Ferdinand Christian Baur

"Theologians like F. C. Baur resisted and followed Creuzer, insisting instead on a universal diffusionary history with its roots in the Orient. In his own two-volume Symbolik und Mythologie of 1824-5, Baur argued that world history was at once “‘a revelation of the divine (der Gottheit)” and “the evolution of Consciousness,” and neither of these processes had begun in Europe. Using Creuzer, Genesis, and the Zend Avesta, Baur traced the formation of the first mythologies back to a ‘‘primeval seat” [Ursiz] in “the Edenic highlands of Central Asia” between the Jaxartes and the Oxus, Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Stressing the similarities between religious ideas across cultures, Baur readily admitted Europe’s dependence on the Orient for its population and ‘‘a great portion of its culture.’’ This also allowed him to lay the foundations for what he believed to be a scientific history of religious one philosophy, one which would put the evolution of Christianity into proper perspective — without compromising its unique truth."