Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/305

Rh in his character. It was while at Chemnitz that Bret- schneider became acquainted with the Wolfenliittel Frag ments. The conrector Lessing, a brother of the great Lcs- sing, who was the editor of the Fragments, and who was believed for some time to be their real author, was incon siderate enough to warn his pupils against reading any of his brother s works. The natural result followed. The pro hibited books were eagerly sought after, and perused with avidity. Contrary, however, to what might at first have been expected, the persual of the Fragments made no impression on the mind of Bretschneider. The independent judgment of the youth is seen in the criticism which he passed upon the book : &quot; I read the portion,&quot; he says, &quot; which treats of the miracles of the Old Testament. But the reading made no impression upon me, for Christianity did not appear to me to rest at all upon the miracles of the Old Testament.&quot; In 1794 Bretschneider entered the university of Leipsic, having resolved to devote himself to the study of theology. His resolution to adopt this profession was purely the result of circumstances. &quot; His father had expressed a wish that lie should do so, and all his mother s brothers were clergy men.&quot; The lectures which he attended were those of Plainer on philosophy, of Keil and Beck and Burscher on various branches of theology, and of Meisner and Kuhnoel on Hebrew. His autobiography contains minute and severe criticisms upon the various professors, in which the defects and mistakes of their teaching are pointed out. One or two of these may be quoted as indicative of the mental tendencies of the writer. Speaking of the lectures on philosophy, and after pointing out the defects of Platner s method, he says, &quot; Even at this early period, I learned from experience the impossibility for me of adopt ing any doctrine, except on condition of its standing fully and clearly developed before me, a peculiarity which has adhered to me during my whole life, and has always pre served me from mysticism and the theology of feeling.&quot; Again, in referring to the lectures of Beck on the exegesis of Scripture, the future lexicographer of the New Testa ment appears in the remark, &quot; I well remember how burdensome the W 7 ord TrveO/m and 7rver/x,a ayiov became, which he explained now as expressing sensum christianum, and now as fervorcm animi, and then, again, as something elso. I felt that these explanations were not correct, and consequently could not accept them.&quot; With the lectures of Keil, the successor of the celebrated Morus, Bret schneider appears to have been better satisfied. He adopted his principle of the historical interpretation of Scripture, and entered, as he says, &quot; with the greatest zeal upon the study of the Jewish theology and its itsns loquendi. In consequence of this, a multitude of arbitrary explanations were set aside, and neither for Teller s dictionary, nor for other modern interpretations, in which new ideas are attached to the words of Scripture, could I acquire the least relish. The efforts to explain away the devil from the Bible, to reduce the passages respecting Christ s pre-existence and higher nature to a moral sense, to make the miracles of the New Testament by exegetical subtleties mere natural events, were odious to me as denials of divine truth.&quot; After spending four years at Leipsic, Bretschneider accepted the office of tutor to the sons of a Saxon nobleman, a post which he retained for some years. During this period his resolution to make the church his profession seems to have been somewhat shaken. His difficulties, however, were removed by reading the observations on assent to creeds in lleinhard s Christian Ethics, and also &quot; by the thought that many great and estimable theologians varied widely from the church faith, and that in general society, and in the learned world, the enlightened theologians (for the term rationalist was not common then) stood in the highest repute, and were regarded with universal respect. This state of things I supposed would be permanent, and I could not then have believed that only a single generation would pass before the enlightened theologians would be assailed wilh such violence and bespattered with filth as they now are. Had I been able to foresee this, I should certainly have devoted myself to the study of law.&quot; In 1802 Bretschneider passed with great distinction the examination for candidates theologian, and on that occasion attracted the favourable regard of Beinhard, the celebrated court-preacher at Dresden, who became his warm friend and patron during the remainder of his life. In 1804 Bretschneider established himself as privat-docent at the university of Wittenberg, where he remained about two years, giving lectures on philosophy and theology. It was during this time that he began his career as an author. The first production of his pen was his Dogmatische Entwickliing oiler in del Dogmatik vorkommendtn Begriffe nach den Symbol i-schcn Schriften der evangelisch-hitherischcn imd rcformirten Kirche und den wichtigaten dogmatischen Lehrluchern Hirer Theologen, nebst der Literatitr rorziiglich der neveren iiber alle Theile der Dogmatik, which appeared in 1805, and reached a fourth edition in 1841, and which is distinguished for the complete account which it contains of the literature of the subject. This was followed by other works, among which may be named an edition of the book of Ecclesiasticus with a commentary in Latin, which was intended to form part of a larger work upon the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, an undertaking that was never carried out. The advance of the French army under Napoleon into Prussia after the battle of Austcrlitz determined Bretschneider to leave Wittenberg, which as a fortified town was liable to be exposed to all the horrors of a siege. He accordingly abandoned his university career, and, through the good offices of his friend Reinhard, obtained the pastorate of Schneeberg in Saxony, on the duties of which he entered in March 1807. In 1808 he was promoted to the office of superin tendent of the church of Annaberg, which, in addition to the properly clerical duties which belonged to the charge, involved the consideration of many matters belonging to the department of ecclesiastical law, which had to be decided in accordance with the canon law of Saxony. Bretschneider, however, devoted himself energetically to his duties. &quot; The Corpus Juris Saxonici,&quot; he says, &quot; was almost always on my table, and I soon became perfectly acquainted with its contents.&quot; In Annaberg he passed eight years, during which time he twice declined the offer of a professorship of theology, once from Konigsberg and once from Berlin. The climate, however, did not agree with him, and in consequence of the demands made upon him by the discharge of his official duties, he was prevented from devoting sufficient time to his theological studies. He, therefore, began to desire a change. With a view to this, he publicly took the degree of doctor of theology in Wittenberg in August 1812. The subject of his thesis was &quot; Capita Theologioe Judaica?,&quot; as gathered chiefly from the writings of Josephus. It was the last public doctorate of the kind, and cost him 300 thalers (45), &quot;an expense,&quot; he remarks, &quot; which he often regretted, as the title was shortly after made common.&quot; It may have been some little consolation to him that the people of Annaberg on bis return commemorated his promotion in a number of poems composed for the occasion. The desired change came at last. In 181G, on the death of Loefiler, general superintendent at Gotha, he was appointed, on the recommendation of Von Ammon, Beinhard s successor at Dresden, to the vacant post, in which he remained until his death in 1848. This was the 