Hans-Joachim Schoeps: Contrarian Scholar

Summary

MY ENCOUNTER WITH HANS-JOACHIM SCHOEPS occurred in my first semester at the University of Erlangen. I had enrolled in the School of Law with the intention of joining the newly re-established German diplomatic service upon graduation. I anticipated that within a few years I would represent the Federal Republic of Germany as ambassador in Moscow, London, or Washington. In short, I was full of myself and thought big. I had registered for a full load of courses but by serendipity I happened to see the announcement of a course in the Arts and Sciences. It was offered by Professor Hans-Joachim Schoeps and was titled “The Great Founders of Religions and their Teachings.” That seemed an interesting course, and I enrolled. The brilliance of the lectures and the excitement of the subject matter made me decide I wanted to enroll in another course by Schoeps. Two semesters later I had relinquished law school and the dream of diplomatic service—with no tears on either side—and had turned to the study of Religion, Theology, and History.

Eventually Schoeps supervised my doctoral dissertation on an aspect of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, though, let me quickly add, “supervised my dissertation” might not quite be the right description: when I formally submitted my work, with which I intended to revolutionize Reformation scholarship, he had not seen a single page, always assuring me that I was so much more familiar with the subject matter and the sources than he. Now that I had completed the project he decided that my topic was conceptually erroneous. Heaven only knows what course my professional life would have taken had I accepted Schoeps's pronouncement as a manifestation of professorial infallibility. I decided to argue with him about the matter. He allowed himself to be persuaded, which says something about him, both as an individual and a scholar. My judgment at the time that Hans-Joachim Schoeps was the most brilliant person I had encountered all these years has not changed as time has passed. More than anything or anybody else, he has influenced my teaching and scholarship.

Schoeps's professorship at the University of Erlangen was labeled “History of Religion and Ideas.” It was a unique and at the same time rather pretentious designation, which potentially subsumed everything and everybody in the human past.