Franz C. Overbeck

This book stems from a few impressions and ensuing considerations triggered by reading the pages of the “œuvre” of the theologian Franz C. Overbeck (1837–1905). The pages are above all those of his “Kirchenlexicon”, an extensive collection of reflections gathered for the purpose of carrying out the never accomplished project of writing a secular, or profane, history of the church; Overbeck is above all “the late Overbeck” (1897–1905), the sick and tired Basel-based professor of New Testament and Early Church History who resolved to enter “early” retirement to take care of his writings and his health. The (albeit on the whole meagre) often extra-theological reception that Overbeck “enjoyed” and the breadth of themes covered by the entries of his “Kirchenlexicon”, whose vast majority date from the very last decade of his life, are only some of the reasons behind the attempt to understand if and to what extent one can speak of an “Overbeck ‘beyond theology’ ”, of an Overbeck who might thus be deemed as a “theorist of culture”.