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DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS (1808-1874)

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 1003 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DAVID See also:FRIEDRICH See also:STRAUSS (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 See also: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:William IV. of See also:Prussia (1847) .

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) .

End of Article: DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS (1808-1874)
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