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From 1912 to his death in 1954, Schmidt published his 12-volume workDer Ursprung der Gottesidee (The Origin of the Idea of God).[4]In it he explained his theory ofprimitive monotheism: the belief thatprimitive religion among almost alltribal peoples began with an essentially monotheistic concept of a high god — usually asky god — who was a benevolentcreator. 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 journalAnthropos, and in 1931, theAnthropos Institute, both of which still exist today. In 1938, Schmidt and the Institute fled from Nazi-occupied Austria toFribourg, 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), andPrimitive Revelation (1939).
OnPrimitive 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 inDie Uroffenbarung als Anfang der Offenbarung Gottes (1913) . . . A revised and augmented version of this apologetical monograph was published in an English translation asPrimitive Revelation (Sharpe 1939)."[6]
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.
