Tillichian spell: Memories of a student mesmerized in the 1950s, The

Theology Today, Oct 1996 by Driver, Tom F

To return to my student days at Union in the 1950s, people often ask what we thought about Tillich's unconventional sex life. I have to tell them we didn't talk about that very much, and I for one didn't know or think much about it. I must say that in all my years at Union, first as a student and later as a faculty member, the place did not go in for much gossip. Union faculty have always seemed to respect each other's need for privacy, the more so as we lived cheek by jowl in seminary housing.

Away from the seminary, however, it has always been different. John Smith, the now emeritus philosopher at Yale and once a student of Tillich at Union and Columbia, has a wonderful story about this. It seems that Tillich was off somewhere at a meeting of theologians, who were having drinks late in the evening and, as such groups do, began to swap gossipy tales. To everyone's surprise, Tillich had more such stories than anyone else. There seemed no end to the tidbits he knew. Finally, someone said, "But Paulus, this is amazing! How do you know all these things?" And he replied, "Ha! You zink zat I don't keep my ear to ze soil!"

Well, that's faculty and that's when they're away from home. Among us students in the old days, it was simply said-indeed it was obvious-that Tillich had an eye for beautiful women. For example:

One night, many of us went over to the Columbia campus to hear Tillich lecture to one of his classes there, because there had been some kind of announcement that we would be welcome. I don't remember the topic, but it was of interest. Anne and I went over together and got there when Tillich had already begun to speak. He was seated at a desk in the front of the large classroom. There were no vacant seats, so we stood at the back near the door. Upon seeing Anne enter, Tillich, who I think did not really know who she was-not that it mattered-interrupted his lecture and beckoned her to come forward. She was quite puzzled, because she did not see any seats up there, so she stayed back. He did not speak but kept motioning to her to come up. The invitation was so obvious that she had to comply, because her reluctance was holding up the lecture. So she went forward, looking this way and that for the empty seat that he must have spotted, but not seeing it. Imagine her and everyone's astonishment when, as she got near the front, Tillich reached down beside the desk, picked up the wastebasket, turned it upside down, spilling all its contents on the floor, placed it upside down beside him, patted it, and said, "Sit here."

She did, and for the duration of the lecture we listened to him and looked at them both, he in his chair and the beautiful young woman on her wastebasket beside him. But it was so endearing you had to forgive him.

We students saw Hannah Tillich only occasionally, and when we caught glimpses of her, she seemed awkward and silent, something of a mystery in her husband's shadow, unlike Ursula Niebuhr, who would not let anyone ignore her, or Betty Van Dusen, whose vivacity and Scots eccentricity were so attractive.