Lukas Bormann
Introduction: Rudolf Kittel as a Scholar
During the Great War, the eminent Old Testament scholar Rudolf Kittel (1853–1929) was at the peak of his scholarly career as well as of his public influence. In 1902, he outlined his ideas for a new critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Bible in a programmatic article.1 The first and the second editions of the Biblia Hebraica were published in the following years. Kittel was aware of the many flaws of the first two editions and brought together a group of scholars to improve continuously the quality of the Hebrew text until the third edition was published in 1929.2 The preface to this edition, which became a world-renowned work, contained some of his last words.3 Kittel passed away in the same year.4
Kittel was born in Eningen, Württemberg. He studied at Tübingen and worked as a pastor for some years before becoming a supervisor at the famous Tübingian Stift (1879–1881) and, later, a teacher with the title of professor in Stuttgart (1881–1888), teaching also Hebrew to his students.5 While holding this position, he published two books, which made him eligible for a university chair. One of these was on an Old Testament subject, the History of the Hebrews, and eventually led to an appointment as professor for Old Testament at the University of Breslau, a position he held from 1888 to 1898.6 The other book was published in 1885 but is very seldom given much attention at all.7 However, this second book is much more important for the understanding of the philosophical, moral and even political views which Kittel held until the end of his life. The title of the book was Moral Questions: Ethics and Apologetics about Freedom, Conscience and Moral Law.8 The book was written as a textbook for ethics, not theology. Written at a time when the philosophical school of Neo-Kantianism dominated, it also inevitably deals with Kant. Kantian philosophy and ethics were part of the basic education for students and were taught regularly in courses as a form of propaedeuticum, or basic course, again and again. In his book, Kittel wishes to demonstrate that freedom, consciousness and morality cannot be based on ironclad Kantian duty (Pflicht) alone but have to be based also, and primarily, on the universal inclination to morality felt by every human being. According to Kittel, concepts of practical ethics need to take into consideration the human being as both social and moral. Kittel calls this point of view ‘ethical idealism’. As an individual, man is not only responsible for the idea of reason and his inner court of justice (that is, his conscience), as implied by Kant, but, according to Kittel, every human being is also related to other human beings. By certain means he must be educated in the ideas of humanity to be able to reconcile reason with the social and moral ideals of his community. From this point on in the work, Kittel argues that Christianity is the highest expression of ‘ethical idealism’, as he writes, ‘Christianity as it is revealed in history is the only worldview and view of life which realizes truly the ethical idealism’.9
In this book, Kittel also analyses evidence from ethnology and the history of religion, to discuss in which way and to which degree non-European ethnicities and non-Christian religions and philosophies may fulfill the demand of ‘ethical idealism’. According to his ethnological findings, Kittel argues that his research proves that no human being is by nature without morality; indeed, the life of every human being tends towards morality.10 However, society, culture and religion are in need of ‘ethical heroes’ to develop morality further. Such ‘ethical heroes’ or ‘moral geniuses’ can be found in many cultures, and Kittel names ‘Lycurgus and Solon, Minos and Pythagoras, Manu and Zoroaster, Confucius and Moses’, but most of all, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.11 However, Kittel emphasizes that none of these ‘moral geniuses’ are wholly independent. Moses laid the ground for Jesus in the Decalogue, but the Decalogue was also influenced by moral views of ancient Near Eastern cultures. Kittel states that the first of all commandments is the ‘love commandment, the commandment of universal human love’.12 According to Kittel, one may find some elements of these highest ideals in most cultures and in many religions. The teachings of Moses and Jesus are very similar to each other with respect to ethical idealism, but only Christianity fulfils all demands of ethical idealism in its highest form.13 In his concluding paragraph, Kittel argues against morality without religion. For Kittel, morality without religion may be possible, but such an attitude is not realistic, as only someone who is grounded in religious beliefs will continuously follow moral imperatives in the face of the demands of daily life.
Seen in the context of the nineteenth century, with its overwhelming confidence in the progress of humanity and its belief that European Christian culture is without doubt the culmination of this process, it is remarkable that one finds no nationalistic arrogance and no disrespect towards specific groups of human beings, towards neither English, French, Russians, Arabs, Jews nor any other ethnic or religious entity. It is obvious that Kittel’s universalistic ideas, in accordance with the views of his time, do not include the acceptance of particularism or the independent value of minorities. However, the views represented in this book demonstrate clearly Kittel’s distance from nationalistic, racial or cultural prejudices and stereotypes.
It is often noted that Kittel was well recognized by the Jewish community of his time, due to his opposition to the Wellhausen school. It is certainly true that Kittel does not follow all the conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis, and it is also true that he had much more confidence in the historical value of the biblical narrative than Wellhausen and his school. However, from a Jewish point of view, it was more attractive that Kittel did not agree with the famous Wellhausian saying lex post prophetem, the idea that the Torah was younger than Hebrew prophecy. In opposition to Wellhausen, Kittel saw Moses as a historical figure who had taught the Decalogue and the other commandments to his people. Kittel was eager to save as much of the biblical narrative as could be justified by means of historical research.
In my view, two characteristics of Kittel’s work turned him into a favourite reference for Jewish contemporaries interested in scholarly research on the Hebrew Bible. First, Kittel accepted that the historical narrative of the Bible was the history of the Jewish people from Sinai until today. He did not draw a sharp line between the religion of the Hebrews and the religion of post-exilic Judaism but saw continuity between these epochs of Jewish history and counted both as part of the history of his fellow Jews in early twentieth-century Germany. Secondly, Kittel had the conviction that many, if not most, parts of his idea of an ‘ethical idealism’ were represented in the ‘ethical geniuses’ of Moses, the prophets and the Hebrew Bible as a whole. He believed that this ‘ethical idealism’ did not disappear during the course of the history of the Jewish people but was represented in the majority of the German Jews of his time. Kittel not only acknowledged but also admired the Jewish piety he saw in contemporary Jews, such as the observance of the Sabbath and delight in the law.14
In 1910, Kittel’s bestselling book The Scientific Study of the Old Testament: Its Principal Results, and Their Bearing upon Religious Instruction was published.15 The book was printed in at least five editions by 1929 and was translated into many languages.16 The first German edition appeared in the same year as J. Caleb Hughes translated the first edition into English, while the latest English reprint was published in 2005.17 Kittel further mentioned explicitly in his autobiography with some pride that this book was also translated into Hebrew.18 The staff of the Polish publisher Tushiya (=‘knowledge’) at Vilna, who published books in Hebrew and translated books from European languages into Hebrew with the aim to ‘reach the Jewish masses’, decided to translate Kittel’s work into Hebrew.19 In the foreword to the Hebrew edition, the translator, Abraham Samuel Hirshberg (1858–1943), a scholar and textile industrialist from Bialystok,20 names Kittel ‘one of the greatest Christian scholars’ and writes further about the tasks of the translation into Hebrew:21
Therefore the present translation comes to fill an urgent need. Its author, even if he is one of the greatest contemporary scholars of Biblical criticism and our history, and furthermore free of preconceived notions and a truly scientific scholar, is continuously shattering the foundations of anti-Semitic Biblical criticism (חמקרא חאנטישמים), restoring the glory of Holy Scriptures and our glorious origin, our Torah and our prophets, in a very exalted manner. However, he too subscribes to some principles of Biblical criticism, of which some have been recently refuted, such as the division of our Torah into different parts and sources: Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly Writer and an Editor, but these exist only for purposes of scientific research.
Now, the faithful of Israel (אמוני ישראל) and its tradition should not be disturbed by some passages in this book, because while the author is a Christian by religion (נוצרי על פי דתו) and a scholar of Biblical criticism by profession, and is not proficient in our tradition, does not despise it but rather treats it with great respect, where it does not contradict with his conclusions. Rather, all intelligent believers should find comfort in the fact that the foundations of their faith and tradition, which in themselves do not require external support, are also being confirmed by a most learned scientific scholar.22
It is important that this voice on Kittel is heard. It stems from a time prior to the great atrocities of the twentieth century. In particular, it should be noted that Kittel was seen by Hirshberg as an ally of the Jewish cause and an opponent of anti-Semitic biblical criticism.23 Hirshberg wrote:
Biblical Criticism, which has been adopted by Christian scholars who have become almost its only masters, has in recent times, since the hate against the Jews (השנאה לישראל) wrapped itself in the prayer shawl of science, become one of the tools of hatred, one of the most dangerous weapons in the hands of the scientific anti-Semites (חאנטישמים המדעים) fighting against Israel.24
Kittel’s book was translated as an antidote to what Hirshberg calls ‘scientific’ anti-Semitism, and the Jewish translator was convinced that Kittel had shattered ‘the foundations of anti-Semitic Biblical criticism’.25
The book translated by Hirshberg was based on a request to (or even duty imposed upon) Kittel by the Saxon minister of culture and religion. The so-called Babel-Bible Controversy had transformed modern biblical criticism into an issue of public debate. Many people felt that modern biblical criticism destroyed the biblical narrative and also the fundamentals of Christian religion. Kittel was asked to present a scholarly view on the scholarly knowledge of the biblical history to teachers of the Saxon state. These lectures were published and became not only Kittel’s bestselling but also his most well-known book besides the Biblia Hebraica.
There were some further instances in which Kittel was asked by the Saxon state to act as an expert. In 1912, he was chosen as a major external expert of a criminal court to evaluate four reports, two by Christian and two by Jewish scholars, concerning the claim that an anti-Semitic author, Theodor Fritsch (1852–1933), the editor of several anti-Semitic pamphlets, journals and books, was guilty of blasphemy.26 Fritsch had written despicable polemics against the Jewish religion, which included polemics against the god of the Old Testament. The Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith claimed that the anti-Semitic polemic not only offended the Jewish religion but also violated the Christian god, since the god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament are the same. Kittel’s report resulted in the court terminating the criminal proceedings. Fritsch used the outcome of the legal proceeding to state that Kittel, the great scholar, had confirmed his views. Under pressure from the public, Kittel felt forced to publish his report, although he omitted the parts that could have been seen as slanderous, which would have then exposed Kittel to charges of his own. The major report was published with some omissions in 1914 under the title: ‘Enmity against Jews or Blasphemy? A Court Opinion with an Afterword’.27 In this report, Kittel makes clear that the publications of Fritsch have no scholarly value. Kittel calls Fritsch, in strong words, both mentally ill and morally insane.28 However, Kittel concedes that some of Fritsch’s insults against what he called the Jewish god are based on evidence from the Bible, the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch. The wording of Fritsch’s quotations is not in any obvious way factually wrong.29 In Kittel’s opinion, these accusations, based on genuine quotes, would not attack the Jewish religion or the god of the Bible but only the ‘pre-prophetic God of the Old Israel’ and a tiny minority within the Jewish people who follow certain immoral customs. As such, they do not tarnish the god of the Old Testament and, therefore, also not the Jewish god, the Christian god or either’s contemporary followers.30
The above discussion reveals some of Kittel’s major theoretical convictions. In the first place, one encounters the idea that the development of biblical and Jewish religion took place in stages. The Old Testament includes traditions from the first stage of this religion, which imagined a tribal and particularistic god of the people, a religion of the nation and a god of the nation. This early stage of a nationalistic religion was criticized by the prophets. The prophets transformed this nationalistic, particularistic and only partly moral god into the prophetic god, who, in the words of Kittel, presented the ‘holy view of God of the contemporary Jews, the idea of a moral and universal, worldwide monotheism’.31 It is not easy for us today to understand the somewhat pro-Jewish point of view here, as it is obvious that Kittel did not acknowledge the particularism of Judaism of his time but only its universalistic aspects. However, it is equally crucial to recognize that most German Old and New Testament scholars of the twentieth century denied exactly this equivalence of the universalism of Judaism and Christianity. Nearly all of them followed a three-step view of the development of Jewish religion. They insisted that the first step (the tribal god) and the second (the prophetic god) are followed by a third one, a degeneration to a nationalistic god, namely the god of the law, who is worse than the first. He was also seen as the god of contemporary Judaism, and, as a result, Judaism was considered a result of this decline. Kittel was heavily criticized by many colleagues for ‘his opinions about the development of the Yahweh-religion’ and by conservative theologians for what they saw as a positive presentation of contemporary Judaism – as nearly equal to Christianity – in his major report.32
These examples show that Kittel was experienced in dealing with public audiences on controversial issues which attracted great public attention. He was practiced in giving balanced statements in an official role and taking into consideration the common interest of the state, the church and society. It is quite important to understand that Kittel saw himself not so much as a public intellectual in a democratic society, or as a citoyen speaking from a position similar to every other speaker in the public sphere. Rather, Kittel saw himself as a representative of important institutions: the Saxon state, the Saxon Lutheran church and the universal community of scholarship. He was convinced that these institutions were not made by men for practical reasons alone but, most of all, were the visible representatives of morality, faith and reason. He felt the need to speak in a manner which acknowledged his responsibility to the state, the church, as well as the world of science represented by the university, which was for him the ‘oligarchy of the enlightened’.33 He followed an ethical imperative to always act in such a way as to achieve the best outcome for these important institutions and the ideas which they made concrete: morality, faith and reason.
Kittel’s Speeches and Writings on the Great War
By the time Kittel published his concluding report on the Fritsch case, he found Germany at war. Considering this situation, he decided to add an additional piece to the report, titled ‘The Jews and the Contemporary War’.34 As such, Kittel had already written his first public statement about the war a few weeks after its beginning. In the following years, Kittel was invited by several groups to speak about the war and the Old Testament to both church and public audiences. Some of these speeches were printed. In all, we have five publications about the war: (1) ‘The Jews and the Contemporary War’ (1914); (2) ‘On War in Israel’ (1915); (3) ‘The Importance of the Old Testament for the War Piety of the German Nation’ (1916); (4) Wars in Biblical Countries (1918); and (5) Leipzig Lectures on the End of the War (1919). The last of these is a booklet which includes three speeches made by Kittel on several different occasions in the middle of 1919, while he held the office of rector magnificus at Leipzig University: (i) ‘Against the Murderous Peace’ (13 May); (ii) ‘About the Holy Legion’ (1 June); and (iii) ‘The Weeping Germania’ (26 June). These speeches from 1919 are directed to the students of the university and deal with the political and emotional situation of the students during the debate concerning the signing of the Versailles peace treaty, which was a watershed event for political discourse in Germany.35
Leipzig University was the university which suffered the largest loss of lives in Germany. The university had five thousand to six thousand students. During the war, 1,396 members of the university were killed, of which 1,370 were students. In the period from 1917 to 1922, from the last years of the war through to the time of revolutionary uprisings and even coup d’états, Kittel was the ‘leading head of the university’.36 He even had guns pointed at him as rector magnificus, for he was seen by the revolutionary guards as the representative of the bourgeois class of the city, whereas many other professors declined to engage in the situation, stayed in the background or even gave up their offices.37
‘The Jews and the Contemporary War’ (1914)
I have already observed that in his major report for the royal criminal court of Saxony, Kittel states his conviction that the religion of the Hebrews had two stages: the tribal or nationalistic religion of the pre-prophetic stage, and the universalistic religion and moral universalism of the prophets. Kittel acknowledges that the majority of the German Jews are followers of this universal and ethical monotheism. For Kittel, this was evidenced by the call of the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith on 1 August 1914, entitled ‘To the German Jews!’.38 In this call, Kittel underlines how German Jews proved their affiliation to the German nation without doubt, because they demanded in this call to ‘sacrifice property and blood’ for the fatherland and to do more than their duty by volunteering for the army.39 In the following pages, Kittel elaborates further on the relationship between German Jews and the German nation. He writes that he expects some people after the war to criticize or insult the German Jews again, and even that anti-Semitic propaganda might occur once more. To prevent this, Kittel requests the German Jews to make a ‘public and unequivocal’ statement in which they clearly demonstrate which customs and opinions they discard.40 Such a statement would not only attract great attention but would also have great impact on the mostly Jew-friendly media and public opinion.41 Kittel, who names himself as one of ‘us German friends of the Jews’,42 further highlights that he does not demand an abandonment of religious customs or opinions and, in particular, that he does not promote the position of Reform Judaism. The ‘German friends of the Jews’ only expect that such a statement would adhere to the ‘common contemporary standards of morality’.43 Kittel declares that he personally does not require such a statement as he has Jewish friends and knows well the situation of contemporary Judaism, although other people who may have no ‘personal familiarity with trustful Jews’ would have a great need for such a statement.44
Kittel was proven right in his prophetic saying that anti-Semitic activities would occur again in Germany. He was not right in his expectation that a statement along the lines he proposed would have an impact on anti-Semites.
‘On War in Israel’ (1914/1915)
Immediately after the outbreak of the Great War, the Lutheran Church Review started a series of articles under the headline ‘What Have Our Theologians to Say about the War?’ Number seventeen in the series was the contribution of the Old Testament scholar Rudolf Kittel. His own title was ‘On War in Israel’.45 It may have been written between November 1914 and the spring of 1915. This piece was reprinted in a volume entitled German Theologians on the War: Voices in Dire Times in August 1915 and again as part of Kittel’s own book about The Old Testament and our War in 1916.46 This article, printed three times without revisions, presents Kittel’s views on the subject between 1914 and 1916.
The article starts with one of the main topics of Kittel, the relation between the Old and New Testaments, and ends with another primary concern of his writings on the war, namely peace. His scholarly presentation of Old Testament texts and history is sometimes interrupted by remarks about the contemporary situation. Kittel starts with the claim that the New Testament had overwhelmed the Old ‘in many respects’, but that, in these times of war, people are thinking anew about war and finding that the Old Testament has much more to say on this issue than the New.47 He develops the topic in three steps: (1) ‘The holy war and the god of hosts’; (2) ‘The song of war in Israel’; and (3) ‘Pastoral care in war’. According to Kittel, the war is a ‘service of God, a holy action’.48 This idea that war is a service of God can be helpful for Germans at war, though with the precondition that the war fought by Germans is a just one. The biblical god can only be claimed by Germans as their own god when Germany has a just cause, as God is foremost the god of justice and not that of a specific nation.49 Kittel also narrates an episode concerning a student who became a soldier. This student came to him with a uniform and a weapon, saying that he would prefer to be killed than to kill others. Kittel gave him a speech about the war as a ‘holy service’ and convinced him that ‘killing is not in all cases a godless murder but a godly deed, a holy service’.50
In the second part, he analyses the songs of war in the Old Testament and, in particular, the trust songs (Vertrauenslied) of the Psalms (Pss 31, 79, 143). According to Kittel, these songs represent the ‘highest stage’ of belief.51 The last part of the article concerns ‘pastoral care in war’. It says that Israel ‘also’ (by which is meant ‘as the German army does’) employed field chaplains within their armies. Kittel names Moses, Elisha, Samuel, Isaiah and Jeremiah as ‘preachers of the will of God’.52 It may be that Kittel had his son Gerhard in mind, who became a chaplain in the emperor’s fleet.53 In the last pages, he concentrates on Isaiah and his famous saying, ‘If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all’ (Isa 7:9). This expression was, not only in religious but also in political terms, of greatest value then, as it is today.54 When the nation had done all that was possible, Isaiah pointed to faith in God.55 The ultimate will of God is peace, as Kittel demonstrates by quoting Isaiah: ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore’ (Isa 2:4).
It is quite evident that in Kittel’s paper the historical analysis has become mixed up with his own views on the political situation of the war. The Germans should have a just case; then and only then is killing a holy service and a godly work, and then and only then is God a god of the German nation. However, Kittel never says that this is actually the case, and he leaves the decision up to his audience. For him, the most important parts of the Old Testament reached the stage of universal and ethical monotheism: God is not a god of a distinct people, who are right or wrong, but the god of justice and ultimately the god of peace.
‘The Importance of the Old Testament for the War-Piety of the German Nation’ (1916)
In 1916, Kittel was invited to speak at the Church and Pastoral Conference in Meissen, a city between Leipzig and Dresden with an important history for Saxony. The conference requested a speech addressing the question, ‘Does the Old Testament as distinct from the New Testament tell us something about our piety in these times of war?’56 The title is quite close to the previous paper discussed. However, a scandal lay behind this lecture. In the New Saxon Church Journal, the theologian and philosopher Traugott Ernst Katzer (1839–1921) had published a piece, ‘Christian Philosophy of War’, in which he stated that the Old Testament was to be blamed for the war.57 A Christianity which had abandoned this part of the Bible and followed only the New Testament in its entirety would have prevented this war, which is a sin, as all killing in war is sin and even murder.58 From previous writings of Katzer we know that he was a liberal theologian and tended to propagate a so-called ‘spiritual Christianity’ in opposition to what he called ‘Jewish materialism’. The trope of Jewish materialism was already a well-known anti-Semitic stereotype. Kittel sums up the content of Katzer’s article with the following words: ‘From an anti-Semitic and allegedly nationalistic German perspective it is always stated that Christianity can only make its full impact on the nation when it is cleansed of its “Semitic influence” and emerges as a German Christianity’.59
Kittel starts his lecture with a foreword of many pages. He tells a story about a student who wrote to him from the trenches and who informed his professor that he got consolation out of certain words of the Psalms (Pss 91:1–2, 5, 7; 27:3; 18:30).60 Kittel declares his will to fight against the ideas of a ‘philosopher’, without mentioning Katzer’s name but quoting his article. Many students of his university had been killed in war, and they are heroes, not murderers. Making use of somewhat complicated, tedious and, in some respects, even dubious calculations, he demonstrates that students of the theological faculty, in particular, were both more often killed in action and more frequently honoured with war medals (such as the iron cross) than the students from other faculties.61 The number of Leipzig students killed was about 10 per cent of the whole number of students, and it is clear that the murderous war provoked severe and controversial discussions about the responsibility for this unprecedented number of losses in war. After this introduction, which is not only lengthy but also quite incomprehensible for readers today, Kittel starts with the scholarly part which is based, to some extent, on his previous publication. Yet, it is also adjusted to both the discussion concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments as well as to the precise situation of the year 1916, in which people came to see the war as a mass killing and to realize that no end to such a murderous war was in sight. How important and severe the challenge was that Kittel faced on account of the audience is demonstrated by his ‘additional note’ of six pages, which deals again with two challenging questions about the superiority of New Testament ethics over Old Testament ones. More than the previous one, this speech also includes remarks about and comparisons with England: its oppression of the Irish people and the Boers, and some of the less pleasant sides of the British Empire. After the preface, Kittel again begins with the relation between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus was ‘indifferent’ to war because Judah was an oppressed country, like Ireland or the Boers are today ‘under the yoke of England’.62 Moreover, Jesus was interested in the kingdom of God, where the differences between the nations would not play such a major role. Jesus would have seen war as part of the world, similar to courts, prisons and other deplorable, but nonetheless necessary, institutions of this world. Therefore, Jesus would not have called war a sin, nor would he have criticized soldiers as such. However, sin is the origin of warfare. Kittel then deploys some social criticism, suggesting that this sin has emerged especially ‘in diplomacy, in big capital, in the big industries, in the exaggeration of the national idea (chauvinism)’.63
His main argument about the value of the Old Testament besides the New Testament is again based on his theory of stages. The Old Testament ‘as a whole’ is ‘near to Jesus’ in its ‘desire for peace’, which is also a judgement on war. Kittel demonstrates this through quotation of Isa 4:3–4.64 However, Kittel admits that some parts of the Old Testament saw war as a holy service. Far from criticizing this view of war, Kittel argues that the contemporary war too should be seen by Germans as a ‘holy service’. As long as this war is a ‘just cause’ it will be a ‘duty’. The will of the enemy is to destroy Germany, as it was the will of many nations to destroy Israel.65 Therefore, it is legitimate for Germans to use the ‘war poetry’ of Israel found in the psalms, as not only soldiers did but Chief Marshal Hindenburg as well. Since ‘our glorious emperor’ does for peace all that is in his might, God will support the ‘just case’ of the Germans.66
In the parts following this, Kittel repeatedly rejects Katzer’s critique that ‘Semitic influence’ had caused violence, war and sin.67 The fifth commandment is not ‘You shall not kill’, as translated by Luther, but ‘you shall not murder’.68 Quoting Amos 9:7–8, Kittel emphasizes that the prophets were ‘moral giants’ who had criticized their own people and even predicted the destruction of their own nation when it failed to fulfil justice.69 The prophets represented an ethical monotheism and moral judgement, of which no disciple of the New Testament should be ashamed. The ‘ethical monotheism’ is also represented in the prophetic critique of the cruelty of nations in war and even of the injustice committed by Israel against enemy nations (Isa 10:5–19; Amos 1:3–2:3). Kittel mentions England, France and Russia as examples of enemy nations, and for Germany he points to the injustices in Armenia, ‘obviously committed by both parties’.70 Again he stresses, somewhat ironically, that he wishes much more of this ‘Semitic influence and Old Testament war piety’ existed in contemporary times. The last pages discuss the ‘war as a religious problem’. Again, quoting Isa 7:9, he points to faith and trust as the highest values for a nation which has done all that it could for justice and peace. This truth of the Old Testament is for Kittel nothing other than the position of Jesus himself, and there is no ‘Old Testament backwardness with Semitic influence’ in it.71
When publishing his speech, Kittel added, as already noted, some additional pages on the problem of war, killing and Old Testament backwardness. After his speech, Kittel was challenged with the argument that the fifth commandment was interpreted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in a manner quite different from the position of the prophets (Matt 5:21–26). Likewise, Kittel’s idea of the equivalence of the prophets with Jesus, of the Old Testament with the New, was questioned. Kittel’s answer in the printed version again makes use of the stage model of development and calls for judgement of the Old Testament according to its ‘highpoints’, now quoting parts of Deutero-Isaiah (42:3; 51:5; 45:23) with more universal messages about justice to the nations.72
It is quite obvious that the arbitrariness of the war provoked a critical debate on the place of the Old Testament as part of the Christian Bible. The soul-searching for guilt experienced by many Christians in these times seldom led to self-critique, but rather in some cases to anti-Semitism. At least in some way Kittel tried to do what the Jewish translator of his most famous book said about him in 1911, namely shatter the foundations of anti-Semitic biblical criticism.
Wars in Biblical Countries (1918)
In November 1917, Kittel again presented a major speech with slide photographs in Leipzig and Dresden, the two biggest Saxon cities. This speech was published in spring 1918 under the title Wars in Biblical Countries.73 In this presentation, one finds a more detailed analysis of ancient Near Eastern military history, with information on warfare, weapons, construction of fortresses and siege technology. Kittel notes that he tried to convince a military officer that his research should be taught at military academies. However, he did not succeed. In this episode, one sees in a nutshell what was later criticized as Kittel’s hermeneutical naivety in dealing with ancient and contemporary views on war.74
The paper emphasizes the ‘war lust of the Hebrews’ and the deeds of the ‘heroes’ of Israel75 as well as their ‘desire to bring death and destruction to their enemies’ or their heroic ‘readiness to die’.76 Again, the psalms are mentioned as a main source for the feelings of the warriors of Israel.77 I will skip over the details about weapons, military techniques, the treatment of prisoners of war and heroic war events78 to discuss the last pages of the speech. However, it should be noted that in these sections, Kittel also makes some interesting remarks about contemporary warfare. More important are Kittel’s reflections on ‘the beginning of international law’ and ‘peace’.79 Quoting again Isaiah 10 and Amos 1–2, he states that ‘Israel deserves the honour of being one of the first nations which had denounced unjust deeds during war’.80 Before Jesus, Israel acknowledges its moral obligation against its enemies.81 Kittel interprets this as the first step towards the idea of universal ‘human dignity’ and argues that if one takes this high point of morality into consideration and looks at the ongoing war, one may doubt the progress of humanity.82 The closing part of the speech deals with ‘peace’, repeating Kittel’s arguments which have been heard before: the ‘classical’ prophets had a universalistic and moral point of view and propagated the will of the God of justice. However, in this section we also find some new ideas which we have not heard from Kittel before. Kittel now states that the faithful to the God of justice should also fight and defeat ‘internal social injustice’ and ‘social contradictions caused by the responsibility of the haves’; this is seen by the prophets as a precondition for the support of the God of justice and also as a precondition for peace.83 Kittel now makes use of the biblical motive of the ‘new Israel’ to make statements about what is needed in contemporary Germany. The morally mature ones will build a new Germany in which law and justice will prevail, as it was said by Isaiah, quoting again Isa 2:4 (‘swords into plowshares’) and 9:7 (‘Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end’).84 To prepare for this peace, Germans should ban ‘hate and bitterness’ against foreigners and strive for a positive attitude to foreign countries.85
Leipzig Lectures on the End of the War (1919)
Kittel was rector magnificus in the years 1917 and 1918. Faced with the end of the war and the revolutionary uprisings in Leipzig, his successor stepped down from his office after a few weeks. Kittel, undoubtedly the head of the university, was asked to accept a second term, which he did. While in this office, he gave three speeches in May and June 1919, published as Leipzig Lectures on the End of the War.86 On the political level, these speeches were seen by university historians as preserving the unity of the university and even preventing bloodshed in those revolutionary days.87 However, to our ears, the titles may sound rather more chauvinistic: ‘Against the Murderous Peace’, ‘About the Holy Legion’ and ‘The Weeping Germania’. Only in the first of these speeches does Kittel mention the Old Testament. In his accusations against the victorious powers, particularly President Wilson (‘against Wilson and his hangman’), he includes a comparison of Germany and ‘the men of the tiny Jewish people hurling threats against the nations of Assyria and Babylonia, because you trample down the unwritten law of nations’.88 Kittel claims that the victorious allies beat, rob and even execute Germany. It may be that such an outbreak of rhetoric did succeed in channeling the overwhelming emotions of hate and bitterness of the students and thereby prevented them from deeds which may have led to violence and bloodshed. However, it is also clear that this sort of rhetoric prevented more reasonable reflections on the situation of Germany.
In the remaining two speeches, Kittel does not mention the Old Testament and the Jewish people but prefers, instead, to strengthen the power of his speech by allusions to ancient Greek traditions, such as those of the Spartans, their battle at Thermopylae or the never-ending weeping of Niobe.89
Analysis
I will present a brief analysis of Kittel’s overall contribution to the understanding of war under five headings: (1) preconditions; (2) national truce; (3) holy war; (4) inferiority of the Old Testament; and (5) the God of justice.
Preconditions
In considering Kittel’s contributions to the war, it should be underlined that nearly all of what Kittel had said grew out of deep convictions expressed in his first book on Moral Questions in 1885.90 His interest in what he called ‘ethical idealism’ in 1885 was the guide for his evaluation of the Old Testament. The result of this phenomenon Kittel calls classical prophecy, and he judges this universalistic and self-reflective ethical monotheism to be the high point of the Old Testament. This high point was reached, but not exceeded, by the teachings of Jesus and by the ethical thinking of humanity as such. Kittel follows the idea of the development of humanity in stages but is also convinced that these stages were both historical as well as social realities, which means that particularistic thinking of the earlier stages always remains in coexistence with the higher stages and endangers the progress of ethical behavior in all nations.91 The contemporary war was, therefore, a result of earlier, or lower, stages of humanity and, in some way, a step backwards, something which is always a risk for humanity because lower thinking is always present with the highest morality. In this view, the moral position of the classical biblical prophets is superior to the contemporary situation of war in Europe.
National Truce
Kittel was not a critical observer but a responsible member of his society and its most important institutions which served as the representatives of the morality of the nation, faith and reason: the state, the church and the university. His immediate response to the outbreak of the war was his publication ‘The Jews and the Contemporary War’, an afterword to the already planned publication of his major report concerning Fritsch. Kittel seizes the opportunity to contribute to a major focus of the public debate in those first weeks after the outbreak of the war. Following the demand of the emperor, ‘I know no parties anymore, only Germans!’ – the well-known saying of the emperor which called for a national truce (Burgfrieden) – Kittel participated in reconciling internal contradictions in Germany. For Kittel, this meant reconciling non-Jewish Germans with contemporary Jewish Germans.92 Reading with the knowledge we possess today, every attempt at battling down anti-Jewish sentiments in Germany must be seen as insufficient and unsuccessful. Therefore, the accusation of Kusche that Kittel did not do enough to protect the German Jews and failed to take the anti-Jewish propaganda seriously cannot be rejected; yet, this judgement fails to see Kittel in the historical perspective of his years.93 In the case of Kittel, one may be critical of his understanding of the anti-Jewish sentiments shared by a great part of German society and of his efforts also to understand some anti-Semitic stereotypes which later became part of the state-propagated anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. Together with Wiese, one may deplore Kittel’s ‘insensitive attitude’, which had hurt ‘Jewish feelings’.94 We may even question his claim to be a ‘friend of Jews’.95 However, we should also acknowledge that Kittel was treated with great respect by his Jewish fellow Germans and was seen by Jews in Poland as someone who opposed anti-Semitism.96 His book about Old Testament scholarship was translated, in the words of Hirshberg, to shatter ‘the foundations of anti-Semitic Biblical criticism’ and to battle down ‘the scientific anti-Semites fighting against Israel’.97 It is also obvious that Kittel not only defended the Old Testament against modern Christian prejudices but also defended the morality of his contemporary Jewish Germans as the heirs of the ‘moral heroes’, the classical prophets, against anti-Semitic insults. In the controversy with Katzer, Kittel not only defended the Old Testament against critique but also openly opposed anti-Semitic positions which sought to devalue the Jewish heritage. Additionally, we have evidence that Kittel also opposed anti-Semitic Old Testament colleagues and was criticized by them for his pro-Jewish views.
Kittel saw his efforts towards a mutual understanding of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans as part of the mobilization of the German people through reconciliation of internal struggles between different groups of society. Kittel took up the opportunity to contribute to this work of unity and cohesion by defending the German Jews against anti-Semitic insults, on the one hand, and by demanding that the Jews in Germany take steps to refute the accusations of these anti-Semites in public, on the other.
Holy War
Since the contemporary war was a step backwards from the developmental stage which humanity in Europe was supposed to have already reached, the Old Testament texts about war provide some guidance for this situation of war. In this inferior stage, war was fought as a holy service. Kittel does not dig all too deeply into the history of religion of the holy war. According to Kittel, the violence and the killing of war cannot be distinguished from violence used by the powers of state in times of peace. This very Lutheran statement about war as a duty and a service, comparable to what a policeman or a judge has to do during peacetime, can be seen as insufficient and inadequate to the situation of the mass killings in the Great War. In wartime, texts from the psalms are helpful: as songs of war, songs for rescue or songs of victory and homecoming. The holy war as painted by Kittel is very much a Lutheran war, inner piety combined with unrelenting duty.
The Inferiority of the Old Testament
Against Kittel’s expectations in 1914, the challenge of anti-Semitism in church and society became increasingly severe during the course of the war. From the very beginning of the war, Kittel had to justify his insistence on the Old Testament as a source for moral and religious instruction. More than once he faced opposition against his use of the Old Testament by the notion of the New Testament’s superiority over the Hebrew Bible. This may be seen as an internal Christian debate, but it is also obvious that this debate was quite easily (and very likely) linked to anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish prejudices and stereotypes. This eventually came to a head in 1916, when Kittel faced the demand to abandon the Old Testament completely as the cause of the murderous war. Kittel rejects the critique of ‘Semitic influences’ and states that these influences are rather particularly important in order to deal correctly with the moral, political and religious challenges of the war. However, the relation of New Testament to Old Testament remained a major topic of debate, as it is to this day.
The God of Justice
Kittel’s view on the Old Testament was influenced by his idea of the historical process of humanity, and particularly the religion of the Hebrews, in several stages. Kittel elaborates on the early stage of a tribal or national god and the high point of the ethical monotheism of the classical prophets. Kittel avoids the use of a third stage, which is often used in German Old Testament scholarship to devalue Judaism: the stage of a people of law and a god of law. Instead, he draws a line from the ethical high point of the prophets to contemporary German Jews. In this sense, the god of the Old Testament prophets is the same god who is worshipped by contemporary Jewish and Christian Germans. To his fellow Germans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, Kittel repeats again and again that God is only on the side of the just cause and not on the side of any distinct nation. The God of justice demands a just people, which, to Kittel, means a people who abandon hate and bitterness against the enemy and also fight unjust internal social and political contradictions. For Rudolf Kittel, the Old Testament scholar and the responsible representative of the main institutions of imperial Germany, justice in both inner affairs and international politics was the precondition for peace.
1.Rudolf Kittel, Über die Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer neuen Ausgabe der hebräischen Bibel: Studien und Erwägungen (Leipzig: Deichert, 1902).
2.Rudolf Smend, ‘Rudolf Kittel (1853–1929)’, TZ 55 (1999): 326–53 (338–40).
3.Rudolf Kittel, ‘Vorwort’, in Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgart: Würt. Bibelanstalt, 1937), iii–v.
4.About Kittel’s curriculum vitae and his impact on the research of the Old Testament, see Rudolf Kittel, ‘Autobiographie’, in Die Religionswissenschaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, ed. E. Stange (Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1925), 113–44; Johannes Hempel, ‘Rudolf Kittel’, ZDMG 84 (1930): 78–93; Smend, ‘Rudolf Kittel’, 326–33.
5.Kittel, Über die Notwendigkeit, 1–2.
6.Rudolf Kittel, Geschichte der Hebräer: Quellenkunde und Geschichte der Zeit bis zum Tode Josuas, Handbücher der Alten Geschichte I/3 (Gotha: Perthes, 1888).
7.Smend, ‘Rudolf Kittel’, 330–31.
8.Rudolf Kittel, Sittliche Fragen: Ethisches und Apologetisches über Freiheit, Gewissen und Sittengesetz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1885).
9.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen, 207.
10.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen, 118–19.
11.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen, 130.
12.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen, 185.
13.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen, 207.
14.Rudolf Kittel, Die Religion des Volkes Israel (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1921), 162.
15.Rudolf Kittel, Die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft in ihren wichtigsten Ergebnissen mit Berücksichtigung des Religionsunterrichts (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1910).
16.Kittel, ‘Autobiographie’, 140.
17.Rudolf Kittel, The Scientific Study of the Old Testament: Its Principal Results, and Their Bearing upon Religious Instruction, Crown Theological Library 32 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1910; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005).
18.Kittel, ‘Autobiographie’, 140.
19.Zeev Gries, The Book in the Jewish World 1700–1900 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007), 184–85.
20.On Hirshberg, see Yaacov Shavit and Mordechai Eran, The Hebrew Bible Reborn: From Holy Scripture to the Book of Books. A History of Biblical Culture and the Battles over the Bible in Modern Judaism, Studia Judaica 38 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 398 n. 127.
21.Abraham Samuel Hirshberg, ‘By the Translator’, in Rudolf Kittel, ha- Ḥaḳirah be-khitve-ha-ḳodesh (Vilnius: Tushiyah, 1911), 161–64. I am grateful to my colleague Hannu Töyrylä, from Åbo Akademi, Finland, for the English translation. The only copy of the Hebrew translation of Kittel’s book in Germany was provided by the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg. In this copy, some pages were missing, and therefore it lacks the foreword of the translator quoted above. I thank Professors Zohar and Yaacov Shavit from Tel Aviv University for sending me copies of the last pages of the work, including the foreword of Hirshberg. The digitalized copy is now present in the library of the University of Marburg.
22.Hirshberg, ‘By the Translator’, 164.
23.See Shavit and Eran, The Hebrew Bible Reborn, 181–83.
24.Hirshberg, ‘By the Translator’, 163.
25.Hirshberg, ‘By the Translator’, 164.
26.Christian Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie im wilhelminischen Deutschland: Ein Schrei ins Leere?, Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo-Baeck-Instituts 61 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 206–31; Ulrich Kusche, Die unterlegene Religion: Das Judentum im Urteil deutscher Alttestamentler – Zur Kritik theologischer Geschichtsschreibung, Studien zu Kirche und Israel 12 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1991), 113–36.
27.Rudolf Kittel, Judenfeindschaft oder Gotteslästerung? Ein gerichtliches Gutachten. Mit einem Schlußwort: Die Juden und der gegenwärtige Krieg (Leipzig: Wigand, 1914).
28.Kittel, Judenfeindschaft, 77.
29.Kittel, Judenfeindschaft, 82.
30.Kittel, Judenfeindschaft, 2. Cf. the more critical interpretation of Shavit and Eran, The Hebrew Bible Reborn, 182, n. 568: ‘Kittel supported Fritsch’s claim, that the biblical-Jewish ethics were inferior’. See Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums, 233–35.
31.Kittel, Judenfeindschaft, 2.
32.Hempel, ‘Rudolf Kittel’, 91.
33.Rudolf Kittel, Die Universität Leipzig und ihre Stellung im Kulturleben (Dresden: Helingsche VA, 1924), 41.
34.Rudolf Kittel, ‘Die Juden und der gegenwärtige Krieg’; provided as ‘Schlußwort’ in Kittel, Judenfeindschaft oder Gotteslästerung.
35.Rudolf Kittel, Leipziger akademische Reden zum Kriegsende (Leipzig: Lorentz, 1919).
36.Silvio Reisinger, ‘Die Novemberrevolution 1918/1919 in Leipzig’, in Die Novemberrevolution 1918/1919 in Deutschland. Für bürgerliche und sozialistische Demokratie – Allgemeine, regionale und biographische Aspekte, ed. Ulla Plener, Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung Manuskripte 85 (Berlin: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2009), 161–80 (178).
37.Ulrich von Hehl, Geschichte der Universität Leipzig 1409–2009, Bd. 3: Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert 1909–2009 (Leipzig: Leipziger UV, 2010), 61–105.
38.On anti-Semitism and the experiences of German Jews in the German army, see David J. Fine, Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War, New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 127: ‘This chapter has sought to offer both anecdotal and quantitative evidence for the successful integration of the Jews into the German army in World War I. There were certainly instances of antisemitism, but it was not a major facet of the war experience for most Jewish soldiers’.
39.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 86.
40.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 88.
41.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 88–89.
42.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 91.
43.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 92.
44.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 89–90.
45.Rudolf Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege in Israel’, Allgemeine evangelisch-lutherische Kirchenzeitung: Organ der Allgemeinen Evangelisch-Lutherischen Konferenz 48 (1915): 74–78.
46.Rudolf Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege in Israel’, in Deutsche Theologen über den Krieg: Stimmen aus schwerer Zeit, ed. Wilhelm Laible (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1915), 171–93. The page numbers in the following footnotes refer to this edition. The second reprint appeared in Rudolf Kittel, Das Alte Testament und unser Krieg (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1916), 5–26.
47.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 171–72.
48.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 175.
49.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 177.
50.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 175.
51.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 187.
52.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 188.
53.For the relationship of Kittel to his son Gerhard, see Lukas Bormann, ‘“A Not So Great Son of a Great Scholar”: Antisemitic Reading of the Bible from Rudolf Kittel (1853–1929) to his son Gerhard (1888–1948)’, in Anti-Semitism and the Bible, ed. Andrea Colella et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming).
54.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 190.
55.Kittel, ‘Vom Kriege’, 191–92.
56.Rudolf Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung des Alten Testaments für die Kriegsfrömmigkeit unseres Volkes (Vortrag 1916)’, in Kittel, Das Alte Testament und unser Krieg, 27–54 (28).
57.Ernst Katzer, ‘Christliche Kriegsphilosophie’, Neues Sächsisches Kirchenblatt 49 (1915): 764–70; 50 (1915): 781–86; 51 (1915): 798–808.
58.Katzer, ‘Christliche Kriegsphilosophie’, 781: ‘Every war is unjust, because every war is sin’. See Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 28.
59.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 28. Cf. Katzer, ‘Christliche Kriegsphilosophie’, 803–5.
60.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 27–28.
61.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 31–32. He even mentions that in 1914, 100 per cent of the first class of iron crosses were awarded to students of theology (though this was, in fact, only one single person, which Kittel himself admits).
62.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 33.
63.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 35.
64.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 36.
65.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 38–40.
66.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 41–42.
67.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 45, 47, 49.
68.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 42–44.
69.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 44–46.
70.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 47.
71.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 49.
72.Kittel, ‘Die Bedeutung’, 52.
73.Rudolf Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen (Gotha: F. A. Perthes, 1918).
74.Andreas Scherer, ‘Zu Rudolf Kittel: Alttestamentliche Kriegskonzepte im Spiegel der Zeitgeschichte’, in Kontexte: Festschrift für H.J. Boecker, ed. Thomas Wagner (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2008), 115–30 (125–29).
75.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 8–12.
76.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 16–17.
77.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 19–20.
78.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 21–52, 57–71.
79.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 53–56, 72–79.
80.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 53.
81.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 55.
82.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 57.
83.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 73–74.
84.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 75.
85.Kittel, Kriege in biblischen Landen, 76–77.
86.Rudolf Kittel, Leipziger akademische Reden zum Kriegsende (Leipzig: Lorentz, 1919).
87.Hehl, Geschichte der Universität Leipzig, 85.
88.Kittel, Leipziger akademische Reden, 6.
89.On the impact of the Spartan motive on German education, see Helen Roche, Sparta’s German Children: The Ideal of Ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, 1818–1920, and in National Socialist Elite Schools (the Napolas), 1933–1945 (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2013).
90.Kittel, Sittliche Fragen.
91.Kusche, Die unterlegene Religion, 128.
92.About the importance of the national truce for the German Jews, see Sarah Panter, Jüdische Erfahrungen und Loyalitätskonflikte im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 359–62.
93.Kusche, Die unterlegene Religion, 122–23.
94.Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums, 221.
95.Kittel, ‘Die Juden’, 91.
96.For the positive view of Kittel from German Jews, see Arthur Spanier, ‘Kittel, Rudolf’, Jüdisches Lexikon 3 (1927): 726.
97.Hirshberg, ‘By the Translator’, 163–64.