Ferdinand Christian Baur - Hegel's Influence

Hegel's Influence

Meantime Baur had exchanged one master in philosophy for another, Schleiermacher for Hegel. In doing so, he had adopted completely the Hegelian philosophy of history. "Without philosophy," he has said, "history is always for me dead and dumb." The change of view is illustrated clearly in the essay, published in the Tübinger Zeitschrift for 1831, on the Christ-party in the Corinthian Church, Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde, der Gegensatz des paulinischen und petrinischen Christentums in der ältesten Kirche, der Apostel Petrus in Rom, the trend of which is suggested by the title (in English, 'The Christ Party in the Corinthian Community, the Opposition of Pauline and Petrine Christianity in the earliest Church, the apostle Peter in Rome'). Baur contends that the apostle Paul was opposed in Corinth by a Jewish Christian party which wished to set up its own form of Christian religion instead of his universal Christianity. He found traces of a keen conflict of parties in the post-apostolic age, which have passed into the mainstream of Early Christian historiography.