Archives de sciences sociales des

religions

Buber as an Historian of Religion: Presence, not gnosis/ Buber,

historien de la Religion: Présence et non gnose
Guy G. Stroumsa

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Stroumsa Guy G. Buber as an Historian of Religion: Presence, not gnosis/ Buber, historien de la Religion: Présence et non
gnose. In: Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n°101, 1998. pp. 87-105;

http://www.persee.fr/doc/assr_0335-5985_1998_num_101_1_1206

Document généré le 15/03/2016

Resumen
El artícula analiza los diferentes modos de Martin Buber de interesarse por los fenómenos religiosos.
Buber fue un pensador difícil de calificar : filósofo del diálogo, profeta de una renovación judía al nivel
cultural y religioso, se apasionó también por el estudio histórico y sistemático de las religiones. Hasta
1933, enseñó Historia de las Religiones en la universidad de Frankfurt.
El análisis de sus notas de cursos y de varios cuadernos, conservados en los Archivos Martin Buber,
precisa las informaciones encontradas en sus obras publicadas, y permite de manera bastante precisa
dar cuenta de lo que Buber quisó plantear como historiador de las religiones. El pensamiento de Buber
sigue las huellas de la fenomenologia de las religiones. Es precisamente su interés meta-histórico que
délimita su aporte a la historia de las religiones.

Abstract
The article analyses the various modes of Martin Buber's powerful and long lasting interest for religious
phenomena. Buber was a thinker in a class of his own: philosopher of the dialogue, prophet of a
cultural and religious renewal of the Jews, he remained also fascinated by the historical and systematic
study of religions. Until 1933, he even taught this subject at the University of Frankfurt. The analysis of
his course notes and of various booknotes kept in the Martin Buber Archives supplement the
informations given in his published works, and permit to draw a rather precise image of the questions
which interested Buber as an historian of religion. Buber's approach is mainly that of a
phenomenologist of religion. It is precisely his meta-historical interests which limit the importance of his
contribution for the history of religion.

Résumé
L'article analyse les divers modes de l'intérêt puissant porté par Martin Buber pour les phénomènes
religieux. Buber était un penseur difficilement classable : philosophe du dialogue, prophète d'un
renouveau juif culturel et religieux, il fut aussi passionné par l'étude historique et systématique des
religions. Jusqu'en 1933, il enseigna l'histoire des religions à l'université de Francfort. L'analyse de ses
notes de cours et de divers cahiers, conservés dans les Archives Martin Buber, supplée aux
indications données par ses écrits publiés, et permet de dresser une image assez précise des
questions qui intéressaient Buber en tant qu'historien des religions. L'approche de Buber s'inscrit dans
le sillage de la phénoménologie des religions. C'est précisément son intérêt méta-historique qui trace
les limites de sa contribution à l'histoire des religions.
Arch de Sc soc des Rel. 1998 707 janvier-mars 87-105
Guy STROUMSA

BUBER AS AN HISTORIAN OF RELIGION

PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

For Margot Cohn

INTEREST IN RELIGION

Die Welt ist dem Mensch zwiefältig nach seiner zwiefältigen Haltung
The world is twofold for man due to the twofold attitude in an
approximative translation In nutshell the first sentence of Ich und Du
embodies one of Martin most important insights in his perception of
reality Due to the very nature of language the world is experienced by man
in fundamentally dual way This given fact however is not to be accepted
as inescapable Indeed the last word of most famous book is Erlö
sung The way from the initial recognition of dualism to the final utopian
escape from it is also the path followed by Buber in his whole life and
thought
Ich und Du has been more carefully read and analyzed than any other
work of Buber Yet an essential dimension of the book has been consistently
ignored fact which has brought as its sequel major misunderstanding of
the place and meaning in thought
That Buber kept throughout his life keen interest in religion is fact
that needs no further argumentation The question however is the mode of
this interest Was Buber primarily Jewish theologian as theologians mainly
Christian Protestant theologians argue Or was he foremost philosopher
of the existentialist branch and of the religious persuasion as some philoso
phers claim Buber of course despised such qualifications In Nietzschean
fashion he intended to be creative thinker awakening sleeping souls main
ly Jewish ones through his spiritual brand of Zionism) to the appeal of deeper
reality He also believed that eventually the new Jewish spirit to be born

We know the depth of influence on the young Buber who translated part
of the Also sprach Zarathustra into Polish previous version of this paper was read
at Symposium commemorating twenty five years of death at the Israel National Aca
demy of Sciences and Humanities in July 1991 wish to acknowledge the help of Margot
Cohn and Paul Mendes Flohr am also deeply endebted to the late Willi Schottroff for his
numerous and important remarks

87
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

from the ashes of moribund fossilized Rabbinic Judaism would erase tra
ditional boundaries between the holy and the profane In sense then Buber
was hoping for Hegelian Aufhebung of religion Throughout his life
religion remained for him major category albeit an ambivalent one Buber
knew that in order to understand Judaism one had to approach it not only
but mainly as religion That meant with the tools developed by students
of comparative religion In any case in order to achieve his ultimate goal
Buber also considered himself an historian of religion It is this side of his
intellectual personality which has not been considered seriously enough and
which opens new vistas for understanding his thought that intend to discuss
here
The purpose of the following pages is to shed some light on
self-perception as an historian of religion to analyze this self-perception in
intellectual context and to raise the issue of influence or lack thereof
as an historian of religion actually is rather misleading term
and is used here for the lack of better word in English It would be more
correct to refer to Buber as to Religionswissenschaftler although even this
term should be qualified Students of religion in the early twentieth century
were sometimes rather careless about the historical context of phenomena
and Buber was no exception He usually showed little interest for the minutiae
of historical research although this is not always the case most notably so
in his Königtum Gottes deep interest in religious phenomena from
all cultural backgrounds and for their study through most methods available
at the time is obvious This fact may be easily confirmed from the thou
sands of volumes in his library of which he took the pains to draw list in
hefty notebook The black alphabetical notebook entitled Religionskunde
Religionsphilosophie und verwandte Gebiete includes 440 pages estimate
there are approximately fifteen titles listed per page which gives more than
6000 titles including offprints All these titles were in library in
Heppenheim It should be noted that this notebook is the only one of its

As for instance in the following sentence Das Wichtigste am Chassidismus ist heute
wie damals die starke und sowohl im persönlichen Dasein als in dem der Gemeinden bewährte
Tendenz die fundamentale Scheidung zwischen dem Heiligen und dem Profanen immer mehr
zu überwinden Der Chassidismus und der abendländische Mensch Merkur 10 1956 36
As Professor SCHOTTROFF pointed out to me the apparatus takes 68 out of the 221
pages of the first edition 1956 Buber obviously felt need for scholarly legitimation
notable exception is the psychology of religion and in particular Tiefenpsychologie
about which see below
Martin Buber Archives =MBA 87/10 See also Ms Var 350 65a/z which includes
various envelopes of different sizes containing notes on topics such as Männerbünde Myste
rienweihe Umkehr und Erneuerung bes im Judentum die Stammesweihe Bundesweihe Macht
weihe und Opferweihe die Taufe Johannes und Jesus Paulus die doppelte Christologie
Heimarmene etc. Also to be found under the same signature are various notebooks including
notes and quotations on various topics of the history of religion some of them obviously for
courses and lectures given by Buber at various dates Instances of such topics include die Wende
die Idee der Wiedergeburt der Glaube an die Wiedergeburt Buddhas Auseinandersetzungen
Schöpfungslieder der Polynesier Simon Magus Mithrasliturgie Mystik und Gnosis etc..
The library or most of it followed Buber to Palestine in 1938 and was reconstituted in
residence in Jerusalem until 1948 in Abu Tor When fighting forced Buber and his wife to leave
their home the library was entrusted to Yussuf Wahab Dajani an Arab neighbour who greatly
respected Buber See Maurice FRIEDMAN Martin Life and Works III Detroit Wayne
State University Press 1988 pp 25-26 where reference is mistakenly made to Iraqi troops It
is the Egyptians rather who reached Jerusalem in 1948

88
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

kind that Buber cared to keep fact which again emphasizes the importance
he accorded to religion and its study
Yet it should be kept in mind that Buber was not interested in playing
seriously any kind of academic game not only that of the historian or of
the philologist He clearly perceived his Beruf to be elsewhere or rather also
elsewhere Hence major difficulty in assessing his contribution to any field
of academic research His contribution to the study of religion might be bound
to remain somewhat elusive It cannot be dismissed however no more than
can his contribution to Biblical studies or to the study of Hassidism In these
various fields contribution is to be evaluated in terms of his impact
rather than in the factual knowledge added by his studies What counts most
is the questions he asked rather than the answers he provided Presence in
deed rather than Gnosis
Buber struggled for years until he was able to express in strong terms
that religion itself is an essentially ambivalent reality He was deeply suspi
cious of religion in most of its historical garbs of organized religion In his
early years when he was under the deep and fresh influence of his teacher
Georg Simmel he opposed to Religion the term Religiosität This last term
was meant to express whatever is deep personal true and is reflected in the
distorted mirror of established religion of whatever color This ambivalent
attitude of Buber to religion somewhat similar to Karl rejection of
religion or to Franz attempt to develop an atheistic
has often been pointed out In that respect it should be pointed out that
Buber often refers to Barth and other contemporary Protestant theologians
such as Bultmann in his writings What has not been noted as clearly is that
this dichotomy crosses through most expressions of religious life and expe
rience In later writings Buber seems to have been less fond of the concept
of perhaps because the negative connotations of Religion ac
cording to such semantics was open to misunderstandings Buber after all
wanted to remain read and heard as religious thinker although of rather
special kind an anarchist of sorts the term is Buber there-

Paul MENDES FLOHR From Mysticism to Dialogue Martin Transformation of

German Social Thought 78 cf Grete SCHAEDER The Hebrew Humanism of Martin Buber
Detroit Wayne State University 1973) 51 Georg Die Religion was published in
1906 For definiton of the difference between Religion and Religiosität see for instance the
following sentence Religion ist die Summe der Bräuche und Lehren in denen sich die Reli
giosität einer bestimmten Epoche eines Volkstums ausgesprochen und ausgeformt hat... in Jü
dische Religiosität 66 where religiosity is characterized by activity and religion by passivity
In DANIEL published in 1913 Buber says that religiosity is distorted into religion and church
once it starts to orient itself. See Nathan ROTENSTREICH Immediacy and its Limits Study
in Martin Thought Harwood 1991 79 Like his opposition between different kinds
of faith reaffirmation of the basic difference between religion and religiosity seems to
have been forgotten Much of the argument in Gavin important History Religion
and Antisemitism Berkeley University of California Press 1991 is established upon the diffe
rence between religion and religiosity There is no reference to Buber in the whole book
See for instance Laurence SILBERSTEIN Martin Social and Religious
Thought Alienation and the Quest for Meaning New York New York University 1989 pp
204-228 and Pamela VERMES Buber on God and the Perfect Man Brown Judaic Series 13
Chico CA Scholars Press 1980 219
In Martin Hassidism Commentary 1961 135 See ch KURTZWEIL
avak al erkei ha-Yahadut Jerusalem Tel Aviv Schocken 1980 178 who notes that
Scholem later retracted his self-identification as religious

89
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

fore came to speak of faith versus either or practice

In this he was picking up the traditional opposition then fashionable among
Protestant theologians between pistis and gnosis
As an existentialist thinker Buber did not believe that man can reach
essences or metaphysical realities According to him truth was to be found
in an attitude permitting total opening of the self to the otherness be it
that of nature of fellow men or of divine realities There is of course fun
damental ambivalence in such an approach since it implies the existence of
kernel of religion and therefore does not quite reject the idea of religious
truth

II TEACHING ON RELIGION

When working on Ich und Du work on religion. which deals with

the the primary as he described it 10) Buber was teaching at
the Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Frankfurt There he gave in 1922 series of
lectures entitled Religion als Gegenwart in which he insisted on the exis
tential feeling of presence of another divine being which is the sign of true
religion Manuscript notes give some details on the general integrated concep
tion which Buber had then of his future work 11)
One of these notes bears the title Book Series Religion as Presence Re
ligion als Gegenwart) and includes five books
and Thou
II The primary forms of religious life
III The religious person
IV The religions
The religious powers and our time
and further on another taxonomy The Primary Forms and Magic
and Thou
II Primary forms of religious life magic sacrifice mystery prayer
III Knowledge of God and Law of God myth dogma law teaching
IV The person and the community the originator the priest the prophet
the reformer the solitary man
The religious power and our time power and the Kingdom)

See Zwi WERBLOWSKY Reflections on Martin Two Types of Faith

Journal of Jewish Studies 39 1988 pp 92-101 in finem
10 In letter to Hugo Bergmann from May 13 1922 translated by Rivka Horwitz Bu
Way to and An historical Analysis and the First Publication of Martin
Lectures Religion und Heidelberg Verlag Lambert Schhneider 1978 208
11 These notes were presented by Walter Kaufmann in the introduction to his translation
of Ich und Du Martin BUBER and Thou transi Walter Kaufmann Edinburgh and
Clark 1970 pp 49-50 They were later analysed in greater deatail by Rivka HORWITZ in her
book quoted above see there pp 209-213 and facsimiles on pp 269-270

90
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

The most developed such scheme called Universitäres Schema der Re

ligionswissenschaft was published by Willy Schottroff(12)
The Martin Buber Archives at the National and University Library in Je
rusalem preserve several manuscript documents that clarify intent in
writing Ich und Du Buber was fond of plans He used to draw rather grandiose
schemes within which his books those already written and those still to come
were to find their proper place According to these plans Ich und Du was
meant to be the introductory volume to series of monographs on various
religious phenomena In sense Buber conceived Ich und Du as general
introduction to major interpretive effort on the phenomenology of religion
Although this fact has been known for some time it seems to have had little
impact on the understanding of thought The importance of this fact
deserves to be duly noted To my mind it shows that the comparative study
of religious phenomena stood at the very center of intellectual life
from his early years on
As we shall have occasion to see such plans draw maps of the study of
religion closely similar to Gerardus van der Religionsphänomenolo-
gie book published more than ten years after Ich und Du One may add
here that in the preface to the second edition of his book van der Leeuw
refers to work as congenial to his own 13 In the thirties moreover
Buber was invited by van der Leeuw to participate in collective work on
the religions of mankind Buber accepted when he found out that he was the
only Jew and the only non-Dutch asked to participate
The over-ambitious plans did not materialize and and Thou embarked
upon its own more than successful life Very few of its readers of course
have read it as an introduction to the study of religious phenomena and Buber
quite wisely never bothered to enlighten them on the original meaning
in the mind of its author All he cared to note was Originally the book
was meant to be the first part of five volume work whose contents had
outlined briefly in 1916 but its systematical character estranged me from it
before long 14)
The fact that the overambitious plans did not materialize does not mean
that Buber lost his interest in the study of religion from comparative view
point Of this interest testify his teaching and lecturing activities throughout

12 See SCHOTTROFF Manin Buber and der Universität Frankfurt 1923-1933)

in LICHARZ and SCHMIDT eds. Martin Buber J878-J965) Internationales Symposium
zum 20 Todestag Frankfurt am Main Haag and Hercher Verlag 1989 pp 19-95 reprinted
in STOODT ed. Martin Buber Erich Foerster Paul Tillich evangelische Theologie und Re
ligionsphilosophie and der Universität Frankfurt 1914 bis 1933 Frankfurt am Main Peter
Lang 1990 pp 69-131 See further Willy SCHOTTROFF Das Reich Gottes und der Menschen
Studien über das Verhältnis der christlichen Theologie zum Judentum Munich Kaiser 1991
pp 9-30 Nur ein Lehrauftrag Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Religionswissenschaft an der deut
schen Universität and pp 31-79 Martin Buber ein jüdischer Humanist die Christen und der
Nationalsozialismus)
13 The fact is noted by Maurice FRIEDMAN Martin Buber and the History of Religion
in Haim GORDON and Jochanan BLOCH eds. Martin Buber Centenary Volume New York
Ktav Ben Gurion University 1984 pp 367-386
14 Zur Geschichte des dialogischen Prinzips written in 1954) Werke 298 quoted
by Walter KAUFMANN trans Martin Buber and Thou 49

91
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

his life In the twenties and early thirties he taught mainly in Frankfurt both
at the Lehrhaus headed by his friend Franz Rosenzweig and at the University
of Frankfurt where he lectured from 1923 on on Jüdische Religionswissen
schaft und jüdische Ethik the only teaching of its kind in Germany at the
time 15 It is not the lack of Habilitationsschrift which prevented Buber
from embarking upon regular academic career If he was eventually appoin
ted Honorarprofessor in 1930 only to be dismissed in 1933 this is because
the new university which had been established in 1914 by the citizens of
Frankfurt did not have official positions for the teaching of religion and theo
logy 16)
We know much about the content of his teaching in Frankfurt The titles
of the lectures and exercises Vorlesungen bungen are revealing they
emphasize the persistant effort made by Buber to understand Judaism with
the tools of Religionswissenschaft In the first years of his teaching Buber
usually picked up general topic for the lecture while he read Jewish texts
with the students during the exercise Here are some of the titles of these
lectures as retrieved by Rita van der Sandt 17 Wie ist Religionswissenschaft
möglich 1924) Der Messianismus 1924/25) Schöpfungsmythen und Schöp
fungsglaube 1925/26) Religion und Ethik 1926) Probleme des Gottesna
mens und der göttlichen Gegenwart 1926/27) Die biblische Religion und
die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart 1927/28) Die Prophétie 1929/30) Glaube
und Brauch the first course taught by Buber after he had been appointed
Honorarprofessor in 1930/31) Die Idee der Wiedergeburt 1931) Grundbe
griffe der Religionswissenschaft 1931/32) Das Urböse 1932) Die Mystik
als geschichtliche Erscheinung 1932/33) Probleme der Religions Soziologie
1933)
Although we still possess the titles of these lectures most of the texts
themselves or the extensive notes which Buber must have taken while pre
paring them seem to be lost What remains is mainly few envelopes contai
ning various notes 18) and of course whatever Buber succeeded in integrating
to his books and articles This to be sure does not represent great deal
Königtum Gottes excepted Yet at least on two of lecture courses we
have somewhat better preserved material For the course on mysticism we
possess in the Martin Buber Archive the extensive notes taken by Moritz
later Moshe Spitzer then close student of Buber who was assisting him
in various ways 19 The only fully written lecture series to have survived
seems to be that on Glaube und Brauch wish to present here at least
brief survey of this seemingly unknown text which gives us an insight into
actual teaching in the history of religion 20)

15 See Willy SCHOTTROFF Martin Buber an der Universität Frankfurt am Main 1923-
1933) in STOODT Martin Buber... esp pp 80ff.
16 Ibid. pp 89-92 98
17 Rita van der SANDT Martin Bubers bildnerische Tätigkeit zwischen den beiden Welt
kriegen Stuttgart Ernst Klett Verlag 1977 pp 90-94
18 See above
19 MBA 24 See also there typed page with rather detailed plan for what seems
to be the course on Grundbegriffe der
20 The 28 typewritten pages are found in MBA under the signature Ms var 350 l/y

92
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

The first Vorlesung delivered on January 21 1931 sets out to define the
topic at hand how can we identify and isolate the Glaubenselement in re
ligious practice in the ritual For Buber the bodily expressions
of religion must reflect something deeper of which they are but
the symbol He makes it clear that he speaks here not about myth but about
faith intention Glaubensintention 21 In order to isolate this core of re
ligion Buber notes two main options are possible The first is to follow one
given religion in its historical developments The other which Buber chooses
insists on the extreme complexity of the question at hand which precludes
any one religion from clearly revealing its various aspects Hence compa
rative approach is necessary if we want to understand as precisely as possible
the way religion works Some cults for instance show remarkable ability
to adapt and survive through the most radical transformation of religious be
lief Thus the Christian cult of Easter in the Greek island of Euboea seems
to continue an earlier cult of Dionysos Similarly the new conception of bap
tism developed by Paul cannot be understood detached from its background
in Jewish pre-Christian attitudes to baptism which imply particular Glau
bensvorstellungen Hence the historical development of religions reveals at
least two trends On the one hand the influence of faith upon ritual and on
the other hand the preservation of faith through the conservation of ritual
practice
According to Buber there are three domains in which the real faith ele
ment is directly connected to ritual magic sacrifice and sacrament To these
three domains he intends to devote special developments in his argumentation
In other words the historian of religion will investigate various domains while
asking himself how in each case the religious person believes when practi
cing the ritual
Dealing then with magic Buber makes it clear that he conceives magic
as representing the lowest level of religion ein unterreligiöser Versuch dem
göttlichen Gegenüber He emphasizes however that the wides
pread conception under the influence of Frazer which sees magic as coming
in chronological terms before religion is naive and mistaken Belief in magic
and magical practices are contemporaneous to higher religious phenomena
from which they should not be distinguished in radical fashion In historical

21 conception of myth was rather evasive On the one hand he insisted on myth
as an essential element of religion monotheism included For him myth insofar as it was
opposed to theologywas understood in bon partem Indeed it reflected popular living reli
gion in contradistinction to the rationalized viz fossilized formulations of the literati Hence
in Judaism the classical expressions of myth were Aggada Kabbala and Hassidism See for
instance Der Mythos der Juden which is part of the early Reden über das Judentum Der
Jude und sein Judentum Köln Joseph Melzer Verlag 1963 pp 78-88 Besides this volume
the best edition of works was published in three volumes Werke Schriften zur Phi
losophie München Heidelberg Kosel Verlag Verlag Lambert Schneider 1962 Werke II Schrif
ten zur Bibel ibid. 1964) and Werke III Schriften zum Chassidismus ibid. 1963 Quotations
are made here also from other editions as well as from English translations
On ambivalent conception of myth see Grete SCHAEDER The Hebrew Humanism of
Martin Buber Detroit Wayne State University Press 1973 pp 91-106 and Daniel BRES-
LAUER Martin Buber on Myth an Introduction Theorists of Myth New York London Garland
1990 esp pp 49-88

93
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

reality according to him one never finds pure religion without magic nor
magic without religion And the history of religion shows side by side with
phenomena of also the opposite phenomena of Magisie-
rung The reader of these pages gets distinct feeling that Buber who appears
to be quite UM couran of contemporary literature on the topic is both per
ceptive and correct in much of what he says The main problem lies in what
he does not say such central categories as religion or magic are constantly
used without having been previously defined
In the second Vorlesung read on February 1931 Buber points out that
the word Glaube seems to be used in two different senses In the first sense
Glaube which shall translate here simply as is used in noetic
sense it has reference what Buber calls an quality It is in
his words an intermediary between knowing and meaning 22 It is this
first meaning of faith that is reflected in traditional religious rituals whether
exoteric or esoteric accomplished within any of the various kinds of religious
communities
Another conception of however which has found time and again
in the history of is existential Faith means here living decisive
ordering absolutely binding relation One cannot speak anymore about clear
ly defined object of faith rather there is partner in process Buber insists
upon the central importance of faith in this sense there is no religion that
has not recognized its (p 13)
The locus classicus of treatment of the amphibology of faith is
of course his Zwei Glaubensweisen late work written during the siege of
Jerusalem in 1948 23 Despite its obvious shortcomings the book does not
justify the harsh judgment of Gershom Scholem who dubbed it wea
kest work In that work Buber seeks to oppose the Jewish and the Christian
or rather the Israelite and the Pauline conceptions of faith emunah versus
pistis The one is static refers to the standing of the person while the other
is and implies conversion It is not my role here to provide an
analysis of use of Glaube in this book This has been done by others
including in particular by R.J Zwi Werblowsky who has provided des
cription of the background of taxonomy in German Protestant theo
logy of the time 24 Significant in our present context is the fact that the
Frankfurt teaching represents the Vorgeschichte of later conception
As mentioned above Buber had already presented two opposite types of
religion in his Reden über das Judentum There he spoke of
which he opposed to religion In sense this early dichotomy is reflected
in his later opposition of faith to say and mean religiosity.
do not say and do not mean religion Religiosity is the continually new
becoming what is constantly expressed and formed anew. Religion is the
sum of the customs and teachings in which the religiosity of given period

22 Zwischending zwischen Wissen und Meinen

23 The book was first published in German in 1950 and in English translation in 1951
It has never appeared in Hebrew Cf WERBLOWSKY art cit. no
24 Ibid. no 11

94
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

in people was expressed and formed 25 In this early text already religion
is to be understood at once in bon partem and in maiam partem On the
one hand it is Religiosität or on the other hand it is Religion or
Brauch suspect that one of the reasons for later preference of
the second to the first term was his desire clearer as time went to be per
ceived as most of his admirers in Germany and then in the United States
wanted to perceive him namely as religious -existentialist-
recognition of the polyvalence of the word Glaube is particularly
interesting He seems here to be pioneer only much later will Wilfred Cant-
well Smith following fairly different intellectual path offer detailed study
of Faith and Belief study in which incidentally he refers to Buber only
briefly in footnote 26 In sense one may say that the approach to faith
in Glaube und Brauch is richer than in Two Types of Faith since in that
last work the dichotomy between the two types of faith represented by Ju
daism and Christianity is overstated in rather schematic way while in the
Vorlesungen Buber insists on the fact that these two types of faith are to be
found within the various cultures and religious traditions
Another point of interest in the second Vorlesung is what Buber calls
Entglaubung or die Entleerung des glaubenerfüllten Brauchs He asks here
question of obvious importance for the propounder of radical changes in
Judaism but also for the student of religious phenomena what happens to
religion when the initial impulse through which it was shaped and of which
the exterior forms of worship der were but the symbol die out
What happens then Buber calls de-substantialization of custom The forms
of worship live on while having lost the meaning they once had for the be
liever meaning which was their sole legitimation It seems to me that this
question of the ways in which religious practices survive the death of the
religious beliefs that they were supposed to reflect and incarnate is funda
mental question still in need of rigorous studies intuition at least
did raise the issue
The third Vorlesung deals mainly with the question of the relationships
between sacrifice and religious protest in particular under the form of pro
phetic calls for reform of the religious tradition Buber claims that the pro
phetic protest calls not for reform that would bring back an earlier purer
stage of religion Rather according to him this protest attempts to save
attitude towards the sacrifice Here again it is Kampf für das Glaubens
element im Ritus argumentation or rather documentation of his
claims is conducted mainly through references to classical Indian conceptions
of sacrifice
Altogether notes for his lectures do not strike one as presenting
particularly original or comprehensive theory on the nature of religious phe-

25 Ich sage und meine Religiosität Ich sage und meine nicht Religion Religiosität
ist das stets neu Werdende stets neu sich Aussprechende und Ausformende...Religion ist die
Summe der Bräuche und Lehren in denen sich die Religiosität einer bestimmten Epoche eines
Volkstums ausgesprochen und ausgeformt hat...
Jüdische Religiosität in the preface to the Reden über das Der Jude und sein
Judentum 66
26 This fact was already noted by WERBLOWSKY see 18 above

95
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

nomena Yet they clearly reflect the thought of man deeply interested by
the most important religious phenomena and making major effort to approach
them from the broadest possible comparative perspective

Ill CATEGORIES OF RELIGION FAITH MYTH GNOSIS

central characteristic of thought has been mentioned above it

is his propensity to think in terms of dichotomies where one term is
while the other is passive This habit sometimes prevents
Buber from stating clearly the relationships between the various elements of
religion The faith of the prophets for instance represents what is best in
biblical Judaism as Biblical it is to be opposed to cultic practice
led by the priests practice later transformed into the Rabbinic appropriation
of the religion of Israel But Buber also speaks highly of an essential
element of living religion His perception of the relationships between faith
and myth however remains rather vague When dealing with Biblical faith
for instance he describes the mythisation of faith as degeneration of sorts
reflecting the passage from one kind of faith to the other For just as soon
as faith seeks to express more than and something other than its actual rela
tionship to the divine as soon accordingly as it seeks to report and describe
and not simply to invoke and proclaim it must mythicise its object 27
Such sentence strikes one as reflecting an attitude closely similar to Bult-
negative perception of myth as opposed to kerygma Yet it is only
in the 1940s that Bultmann developed this opposition 28 Buber is here using
myth in radically different way from the one we have met previously but
without giving any account of the change
constant theme in religious categories however is the crucial
importance he grants to the communal dimension of faith In 1904 Buber
had published his Ekstatische Konfessionen essentially an anthology of my
stical texts These texts were mainly drawn from the Western Christian tra
dition but included also some representatives from the Eastern Christian
Hassidic Muslim Buddhist and Taoist traditions 29 Buber retreated quite
early from his initial attraction to mysticism Ich und Du where the dangers
of mysticism are expressed in strong terms and where an alternative religious
attitude is offered dates from 1923 Yet already in 1911 Buber had called
attention to the dangers of mysticism in his essay on Troeltsch entitled Mys
tik als religiöser

27 Kingship of God Scheinmann trans London Allen and Unwin 1967 14

28 As Willy SCHOTTROFF pointed out to me Neues Testament und Mytho
logie dates from 1941 although the idea is older) while his collection of articles edited by
E.W BARTSCH) which made the opposition kerygma/myth known to wide audiences appeared
in 1948
29 See the recent dissertation of Jonathan Roy HERMAN The Text of Chuang and
the Problem a/Interpretation Critical Study of Martin Translation and Commentary
Harvard Harvard University 1993

96
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

Solipsism indeed puts the religious man in great jeopardy since the es
sence of any meaningful religious attitude lies in the meeting of another rea
lity in its inescapable presence to the individual This presence alone permits
the recognition of the essentially dual character of reality character which
cannot or rather should not be hidden by various simplifying theories or at
titudes This dual character Buber also calls an antinomy The religious
situation of man the Dasein in the presence is characterized by its essential
and unsolvable antinomy 30 ability to recognize antinomies in rea
lity and in religious reality in particular is at the heart of his understanding
of religious phenomena It is at the root of some of his finest intuitions It
also reflects the main weaknesses of his study of religious phenomena 31)
From the time he rejected the temptation of mysticism as that of par
ticularly seducing kind of solipsism Buber consistently insisted on the ethical
and hence collective side of religiosity best exemplified in the religious his
tory of Israel or rather in some moments of grace in this history Buber saw
the prophetic and the Hassidic movements as the clearest expression of an
attitude insisting on the collective dimension of religious expression For him
the origin of Jewish emunah is to be found in the history of nation while
the Christian pistis is found in that of the individual 32 Buber insisted for
decades that the main importance of Hassidism for the history of religion
was due to the fact that this movement provided the only known example of
collective form of mysticism Against Erlebnis mysticism 33) Hassidism
does not recognize the primacy of the unio mystica and insists instead on
the ethical dimension of religious experience For Buber Hassidism represents
the only exception to the rule that human groups transform active relation
into frozen objecthood In own words or rather in those of his trans
lator Hassidism explodes the familiar view of mysticism 34 For the ma
ture Buber true religion is not to be found in the special experience of the
religious virtuoso seeking to experience the Otherness and the singular but

30 Die religiose Situation des Menschen das Dasein in der Präsenz ist durch ihre
wesenthafte und unauflösbare Antinomik gekennzeichnet und Du 114)
31 wish to call here attention to the fact that Georg LUKACS too makes much use of
the concept of antinomies in his Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein Berlin der Malik 1923
In the same work published more or less simultaneously with Ich und Du Verdin glichung is
central concept as am reminded by Professor Steven Wasserstrom Could one envisage some
relationships between Buber and Lukacs which would account for some intriguing parallelisms
in their thought Indeed the two corresponded briefly in 1913 after Lukacs had discovered
the wonders of Hassidic tales Mendes-Flohr who has refered to this exchange of
letters see Fin de siècle Orientalism in his Divided Passions Detroit Wayne State University
Press 1991 pp 101-102 and notes does not seem to think so private communication Michael
owy calls my attention to the fact that already in 1911 Lukacs had published an article in
Hungarian about views of Jewish mysticism Their epistolary exchange in 1916 suggests
that they probably met in Heppenheim Moreover their correspondence continued until 1921
32 Two Types of Faith 170
33 On which see MENDES-FLOHR op cit pp 74-75
34 The Place of Hasidism in the History of Religion in BUBER Friedman
transi. ed. The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism New York 1960 239 George Mosse
points out the similarity between revival of Hassidism and the contemporary German
revival of mystics like Meister ECKHART and Jacob HME The Influence of the völkisch
Idea on German Jewry in KREUTZBERGER ed Studies of the Leo Baeck Institute New
York Ungar 1967 90 The influence of German contemporary interest in mysticism on the
young BUBER is reflected already in his Ekstatische Konfessionen published in 1904

97
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

rather in the meetings of daily life presence of the other as neighbour and
communication In earlier years the religious seemed to me to be the ex
ception Religious experience was the experience of some otherness which
did not show up in context of life 35 Hassidism indeed explodes all tra
ditional dichotomies There are religions built upon the ideal of inner illumi
nations others are religions of revelation According to Buber the case of
Hassidism indicates the limits of such categories 36 This special place of
Hassidism in the history of religion stems from the fact that in Israel all
religion is history including mystical religion 37)
The recognition of the inherently historical character of Judaism leads
Buber to reformulate the main structures of Judaism as religion On the
one hand Messianism is for him most profoundly original idea
The recognition of this fact is the starting point not only of Königtum Gottes
but of the planned enterprise entitled Das Kommende in which it was sup
posed to be the first of three volumes Messianism brings history to its asymp
totic point to its Aufhebung It transforms history into eschatology when
historical expectations are not realized and end up in disillusionment For
Buber this eschatologization of historical ideas includes their mythisa-
tion 38 Here again myth does not appear as an unambiguously positive
concept although Buber insists that myth is not evil in itself but opens the
way to dangerous misrepresentation of reality What is evil is not the my-
thisation of reality that brings the inexpressible to speech but the gnosticiza-
tion of myth that tears it out of the historical-biographical ground in which
it took root 39)
Myth reflects the living forces of religion It does not represent the
substance of faith but offers spontaneous and legitimate language of ex
pecting as of remembering faith 40 It is the enemy of rationalistic theo
logy not of living religion It is thus indispensable to religion although it
should not hold central place in it When Buber calls myth eine ewige
Funktion der Seele he speaks language alien to the historian of religion
But he also was able to stress the importance of myth in monotheistic re
ligion he calls the Jews the only people who has never ceased to generate
myth Such clear recognition of the place of myth in the religion of Israel
had not been argued since the publication in 1876 of Der Mythos bei den
Hebräern by the young Ignaz Goldziher 41 It seems to me that
influence on Gershom Scholem is here capital When the young Scholem de
cided to focus on the study of those elements in Judaism which were strikingly

35 In jüngeren Jahren war mir das Religiöse die Ausnahme Die religiöse Erfahrung
war die Erfahrung einer Andersheit die in den Zusammenhang des Lebens nicht einstand.
36 Zwiesprache in Werke 186
37 The Place of Hassidism in the History of Religion 237
38 Kingship of God 14 Michael Fishbane points out to me the originality of this attitude
for which myth stands at the end of history rather than in ilio tempore
39 Christ Hassidism Gnosis in The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism 249
40 Kingship of God 14
41 Goldziher Der Mythos bei den Hebräern und seine geschichtliche Entwicklung
Untersuchungen zur Mythologie und Religionswissenschaft Leipzig Brockhaus 1876 On this
work see Maurice LENDER Les Langues du paradis Aryens et Sémites un couple providentiel
Paris Gallimard Le Seuil 1989 pp 153-175

98
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

different from the rationalistic tradition and were hence despised or ignored
by most nineteenth century scholars Buber was his main although unacknow
ledged mentor recognition of the place of myth in Judaism was
clearly inherited from Buber 42)
Myth should not become the essential focus of true religion which should
remain man and ever again man 43 But it is not the real enemy of true
religion For Buber this enemy is gnosis am against gnosis he states
because and insofar as it alleges that it can report events and processes within
the divinity am against it because and insofar as it makes God into an
object in whose nature and history one knows way about am against
it because in the place of the personal relation of the human person to God
it sets communion-rich wandering through an upper world through mul
tiplicity of more or less divine spheres 44)

Buber indeed felt from his early years on that gnosis was the very op
posite of true religion of the relationship created by the recognition of
presence Gnosis together with magic and more than magic is for him
simulacrum of religion It is however much more dangerous than magic since
it pretends to reflect the highest level of religious thought and life While
magic presents truncated form of religion gnosis corrupts it in deeper
sense Gnosis ignores the meeting magic wounds it 45 This rejection of
gnosis was for Buber instinctive He did not bother to argue his views in
detailed way At most he refers here or there to Marcion Basilides Valentinus
or Carpocrates 46 For him gnosis simply reflects Iranian dualism He in
sists however on the significance it acquired within the context of Biblical
religion 47 The intellectualist pretensions of gnosis represented for him to
be sure capital sin against the spirit In sense gnosis which meant
knowing relationship with the divine 48) represented theology at its worst
But to construe deep suspicions against intellectualism as the core
of his opposition to gnosis would not do his approach full justice He rejected
gnosis because the claim to know God or the divine worlds is hybris

42 Barukh Kurzweil has argued on this point that understanding of myth was
deeper than see above The ambivalence of attitude to Buber is
well known Scholem has expressed in various places his strong disagreement with Buber on
various points of religious history in particular with highly idiosyncratic perception of
Hasssidism Much of criticism of course is correct Yet at least on one point he
seems to have ignored an important dimension of religion constantly stressed by Buber namely
popular religion insistence on philological accuracy prevented him from devoting
enough attention to lower trends in the history of Judaism
43 Christ Hassidism Gnosis 248
44 Reply to My Critics in SCHLIPP and FRIEDMAN eds. The Philosophy of
Martin Buber the Library of Living Philosophers 12 London Cambridge University 1967
The passage is quoted by Maurice FRIEDMAN Martin Life and Works III the Later
Years 7945-7965 Detroit Wayne State University 1988 pp 182-183 at the end of the chapter
entitled Devotio versus Gnosis Buber versus Jung
45 Die Gnosis verkennt die Begegnung die Magie verletzt sie.
Der Glaube des Judentums in Der Jude und sein Judentum 197
46 Cf Remi BRAGUE How to be in the World Gnosis Religion Philosophy in
forthcoming volume of essays on Buber edited by Paul MENDES-FLOHR
47 Ibid. 196
48 Christ Hassidism Gnosis 243

99
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

which has two disastrous consequenses On the one hand it establishes the
relationship of man to God upon wrong basis since it ignores faith and
devotio Human overconfidence in intellectual capacities regarding the divine
perverts religion in radical way It is the very opposite of faith of confidence
in God Hence it destroys the possibility of prayer of the dialogical relations
hip with God The second consequence of gnosis relates to human relations
Buber felt deeply although he does not seem to have articulated this point
very clearly that gnosis prevented not only the possibility of presence
but also that of man In his own words the dialogical situation of man is
threatened by gnosis Buber expresses here very deep insight about the na
ture of gnosis an insight already stated in forceful terms by Plotinus In his
pamphlet against the Gnostics Enn II 9) which remains to this day the
noblest protest ever written against the gnostic mythological lucubrations Plo
tinus had noted their total lack of interest in ethics Buber does not refer to
Plotinus on this point but his rejoinder underlines the central importance of
ethics for any true understanding of religion Neither mysterium nor ecstasy
religiosity is before all the respect for the other the recognition of his pre
sence Buber indeed was among students of religion one of those who most
forcefully insisted on its dangers for the community of men The basic dan
ger for man is religion 49)
strongly negative perception of gnosis stands in striking opposi
tion to the trendiness of gnosis conceived both as die ewige sive
philosophia perennis and as the pervasive Geist of late antiquity in intel
lectual circles in Germany and among students of religion in particular
throughout the twentieth century The old Buber was challenged to state his
views once more by the Protestant thinker Rudolf Pannwitz whom one might
perhaps call Kulturphilosoph The latter had published in 1954 an article
on Hassidism established exclusively of course on writings For
Pannwitz Hassidism like Kabbalah but also like the teachings of Jesus rep
resented the influence of die ewige Gnosis on Judaism throughout the
ages 50 Buber felt forced to respond and in the next issue of Merkur pu
blished Christus Chassidismus Gnosis 51 final rejoinder by Pannwitz
was published the following month 52 In Mythos Gnosis Religion he
polemicized with what he rightly perceived as blind fight against
Gnosis 53 Pannwitz did not understand what Buber meant by his Gnos-
tizisierung des One should recognize that Buber had not been par
ticularly clear on this issue and he expresses his views more often closer to
series of obiter dicta than to cogent arguments But here again
intuition must be recognized as remarkable recent research indeed has shown
in more detail how gnosticism can be understood as the last stage of radical
transformations of myth within trends in Judaism of the Second Common
wealth 54)

49 Die Urgefahr des Menschen ist die Religion

Quoted by Rudolph PANNWITZ Der Chassidismus Merkur 79 Sept 1954) 820
50 Ibid. pp 810-830
51 Merkur 80 Oct 1954) pp 923-929
52 Mythos Gnosis Religion Merkur 81 Dec 1954) pp 1068-1071
53 blinder Kampf gegen die Gnosis
54 See for instance Guy STROUMSA Another Seed Studies in Gnostic Mythology
NHS 24 Leiden Brill 1984 passim

100
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

Closely related to rejection of gnosis stands his Auseinanderset

zung with Jung Buber was not interested in psychoanalysis There are very
few references to Freud in his writings and in his correspondence These re
ferences are mostly negative and stress complete misunderstanding
of religion according to Buber 55 In regard to Jung however he reacts
on different occasions with vehemence to the views on religion
very interest in religion seemed to Buber to represent the ultimate danger
worse even than thought he once exclaimed 56 What was so
dangerous in theory of religion was precisely the seduction that gnosis
exerted upon him The man who thinks he can know the divine to be dis
covered within his own soul does not feel anymore the need to relate to
God to seek His presence and to converse with Him and with men Here
again solipsism is the great enemy

IV BUBER AMONG HISTORIANS OF RELIGION

have not sought to draw here complete picture of under

standing of religion Rather have attempted to sketch some main lines of
his approach to categories and concepts in the comparative history of religion
We have seen how strong and sustained interest in the field was The
weaknesses of his approach which often are not only his are obvious and
need no new underlining Quite simply Buber never approached scholarship
with the demanding exclusiveness that it requires He intended to be more
than scholar thinker of renewal His concepts and categories usually reflect
contemporay usage Among students of religion in Germany between the two
world wars teaching on religious phenomena is not particularly re
markable although there were at the time few professorships of Religions
wissenschaft 57 wish to note here at least one shortcoming of
interest which he partook with most of his contemporaries his almost total
lack of interest in Islam lack of interest all the more striking when one
thinks of relentless efforts in the Holy Land to seek political un
derstanding with the Palestinians based on mutual recognition and respect
For students of religion in generation Islam seems to have offered
neither myth nor mystery Interest in the essence of monotheism on the other

55 The same negative attitude about Freud is shared by Gershom SCHOLEM who does
not refer to psychoanalysis even in his Sabbatui Sevi where it should have been most expected
On negative attitude to Freud see Peter GAY Buber for his part detested Freud
early and late in his life he intended to write refutation of psychoanalysis. in Godless
Jew Freud Atheism and the Meaning of Psychoanalysis New Haven London and Cincinati
Yale University Press and Hebrew Union College Press 1987 96
56 On attitude towards Heidegger see Rèmi BRAGUE How to be in the World
esp section II
57 few facts the first chair Religionsgeschichte was established at the Berlin Faculty
of Theology in 1910 against wishes while Friedrich Heiler whose Das Gebet was
first published in 1918 was appointed to the chair of vergleichende Religionsgeschichte und
Religionsphilosophie at Marburg in 1920 Rudolf das Heilige was first published in
1917

101
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

hand found more natural expression in the study of the Biblical tradition
either Jewish or Christian Islam was too often perceived as foreign but de
void of exotism
Simmel teacher had lasting influence on his thought but al
ready before the first World War Buber also had contacts with other leading
sociologists such as Weber and Troeltsch These contacts obvioulsly left
major imprint on his mind and help understand the crucial role which the
relationships of society and religion played in his thought One might add
that the influences upon the young Buber were not limited to the German
intellectual realm The importance which die Urformen des religiösen Le
for instance had for him might perhaps reflect his reading of Dur-
Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse first published in 1912
Although it cannot be proven such an influence of Durkheim on Buber re
mains tantalizing possibility
Altogether and in spite of his great intellectual fame influence
on historians of religion at least his acknowledged influence seems to be
rather slim For instance the almost total lack of reference to work
in bibliographies on faith in current encyclopedias is striking 58 This state
of affairs does not seem to be very different in those special fields of study
in which Buber felt his calling was the strongest such as Bible and Hassidism
Despite the intellectual impact of his and German translation
of the Hebrew Bible influence on Biblical scholarship remains de
finitely marginal True it is constantly repeated that Buber discovered Has
sidism almost singlehandedly or at least revealed it to the western reader
Only thanks to his telling of the Hassidic tales did Hassidism cease to be
terra incognita for students of religious phenomena As noted above however
presentation of Hassidism was soon questioned by those few other
scholars who knew something about it first of all Gershom Scholem
views were too idiosyncratic they argued to represent Hassidism in its his
torical reality As noted above this criticism is to great extent correct al
though Buber rightly recognized more than his critics the importance of
popular trends within the total description of religious movement
One might be tempted to attribute lack of impact upon historians
of religion to his consistent refusal to draw boundaries between theology phi
losophy and the study of religious phenomena This is not however convin
cing explanation Other scholars operating in time and cultural realm
such as Otto Heiler van der Leeuw or Bultmann also insisted throughout
their careers on remaining both theologians and historians of religion In their
perception too the two dimensions of their intellectual involvement comple
mented and enriched each other

58 Buber is not mentioned by HRMANN Glaube Reallexikon für Antike und Chris
tentum 11 pp.48-122 volume published in 1981 Neither is Buber refered to by both
LANCZKOWSKI and HAAKER Glaube II and III Theologische Realenzyklopädie 13 pp
275-304 published in 1984 No reference to Buber again in PELIKAN Faith Encyclopedia
of Religion pp 250-255 published in 1987 On the importance of Glaube as catchword
for interior religion among German historians of religion and classicists since the late nine
teenth century see Henrichs Der Glaube der Religionsgeschichte als Glaubens
bekenntnis und Kulturkritik in W.M CALDER III FASHAR and Th LINDKEN eds.
Willamowitz nach 50 Jahren Darmstadt Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1985 pp 263-305

102
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

special case thus seems to be linked to his Jewishness Following

close friend Gustav Landauer Gershom Scholem has noted
almost total lack of influence on the Jewish world 59 Buber provided
picture of Judaim which was palatable to philosemite Christians in particular
within the Protestant intellectual realm e. mainly in Germany after 1918
and in the United States after the second world war Zionist beliefs
and the tragic history of European Jewry in the twentieth century also cost
him high intellectual price While he was fairly successful in both his tea
ching and preaching in Germany he moved in 1938 to very different kind
of society The Yshuv of mandatory Palestine had no interest in at
tempt to offer spiritual alternative to Rabbinic Judaism Despite the great
respect with which he was treated in Jerusalem and in various kibbuzim his
Ansatz was too alien to the ethos of the society then in the making to be
understood
The best case in point in this regard is offered by the story of his ap
pointment at the Hebrew University Together with Haim Weizmann and Ber
thold Feiwel Buber had in the early years of the twentieth century picked
up Hermann idea of establishing Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Since the early twenties he had toyed with the idea of settling in Palestine
As shown by his correspondence Buber was encouraged throughout the twen
ties by Jehuda Leib Magnes the first President of the University to establish
at the university an Institute of Religious Studies Institut für Religionswis
The idea seems to have tempted Buber he writes in this vein to
Franz Rosenzweig) but the seed money for the Institute never came through
Various other options were considered including that of appointing Buber
Rector of the university 60)
It is only in 1933 with dismissal from the University of Frankfurt
that the idea of his appointment at the Hebrew University gained momentum
Scholem headed committee which recommended appointment as
Professor of General Science of Religion mada ha-dat hakelali linguistic
caique of allgemeine Religionswissenschaft On this occasion Scholem for
mulated an impressive defense and illustration of the need for the comparative
study of religion at the Hebrew University by the side of the various philo
logical disciplines 61 But the Senate of the University ultimately turned
down the recommendation Various other proposals were aired
and Buber was ultimately appointed in 1938 Professor of Social Philosophy
position that he accepted as final compromise between his aspirations and
the whims of the governing bodies

59 Martin Conception of Judaism in Gershom SCHOLEM On Jews and Judaism

Crisis New York Schocken 1976 128 See also Paul MENDES-FLOHR Martin
Reception among Jews Modern Judaism no May 1986) pp 111-126
60 See Martin BUBER Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten II 1918-1938) Heidelberg
Lambert Schneider 1973 passim esp pp 292-295 335 338-339 574 Correspondence on this
topic is exchanged especially with Magnes Hugo Bergmann and Gershom Scholem In previous
years Buber refers to his Jerusalem plans in letters to Rosenzweig
61 letter an das Hebrew University Survey Committee from December 27
1933 is preserved in MBA Ms Var 380 and in Gershom Scholem Archive Arc 1599
Scholem was quite confident that his efforts would be successful and wrote in this sense to
Buber immediately after the positive recommemdation of the ad hoc committee

103
ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS

For whims they were Like many others have often heard gossip about
the strange title of Buber appointment Not enough of philosopher to teach
philosophy not enough of scholar to teach within the Institute of Jewish
Studies the rumor has it that Buber was not wanted in any of the established
departments of the young University glimpse at the archive
however shows that on its meeting of June 1935 the Senate of the Hebrew
University turned down the ad hoc proposal on different ground
The overwhelming majority of the Professors supported the idea of an ap
pointment of Buber at the University or at least did not dare to object to it
What majority objected to however was not the candidate but the field
The comparative study of religion was deemed unwanted at the University
The opposition was led by such figures as Klausner who taught Hebrew
literature and the Talmudist Epstein The latter simply declared his
complete opposition to the field while the former argued that one should
concentrate on developing Biblical studies before one could even dream of
teaching on other religions strange argument in itself since Islamic studies
were already at the time forming the backbone of the Institute of Oriental
Studies The staunch support of the classical philologist Schwabe and the
historian er at the sides of Scholem was not enough to carry the day
The refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the comparative study of reli
gious phenomena may seem somewhat surprising today but in retrospect was
quite in line with the ethos then prevalent at the University strong natio
nalist sentiment was allied to the honest desire to show criticism and ob
jectivity in the scientific study of Judaism in its various aspects Judaism
could be studied in critical fashion by and for Jews There was no need and
no wish to mix its study with that of other phenomena foreign to the
spirit Moreover as David Mayers has recently shown the nationalist ethos
of the Hebrew early scholars of Judaism brought them to insist
on the history of the nation rather than on religion as the main focus of their
research 62 To this day indeed there is no single course on Judaism as
religion offered within the entire Institute of Jewish Studies 63)
Despite some important insights and his very broad horizons Buber cannot
be seen as leading historian of religion What seems certain however is
that his diagnosis of the spiritual illness of the Jews was directly related to
his decision to study religion in comparative perspective This decision he
conceived as central to his overall thought and activity No one is prophet
in his own country Buber is still today sorely needed in the Israeli academe
So sorely that this need is not even felt To this day Buber may not offer
convincing answers Rather he raises questions and he does that through his
very absence In the study of religion too he demands not gnosis but presence

Guy STROUMSA
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

62 See David MAYERS From Zio will go forth the Torah Jewish Scholarship and
the Zionist Return to History PhD dissertation Columbia University 1991 It is significant
that Mayers devotes no attention to Buber in his work
63 See Guy STROUMSA Hebrew Humanism Revisited Jewish Studies and Humanistic
Education in Israel Jewish Studies Quarterly 1996 pp 123-135

104
 BUBER PRESENCE NOT GNOSIS

Abstract
The article analyses the various modes of Martin powerful and
long lasting interest for religious phenomena Buber was thinker class
of his own philosopher of the dialogue prophet of cultural and religious
renewal of the Jews he remained also fascinated by the historical and syste
matic study of religions Until 1933 he even taught this subject at the Uni
versity of Frankfurt
The analysis of his course notes and of various booknotes kept in the Mar
tin Buber Archives supplement the informations given in his published works
and permit to draw rather precise image of the questions which interested
Buber as an historian of religion approach is mainly that of phe-
nomenologist of religion It is precisely his meta-historical interests which limit
the importance of his contribution for the history of religion
Résumé
article analyse les divers modes de intérêt puissant porté par Martin
Buber pour les phénomènes religieux Buber était un penseur difficilement clas-
sable philosophe du dialogue prophète un renouveau juif culturel et reli
gieux il fut aussi passionné par étude historique et systématique des religions
en 1933 il enseigna histoire des religions université de Francfort
analyse de ses notes de cours et de divers cahiers conservés dans les
Archives Martin Buber supplée aux indications données par ses écrits publiés
et permet de dresser une image assez précise des questions qui intéressaient
Buber en tant historien des religions approche de Buber inscrit dans
le sillage de la phénoménologie des religions est précisément son intérêt
méta-historique qui trace les limites de sa contribution histoire des reli
gions
Resumen
El art culo analiza los diferentes modos de Martin Buber de interesarse
por los fen menos religiosos Buber fue un pensador dif cil de calificar fil
sofo del di logo profeta de una renovaci jud al nivel cultural religioso
se apasion también por el estudio hist rico sistem tico de las religiones
Hasta 933 ense Historia de las Religiones en la universidad de Frankfurt
El an lisis de sus notas de cursos de varios cuadernos conservados en
los Archivos Martin Buber precisa las informaciones encontradas en sus obras
publicadas permite de manera bastante precisa dar cuenta de lo que Buber
quis plantear como historiador de las religiones El pensamiento de Buber
sigue las huellas de la fenomenolog de las religiones Es precisamente su
interés meta-hist rico que delimita su aporte la historia de las religiones

105