Dieu et les dieux chez F. Creuzer et F.G. Welcker

In the first half of the 19th century some German classical scholars tried to understand the pagan religions of antiquity as genuine religions, containing an intuition of the truth. F. Creuzer regarded popular beliefs and cults of all ancient peoples as a “religion of the imagination”;, a “pantheism of the imagination”;, but thought that, besides that popular religion, there existed a much deeper, esoteric pantheism, which was passed on from one generation to another and from one country to another by priests‐sages. In Greece, according to him, popular religion became more superficial than anywhere else; its religious content was to a large extent substituted by poetic and artistic beauty.     

Claus Bjørn and Carsten Due-Nielsen. Fra Helstat Til Nationalstat 1814-1914. Edited by C. Due-Nielsen,O. Feldbæk and N. Petersen. Vol. 3, Dansk Udenrigspolitiks Historie. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal Leksikon, 2003). 536 pp. ISBN 87-7789-091-4

This article focuses on the bishops in the Church of Sweden as an elite group in society. Using the conceptual apparatus of Pierre Bourdieu, including field, capital and habitus, the article gives a brief background to and describes the social characteristics of this elite group during the first half of the 20th century. It describes the double position of the Bishops as officials both of the state and the Church. In the 20th century, the church lost influence in society and as a consequence so did the Bishops. A discussion is held in the article how the Bishops acted to maintain and legitimate their position as an elite, for example by forming an informal network.