Raffaele Pettazzoni from the Perspective of the Anglophone Academy

Abstract

AbstractThere should be no need to emphasize the significance of Raffaele Pettazzoni (1883–1959) to historians of religions. However, there are only two books by Pettazzoni available in the English language: the monographThe All-knowing God(1956; original:L’onniscienza di Dio, 1955) and an anthology ofEssays on the History of Religions(1954), which is “a collection of sundry writings on various subjects connected with the History of Religions, which have been already published on different occasions in Italian and foreign periodicals” (Pettazzoni 1954).2 Added to this is a tiny collection of articles in English (in fact, the American Theological Libraries Association database references only three). This seems to constitute a serious neglect of such a productive scholar, who has been called an “exemplary historian of religions.” This paper will attempt to assess the reception of the work of Raffaele Pettazzoni in the Anglophone Academy, to question the adequacy and accuracy of that reception, and to indicate what might be learned from it.