Geiger privately judged Christianity a perennial cultural adversary.

Evidence

In a letter of 1865 to his friend, the Göttingen mathematician, M. A. Stern, Geiger bitterly declared, “I may be mistaken about many things but I am not mistaken when I view Christianity as the adversary of great cultural endeavor. Christianity takes great pains to reveal the full extent of its intolerance; the papal encyclicals and the spoutings of the High Consistories, the synods and the Church Days truly contribute their fair share in this effort.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373

Categorization

• SHARE: For a friend steeped in Jewish-German intellectual history: Geiger’s blistering private verdict on Christianity as an enemy of culture.