Friedrich Pfister’s Kampf against Father Wilhelm Schmidt and his “Catholic School of Ethnology”. Their clash over primitive monotheism and its background in earlier scholarship

doi:10.4000/16ign

Navegación – Mapa del sitio

Índice - Documento anterior - Documento siguiente

43 | 2026
Varia

Archéologie des savoirs

Lectures monothéisantes des polythéismes antiques

Friedrich Pfister’s Kampf against Father Wilhelm Schmidt and his “Catholic School of Ethnology”. Their clash over primitive monotheism and its background in earlier scholarship

Michael D. Konaris

p. 167-200

https://doi.org/10.4000/16ign

Resumen | Índice | | Cita | Autor

Resúmenes

Français English

La question de savoir si une forme de « monothéisme primitif » avait précédé le polythéisme grec a suscité de vifs débats dans l’histoire des études sur la religion grecque, en raison de ses importantes implications théologiques. Cet article se penche sur l’un des derniers épisodes de cette controverse : l’affrontement entre Friedrich Pfister et le père Wilhelm Schmidt et ses disciples, au cours des premières décennies du xx^e siècle, à la lumière des théories et des débats du xix^e siècle en Allemagne, en France et en Grande-Bretagne. Une attention particulière est portée sur les objectifs théologiques et idéologiques concurrents qui ont, au fil du temps, orienté les approches modernes de la question du monothéisme primitif grec.

Inicio de página

Compartir por e-mail

Este documento será publicado en línea con texto integral en mayo 2028.

Plano

Introduction

A. Monotheism, Henotheism, Polytheism. 19^th-century theories and debates on the origins of Greek religion

I. Primitive monotheism in the mysteries of ancient Greece?

a. Creuzer’s Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker

b. Schelling on the mysteries of Samothrace

II. Zeus as the Supreme Urgott of the ancient Greeks

III. Greek polytheism as a conglomeration of earlier monotheistic worships

IV. Semitic monotheism versus Indo-European polytheism?

V. Usener’s theory of Sondergötter

B. Pfister versus Father Schmidt and the “Catholic school of Ethnology”

I. Primitive monotheism in the Age of Anthropology

II. Father Wilhelm Schmidt’s Theory of Supreme Beings

III. Pfister’s response

Conclusion

During the 1920s and 1930s, German classical scholar, Friedrich Pfister (1883-1967), launched a sustained campaign against the theory of Supreme Beings propagated by Father Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954) and his school of ethnology in Vienna, according to which the conception of a single Supreme Being went back to the earliest stages of ancient Greek religion, as well as other religions from all over the world. The clash between Pfister and Father Schmidt and his followers may be regarded as one of the last chapters in the history of the debate on Greek primitive monotheism, or Urmonotheismus, which preoccupied and divided students of Greek religion throughout the 19^th century. I will begin my article with a background discussion of how the question of primitive monotheism has been approached in earlier scholarship and a brief overview of 19^th-century theories postulating that the origins of Greek religion were monotheistic, henotheistic or polytheistic that have been examined by other...

Inicio de página

Para citar este artículo

Referencia en papel

Referencia electrónica

Michael D. Konaris, «Friedrich Pfister’s Kampf against Father Wilhelm Schmidt and his “Catholic School of Ethnology”. Their clash over primitive monotheism and its background in earlier scholarship», Anabases [En línea], 43 | 2026, Puesto en línea el 01 mayo 2028, consultado el 08 octubre 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/anabases/22502; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/16ign

Inicio de página