thesis on Schelling for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of
Breslau, ¹ and two years later he wrote another thesis on
Schelling for the degree of Licentiate of Theology from Halle. ²

In 1912 he was ordained a minister of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of the province of Brandenburg. Two years
later the First World War broke out, and he joined the Army
as a chaplain, serving for four years. When the war was over,
he became a Privatdozent of Theology in the University of
Berlin, and so began his long academic career.

During the war he had sought relief from the ugly gruesome-
ness and destructiveness of war in painting, and he studied both
reproductions of paintings and the history of art. This adventure
reached its climax in his seeing a picture by Botticelli in Berlin
on his last furlough of the war. 'The discovery of painting', he
says, 'was for me an experience of decisive importance.' ³ So
significant indeed was this that from reflection upon this
experience and from the interpretation of art he gained the
fundamental categories of his philosophy of religion. His
interest in art also led him to a profounder sympathy with the
Roman Catholic Church. Thus he says, 'My growing inclina-
tion towards the old Church and her solutions of the problems
of "God and the world", "state and Church", were nourished
by the overwhelming impression made upon me by early
Christian art in Italy. What no amount of Church history had
brought about was accomplished by the mosaics in ancient
Roman basilicas.' ⁴ A more important consequence--for
Tillich has never regarded Roman Catholicism as a possible
spiritual home--was his growing interest in a 'theology of
culture'. This is what he taught in the historical and systematic
courses he gave between 1919 and 1924. The lectures covered
such subjects as the relation of religion to politics, art, philo-
sophy, psycho-analysis and sociology. All this was an attempt
at apologetic theology which would speak to the cultural

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