I don't suppose many people know the name. I never met him in person, though doing so may have been possible, given the circles I moved in. Except that I did know know of him until after his death. I then read his autobiographical Sitting in Judgement 1913-1963: An Interpretation of History and was struck by his personality, writing style and combination of Christian hope and personal pessimism (a justified pessimism in surveying human affairs).
Ulrich Ernst Simon (1913–1997) was born in Germany to Jewish parents. He was later ordained a Church of England priest. He became a biblical scholar and theologian. His intellectual and emotional formation was greatly influenced by the Nazi holocaust.
He had come to the United Kingdom from Germany in 1933 and was ordained in 1938. After two curacies he returned, in 1945, to King’s College London spending the rest of his professional life there (as a lecturer, Reader in Theology, and later Professor of Christian Literature).
His father, a composer, pianist and musicologist, had also fled Berlin but was eventually deported to Theresienstadt and then, in October 1944, to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. This and his other experiences of the holocaust must account to a great degree with Simon's struggle with the Christian doctrines of suffering, evil, judgement and redemption.
His book A Theology of Auschwitz (1967) is the main work he is remembered for.
Students reportedly found him an exceptionally compelling teacher. A colleague described a man containing striking opposites: a theologian fascinated by heaven and Christian hope who nevertheless had an extremely dark assessment of human beings and of the idea that civilisation naturally makes moral progress.
Earlier in his thinking, Ulrich Simon locates Auschwitz within the Christian drama of sacrifice and redemption but later comes to think that the holocaust explodes the very theological language being used to contain it. That tension is one of the most interesting things about him.
His autobiography is worth reading for anyone who thinks about such matters.
Ulrich Ernst Simon (1913–1997) was born in Germany to Jewish parents. He was later ordained a Church of England priest. He became a biblical scholar and theologian. His intellectual and emotional formation was greatly influenced by the Nazi holocaust.
He had come to the United Kingdom from Germany in 1933 and was ordained in 1938. After two curacies he returned, in 1945, to King’s College London spending the rest of his professional life there (as a lecturer, Reader in Theology, and later Professor of Christian Literature).
His father, a composer, pianist and musicologist, had also fled Berlin but was eventually deported to Theresienstadt and then, in October 1944, to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. This and his other experiences of the holocaust must account to a great degree with Simon's struggle with the Christian doctrines of suffering, evil, judgement and redemption.
His book A Theology of Auschwitz (1967) is the main work he is remembered for.
Students reportedly found him an exceptionally compelling teacher. A colleague described a man containing striking opposites: a theologian fascinated by heaven and Christian hope who nevertheless had an extremely dark assessment of human beings and of the idea that civilisation naturally makes moral progress.
Earlier in his thinking, Ulrich Simon locates Auschwitz within the Christian drama of sacrifice and redemption but later comes to think that the holocaust explodes the very theological language being used to contain it. That tension is one of the most interesting things about him.
His autobiography is worth reading for anyone who thinks about such matters.