USENER, HERMANN

USENER, HERMANN (1833–1905), was a German classical philologist and historian of religion. From 1866 to 1902 Usener was professor at Bonn. His major writings include Das Weihnachtsfest (1889); Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (2 vols., 1889); Götternamen: Versuch einer Lehre von der religiösen Begriffsbildung (1896); and Die Sintfluthsagen (1899).

In Götternamen, Usener presented a once-influential theory. Taking his method from philology and his data mainly from demons (the indigitamenta ) invoked by name in ancient Roman rites, Usener claimed to show that the history of the idea of deity had three phases. First, the concept of deity emerges as that of momentary gods (Augenblicksgötter ) whose power is manifested during some fleeting experience, such as plowing and harrowing, but then vanishes. Next, as activities are repeated, these deities gain a certain continuity; they come to stand as functional powers over an entire class of phenomena or activity. Usener calls these "special gods" (Söndergotter ). In a later phase still, when the name of the god is no longer connected with his function, the god is seen as an autonomous being or personality. Such gods often have many divine names, but this means only that several special gods with different names have become fused into one. Usener also cited data on Lithuanian religions in support of his views.

Usener's heavy reliance on philology and his claim that the history of the concept of deity could be adequately clarified through the history of the names of the gods was attacked by Jan de Vries, who pointed out that there is no instance of a specialized functional god having evolved into a principal deity. According to de Vries, the momentary gods likely represent a late phase of priestly speculation or juridical elaboration (de Vries, 1967, pp. 134–138). Georges Dumézil has argued similarly that a comprehensive historical approach shows that the indigitamenta are relatively unimportant phenomena (Dumézil, 1970, vol. 1, pp. 32–38).

Usener's other major effort was to show how Christianity took over pagan rites and feasts. He traced the Christmas festival to the birthday of the pagan sun god celebrated on the winter solstice (December 25, according to the Julian calendar), and he argued that certain saints derived from pagan prototypes (e.g., Pelagius from Aphrodite).

Bibliography

For brief and telling criciticms of Usener's theory of momentary gods, see Jan de Vries's The Study of Religion (New York, 1967) and Georges Dumézil's Archaic Roman Religion, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1970). Ernst Cassirer, the German philosopher of "symbolic forms," sympathetically discusses Usener in Language and Myth (New York, 1946), pp. 15–36, 72–83.

New Sources

Bremmer, Jan N. "Hermann Usener." In Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, edited by W. Ward Briggs and William M. Calder III, pp. 462–478. New York-London, 1990.

Calder, William M., ed. Usener und Wilamowitz: ein Briefwechsel (1870–1905) Stuttgart, 1994.

Calder, William M. III, Hellmut Flashar, and Theodor Lindken, eds. Wilamowitz nach 50 Jahre. Darmstadt, 1985.

Clemen, Carl. "Hermann Usener als Religionshistoriker." Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 11 (1935): 110–124.

Dieterich, Albert. "Hermann Usener." Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 8 (1905): i–ix. Reprited in Kleine Schriften, pp. 354–362. Leipzig and Berlin, 1911.

Jaeger, Werner. "Classical Philology at the University of Berlin: 1870–1945." In Five Essays, translated by Adele M. Fiske, pp. 45–74. Montreal, 1982.

Kany, Roland. Mnemosyne als Programm. Geschichte, Erinnerung und Andacht zum Unbedeutenden im Werk von Usener, Warburg und Benjamin. Tübingen, 1987.

Mette, Hans Joachim. "Nekrolog einer Epoche. Hermann Usener und seine Schule. Ein wirkungsgeschichtlicher Rückblick auf die Jahre 1856–1979." Lustrum 22 (1979–1980): 5–106.

Scardigli, Barbara. "Lettere inedite di Hermann Usener." In Munus amicitiae. Scritti in memoria di Alessandro Ronconi, pp. 263–298. Firenze, 1986.

Schlesier, Renate. "'Arbeiter in Useners Weinberg.' Anthropologie und antike Religionsgeschichte in Deutschland nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg." In Altertumswissenschaft in den 20er Jahrhundert. Neue Fragen und Impulse, ed. by Hellmut Flashar, pp. 329–380. Stuttgart, 1995.

Schröder, Wilt Aden. Der Altertumswissenschaftler Eduard Norden (1868–1941): das Schicksal eines deutschen Gelehrten jüdischer Abkunft. Mit den Briefen Eduard Nordens an seinen Lehrer Hermann Usener aus den Jahren 1891 bis 1902. Hildesheim, 1999.

Wessels, Antje. Ursprungszauber. Zur Rezeption von Hermann Useners Lehre von der religiösen Begriffsbildung. Berlin-New York, 2003.

Burton Feldman (1987)

Revised Bibliography