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Friedrich Schleiermacher Biography

Friedrich Schleiermacher Image

SCHLEIERMACHER, shlī'er-mäk'ẽr, Friedrich Ernst Daniel (1768–1834). A German theologian and philosopher, born in Breslau. Strong religious influences were brought to bear upon the boy, not only at home, but also at the Moravian schools in Niesky and Barby, where he spent four years (1783–87). For two years (17873–89) he studied at the University of Halle. In 1794 he was ordained to the ministry and became assistant to a clergyman at Landsberg. In 1796 he was appointed chaplain at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, where he continued for six years. He was on terms of intimate friendship with the Romanticists, especially Schlegel, and he sympathized with many of their aims, yet with a conviction of the necessity of religion which they did not share. His first important literary work, Ueber die Religion, five discourses upon religion (1799), was designed to vindicate the claims of religion to the respect of the cultivated. In the discourses one can trace a pantheistic tendency, derived from Spinoza. The Monologen were published in 1800 and exhibit the influence of Fichte's subjective idealism. The first collection of Schleiermacher's sermons appeared in 1801. From 1802 to 1804 Schleiermacher was court preacher at Stolpe in Pomerania, where he published his Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre. For the next two years he was professor extraordinary and university preacher at Halle, where he began the publication of his translation of Plato, which gave him an assured position among scholars. Here also he wrote a critical essay on First Timothy, rejecting the Pauline authorship, chiefly on the basis of internal evidence. In 1809 he took up his permanent residence in Berlin, where he became pastor of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche and professor at the newly founded university. His influence over the Protestant church for a quarter of a century was most marked, and he may almost be said to have dominated contemporary German theology. At the third centennial anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (1817) Schleiermacher took an active part in promoting the union of Lutheran and Reformed churches. His Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums (1811) was an important contribution to that subject and proved of great value in rightly directing the development of theological education in Germany. Probably the most important of all Schleiermacher's writings was his treatise on Christian faith, commonly cited under the name Glaubenslehre (1821; 3d ed., 1835), one of the truly great theological systems of history. For insight, grasp, and power of presentation it has properly been compared with the works of Origen and Calvin, but in its general point of view it resembles the former far more than the latter. The Grundriss der philosophischen Ethik was published posthumously by his pupil Twesten (1841).

The works and teaching of Schleiermacher mark an epoch in the history of Christian thought. He restored religion to its place as a normal and necessary element of human nature by pointing out a neglected factor, feeling. Rationalistic morals had for a long time usurped the place which religion ought to occupy, but had left men dissatisfied. Schleiermacher recalled them to their rightful spiritual privileges. Indeed, in his analysis of religion, he overemphasized the truth he had rediscovered, making religion consist essentially in a "feeling of absolute dependence." The subjective character of his theology laid him open to severe criticism from the orthodox side, yet so genuine was his religious faith, and so central was the place of Christ in his teaching, that he escaped ecclesiastical censure. His influence has been strongly felt in Great Britain and America.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 543.