Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/902

Rh (R. N. B.)

THOLOBATE (Gr., a circular structure, dome, and , a base), the architectural term given to the cylindrical drum on which a dome is raised. In the earlier Byzantine churches, the dome rested direct on the pendentives and the windows were pierced in the dome itself; in later examples, between the pendentive and the dome an intervening circular wall was built, in which the windows were pierced, and this is the type which was universally employed by the architects of the Renaissance, of whose works the best-known examples are those of St Peter at Rome, St Paul's in London, and the churches of the Invalides, the Val de Grace and the Sorbonne in Paris.

THOLOS (θόλος}, the term given in Greek architecture to a circular building, with or without peristyle; the earliest examples are those of the beehive tombs at Mycenae and in other parts of Greece, which were covered by domes built in horizontal courses of masonry. The Tholos at Epidaurus, built by Polycleitus (c. 400 B.C. ), and the Tholos at Olympia known as the Philippeion, are the most remarkable examples, and in both cases were covered with a sloping roof and not with a dome.

THOLUCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST GOTTREU (1799-1877), German Protestant divine, was born at Breslau, on the 30th of March 1799. He received his education at the gymnasium and university of his native town, and early distinguished himself by great versatility of mind and power of acquiring languages. A love of Oriental languages and literature led him to exchange the university of Breslau for that of Berlin, that he might study to greater advantage, and there he was received into the house of the Orientalist Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1750-1817). He was introduced to pietistic circles in Berlin, and came specially under the influence of Baron Hans Ernst von Kottwitz (1757-1843), who became his &ldquo;spiritual father,&rdquo; and of the historian Neander. Before deciding on the career of theological professor, he had in view that of a missionary in the East. Meanwhile he was feeling the influence to a certain degree of the romantic school, and of Schleiermacher and Hegel too, though he never sounded the depths of their systems. At length, in his twenty-first year, he finally decided to adopt the academical calling. In 1821 he was Privatdozent and in 1823 became professor extraordinarius of theology in Berlin, though he was at the same time active in the work of home and foreign missions. He lectured on the Old and New Testaments, theology, apologetics and the history of the church in the 18th century. In 1821 appeared his first work, Sufismus, sive theosophia Persarum pantheistica; following the same line of study he published Blütensammlung aus der morgenländischen Mystik (1825) and Speculative Trinitätslehre des späteren Orients (1826). His well-known essay on the nature and moral influence of heathenism (1822) was published by Neander, with high commendation, in his Denkwürdigkeiten; and his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1824) secured him a foremost place amongst the most suggestive, if not the most accurate, Biblical interpreters of that time. Another work, which was soon translated into all the principal European languages, Die wahre Weihe des Zweiflers (1823; 9th ed., with the title Die Lehre von der Sünde und dem Versöhner, 1870), the outcome of his own religious history, procured for him the position which he ever after held of the modern Pietistic apologist of Evangelical Christianity. In 1825, with the aid of the Prussian government, he visited the libraries of England and Holland, and on his return was appointed (in 1826) professor ordinarius of theology at Halle, the centre of German rationalism, where he afterwards became preacher and member of the supreme consistorial council. Here he made it his aim to combine in a higher unity the learning and to some extent the rationalism of J. S. Semler with the devout and active pietism of A. H. Francke; and, in spite of the opposition of the theological faculty of the university, he succeeded in changing the character of its theology. This he effected partly by his lectures, particularly his exegetical courses, but, above all, by his personal influence upon the students, and, after 1833, by his preaching. His theological

position was that of a mild and large-hearted orthodoxy, which laid more stress upon Christian experience than upon rigid dogmatic belief. On the two great questions of miracles and inspiration he made great concessions to modern criticism and philosophy. The battle of his life was on behalf of personal religious experience, in opposition to the externality of rationalism, orthodoxy or sacramentarianism. Karl Schwarz happily remarks that, as the English apologists of the 18th century were themselves infected with the poison of the deists whom they endeavoured to refute, so Tholuck absorbed some of the heresies of the rationalists whom he tried to overthrow. He was also one of the prominent members of the Evangelical Alliance, and few men were more widely known or more beloved throughout the Protestant churches of Europe and America than he. He died at Halle on the 10th of June 1877. As a preacher, Tholuck ranked among the foremost of his time. As a teacher, he showed remarkable sympathy and won great success. As a thinker he can hardly be said to have been endowed with great creative power.

THOMA, HANS (1839-), German painter, was born at Bernau in the Black Forest. Having started life as a painter of clock-faces, he entered in 1859 the Carlsruhe academy, where he studied under Schirmer and Des Coudres. He subsequently studied and worked, with but indifferent success, in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfort, until his reputation became firmly established as the result of an exhibition of some thirty of his paintings in Munich. In spite of his studies under various masters, his art has little in common with modern ideas, and is formed partly by his early impressions of the simple idyllic life of his native district, partly by his sympathy with the early German masters &mdash; particularly with Altdorfer and Cranach. In his love of the details of nature, in his precise (though by no means faultless) drawing of outline, and in his predilection for local colouring, he has distinct affinities with the pre-Raphaelites. Many of his pictures have found their way into two private collections in Liverpool. A portrait of the artist, and two subject pictures, &ldquo;The Guardian of the Valley&rdquo; and &ldquo;Spring Idyll,&rdquo; are at the Dresden Gallery; &ldquo;Eve in Paradise &rdquo; and &ldquo;The Open Valley&rdquo; at the Frankfort Museum. Other important pictures of his are &ldquo;Paradise,&rdquo; &ldquo;Christ and Nicodemus,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Flight into Egypt,&rdquo; &ldquo;Charon,&rdquo; &ldquo;Pietà,&rdquo; &ldquo;Adam and Eve,&rdquo; &ldquo;Solitude,&rdquo; &ldquo;Tritons,&rdquo; besides many landscapes and portraits. He has also produced numerous lithographs and pen drawings, and some decorative mural paintings, notably in a café at Frankfort, and in the music room of Mr Pringsheimer's house in Munich.

THOMAR, a town of central Portugal, in the district of Santarem; on the river Nabão, a tributary of the Zezere, 4 m. from Paialvo railway station, which is 89 m. N.E. of Lisbon