Franz Joseph Dölger

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Franz Joseph Dölger (born October 18, 1879 in Sulzbach am Main , † October 17, 1940 in Schweinfurt ) was a Catholic theologian , church historian , religious scholar and Christian archaeologist .

Life

After graduating from high school in Würzburg in 1898, he studied theology at the University of Würzburg and was ordained a priest on August 3, 1902 . Years as a chaplain in Amorbach and Würzburg followed . In addition to pastoral care, he worked on his dissertation The Sacrament of Confirmation presented historically and dogmatically , on the basis of which he was awarded a doctorate on June 18, 1904. theol. doctorate (printed in Vienna 1906).

As he worked on his dissertation, he realized how deeply rooted many of the forms in which the new Christian faith was expressed were rooted in the soil of his non-Christian environment, both Greco-Roman and Jewish . He started a study visit to Rome as a scholarship holder of the Aschaffenburg Study Fund in the winter and spring of 1904/05 with the aim of "bringing with him a clear understanding of how early Christianity dealt with ancient culture". This question became the subject of his scientific life work; he himself speaks about it briefly in the introduction to the first of the six volumes of “Antike und Christianentum”, in which he successively published the results of his detailed studies from 1929 until his death.

After his return, pastoral care followed again in Bad Kissingen , in addition he prepared his habilitation , which on July 12, 1906 based on the work The baptism exorcism in Christian antiquity (published under the title The exorcism in the early Christian baptism. A study of the history of religion [Paderborn 1909]) took place. With his new research direction, Dölger got into the controversy over modernism and reform Catholicism , and so he gladly took the opportunity to escape the hostilities on a "chaplaincy" at Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome and to advance his research.

In 1912 Dölger was appointed to a newly established Extraordinariat for General Religious History and Comparative Religious Studies in the Catholic-Theological Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster ; In 1918 he was appointed full professor of ancient church history, Christian archeology and general religious history. Appointments at the universities of Breslau (1927–1929) and Bonn (1929 until his death) followed.

In 1925 Dölger was elected a member of the Pontifical Commission for Christian Archeology , in 1934 a member of the Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia .

At the end of his 60th year, his friends and students dedicated the Pisciculi commemorative publication to him (Münster 1939; list of publications there).

The exploration of the conflict between and mutual influence of emerging Christianity and surrounding non-Christian cultures, which Dölger began, was continued by his students Helmut Kruse and Theodor Klauser and the Leiden Latinist Jan Hendrik Waszink with the real dictionary for antiquity and Christianity they had begun , which is now in Franz Joseph Dölger Institute of the University of Bonn will be continued.

literature

  • Theodor Klauser :  Dölger, Franz Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 19 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Theodor Klauser: Franz Joseph Dölger. 1897-1940. His life and his research program "Antiquity and Christianity" (= yearbook for antiquity and Christianity . Supplementary volume 7). Aschendorff, Münster 1980, ISBN 3-402-07093-6 .
  • Martin Radermacher, Annette Wilke: Religious studies in Münster as reflected in the history of the discipline. In: Martin Radermacher, Judith Stander and Annette Wilke (eds.): 103 years of religious studies in Münster. Locations in space and time. With contributions by Kim Knott, Sebastian Schüler, Klaus Brand, Sandhya Marla-Küsters et al. Lit, Münster 2015, ISBN 3-643-12345-0 , pp. 139–197.
  • Norbert M. Borengässer: Members of the Franz Joseph Dölgers (1879-1940) student group in Rome . In: Michael Matheus / Stefan Heid (eds.), Places of Refuge and Personal Networks. The Campo Santo Teutonico and the Vatican 1933–1955 (= Roman Quarterly, Supplementary Volume 63), Herder Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 2015, pp. 560-574.
  • Georg Schöllgen : Franz Joseph Dölger and the development of his research program "Antiquity and Christianity". In: Yearbook for Antiquity and Christianity. ISSN  0075-2541 , No. 36, Aschendorff, Münster 1993, pp. 7-23.

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personal data
SURNAME Dölger, Franz Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic theologian, church historian, religious scholar and Christian archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Sulzbach am Main
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1940
Place of death Schweinfurt