Schmidt’s main passion was
linguistics. He spent many years in study of
languages around the world. His early work focussed on the
Mon–Khmer languages of
Southeast Asia, and on languages of
Oceania and
Australia. The conclusions from this study led him to hypothesize the existence of a broader
Austric group of languages, which included the
Austronesian language group. Schmidt managed to prove that Mon–Khmer language has inner connections with languages of the
South Seas - one of the most significant findings in the field of linguistics.
From 1912 to his death in 1954, Schmidt published his 12-volume work Der Ursprung der Gottesidee (The Origin of the Idea of God).[4]
In it he explained his theory of
primitive monotheism: the belief that
primitive religion among almost all
tribal peoples began with an essentially monotheistic concept of a high god — usually a
sky god — who was a benevolent
creator. Schmidt theorized that human beings believed in a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of Heaven and Earth before men and women began to worship a number of gods:
"Schmidt suggested that there had been a primitive monotheism before men and women had started to worship a number of gods. Originally they had acknowledged only one Supreme Deity, who had created the world and governed human affairs from afar."[5]
In 1906, Schmidt founded the journal Anthropos, and in 1931, the
Anthropos Institute, both of which still exist today. In 1938, Schmidt and the Institute fled from Nazi-occupied Austria to
Fribourg, Switzerland. He died there in 1954.
His works available in English translation are: The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories (1931), High Gods in North America (1933), The Culture Historical Method of Ethnology (1939), and Primitive Revelation (1939).
On Primitive Revelation, Eric J. Sharpe has said: "Schmidt did believe the emergent data of historical ethnology to be fundamentally in accord with biblical revelation—a point which he made in Die Uroffenbarung als Anfang der Offenbarung Gottes (1913) . . . A revised and augmented version of this apologetical monograph was published in an English translation as Primitive Revelation (Sharpe 1939)."[6]
^
Sharpe, Eric J. Comparative Religion: A History. 1975. 2nd ed. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986. 180.
References
An Vandenberghe, "Entre mission et science. La recherche ethnologique du père Wilhelm Schmidt SVD et le Vatican (1900-1939)", Sciences sociales et missions, N°19/December 2006, pp. 15–36
Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1906. "Die Mon–Khmer-Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens", 'The Mon–Khmer peoples, a link between the peoples of Central Asia and Austronesia'. Archiv für Anthropologie, Braunschweig, new series, 5:59-109.
Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1930. "Die Beziehungen der austrischen Sprachen zum Japanischen", 'The Connections of the Austric Languages to Japanese'. Wien Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 1:239-51.