^{page 347 note 1} This is not surprising, as Peterson was only a few years later to leave Bonn to join the Roman Catholic church and eventually to teach in Rome. An interesting sidelight on his controversy with Barth is found in his correspondence with Harnack three years later and two years before the latter's death. Peterson here described the position of the Evangelical Church as ‘impossible’ in relation to other fields because it lacked (in his view) any dogmatic basis. Protestant theology ‘will always remain more or less a private affair of theological professors’—a view which would deprive it of any ‘scientific’ value. (E. Peterson, Ein Briefwechsel in Theologische Traktate, Kösel Verlag, 1951.) Peterson was writing to Harnack in his quest for guidance as to whether he should remain a Protestant or not. In view of his much later criticism of the Barthian theology and Barths ‘advocacy of the public character of Protestant theology by a return to dogma’ it should be borne in mind that in 1925 Barth had not commenced his Kirchliche Dogmatik.

^{page 349 note 1} Scholz admits that a whole book would be required in order to do justice to the subject.