as thoroughgoing as commentators usually suggest. Wulff's survey of publications in the field documents this very aptly. Furthermore, he discusses factors that contributed to the vicissitudes of early psychology of religion. Remarkable is the influence of progressivism and the Social Gospel movement on George Coe and others of the founding generation. When progressivism declined, so did the psychology of religion.

INTRODUCTION

21

The essays in the third and last part of this collection investigate new conceptualizations in the scientific study of religion. The article of Robert]. Baird is a contribution to our understanding of the conceptual origins of Religionswissenschrift. The key text he analyzes is David Hume's Natural History if Religion (1757). This text is chosen, not because of its importance in the history of ideas, but because it is "the crystallization of key modern problematics-rationality, colonialism, and literacy-in a systematic effort to reinvent religion for the modern West". It is shown how Christendom is recasted as a generic religion separate from the secular nation state. Baird argues that Hume's images, metaphors, and concepts of religion still inform our contemporary thought and practice. The essay of Miriam Peskowit:;: explores the relations between the categories of race and religion in late nineteenth century religious studies. She does not focus on canonical scholars and thinkers with intellectual status and institutional privilege. In order to pursue questions about the circulation of new forms of knowledge about religion and race, Peskowitz examines instead three thinkers-Emile Burnouf, Adolph Moses, and Eliza Reed Sunderland-who are relatively marginal to the canon as it stands, now or then, but whose writing was done closer to the intersection of academic production and popular audiences. Light is also thrown on the transformations that occurred in the encounter between European and North American comparative study of religion. Wouter ]. Hanegrariff gives an analysis of the relation between magic and religion according to the theories of E.B. Tylor and lG. Frazer. The discussion of the development of Tylor's statements on magic from 1865 to 1883 reveals a continuous but unsuccesful struggle to keep magic apart from religion. The domain of idolatry appears to fit the definition of magic as well as the definition of religion; as a result, it muddles Tylor's attempts to sharply demarcate magic from religion and crucially undermines his theory of animism. A comparison with Frazer's theory demonstrates that the latter arrives at his clearcut demarcation between magic, religion, and science essentially by ignoring the problem which Tylor was unable to solve. The reason why idolatry posed such a theoretical problem consists in Tylor's failure to distinguish between his intellectualist theory of animism and a second theory of "spontaneous animism" basic to mythology, which is implicit in his writings. The contribution of Barbara Boudewiinse examines the birth of ritual as a specific concept and subject of research. "Ritual" developed from a word designating a manual how

22

ARIE L. MOLENDI]K

to conduct a religious ceremony to a term used for religious practice. It was only in the context of the growing interest and inquiry into the meaning of behaviour that "ritual" could emerge as a conceptual issue. But while the probe into the meaning of behaviour paved the way, this was only a necessary but not a sufficient prerequisite to the development of the concept of ritual. A closer inspection of nineteenth century authors such as Tylor, Andrew Lang, and W. Robertson Smith reveals that their ideas on the subject contributed to the conceptualization of ritual in a piecemeal and unintended manner. The comparison with French and German texts shows to what extent this new concept of ritual was a British invention. The essay of Hans C. Kippenberg invites us to look at E.B. Tylor's theory of religious evolution as a particular case of historical imagination during the age of modernization. He offers a fresh interpretation of Tylor's notion of survival. The metaphor points to the presence of past and tribal religions in modern culture. Religions outside Europe are not remnants of a former high culture which has broken down, but represent for Tylor the beginnings of human thought at a rudimentary stage. By comparing primitive and civilized culture, the scholar can find these survivals which demonstrate the continuity of the concept of soul in all human cultures from the beginning until today. In this way, Kippenberg argues, Tylor factually identified (valuable) elements in modern culture which were not superseded by development. All contributors have made an effort to cover their topic as extensively as possible, so that this collection can be used as an introduction to the early history of the sciences of religion. But this is certainly a wide field and there are a lot of desiderata left. Many settings, disciplines, and conceptual changes are not dealt with in this volume. Yet, only combined efforts can succeed in uncovering the ways in which religion was made into an object of scientific research in the nineteenth century. Doing research is never a completely harmless affair. Concepts are shaped, refined, and radically changed in various institutional settings. That is what we want to express by naming this volume: Religion in the Making. The title has been used before. Samuel George Smith published "A Study in Biblical Sociology" under the same title in 1910. 64 More widely known is the book of the same name by the American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who defined reli64

S.G. Smith 1910. I did not succeed in purchasing a copy of this book.

23

INTRODUCTION

gion in 1926 as "what the individual does with his solitariness". 65 As the sciences of religion develop, their basic concept is on the move, too. There is permanent debate about what religion really is. The emerging sciences of religion cannot be understood without studying the ongoing reconceptualizations of religion. Because religion is shaped by the scholars of religion, they must be conscious of what their research is about: Religion in the Making. BIBILIOGRAPHY

Asad, Talal (ed.) 1973 Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, London: Ithaca Press. Asad, Talal 1993

Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore-London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Baal, j. van & Beek, W.E.A. van 1985 ~mbols for Communication. An Introduction to the Anthropological Study of Religion, second, revised edition, Assen: Van Gorcum (first edition: 1971). Barrows, John Henry (ed.) 1893 The World's Parliament Office.

of Religions,

2 Vols, London: "Review of Reviews"

Bauberot, J, et at. 1987 Cent Ans de sciences religieuses en France, ii l'lIcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris: Editions du Cerf. Bennett, Clinton 1996 In Search of the Sacred. Anthropology and the Study

of Religions,

London: Cassell.

Bianchi, Ugo (ed.) 1994 The Notion of "Religion" in Comparative Research. Selected Proceedings of the XVIth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Rome, 3rd-8th September, 1990, Roma: '''L'Erma'' di Bretschneider. Bremmer, j.N. 1998 '''Religion', 'Ritual' and the Opposition 'Sacred Vs. Profane': Notes Towards a Terminological 'Archaeology"', in: Graf, F. (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale, Stuttgart-Leipzig: Teubner, pp. 9-32. Burrow, j.W. 1966 Evolution and Society. A Study in Victorian Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byrne, Peter 1989 Natural Religion and the Nature New York: Routledge. Capps, Walter 1995 Religious Studies. The Making

65

of Religion. The Legacy of Deism,

of a Discipline,

London-

Minneapolis: Fortress.

Whitehead 1974: 47. In this context Andrew Lang's famous book: The Making (London 1898) should also be mentioned.

of Religion

24

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INTRODUCTION

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PART ONE

INSTITUTIONALIZATION: NATIONAL SETTINGS

SCIENCES OF RELIGION IN FRANCE DURING THE JULY MONARCHY (1830-1848) MICHEL DESPLAND

I

Everyone agrees that the institutionalization of the sciences of religion in France occurred in the l880s (the decade when the Third Republic got on its feet) and was signalled by three major events. In 1879, the Revue de l'histoire des religions published its first number, under the direction of Maurice Vernes. I In 1880, the Government created a chair in the history of religion in the College de France, and the professors there, acting on Renan's advice, appointed Albert Reville to it. In 1885, the National Assembly did not vote the usual budget for the Faculties of Theology, but attributed the money to a new Fifth Section, titled "Sciences religieuses", in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (founded 1868). 2 These events have been objects of careful research and there is not much new to be said about them. 3 One might just add that these developments, while giving academic legitimacy to the history of religions, left the universities unaffected, and that liberal Protestants (mostly Dutch-trained) are overrepresented in the group.4 Rather than re-tell this story, I would like in this paper to look at institutionalization as a complex historical process, not as a state of I Laplanche 1991. Emile Guimet supported it in its beginning; this wealthy Lyon businessman also founded (1879) the Musee Guimet, which was first located in Lyon; in 1885, the State accepted the gift of the Museum and gave it a building in Paris. On the public involvements of Maurice Vernes, see Despland 1992. 2 Bauberot 1987. The articles in this volume focus on institutional history (in the framework of the history of laicite) and on the century-long research record. The article by Fran