From Queen of the Sciences to the Rebel Alliance: Religion in the University

Abstract

Within the history of Western universities, it may come as some surprise that in many cases the first or most prominent faculties and first chairs of study were in theology. There was a Theology Faculty at the University of Paris from 1253, and it was here that theology was dubbed the queen of the sciences, "Madame la haute science" (Haskins, 1957: 19). The Theological Faculty at the University of Tlibingen was founded in 1477, in the same year that the university was founded. In England, the University of Cambridge founded its first chair in 1502, the Lady Margaret's Professorship in Divinity. Such prominent Faculties of Theology attracted their share of famous scholars: Thomas Aquinas taught at Paris from 1252-1259; Erasmus of Rotterdam pioneered the study of the Greek New Testament at Cambridge from 1511.Theological faculties in European universities performed well as they moved into the modern era. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Ttibingen University in Germany nourished the radical biblical criticism of German theologians, Ferdinand Christian Baur founding the "Early Tlibingen School" as a member of the Theology Faculty in 1826. At the same time, Cambridge University developed one of the most eminent Theology Faculties in the world, John Lightfoot's NewTestament commentaries in the nineteenth century challenging the radical German biblical criticism. At universities such as these, theology retained its high status, although perhaps no longer reigning as queen.