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STRAUSS, DAVID FRIEDRICH (1808-1874)
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See also:STRAUSS, See also:DAVID See also:FRIEDRICH (1808-1874) , See also:German theologian and See also:man of letters, was See also:born at See also:Ludwigsburg, near See also:Stuttgart, on the 27th of See also:January 1808. In his thirteenth See also:year he was sent to the evangelical See also:seminary at See also:Blaubeuren, near See also:Ulm, to be prepared for the study of See also:theology. Amongst the See also:principal masters in the school were Professors See also:Kern and F. C. See also:Baur, who infused into their pupils above all a deep love of the See also:ancient See also:classics. In 1825 Strauss passed from school to the university of See also:Tubingen. The professors of See also:philosophy there failed to See also:interest him, but he was strongly attracted by the writings of See also:Schleiermacher, which awoke his keen dialectical See also:faculty and delivered him from the vagueness and exaggerations of romantic and somnambulistic See also:mysticism. In 183o he be-came assistant to a See also:country clergyman, and nine months later accepted the See also:post of See also:professor in the high school at Maulbronn, having to See also:teach Latin, See also:history and See also:Hebrew. In See also:October 1831 he resigned his See also:office in See also:order to study under Schleiermacher and See also:Hegel in See also:Berlin. Hegel died just as he arrived, and, though he regularly attended Schleiermacher's lectures, it was only those on the See also:life of Jesus which exercised a very powerful See also:influence upon him. It was amongst the followers of Hegel that he found kindred See also:spirits. Under the leading of Hegel's distinction, between Vorstellung and Begrifi, he had already conceived the See also:idea of his two principal theological See also:works--the Leben Jesu and the Christliche Dogmatik. In 1832 he returned to Tubingen and became repetent in the university, lecturing on See also:logic, history of philosophy, See also:Plato, and history of See also:ethics, with See also:great success. But in the autumn of 1833 he resigned this position in order to devote all his See also:time to the completion of his projected
Leben Tesu (1835). The See also:work produced an immense sensation and created a new See also:epoch in the treatment of the rise of See also:Christianity. In 1837 Strauss replied to his critics (Streitschriften zur Verteidigung meiner Schrift fiber das Leben Jesu). In the third edition of the work (1839), and in Zwei friedliche Blatter, he made important concessions to his critics, which he with-See also:drew, however, in the See also:fourth edition (1840; translated into See also:English by See also:George See also:Eliot, with Latin See also:preface by Strauss, 1846). In 184o and the following year he published his Christliche Glaubenslehre (2 vols.), the principle of which is that the history of See also:Christian doctrines is their disintegration. Between the publication of this work and that of the Friedliche Blotter he had been elected to a See also:chair of theology in the university of See also:Zurich. But the See also:appointment provoked such a See also:storm of popular See also:ill will in the See also:canton that the authorities considered it See also:wise to See also:pension him before he entered upon his duties, although this concession came too See also:late to See also:save the See also:government. With his Glaubenslehre he took leave of theology for upwards of twenty years. In See also:August 1841 he married See also:Agnes Schebest, a cultivated and beautiful See also:opera See also:singer of high repute, but not adapted to be the wife of a See also:scholar and See also:literary man like Strauss. Five years afterwards, when two See also:children had been born, a separation by arrangement was made. Strauss resumed his literary activity by the publication of Der Romantiker auf dem Thron der Cdsaren, in which he drew a satirical parallel between See also:Julian the Apostate and See also:Frederick See also: In 1848 he was nominated as member of the See also:Frankfort See also:parliament, but was defeated. He was elected for the See also:Wurttemberg chamber, but his See also:action was so conservative that his constituents requested him to resign his seat. He forgot his See also:political disappointments in the See also:production of a See also:series of See also:biographical works, which secured for him a permanent See also:place in German literature (Schubarts Leben, 2 vols., 1849; Christian Mdrklin, .1851; Nikodemus See also:Frischlin, 1855; See also:Ulrich von See also:Hutten, 3 vols., 1858-1860, 6th ed. 1895; H. S. See also:Reimarus, 1862). With this last-named work he returned to theology, and two years afterwards (1864) published his Leben Jesu See also:fur das deutsche See also:Volk (13th ed., 1904). It failed to produce an effect comparable with that of the first Life, but the replies to it were many, and Strauss answered them in his pamphlet See also:Die Halben and die Ganzen (1865), directed specially against See also:Schenkel and See also:Hengstenberg. His Christus See also:des Glaubens and der Jesus der Geschichte (1865) is a severe See also:criticism of Schleiermacher's lectures on the life of Jesus, which were then first published. From 1865 to 1872 Strauss resided in See also:Darmstadt, and in 1870 published his lectures on See also:Voltaire (gth ed., 1907). His last work, Der site and der neue Glaube (1872; 16th ed., 1904; English See also:translation by M. See also:Blind, 1873), produced almost as great a sensation as his Life of Jesus, and not least amongst Strauss's own See also:friends, who wondered at his one-sided view of Christianity and his professed See also:abandonment of spiritual philosophy for the See also:materialism of See also:modern See also:science. To the fourth edition of the See also:book he added a Nachwort als Vorwort (1873). The same year symptoms of a fatalmalady appeared, and See also:death followed on the 8th of See also:February 1874. Strauss's mind was almost exclusively See also:analytical and See also:critical, without See also:depth of religious feeling or philosophical penetration, or See also:historical sympathy; his work was accordingly rarely constructive. His Life of Jesus was directed against not only the traditional orthodox view of the See also:Gospel narratives, but likewise the rationalistic treatment of them, whether after the manner of Reimarus or that of See also:Paulus. The mythical theory that the See also:Christ of the Gospels, excepting the most meagre outline of See also:personal history, was the unintentional creation of the See also:early Christian Messianic expectation he applied with merciless rigour to the narratives. But his operations were based upon fatal defects, See also:positive and negative. He held a narrow theory as to the miraculous, a still narrower as to the relation of the divine to the human, and he had no true idea of the nature of historical tradition, while, as F. C. Baur complained, his critique of the Gospel history had not been preceded by the essential preliminary critique of the Gospels themselves. Theologie seiner Zeit (2 vols., 1876-1878); F. J. See also:Vischer, Kritische See also:Gauge (1844), vol. i., and by the same writer, Altes and Neues (1882), vol. iii.; R. See also:Gottschall, Literarische Charakterkopfe (1896), vol. iv.; S. See also:Eck, D. F. Strauss (1899) ; K. Harraeus, D. F. Strauss, sein Leben and See also:seine Schriften (1901); and T. Ziegler, D. F. Strauss (2 vols., 1908-1909). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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