Bruno Bauer

Biography

Bauer was the son of a painter in a porcelain factory at Eisenberg in Saxe-Altenburg. He studied directly under GWF Hegel until Hegel died in 1831. Hegel once awarded the young Bruno Bauer an academic prize for a philosophical essay criticizing Immanuel Kant. Bauer studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, where he attached himself to the Right Hegelians under Philip Marheineke. In 1834 he began to teach in Berlin as a licentiate of theology, and in 1839 was transferred to the University of Bonn. In 1838 he published his ''Kritische Darstellung der Religion des Alten Testaments'' (2 vols.), which shows that at that date he was still faithful to the Hegelian Right. Soon afterwards his opinions underwent a change, and in two works, one on the Fourth Gospel, ''Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes'' (1840), and the other on the Synoptic Gospels|Synoptics, ''Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker'' (1841), as well as in his ''Herr Hengstenberg, kritische Briefe uber den Gegensatz des Gesetzes und des Evangeliums'', he announced his complete rejection of his earlier orthodoxy. Bauer became associated with the radical Young Hegelians or "Left Hegelians". In 1842 the government revoked his license and he retired for the rest of his life to Rixdorf, near Berlin. From then on, he took a deep interest in modern history and politics, as well as in theology, and published ''Geschichte der Politik, Kultur und Aufklärung des 18ten Jahrhunderts'' (4 vols. 1843?1845), ''Geschichte der französischen Revolution'' (3 vols. 1847), and ''Disraelis romantischer und Bismarcks' socialistischer Imperialismus'' (1882). Other critical works are: a criticism of the gospels and a history of their origin, ''Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs'' (1850-1852), a book on the Acts of the Apostles, ''Apostelgeschichte'' (1850), and a criticism of the Pauline epistles, ''Kritik der paulinischen Briefe'' (1850-1852). He died at Rixdorf on the 13th of April 1882. His criticism of the New Testament was highly deconstructive. David Strauss, in his ''Life of Jesus'', had accounted for the Gospel narratives as half-conscious products of the mythic instinct in the early Christian communities. Bauer ridiculed Strauss's notion that a community could produce a connected narrative. His own contention, embodying a theory of CG Wilke (''Der Urevangelist'', 1838), was that the original narrative was the Gospel of Mark; that this was composed in the reign of Hadrian; and that after this the other narratives were modelled by other writers. According to some reviewers, Bruno Bauer, "regarded the Gospel of Mark not only as the first narrator, but even as the creator of the gospel history, thus making the latter a fiction and Christianity the invention of a single original evangelist" (Otto Pfleiderer). Bauer did speak about the so-called Ur-Marcus, the prototype upon which even the Gospel of Mark might be based. It was the current version of Mark, however, that captured his interest. In particular, some key themes in Mark appeared to be purely literary. The well-known, Messianic Secret theme, in which Jesus continually performed wonders and then continually told the viewers not to tell anybody that he did this, seemed to Bauer to be purely literary. On the same principle the four principal Pauline epistles were regarded by Bauer as forgeries of the 2nd century. Bauer argued further for the preponderance of the Graeco-Roman element, as opposed to the Jewish, in the Christian writings. The writer of Mark the Evangelist|Mark's gospel was "an Italian, at home both in Rome and Alexandria"; that of Matthew the Evangelist|Matthew's gospel "a Roman, nourished by the spirit of Seneca the Younger|Seneca"; the Pauline epistles were written in the West in antagonism to the Paul of Tarsus|Paul of the Acts, and so on. Christianity is essentially "Stoicism triumphant in a Jewish garb." Bauer's final book, CHRIST AND THE CAESARS (1877) offers a penetrating analysis that shows common key-words in the words of first century writers like Seneca the Stoic and New Testament texts. While this had been perceived even in ancient times, the ancient explanation was that Seneca 'must have been' a secret Christian. Bruno Bauer was perhaps the first to demonstrate carefully that some New Testament writers freely borrowed from Seneca the Stoic. According to Albert Schweitzer, who was a devout Christian, Bruno Bauer provided the most interesting critique of the Gospels he had seen. Schweitzer's own theology was partly based on Bauer's criticisms of the Gospel account. This line of criticism has found few supporters, mostly in the Netherlands. It certainly had its value in emphasizing the importance of studying the influence of environment in the formation of the Christian Scriptures. Bauer was a man of restless, impetuous activity and independent, if ill-balanced, judgment, one who, as he himself perceived, was more in place as a free-lance of criticism than as an official teacher. He came in the end to be regarded kindly even by opponents, and he was not afraid of taking a line displeasing to his liberal friends on the Jewish question (''Die Judenfrage'', 1843). In this controversial book about the question of Civil Rights for Jews, Bauer asked, how can Jews obtain Civil Rights until Germans themselves obtain Civil Rights? The topic of atheism is a continuing debate in contemporary scholarship about Bruno Bauer. Most 20th century references to Bauer presume that he was an atheist. However, in the 19th century, perhaps most academic books about theology reference Bruno Bauer. Bauer's philosophy was not less complicated and not less controversial than that of Hegel his teacher. A few writers today make a case that Bauer remained a radical theologian who criticized specific types of Christianity, and maintained a novel interpretation of Christianity throughout his life. In 1836, during his early days as a tutor, Bruno Bauer taught a teenage Karl Marx. Marx later betrayed Bauer in two books, THE HOLY FAMILY, and, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY. A generation later, Bauer was a mentor to a teenage Friedrich Nietzsche, who at that time called Bauer, 'my entire reading public.' But when Nietzsche embraced the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the well-known anti-Hegelian, he also abandoned Bruno Bauer, the Hegelian. Because Karl Marx abandoned him, and because the Prussian monarch, Friedrich Wilhelm IV banned him from holding a professorial post, Bruno Bauer's famous intellect was buried under the cross-currents of left-wing and right-wing battles at the turn of the 20th century. As a result, the great bulk of Bauer's writings have still not been translated into English. Only two books by Bauer have been formally translated; a comedic parody, "The Trumpet of the Last Judgment Against Hegel the Atheist and Anti-Christ" (1841, trans. Lawrence Stepelevich, 1989), and a book that was immediately banned upon publication, and its publisher arrested, "Christianity Exposed: A Recollection of the Eighteenth Century and a Contribution to the Crisis of the Nineteenth" (1843, ed. Paul Trejo, 2002).

Personality

Bauer's attitude towards the Jews is dealt with in the article in the ''Jewish Encyclopedia''. See generally Herzog-Hauck, ''Realencyklopedie''; and cf. Otto Pfleiderer, ''Development of Theology'', p. 226; Karl Schwarz, ''Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie'', pp. 142 if.; and F Lichtenberger, ''History of German Theology in the 19th Century'' (1889), pp. 374?378. In general terms Bauer's attitude toward Civil Rights for German Jews may be summarized in his question, 'how can Jews obtain Civil Rights until Germans themselves obtain Civil Rights?' The first English-language rendering of Bruno Bauer's career was published in March, 2002 by Douglas Moggach, a professor at the University of Ottowa. His book is entitled, "The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer." Bauer's personality was complex. During his career and even after he died he was difficult to classify. The left-wing tried to define him as one of their own. The right-wing tried to define him as one of their own. He was praised by the right-Hegelians, and he was praised by the left-Hegelians. However, Bauer never considered himself as either left or right. He was a Young Hegelian. Bauer had studied directly under the great innovator in philosophy, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel. Hegel had awarded an academic prize to Bauer when Bauer was about 20 years old. Hegel died when Bruno Bauer was 22 years old. Perhaps this affected Bauer's personality strongly; he may have seen himself as sitting very close to the highest academic post in Prussia and possibly he imagined that he would one day have that post. When Hegel unexpectedly died of cholera Bruno Bauer's official connections were drastically reduced. Bauer had very few powerful friends during the academic fallout after Hegel's death. In 1835 a chance came for Bauer to prove himself. The theologian, David Strauss, had made a scandal for the Fundamentalist Christian monarch, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, by publishing his book, THE LIFE OF CHRIST. This famous book argued that much of Jesus' biography was legend, and that de-mythologization was the correct approach of Bible interpretation. In a surprise move, Strauss claimed that he obtained these ideas from the philosophy of Hegel. The monarch demanded that the Hegelians respond. The Old Hegelians selected Bruno Bauer (now 26 years old) to respond. Bauer didn't care to defend Fundamentalism -- he took care to show that David Strauss used Hegel's name in vain. His ideas were not the same as Hegel's. Hegel died the year that Strauss entered Berlin University, so Strauss got his ideas from other sources. In his book, IN DEFENSE OF MY 'LIFE OF JESUS' AGAINST THE HEGELIANS (1838), David Strauss refused to debate with Bauer, insulted Bauer, and invented the rubric of left-right Hegelians to portray Bauer on the right-wing and himself on the left-wing. Strauss said Bauer's arguments were 'a foolish bit of pen-pushing' and did his best to portray Bauer as a right-wing radical. Actually, Strauss had no effective arguments against Bauer. David Strauss never published another major book. For a long time the title stuck; Bruno Bauer was called a right-Hegelian by many, but Bauer didn't accept it. When the monarch decided that the Hegelian response was not good enough, that is, it did not stop the soaring sales of Strauss' book, the monarch chose to ban almost all Hegelians from teaching. Bruno Bauer was among the first to go. This also affected Bauer's personality. Bauer went underground and began to write Hegelian newspapers here and there. In this journey he met some socialists, including Karl Marx, his former student, and his new friends, Fredrick Engels and Arnold Ruge. They were all left-wing radicals. Bauer was not a left-wing radical, but he was happy to be their leader if it could lead them back to a Hegelian understanding of the dialectic. Another member of those Young Hegelians, Max Stirner, became Bauer's life long friend. Stirner was no socialist, on the contrary, he was a radical egoist. Although Bauer was not a radical egoist, he preferred the writings of Stirner to the writings of Marx, Engels and Ruge. Shortly after, Marx and Engels broke sharply with Bruno Bauer and attacked him and the Young Hegelians in two books, THE HOLY FAMILY, and THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY. They never spoke to each other again. Suppressed by the right-wing, and now suppressed by the left-wing, the influential Bruno Bauer settled into his family's tobacco shop to work, writing books at night. He never married, and he wrote books for the rest of his life. As an older man Bauer received visits from a very young Friedrich Nietzsche, whose ambitions led him to seek out famous people, including the famous composer, Richard Wagner (who was roughly the same age as Bruno Bauer). Bauer was delighted by Nietzsche's witty attacks on David Strauss, and so Bauer encouraged Nietzsche as much as he could. During this period, Nietzsche called Bauer, 'my entire reading public.' However, under the influence of Richard Wagner, Neitzsche didn't struggle with the complexity of Hegel's dialectic, and turned instead to Hegel's nemesis, Arthur Schopenhauer, as his philosophical model. At this point Bauer and Nietzsche broke their friendship. When Max Stirner died, the story goes, Bruno Bauer was the only person at his funeral.

Major works

''Das Entdeckte Christentum im Vormärz'' (1843)

''Die Geschichte des Lebens Jesu mit steter Rücksicht auf die vorhandenen Quellen'' (1843)

Quotes

: "We save the honor of Jesus when we restore His Person to life from the state of inanity to which the apologists have reduced it, and give it once more a living relation to history, which it certainly possessed." — Bruno Bauer, SYNOPTIKER, 1840 : "Therefore, criticism has to direct itself against itself, and against the mysterious Substance in which it has up to now hid itself. In this way criticism must resolve things such that the development of this Substance drives itself forward to the Universality and Certainty of the Idea of its actual existence, the Eternal Self-consciousness." — Bruno Bauer, SYNOPTIKER, 1840 : "The pure Christian State is a State in which theological law prevails. This law attains to real power or, to be more exact, absolute power, when through its results which are identical with those of ''opium'', it puts all parts of humanity to sleep. If some occasionally awake they carry out crimes that horrify humanity which has not yet become Christian in the full sense of the word or has already abandoned the Christian framework." — Bruno Bauer, 1841, THE CHRISTIAN STATE AND OUR TIMES : "After fulfilling its destructive urge towards everything that is noble and good on earth, it sketches, in its ''opium'' intoxication, a picture of the future situation, which differs drastically from the order of this world, since everything changes and is renewed." — Bruno Bauer, 1842, THE GOOD CAUSE OF FREEDOM AND MY OWN CASE : "Reason is the true creative power, for it produces itself as Infinite Self-consciousness, and its ongoing creation is...world history. As the only power that exists, Spirit can therefore be determined by nothing other than itself, that is, its essence is Freedom...Freedom is the infinite power of Spirit...Freedom, the only End of Spirit, is also the only End of History, and history is nothing other than Spirit's becoming

conscious

of its Freedom, or the becoming of Real, Free, Infinite Self-consciousness." — Bruno Bauer, 1842, HEGEL'S LEHRE VON DER RELIGION UND KUNST VON DEM STANDPUNKTE DES GLAUBENS AUS BEURTEILT, trans. Moggach, 2001 : "It is not as uncommon ... accept the reality of phenomena that are not yet understood, as it is very common for physicists to disbelieve the reality of phenomena that seem to contradict contemporary beliefs of physics" — Bruno Bauer

Links

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bauer/

http://ffrf.org/day/?sel=1&day=6&month=9/