Page:Quest of the Historical Jesus (1911).djvu/131



Christian Hermann Weisse. Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosophiscb bearbeitet. (A Critical and Philosophical Study of the Gospel History.) 2 vols. Leipzig, Breitkopf and Hartel, 1838. Vol. i. 614 pp. Vol. ii. 543 pp.

Christian Gottlob Wilke. Der Urevangelist. (The Earliest Evangelist.) 1838. Dresden and Leipzig. 694 pp.

Christian Hermann Weisse. Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwartigen Stadium. (The Present Position of the Problem of the Gospels.) Leipzig, 1856.

THE "GOSPEL HISTORY" OF WEISSE WAS WRITTEN, LIKE STRAUSS'S LIFE of Jesus, by a philosopher who had been driven out of philosophy and forced back upon theology. Weisse was born in 1801 at Leipzig, and became Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy in the university there in 1828. In 1837, finding his advance to the Ordinary Professorship barred by the Herbartians, he withdrew from academic teaching and gave himself to the preparation of this work, the plan of which he had had in mind for some time. Having brought it to a satisfactory completion, he began again in 1841 as a Privat-Docent in Philosophy, and became Ordinary Professor in 1845. From 1848 onwards he lectured on Theology also. His work on "Philosophical Dogmatics, or the Philosophy of Christianity," is well known. He died in 1866, of cholera. Lotze and Lipsius were both much influenced by him.

Weisse admired Strauss and hailed his Life of Jesus as a forward step towards the reconciliation of religion and philosophy. He expresses his gratitude to him for clearing the ground of the primeval forest of theology, thus rendering it possible for him (Weisse) to develop his views without wasting time upon polemics, "since most of the views which have hitherto prevailed may be regarded as having received the coup de grace from Strauss." He is at one with Strauss also in his general view of the relations of philosophy and religion, holding that it is only it philosophy, by following its own path, attains independently to the conviction of the truth of Christianity that its alliance with theology and religion