Note 32 — Lecture VI. Free Thought In The Theology Of Germany From 1750-1835.

Some of the theologians of the critical school which is described in the text, deserve a more full notice than was possible in the foot-notes to the Lecture.

De Wette (1780-1849) was educated at Jena, under Griesbach. [pg 430] He was made Professor at Berlin in 1810, but was deprived in 1819, in consequence of the Prussian government having opened a letter of condolence written by him to the mother of Sand, the assassin of the dramatist Kotzebue. (For the history of the excited state of the German students at this time, see K. Raumer's Pädagogik, vol. iv. translated.) In 1826 he was made Professor at Basle. An interesting life of him is given in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1850. His most important works are, his Einleitung ins Alt. und Neu. Test.; Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, 1819; his New Translation of the Bible (1839); and Commentaries on several parts of Scripture. On his doctrinal views see Kahnis, p. 231 seq. He is said to have been a man of sweet and amiable character; and indeed he appears to be so in his writings. It has been remarked, as a proof of his singular fairness, that he not only candidly states the opinions of an opponent, but even sometimes confesses his inability fully to refute them.

Along with De Wette ought to be classed a great number of distinguished men, most of whom wrote parts of the Commentary which he designed under the name of Exegetisches Handbuch. They were mostly critics rather than writers on doctrine, and represent the modified state of thought of his later life; but still maintain, for the most part, his critical stand-point in reference to the scriptures; and therefore, though contemporary with the new Tübingen and other schools described in Lecture VII, which have arisen since Strauss's criticism, in that which we called the third period of our sketch, they really belong to the school of critics of the older or second period. Such are, or were, Gesenius, Knobel, Hirzel, Hitzig, Credner, Tuch, E. Meier, Hupfeld, and Stühelin. See Am. Saintes, part ii. ch. xi.

H. Ewald, born 1803, became Professor at Göttingen 1831. In 1837 he was one of the seven professors who sacrificed their position when the new king of Hanover, Ernest, interfered with the constitution. From 1838 to 1848 he was professor at Tübingen: since 1848 at Göttingen. His works are partly on the oriental languages, and partly on theology. Among the latter the chief are, Die Poetischen Bücher des Alten Test., 1835; Die Propheten des Alten Bundes, 1840; and the Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1842-50; a work which, whatever may be thought of the theological aspects of it, if regarded in respect of scholarship, poetic appreciation, and grandeur of generalization, is one of the most remarkable books ever produced even in Germany. (Renan has based upon it the most brilliant of his essays, ess. ii. in the Etudes d'Hist. Religieuse.) His works on the New Testament are partly directed against the views of the new Tübingen school. He differs from the older critical school of De Wette, in applying himself more exclusively to the Semitic literature; and cannot be classed with them in any other way than that he represents the effort of independent criticism, linguistic and historic; removed from the dogmatic school, and also from the later forms of critical.